Another Perspective

 I did not write this.  This was written by Marilyn Hoeffner, who is on our ship.  I thought this would make interesting reading.  She must have a lot of time on her hands to write this  BTW, the seas have increased and we are moving around  it’s not bad, but we have had flat seas the entire trip so far  

Finding our rhythm at sea – what do we do with 54 sea days?

The first half of our trip is heavily loaded with sea days.  The beginning segment from Ft Lauderdale to Las Angeles is 17 days long. There are five stops and a day transiting the Panama Canal, leaving 11 sea days before we arrive in Los Angeles.  After leaving Santa Barbara on the 10th of January, we have a 5-day cruise to Oahu, HI, followed by another five days to French Polynesia (Bora Bora, Morea, and Tahiti) and another four days to New Zealand.  So, how do we spend our time during all these sea days?

The choices are numerous as we find our rhythm aboard Neptune.

Ship Board Activities:

In addition to mealtimes, there are many things to occupy your time on board, no matter your interests.  It is impossible to do everything that is offered. Here are some of the things available:

Leisurely Activities and Hobbies:

Viking Ocean ships have an outstanding design, providing comfortable places to enjoy various activities.  The Atrium is a three-story living area in the ship’s center with an open center and a grand staircase.  Various sitting areas around the open center are organized in a living room style with comfortable leather couches and chairs.  There are also different game tables spread throughout.  Some are electric, allowing players to play Scrabble, Bat Gammon, Texas, Texas Hold’em, and other electronic card games.

Additionally, there are round tables set up around the atrium for people to play cards, scrabble, or work on jigsaw puzzles, all supplied by the ship.  If you have some work to do, like writing a blog or catching up on emails, there are many comfortable corners to hide away and get your work done.  Right now, I am sitting on the Aft Fantail on deck two with a shaded roof, protected from the wind, listening to the ocean’s churn as we steam north.  As I write, I have a 180-degree view of the Pacific but haven’t spotted any whales yet.

To guide your way to finding a rhythm at sea, the Daily Newspaper is printed and delivered the evening before with all the available activities for the day.  There are:

1. At least four lectures a day on everything from nature, photography, history of the areas we visit, and adventurists such as Mike Dawson, who has successfully rowed across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.
2. Game activities such as Mahjong and Bridge with Bridge instructions for beginners and intermediates.
3. Crafting workshops and gatherings such as knitting, crocheting, and painting.
4. Reading: the ship has hundreds, if not over a thousand, carefully curated books tucked in nooks and crannies throughout the ship available to be enjoyed by all.
5. Leisure time relaxation: either on the main pool deck, the rear infinity pool deck, or up on the sun deck, where there are more outdoor games available to play. No pickleball, though, which is too bad.
6. There is music to listen to day and night in the various lounges like the forward trendy explorers lounge or the atrium.
7. Need an afternoon pick me up? Head to high tea at 4 pm in the Wintergarden lounge overlooking the pool deck. Enjoy tea, coffee, and soft drinks while listening to classical music and munching on delicate sandwiches and tasty treats.
8. Don’t forget team trivia every day at sea; it is at 12:15 each day in the forward Explorer’s lounge. Bob and I have been so busy we haven’t made it to one yet, and we usually enjoy playing while cruising.
9. Baggo competitions are popular on the first floor of the atrium each morning, drawing decent crowds daily. In much of the U.S., Baggo is called corn hole, but Baggo is played with only one target platform.
10. The gym and spa area are my favorites. The gym is well-equipped and spacious, and the spa area includes steam rooms, saunas, a Viking snow Room and plunge pools.  This takes up about two hours of my day, as well as many others,
11. Of course, there are also spa services, such as beauty treatments and massages, which I indulged in and was delighted with the quality of the massage. I’ll be back!
12. It is fun to meet other people and learn about their backgrounds and cruise history while doing all these things. Many of these world cruisers are frequent flyers on cruise ships and have been worldwide.  Thinking of your next trip, there are probably twenty people on board who can share their experiences wherever you are thinking about going.
13. There are two walking/jogging tracks around the ship. Decks 2 and 7 are set up as ¼ mile tracks, so there is no excuse not to get your steps in while enjoying fresh air.
14. Not into running, the atrium bar on deck 1 is fully stocked and a favorite place to congregate with others and grab a coffee, snack, soft drink, or cocktail.

Entertainment:

Throughout most of the day and evening, there is music playing somewhere onboard.

You’ll enjoy:

1. Jeno and Geza are a classical duo of pianists and violinists playing daily in the atrium, during High Tea in the Wintergarden, or up in the Explorer’s lounge.
2. Sergii is an additional classical pianist who plays around the ships’ lounges at different times.
3. After dinner, Jinky and Ralph entertain us with various old and new pop songs, usually found in the Torshavn lounge, until late into the night.
4. The Viking Neptune Entertainers are featured most nights in the Neptune Star Theatre. Each night has a different theme, a 50-minute show that includes show tunes, country night, pop songs, and more.
5. Viking also brings on guest artists to mix things up weekly. This week, Mike Mentz, a great singer-songwriter, performed several of his songs but also beautifully stylized versions of several cover songs by Springsteen, the Beatles, and even Whitney Houston.
6. Last night, Vikings’ famous cruise director, now corporate office superstar Heather Clancy, performed, and wow, she was terrific. Combining her incredible opera voice, great sense of humor, and knack for storytelling, she had the entire crowd on their feet by the end of the evening.  We also had a show of Columbian folk dancers on board one evening.  So, we never know what entertainment delights are around the corner.
7. I can’t forget to mention the fantastic Neptune band playing with all these artists in every musical style, never skipping a beat. They go from operettic classical to rock or country without missing a beat.  The pianist Niko is excellent, and the rest of the ban are no slouches.  We are glad they will be with us for the entire cruise.  These guys had the whole ship booging on New Year’s Eve for hours as all the Viking entertainers took turns keeping us hopping up on the pool deck. It never gets boring to us.  We love all sorts of music and appreciate the hard work all the performers put into every performance.

Food:

There are several food venues on the ship, where you can get everything from a poolside snack to an elegant tasting menu.  One of the nice things about these restaurants is their design.  Like the rest of the ship, the design of the restaurants provides a more intimate dining experience wherever you are eating.

The two main restaurants are:

1. The Restaurant (Deck 2) is most famous for dinner but sometimes open for lunch and breakfast. The Restaurant is an elegant restaurant with clothed tables and excellent wait staff. Offering a menu with everyone’s favorites on the left side(steak, salmon, chicken) and a daily menu on the right with new dishes every evening.  We are free to mix and match from either side of the menu.
2. The World Café (Deck 7)– is a casual buffet-style restaurant. This restaurant is also in a U-shape with two servicing areas on each side and a bar in the aft that overlooks the infinity pool area.  It accommodates even the busiest rush without too much trouble as their staff keeps our drinks coming and our plates are cleared and always with a smile.

Specialty Restaurants:

1. Manfredi’s is our favorite. There is no need to worry about getting in; people constantly change their minds, so there seem to be openings most nights.  We have eaten there three times and have always been delighted with our meal.  This is an Italian-themed menu with a daily special fish and pasta.  So far, I have had the steak Florentine (excellent), Short ribs (excellent), and chicken parmigiana, which was also great.  Bob’s choices have all been delicious as well.
2. The Chefs Table features elegant (some say foo foo) tasting menus. The goal of this restaurant is to delight its guests with many different flavors from around the world with interesting pallet cleansing offerings between courses.  It stretched our pallets the night we went, but we enjoyed it.  The menu seen here was interesting, with the steak being one of the best steaks Bob and I have ever had.  Each course is paired with a specific wine, which always puts me in a happy place, but it was lost on Bob, who had his beer and diet coke.

Causal Restaurants:

1. The gill up on the pool deck. Grab a hamburger, Philly Cheesesteak, Hot dog, fries, salad, Tuna, or other items.  All are cooked expertly by one of the chefs.
2. Mamsen’s – found on Deck 7 next to the Explorers lounge, offers typical Nordic breakfast treats, sandwiches, and dessert treats: morning, noon, and early afternoon. I have not tried Mamsen’s, but Bob grabbed a snack there one day and enjoyed it.

Room service is available 24/7, which many people take advantage of, especially if they are not early risers.  We ordered the other morning for a 6 am delivery before we went fishing.  It arrived right on time, hot, and with everything we needed.  Note: Be sure to write any subtleties you would like with your menu, such as toppings for oatmeal, condiments, etc.

Laundry:

Need to do some laundry?  Every deck with rooms has a launderette with four free washers and dryers, two Ironing boards, and a few laundry baskets.  A soap machine dispenses the exact amount of detergent with a button push.  They can get busy, especially early in the morning, but I haven’t had any trouble getting our laundry twice.  Why did I have to do laundry twice already?  Because we are having too much fun and changing three times a day.  Gym clothes, casual daytime clothes, bathing suits, and elegant evening clothes for dinner and after-dinner entertainment.

Considering I am not shopping, cooking, or cleaning, I am ok with doing some laundry.

Get into your rhythm:  After a day or so, it seems everyone got into their rhythm onboard the Viking Neptune by doing the fun things that interested them.

Bob and I usually have breakfast around 8:30 and hit the gym and spa in the morning. We may sneak in a lecture in the morning if there is one we are interested in.  After, we head for lunch in the World Café and often split up in the afternoon.  He does a few work calls, and I head off to write somewhere for a few hours.  We also may head to the theater for an afternoon or evening lecture before dinner around seven or 7:30ish.  On any given day, we may hit one of the pools in the afternoon and snooze, listening to the sounds of the ocean go by.

After dinner, we usually head to the theater to see the evening show, grab a nightcap in one of the lounges, and listen to music.

Ask ten other people, and you’ll get ten different answers: light jogging on the deck in the morning or afternoon, playing bridge, or Mahjaung.  The bottom line is there is plenty to do if you are interested and plenty of way

Cabo San Lucas

Last time we were here was in 2018, and things have not changed. Today we went to shore via tender. The weather was absolutely magnificent – – not hot and not humid. I don’t ever remember being here on such a beautiful day like today.

Neither Michael nor I had any excursions today so what we did was just walk around and pick up a few things that we might be short on – – like pills.  Michael didn’t get enough of one of his prescriptions and I am having to use more of what I have so I needed more. Every third store in the port area where the tourist congregate is a pharmacy.  It used to be really cheap, but not anymore. We browsed the tourist shops and Michael picked up a really cool T-shirt. We then had lunch at Señor Frogs.  What both of us noticed was the lack of crowds. Where was everybody? Last time we were here it was so thick with people it was hard to walk.

We went back to the ship and decided to go to the pool and then realized that there were so few people on board. This would be a good day to do laundry. So laundry and pool is what we did this afternoon. Sounds exciting doesn’t it? 😜

We’ve had some very interesting evening entertainment. The person who is responsible for getting us hooked up with Viking is Heather Clancy. She was a former cruise Director on Seabourn and then on Viking. She is now in the corporate office. She was on board the first leg of this cruise to help the new cruise Director learn the ropes.  She is a trained opera mezzo soprano and gave us a thrilling performance of selections from Carmen and Turandot. She also sang a bit of country and a bit rock. And she was funny. It was a packed house. Tonight the current cruise Director will be performing.  

Tonight was dinner in the Chef’s Table restaurant.  It was a five course menu inspired by the ingredients and unusual tastes of the Asian continent.  Chilled king crab with coconut foam and curry, lobster and chicken shu mai, and Peking duck, and a trio of desserts.  Neither one of us could finish the whole dinner.

I did not take this: a very nice man from Philadelphia let me borrow this. 

Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean

Today was day three of four days at sea. The routine is the same every day. Michael gets up early and goes to breakfast, I’m still in bed waiting for my body to work. Michael then teaches his classes in the morning and at the same time I am doing my knitting classes. After our morning classes, we go to lunch and we have about an hour to rest up and then off to Bridge for the afternoon. I have been very lucky in that I have been able to play almost every day with a fellow who actually knows how to play.  We have scored most days. After Bridge, we go back to our room and we either rest up before cocktails and dinner, or occasionally, we will go to the pool. Around 6-7pm we go to dinner and depending on how we’re feeling either go back to our room or go to the show. That is our day at Sea.  

We have one restaurant onboard that does interesting menus every three days. We chose to skip the day that had reindeer soup, and instead, chose to go to one that had a Mexican theme. Below is the menu for that meal.

Beautiful sunset off the coast of Mexico 

Doing what I love — knitting at sea

Puntarenas, Costa Rica

I had escort duty today and this time it was a very pleasant excursion. It was an hour and a half river adventure looking for crocodiles, Caimans, and lots of birds. After an hour and a half ride into the countryside, we arrived near Carara National Park on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast. The Tarcóles estuary is noted for mangrove forests, and the mouth of the Tarcóles river is considered to be one of the richest sites for seabirds and shorebirds. In addition to the other critters I mentioned, we were on the lookout for iguanas and lizards.  A big plus was that the weather was absolutely beautiful this morning when we went on this excursion.

So what is the difference between crocodiles and Caimans? Both belong to the same family, but caimans are smaller than crocodiles and have a more V-shaped snout. Crocodiles, on the other hand, are larger and have a more U-shaped snout. Caimans and Crocodiles belong to the same order, but they are distinct. The way one must approach this difference is like monkeys or apes. While all of them are primates, they have differences. As such, a gorilla is different from a chimpanzee.

Caimans are the cousins of alligators, both of them belong to the Alligatoridae family. Crocodiles are distant relatives. Both of them are predators and carnivores. The crocodile, however, has species that live in saltwater, while caimans live in freshwater only.  Caimans are typically found in central and south America, while crocodiles are found in Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.  Both species are Apex predators and have a significant impact on their ecosystems. They are known for their sharp teeth, powerful jaws, and excellent swimming skills.

The Tarcóles River

Brown pelican 

Costa Rica has two seasons: the wet season and the dry season. Some places get up to 20 feet of rain per year – – not inches, but feet. They export bananas, pineapples, and coffee.  They import fuel.  There are three volcanoes in the country. There is 600 miles of coastline on the Pacific side, but only 70 miles of coastline on the Caribbean side.  Our guide spoke excellent English, with very little accent and talked the entire time. He was quite a salesman for Costa Rica.

Michael went on the included tour and did not enjoy it. They rode the bus for 45 minutes to get to an elementary school where they spent an hour watching little kids dance and then they took the bus back. He did not take any pictures as he did was really bored and did not find little children really appealing.  

After returning to the ship and a quick lunch, Michael spent the rest of the day at the pool while I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to nap, but to no avail. We did go to dinner at the Italian steakhouse with friends and after dinner, return to our room to do our paperwork. And we happen to notice that the ship was going in the wrong direction! Long story short, there was a medical emergency, and we turned around and went back to Puentarenas for the evacuation.  As of this writing at 10:11 PM, they are just lowering down one of the lifeboats. We hope that it’s not life-threatening.

Panama Canal

Today we finally got to go through the Panama Canal. This is, as you know, one of the seven wonders of the world, and deservedly so.  The journey begins exactly the same way it did 110 years ago when a rowboat, with actual oars, meets the ship and picks up the line to go to shore. Today everything becomes different than 110 years ago where now we have electric locomotives guiding the ship instead of mules.  There are approximately 21 transits every day in both the old and new locks. It takes a nearly unimaginable 52,000,000 gallons of water to complete a single transit. Let’s see how much that is - try 2.184 to the ninth power.  That’s a lot of water, and so it’s good that it rains a lot in Panama.

At the Miraflores locks, there is a large building that houses an IMAX theater, museum, and a viewing deck. Hundreds of people congregate here to watch the ships go through the lock. And it’s almost like being a star. People on shore are waving to the people on the ships, and of course we are doing our best parade wave back. 

Hundreds of people waving the ships through 

The new locks accommodate ships much larger than those that can transit through the 110-year-old original locks. The largest container ship they can go through the original locks holds about 5,000 containers while the largest ship they can go through the new locks holds an astonishing 17,000 containers. It cost about $1 million for a transit of one of those ships but when you think about it and divide that by 17,000 containers with each container may be holding $1 million worth of merchandise it’s actually nothing. The canal is approximately 50 miles long. The transit begins with three locks on the Atlantic side and then a sail through Gatun Lake and then three more locks leading to the Pacific side and then it’s over. The whole experience takes about 8 to 10 hours. the alternative is to take the boat around the bottom of South America, which takes about two weeks — no contest which route shippers choose. 

I have some very cool videos, but I am unable to upload them at this time. The Internet is extremely slow so I will try and upload them when we have better service.

Electric mule

Entering the locks

I spent most of the day knitting 

Colón Panama

After my excursion from yesterday, I woke up in pain and feeling quite beaten up. I broke my little toe the second day on the ship as I tripped over a chase lounge by the pool.  After yesterday’s adventure, I banged it again so today it was feeling quite sore and swollen. So I decided to take the day off. I went down to the spa pool to just soak in the warm water and relax as I got sunburned yesterday and couldn’t go out to the big pool outside. 

After basking in the delightful water I had the long trek back to my room. The spa is in the bow and our room is in the stern.  I could barely drag myself down the long hallway. 

After a quick shower, and an even quicker lunch, I went to my usual knitting spot on deck seven.  And there I spent the afternoon knitting. When I am hosting and teaching in the mornings, I never get to knit on my own stuff, so this was my chance to really get something done.  

Michael’s new sweater

Michael went on another one of his marathons today. This one was an 8-1/2 hour tour of the Panama Canal’s Miraflores locks and the expansion observation center.  Other than spending an enormous, albeit unavoidable amount of time on the bus, he was very pleased with the excursion.

Things began with a 30 minute bus ride to the new observation platform. This is the brand new Agua Clara visitor center which overlooks one of the new locks. These locks are very different from the original ones that we had seen many times, and so quite interesting. Next was another one hour ride on the bus to the lunch venue. This was a very nice golf course country club where Michael said he enjoyed lunch.

Now, it was only a 30 minute ride to the Miraflores locks, which are on the Pacific side. These locks were on the original canal, and we’ve been here many times. However, things were changed drastically with the construction of an IMAX theater, a multi story building with gift shops, libraries, and so forth, and it was very crowded.  The original locks can only accommodate a container ship with approximately 5,000 containers; the new locks can accommodate container ships with up to 17,000 containers. Quite a difference. He saw a 3-D movie on the construction of the Panama Canal narrated by Morgan Freeman and said it was very interesting. 

The main event was an up close and personal tour of the locks themselves. Viking had purchased the VIP tour from the Panama Canal Authority which allowed the passengers to get right out on the lock platform right next to the locomotives. They watched an entire transit, and had a very good guide, who was knowledgeable, personable  and spoke good English.  The only problem here was now they had a one and a half hour bus ride back to the ship.

The tugs replace the mules in the new locks

Sliding gates in the new locks

Sliding gates while opening

The electric mule

 

Cartagena, Colombia

 Well, it was an absolutely gorgeous day in Cartagena, Columbia. Cartagena is 100 miles north of the equator, and so the weather today was a balmy 87°. We are in what they call the tropical dry season, as opposed to the only other season they have, which is called tropical wet.

As one would expect, Michael went off to a rum and chocolate tasting today, and had a great time. The tour bus took his group into the heart of the old city where they walked around some narrow, picturesque streets, and managed to lose two participants.  Michael has his ways, and managed to find them even when the tour guide couldn’t.

The rum tasting was just great. They tasted a total of five different rums.  The first was paired with sweet peppers, the second with cheese, and the third, fourth and fifth with different kinds of chocolate. Each was better than the last.   They  next went to the rum salesroom where  people had a chance to purchase their favorite. They even gave everybody a free bottle of rum.  

They From here they had a quick tour of the historic fortress, and then a ride back to the ship. Unfortunately, they don’t take you directly back to the ship here. They drop you off at an aviary, where you must walk through and visit all the birds (which were quite spectacular), and then walk about a mile to the ship.

Today I learned a very valuable lesson: read the tour description. Little did I know that the requested beach excursion was going to leave at 7 AM in the morning. That’s the middle of the night for me. So it’s 6 o’clock and I laid there wondering if I should do it or not. Since I’m not a quitter, I decided I had to go and so I went, and I was sorry I went.

The group boarded two small boats and getting onto the boat was the first clue that this was not going to be a good day. We had to take our shoes off and then climb on the gunnel and hang onto a railing and hope that we didn’t fall either out or in. Many of the people are elderly, and most of us have some sort of physical slowing. So off we went and drove by the fortress, which is pictured above, and then proceeded to have a one hour choppy ride out to a group of 27 islands that compromise the Rosario Islands marine preserve national park. As escort, I have a list of stops to be made, and in what order, and the people running the excursion observed none of it.

They took us to a place for snorkeling, and you could not see more than 5 feet down which means it’s not a good place to snorkel. A couple of people got in the water and said no way, so they moved the boat. I like to snorkel, but given a lack of a safe and efficient way of getting back onto the boat, I chose not to go, as most of the others chose not to go as well. Then we stopped by a shack for local treats. This shack had rotten floorboards and getting on and off the boat again was a real challenge. People were not happy and started to complain. When are we going to get to the beach?  After I encouraged the excursion people to leave we went to an another island to have brunch and then go to the beach. Brunch was local foods, lots of fruit and stuff I had no idea what that was. Since I hadn’t eaten anything all day, I ate quickly and headed down to the beach. That was the goal of the whole idea of the outing – – the beach. And what a disappointment it was — it was a really crummy beach and the water was real murky. But being so darn hot, I jumped in the water anyway.

We only had a short time at the beach and then we had to head back to Cartagena. And the water was even bumpier and the skipper had no idea how to drive a boat. Drawing upon my own experience as a boat owner and driver, I told him what to do so we could get a better ride. And to add insult to injury, I was going to wait for the shuttle back to the ship but it was so darn hot in the sun and I didn’t know how long it would take for the shuttle to show up and they said it was not a very far walk, I decided I would walk it. Oh, what a mistake that was. It was a lot farther than a short walk, and in the heat carrying bags and wet towels, I slowly ambled to the ship. And wouldn’t you know it, the shuttle arrived and dropped everyone off at the door while I’m still walking. 🤣🤪😢 In any event, we were beaten up pretty bad and tonight I am absolutely exhausted and can’t wait to get in bed and take some pain pills. 

Tomorrow, Michael has another nine hour long tour and I am going to stay on the boat and float in the pool.