At sea days

Thursday, 10.13.11

We are in the open sea, no sign of land this morning. Yesterday Cuba was off our starboard side, just an outline in the distance. Tomorrow morning we will be in our first port, Aruba. We do not have an excursion scheduled there, instead we will walk through the old town browsing the shops. Then on Saturday, we will be in Cartagena, Columbia where we do have an excursion booked that will take us to the “Old City”, the Inquisition Palace, and an old church (of course) and the 17^thcentury Spanish fort that divides the city.

On Monday, our flights were on time, no problems.  In the SeaTac airport we met a lady in the lounge that takes her cat with her on planes and pays for a second seat for it.  The first picture is of the cat in its travel container.  She tried to sedate it, but it wouldn’t eat the food with the meds!  But, she said, it usually travels well.  The second picture is of a ball of cat hair she left in the lounge in her glass for the waitress!  ICK!

Arriving in Florida, we had a temporary glitch when one of our pieces of luggage got off the van one hotel too soon.  It was quickly reunited with us.

We got on the ship easily Tuesday morning and found that we are at a table of eight for dinner with interesting passengers, all but one from California.  There are two sisters traveling together, one from Texas.  Serving at the table next to us is Alvin, who was our assistant waiter on a 2008 “Fall Colors” cruise from Montreal to Ft Lauderdale.  He is really nice and we are glad he is now a waiter.  We all recognized each other instantly, but were unsure of which trip.  A little computer research found photos which answered the puzzle!

The Coral Princess carries a maximum of 1970 passengers, but is only carrying 1832 on this sailing.  There are five children, of which one is an infant and another, a teenager.  Gotta feel bad for a solo teenager with the older crowd of seasoned travelers, somewhat older even than most cruises.  Usually the longer the cruise the fewer kids, except in the summer.

We’ve been playing trivia, (not well, but with a good group of Brits), taking Spanish classes (very basic), and port lectures that have been pretty good.  We have been keeping ourselves busy.

More after our first port call tomorrow.

Colleen and John

PS We lost satellite connection on Thursday night, so were unable to post this.  Hopefully now that we are docked in Aruba, it can post.