So, we’re back from eight days on the Norwegian Star. We left Los Angeles, sailed to Manzanillo, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was an exceptional vacation.
During the vacation, as you might have noticed, I posted daily blog entries. Of course I couldn’t post everything and there were these oddball things we saw or did or experienced. I’m going to try and add them now.
My sense is, this will be a multipart series. I have over 1,500 photos to go through, and that will help me decide what to write.
Every cruise must have a muster drill within the first 24 hours. We had ours at 4:30 PM the afternoon of our departure. That was two hours before we left, and I assume not everyone was on board by then.
I’ve often worried if I’d remember any of this in the event of a ‘real’ emergency.
Of course normal lifeboats aren’t the only way off. There are some oddball methods which are enumerated on Deck 7.
In this one, we’re all supposed to slide down this fire engine red tube to a boat bobbing 40 feet below. There is even a box with shoe covers located alongside.
I already posted a shot of a device where you lower yourself down in a rope harness.
All I’m asking is, please float!
I can’t begin to tell you how clean this ship was. There were squads of employees constantly patrolling the food areas. No piece of schmutz would stay for long!
What I didn’t expect where these cleaning stations, little orbs with what looked like a saline breast implant inside. If you held your hands underneath, a small spray of disinfecting lotion would shoot down. rub your hands together and it sanitizes you and then evaporates away in a few seconds.
I guess earlier problem with the Norwalk Virus weren’t good for business.
How, in spite of this, I caught a cold is beyond me!
If Mexico to you is Tijuana, you would have been sorely disappointed. There was virtually no sleaze!
Here’s the one exception. In case you can’t read the small type, the club is Splash (across from Cabo Wabo in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico). It features (or so they claim) Mexico’s Finest Showgirls.
This arch, at Lands End, Cabo San Lucas, is a sight made famous by The Love Boat. I snapped a few shots of it as we passed by. Then, our ship made a u-turn and headed around the other side. I waited with the camera, but the arch never reappeared!
I don’t get it. Shouldn’t I have seen it from both sides?
It was very strange, because I waited diligently for the arch to reappear.
Going to the Colima Volcano was one of my favorite moments. It was reasonably far from Manzanillo (which the ship’s captain constantly pronounced “Man-zan-ill-oh”), which meant a long car drive.
On our way, we passed this typical highway scene. I guess I never thought about it, but speeding tickets are universal.
As we traveled from port-to-port, I began to notice these prehistoric looking birds.
They were very graceful in the sky, but even more noticeable was their incredible formation flying. There was never a bird out of place. I’ve never seen anything like this.
In the beginning, I actually thought I was watching some sort of radio controlled models.
If you know what they are, please let me know.
Is there a Mexican Navy, you might ask? Sure. We saw installations of four or five ships at a few of our port stops.
More importantly, every time we entered or left a port (and that included San Pedro in the United States) we we flanked by a small, fast boat carrying heavily armed sailors.
On one hand it was reassuring. On the other hand it was sobering.
Who would want to harm an innocent ship with 3,000+ passengers and crew? Unfortunately, it’s a long list.
More coming as I go through more photos.
I woke up early enough to hear the Captain on the P.A. system. The harbor pilot was coming on for our entry into the harbor at Manzanillo. I moved to the balcony.
Two gangways led of the ship. I went down one, looked, didn’t see Gilles and moved on. I went to the second. He wasn’t there either!
Long story short, it wasn’t long before I was in Gilles SUV and we were heading out of Manzanillo.
As we approached Colima, we left the highway for a more traditional road, then cobblestones through a town and finally onto a winding rutted dirt road running along the edge of a cliff.
There was another gate farther up the path and we repeated the process.
Even if you’d never seen a volcano, it is immediately obvious. The sides are steep and a light gray, courtesy of the ash which accompanies eruptions.
As we watched super heated steam escape from the top, another truck pulled up. Inside were three Mexican men, in the forties. They sat down and watched too.
Even without major activity, Colima was active. The plume’s steam intensity varied with time. Every once in a while a different plume of steam or smoke would rise from one of the mountain’s faces. Gilles said, at night you would often see the glow of molten lava.
I’m back on the ship now. It was quite a day.
As anticipated, dinner last night was at Versailles. We approached, at 7:20 PM only to find a long line leading up the stairs. At the restaurant’s entrance was a crowd of people clustered around a host with clipboard.
We walked in, and this dining room is magnificent… but in a different way from Aqua. This is very old style elegance. The fixtures and wall coverings all spoke to a distant point in time. Everywhere you looked were waiters, waitresses, busboys, assistants and captains. This is a ‘full’ service restaurant.
It is cloudy today. There have been patches of sun, but mostly it’s gray. The seas are lightly undulating. We are heading into the wind, meaning it’s very breezy on deck (though interestingly, not on our balcony, where I’m typing this).
We got to the rail on deck 7 and saw a cluster of people, all trying to see the dolphins. Nothing.
I’m picking this up after a nap. Helaine and Stef are getting their nails done.
I’ve mentioned my Southwest Airlines credit card before, and it enters into this vacation. With a bunch of free tickets stowed away, air fare was not a problem. Now, where to go?
In Manzanillo I plan on meeting up with a professor from the Monterrey Institute for a day trip to the Colima Volcano. It is just a plan because the professor hasn’t written back in the last day – we’ll see.