Lack of posts...

Hey everyone..

My apologies for the lack of updates - I'm running rather low on internet minutes and I'd rather not spend any more money on them (at 25c / min it gets rather expensive) - we're only three days away from home at the moment - so I'll look at doing some updates when I get there.

If you're curious about the last few ports - have a look at the July 2008/Aug 2008 from our last cruise - we went through many of the same ports!

Today we're in Auckland, I was planning to purchase some local internet and update - but at NZ$14.50 / Hour I don't think I'll be bothering!

Back home soon, and we all can't wait - with 100+ days on a ship I'm read for some dry land for a few years!

11/8/2010 - Los Angeles, California, USA - Scenes of Los Angeles Tour

The weather at the port of LA looked rather threatening this morning, and it was reasonably cool out on deck. After another face to face customs inspection, with lines running from one end of the ship to the other (no joke, it was ridiculous! the line started at the vista lounge and went all the way to the front of the ship at the Wheelhouse Bar!) - we eventually got off the ship!.

We picked our tour today based on that it would give us a good overview of the city, rather than concentrating on a single place (we had thrown around the idea of visiting Universal studios, but due to our limited time in LA decided on a more general tour).

After a drive from the port to the main part of LA and getting to experience a bit of the LA traffic, we started a narrated drive that took us past places like the Olympic stadium, the University of Southern California, The LA Convention Center (which is HUGE) and The Grammy Museum we had a photo stop within sight of the City Hall.

We proceeded past Union Station and then worked out way over to the Hollywood Bowl.

The Hollywood Bowl is well worth visiting, it's quite an amazing place - the way sound bounced around was mind-blowing. Stranger yet it's a natural formation, and all they've done is added seats and a stage!.

Out next stop was a view of the Hollywood sign (yes it's visible in the picture above, way in the background!) and a visit to the Chinese Theatre and the walk of fame. We had a bit of trouble with the bus and spent about 45mins just waiting for it to come back. We then continued on travelling down sunset boulevard, we passed the House of Blues and then headed into Beverly Hills. We passed by several places featured the movie Beverly Hills Cop as well as many other movies. Next we headed for Rodeo Drive and got to look at all the extremely overpriced stores and people showing off the size of their wallets!

Our tour then took us to Century City - part of LA that's relatively new (it used to be the back lot of one of the big movie studios, guess which one?). The drive back to the ship was better than the drive in, traffic was quite good.

All in all LA was a great place to visit, the climate felt a lot like home and it was a friendly and pleasant place to visit. Like New York, I could spend at least a couple of weeks here at some point in the future!

8/8/2010 - Manzanillo, Mexico

Well no tour today - Marylyn and Dave went exploring, finding a place that was exactly what they thought a Mexican town should be. Sombreros everywhere!

They did a brief walk around the town, there wasn't a lot there other than touristy type shops, but it had a more Mexican feel to it than Acapulco. Apparently this is the place to go if you want to do fishing for Sailfish (that's what the sculpture Marylyn is standing with is about, they consider themselves the "Sailfish Capital of the World".

One other bright piece of news - we got out Canadian Captain back again! he left us in Dubai, but he arrived back today! Captain Tood McBain is a hell of a lot better than that Italian bloke we had - he's friendly and informative!

7/8/2010 - Acapulco, Mexico - Acapulco City Highlights & Cliff Divers Tour

We arrived in Acapulco very early this morning and were up and out on our tour before the sun rose! Because it was a Saturday the traffic/etc in the afternoon was expected to be very heavy - so the decision was made to start all the tours a little earlier (Thank god I had a couple of cans of V left from the bunch I bought in Darwin, all those weeks ago!).

Acapulco is designed for tourists - it's easy to tell and they make no effort to disguise that - which is a nice change from a lot of places that aren't terribly open about trying to take you for everything you've got! Our guide even mentioned that they were happy to see us cause of the money it generates!

Our first stop on the tour was the Cliff divers! If you ever go to Acapulco to see the cliff divers - I'd recommend you use the seating at the Hotel Mirador (see the picture below) it costs a little more, but it's worth it! the seating/etc is really good and you can talk to the divers afterwards. Apparently it's a family business, father teaches son, etc - but I tell you that there's no way you'd get me to jump off those cliffs! It was an impressive performance, those divers really earn their money!

We then travelled through the newer parts of Acapulco, looking at some of the hotels/etc - our guide pointed out many of the sights as we drove by. Then we drove up out of town for some views of the area around Acapulco and some of the bigger resorts!

Our guide on this tour was excellent, he really made us feel comfortable and answered whatever questions we had.
Mexico is obviously having some crime problems, it's quite visible on the streets when you see Soldiers with assault rifles stationed outside of each bank!

Oh - we had a 'shopping stop' as well, during which time they gave out margaritas! Marylyn and Dave both sampled them freely... and fifteen minutes later Marylyn was asleep! She slept through a big part of the tour and then came back to the ship and slept the afternoon away! (Dave insisted I put this on the blog! sorry Marylyn!).

3/8/2010 - Panama Canal

Today we started out really early - we arrived at the first locks at around 6am - out on the ocean the number of ships waiting for a trip through the canal was quite amazing (apparently if you don't book in advance, there's something like a 5-7 day wait for a place!).

One of our port lecturers who now lives in Panama was doing a running commentary throughout the transit and he gave a good description of the difficulties in building it. It's quite an amazing sight - much more impressive than the Suez (which was just a big ditch!). The ship slid into the locks with only about 60cm of clearance on each side! Literally from deck seven I could have easily stepped off the ship - it would have been easier than getting on the tenders in rough seas!

The whole place has the feel of being hacked out of the jungle (as it literally was a hundred years ago).

After the first set of locks (and being raised quite a distance) we crossed a large man-made lake to the second set of locks where we were partially lowered, then a little further to the third set and we were back in the pacific!

The trip took most of the day - it was quite hot and humid (as we had expected it to be). It cost approximately US$270,000 for the ship to make the transit (they charge a base rate per berth, then add extras for tugs, etc).

2/8/2010 - TV Replacement!

They got around to replacing my old style TV with a new flatscreen LCD today! quite an improvement!

Before...

After...

1/8/2010 - Willemstad, Curacao - Seaworld Explorer Semi-Sub tour

The weather that greeted us in Curacao was quite nice, not too hot, but a bright sunny day. Curacao until 1915 was under Dutch rule. You can see the influence in the buildings quite a lot, the country is part of the "Netherlands Antilles".
The harbour was basic, but quite functional - a large sail covered the main area at the dock, providing shade and a place for vendors to set up their stalls.

Our tour today was on a Semi-Submersible sub that took us out onto a reef near one of the bigger resorts on the island. It was a fun, if a little cramped trip - we got to see lots of fish, even if the coral was a little disappointing. We also toured around the island, looking at some of the local buildings and they even gave us a chance to sample the local alcohol (a type of Liquor).
We only had a short tour this morning, but it was a pleasant, tidy place and you could really feel the dutch influence!