Acapulco is famous for its cliff divers and we witnessed several men hurling themselves off of a 100 foot cliff to land in a pool of water that was fifteen feet deep at high tide. One of our special memories of our cruise was having Tracey take her picture with a group of these divers and, when she had her picture taken with four mostly naked men, one of them allowed her to hug him. We left Mexico to sail to Guatemala where we took a tour of a coffee plantation. Our third port of call was Panama City where we visited the locks and then saw an IMAX movie about how the Panama Canal was built. Finally, our last excursion was when we visited the old city in Cartagena, Colombia, where we experienced the Inquisition Museum. The trip was a success because we remembered one golden nugget of an experience at each of the four places that we toured.
My wife lost her vision when she was a teenager and the question that I was constantly asked was why would a blind woman want to go to the Panama Canal since it was mostly a visual experience. The short answer is that Tracey’s father always wanted to visit the canal but he was too set in his ways to take two weeks off from his home life to get on a ship and go. People also asked why we were taking another major trip after we just returned from the Caribbean. Norwegian Cruise Line only offers a trip from L.A. to Miami, via the Panama Canal, once a year. So we sailed to honor Tracey’s father and so that she could soak up the sun during the dreary winter month of February. As for me, I was happy to tag along with my wife and enjoy some quality time on a two week cruise.
We enjoyed all of the services that a huge cruise ship had to offer and we lived like royalty for two weeks but the lasting memories came from the people that we met. For example, our tour guide in Cartagena was Al, who was seventy seven years old, and a pugilist who threatened to take on a group of teenagers because he though that they were bothering us. On our tour of Acapulco, which we both wanted to see because we remembered the cliff divers being featured on “The Wide World of Sports,” we drove by a beach where our guide said that “this is where the senioritas go to swim a little and show a lot.” A staff member was from Budapest and I said that we had been to that city and our outstanding memory was to visit “The House of Horrors.” She replied, “you went to a house of whores?” “No,” I replied. Maybe it was the “House of Terror” where the communists used to torture the locals o gain information. We all laughed at the misinterpretation. Finally, a lady sitting next to me said that she was afraid of flying. I replied that “there is nothing to be afraid of. If lightning does strike the plane, and it goes down, it will be the worst 15 seconds of your life. That’s all! And you will probably be unconscious for most of those fifteen seconds.” I was trying to add a little levity to our conversation but the lady looked at me as if I were crazy.
Our cruise was filled with old people because it was expensive, school was in session so families couldn’t sail with us, and it was a long cruise, lasting over two weeks. I was raised to respect my elders but after two weeks on the ship I began to detest these people. Here are some of the things that filled me with resentment. When Tracey and I sat up front in the bus traveling to Cartagena we sat in the seats reserved for the handicapped. One old lady said, “I don’t see why she needs extra help. She seems to be fine on her own.” Tracey tried to explain that if she couldn’t hear the guide then there was no reason for her to be on the tour. Upon learning that the restaurant wouldn’t open until 5:30, a full half hour away, an old woman loudly declared, “but I am hungry now!” The Norwegian “Joy” was good enough to set up a tent with thirty chairs under it for our convenience so that we could take a break in the forward section as we sailed through the Panama Canal. However, the old people had put their purses and backpacks in the seats, while standing at the rails, rendering the thirty chairs occupied and utterly useless. It made me sick. In another incident, one old man stomped angrily away from the restaurant, flailing his arms and loudly exclaiming expletives after being told that, yes, he had a reservation for 5:30, but that didn’t mean that he could cut to the front of the line at 5:15. The reservation simply guaranteed that he would have a seat in the restaurant at 5:30. Really, these people acted as children. One old man opened up, and sniffed, all of the creamers for the coffee, insisting that the server throw them all away since the creamer had obviously gone bad. The server tried to explain that the creamer was non-dairy and that it didn’t go bad but the old man would not listen. One old woman opened up the menu, glanced over the options, and loudly declared that “I am not impressed with the meal options.” She sniffed at the delicacies that were being offered and then ordered spaghetti from the menu. Really, she shoul have gone to the buffet on the upper deck where they serve fast food to the tourists like throwing food to pigs through a trough. And finally, as we were waiting to get on the ship from a turnstile in L.A., one old lady, while waiting in the cold and the rain, loudly said that this was “the worst cruise that I have ever been on!” The thing is that we hadn’t even boarded the ship and she was ready to condemn the whole experience. It must drive the good people at the cruise line mad.
I think that the cruise went so well was because Tracey and I are experienced travelers and know what to expect. The cruise was 15 days long, for example, and I have learned to pace myself by lifting weights every morning. These were not light and easy workouts but true hardcore lifts. Also, we kept our expectations low for our excursions and only asked for one good memory for each of the ports that we visited. This strategy worked in our favor since it would have been easy to to become discouraged by the long lines and even longer bus rides to our destinations. In order to share the joy, we gave out drink coasters from U. of L. to our favorite staff members from our cruise ship like Aileen, who gave us exceptional service and whom remembered our name from the first day of the cruise. In fact, everything went so well that we signed up to do another Norwegian cruise and this time we will travel to Asia and visit Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, and Bali in Indonesia. I cannot wait to make some new memories through the Norwegian Cruise Line “Jewel.”
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