February 1, 2009 First Full Day on the Ship

February 1, 2009

We are pleasantly surprised at how big our room is! We are in a perfect location on the sixth floor right in the middle of the ship. The décor is quite interesting – they really like the color pink!

We are traveling with several friends – you might just know some of them: Bob Mauhar & LuAnn Patterson, Terry & Heidi Young, Richard & Rona Cummins, Bob & Connie Sykes, Dave & MaryLou Thun and Lee & Lois White.

We met a couple that was lucky enough to be on the ship before the bomb scare so they were able to take pictures of what was happening. This is a photo of the little robot (looks like Wally) that checked out all the suspicious luggage. They said they didn’t allow any traffic around the port for miles and wouldn’t allow any ships to come in. Also, they had two helicopters looking for a man who had run away when all this happened. CNN was there recording all this.

We spent the first two days at sea catching up on our eating and sleeping. The ship is so large; it’s going to take at least a week to find our way around!


February 3, 2009, Dominica

We arrived in Dominica at noon. Eight of us hired a van for $20 each. Our driver Hawkins had a wonderful sense of humor and was an excellent tour guide. Dominica is a beautiful mountainous island. In 1493 Christopher Columbus and his crew were the first Europeans to sight the island. They sailed past it on Sunday and named it Domingo (Spanish for Sunday). It is 29x16 miles, has a lush mountainous interior of rainforests, waterfalls, lakes, hot springs and more than 200 rivers.

We drove through the town of Roseau, where we docked, then up to the Morne Trois Pitons National Park where we did a 15 minute hike through the hot, humid rainforest (we’re not used to the heat yet) to the Emerald Pool with a 50’ waterfall. We were tempted to dive in and would have if we had dryer clothes to put on!


We returned through the Layou Valley through banana and citrus plantations – it was beautiful! We then drove through the botanical gardens where an African Baobad tree blew down during Hurricane David in 1979. Fortunately, no one was in the bus at the time.

We arrived back to the docks at 3 pm. We checked out all the little handicraft stalls where spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla and cloves are popular items as well as a few handicrafts; nothing exciting.

When we got back on the ship, it was time to try out the pools and BIG water slide!

From Dominica

February 5, 6 & 7, 2009

These were days at sea and they just flew by! Richard and Heidi are both personal trainers. First Richard spent time with LuAnn and me giving us a routine we can do in our homes with weights. LuAnn took what we thought were very good notes, that is until the next time we went to work out. So many people came up to us to offer suggestions we knew we needed more help – it also didn’t help that every time we looked up someone was watching and trying to hide their laughter. Heidi then went over everything again and added a few more. LuAnn and I are hoping we can master this after 50 days!

The 7th we had a crossing the equator celebration. We also had a harry man contest that Richard entered. I have to tell you he “enhanced” his chest hair. He carves carnival horses so brought a horse tail and taped it to his chest! Even with this and his grand entrance he didn’t win – we think he did great for 82!



February 8, 2009, Fortaleza, Brazil

We arrived in Fortaleza, Brazil, and disembarked at 8 am. It took us all by surprise to see all the high rise buildings along the beach. We took the H. Stern (a jewelry company) van to town since it was free and then 6 of us crammed into a taxi and had it take us to the center of town for $7 – such a deal! He dropped us off at a four-story market. We found the prices to be very high. We then walked to the Cathedral, which is the third largest church in Brazil.

We were glad we started early because it was warming up quick. Being a Sunday the streets were almost deserted. It was an easy walk to the visitor’s center that also was another market with more handicrafts. The printed tourist information said to see the Englishmen Bridge. We had a map so we started walking; the closer we got to the water the more graffiti we saw and bums. We were told not to wear any jewelry and keep everything close because there is a lot of petty crime in this city. When we arrived at the beach, we saw quite a few people set up to spend the day. We were going to walk out to the bridge but several people came up to us speaking Portuguese (we didn’t understand a word) and told us with hand gestures to leave NOW because it was very dangerous! We took their advice and headed back to the ship. You know it’s bad when the bums and prostitutes also come up to you and tell you to leave their neighborhood. (That evening on the ship we were told that 6 guests from the ship were mugged!)

By now it was REALLY HOT so we stopped and Bob got a cold Artica beer. He tasted it and said it tasted like chocolate so we all had to try it – it was delicious! Next stop a grocery store where we got money from an ATM and I bought an Artica beer that Bobby and I shared – it hit the spot! We now arrived at the Malacon which is about a two mile walkway along the beach. It was a lot cooler here and more interesting seeing all the families at the beach for the day and the vendors. We walked to the end arriving at the hotel that H. Stern was in and took their van back to the ship.

Tonight was Heidi’s birthday so we celebrated in their room with wine. The head waiter said he would send a cheese platter to their room for us. At dinner he asked how we liked it and we said it never arrived – he was shocked. Come to find out, housekeeping transposed the numbers! To make up for the mistake, they sent us a bottle of champagne and a delicious birthday cake!

From Fortaleza, Brazil

February 9, 2009

Today several of us played 9 holes of miniature golf outside. The guys stayed and played another round so we met them for lunch at noon. When we got to the restaurant, they looked totally exhausted so we asked them what they had done and they said “you’d be exhausted too if you had just played 18 holes of golf without a cart!”