So in the two days of Boston-to-Portland-to-Boston-to-Mystic, I didn't manage to post about the one thing I did in Boston Tuesday morning before heading to Portland.
In the course of going to North Station both Sunday and Monday morning, I realized how close it was to Charlestown. Most importantly, it's close to the Charlestown Navy Yard, home of the Constitution. During my tour of the ship this time around, one of the sailors had mentioned that they fire off a gun at 8 a.m. in the morning when they hoist the flag, and again at sunset.
I wasn't about to wake up early just to go over there and see a gun fired off, but since my train to Portland was at 9, heading over to the Navy Yard by boat a bit before 8, and then walking over to North Station from there, would put me there in good time for my train.
Having been just burned by the National Park Service saying the Friendship would depart Salem at 1 p.m., when the ship clearly left much earlier, I was a little leery that I would be going over there for nothing. I needn't have worried. Unlike the Park Service, when the Navy says they're going to fire off a gun at 8 a.m., they fire off a damn gun at 8 a.m.
I watched from the one vantage point I thought I'd be able to see the gun, and it was pretty silent except for some muffled calling out ("Fire in the hole!" I think). And then BOOM! I totally jumped, which is quite visible in the video I shot.
The video does show the brief orange flame, and then the cloud of smoke. No car alarms went off, as apparently they sometimes do. Still, the noise of that one blank gave me a better idea of what it must have been like in battle, with guns going off constantly.
Watching the gun go off was pretty sweet, and getting over there early ensured I was easily on time for my Downeaster train, so everything worked out well.
As for today, I've got a bit more time in Mystic, and then I'll be heading back home to DC. I should have lots of time to edit photos on the train, and hopefully Flickr Uploadr won't be so angry with my home Internet connection as it has been with the connections at my hotels.
Until then, I did finally manage to get my Saturday pics up.
Showing posts with label USS Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USS Constitution. Show all posts
5.29.2009
5.22.2009
Why I'm here for Old Ironsides
Pictures of my Acela trip and Red Sox game are finally up at Flickr.
Today I'm planning to work my way backwards through the freedom trail.
Why backwards?
Well, I've got a ton of things I want to see while I'm here, but my main prompt for wanting to go to Boston was the USS Constitution.
I had a chance to see the Constitution only briefly during a family cruise stop a few years ago. We had eight hours, total, in Boston, and spent the morning on a tour. Still, in my remaining time, I hiked over in the rare 100 degree heat, quickly toured the ship and museum, and walked back to catch the shuttle back to the cruise ship. It wasn't the leisurely visit I would have liked, but I wasn't sure when I would have another chance to see the ship.
When the chance came up to be totally self-indulgent about my travel plans, I knew I wanted a second chance to see the Constitution at my own pace.
I suppose at this point I'm due for an explanation. If you've heard of the USS Constitution, or know her as "Old Ironsides," fighter of the Barbary pirates, star of the War of 1812, and the oldest commissioned floating naval ship in the world, you might wonder how a borderline Gen X/Gen Y woman came to be so interested in a square-rigged sailing frigate.
A valid curiosity. To be honest, I'm not even so sure myself how the fascination came about. I do know that I watched "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," and was fascinated by this whole other wooden world, enough that I looked into it a little more, and found out that Patrick O'Brian had written 20 1/2 books about the characters in the movie.
Well, I'm someone who believes the movie is never better than the book, and I was intrigued by something that had achieved the level of acclaim O'Brian's books have, and yet flown under my literary radar. So I bought a used copy of the first book, and read it, and liked it enough to get a used copy of the second. And then the third. And somewhere around there I was hooked.
O'Brian does a lot of things well. His pacing is superb, and his description of another world, that of a British Royal Navy warship during the Napoleonic Wars, is flawless, if sometimes difficult for a landlubber to understand. But his truest, deepest strengths — those that kept me coming back, book after book — are his ability to maintain plots over the course of several books, and the unparalleled ability to develop his characters and stay true to them over the course of a very long series. I whipped through all 20 1/2 books, but I began to want more — I began to be very interested in the alien world O'Brian had introduced me to.
To read about the stooped ceilings, the rows of great guns, and the mass of rigging of a sailing warship is one thing. To walk the wooden decks, climb down the narrow stairs, and stoop yourself is quite another.
And this is why I was willing to to hike my sweaty self over to the Constitution during my brief stop in Boston. And why, less than a year later, I took a train trip from London to Portsmouth to see the HMS Victory, the oldest commissioned naval ship in the world (unlike the Constitution, the Victory is permanently dry-docked).
Over the course of this trip, I'm hoping to see multiple sailing ships, and visit sites that show our country's maritime past and present. That might seem to give this trip two very different themes, but actually, I can't think of any greener transport than ships that crisscrossed the world with nothing but wind and manpower.
2.24.2008
Breaking news: London still awesome
Tower Bridge, from our Thames cruiseIt's been like 50 years since I posted here, so, uh, first off, I went to London. I know I just went to London in November, 2006, but when some friends here in DC sent out word about a trip, my initial reaction was: "I just went to London. I can't go back so soon." Then I thought about it, for all of about 30 seconds, and I decided: "Oh, I can so go back!"
So I got to take another outstanding trip to London. This time I wanted to catch the one thing I'd wanted to see last time, but had been closed — the London Transport Museum. It was closed for renovations last time, although the gift shop was open in a place in Covent Garden, so I at least wasn't deprived of Mind the Gap merchandise. The museum itself was really cool, and I'm glad I got to go and see the development of the world's first subway, from the early steam locomotives to the development of tube tunneling (and an early tube train). But there were so many out of control kids there, it was like a Lord of the Flies type situation — they were running totally wild — so that sort of took away from it.
I also wanted to see some things that I hadn't really been interested in the last time we went — a side trip to Portsmouth to see, well, everything, but namely the HMS Victory, and to Greenwich for the National Maritime Museum. Not surprisingly, none of the rest of our group had much interest in going to look at old ships, so I went to Portsmouth on the day they all went to the Tower of London, which I'd just seen. I found I felt really comfortable with moving around the UK by myself — the train system is so great and the signage everywhere is so good, it's easy to find your way.
Portsmouth didn't disappoint in the least — the Victory was worth the trip in itself. I have a ton of pictures on Flickr, so I won't go into huge amounts of detail, but I will just say that the Victory, in permanent drydock, was done up much more as a museum (albeit one where you had to duck your head on all of the decks, and that smelled of old wood) than the USS Constitution was. Which makes sense — the Constitution could sail tomorrow, if it needed to. I like that both of these ships, which each have huge historical significance, serve two different roles. But this meant that on the Victory, you got to go down to the Orlop deck and the hold — they really had much of the ship open to explore, and since it was February, they weren't running guided tours, so I got to take my time and see the whole ship at my own pace.
I wasn't quite as impressed by the National Maritime Museum — although it was good in its own right, it paled after the ships and museums of the Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth. We were actually in Greenwich briefly earlier in the trip — on Wednesday, we did a tour to Leeds Castle, Dover, Canterbury, and Greenwich. At Greenwich, we had time only to walk the grounds of the old Royal Naval College a bit, and walk into the Painted Hall, before we took a boat cruise down the Thames back to London. Leeds Castle was impressive, particularly since it was a mix of the period furniture you'd expect, and of 1920s-era French decor. Some of it was a bit over-the-top, but still pretty cool. We stopped at Dover only long enough for photos of the white cliffs, and then on to Canterbury, where I was surprised at the size of the cathedral after others I'd seen (Westminster Abbey, Bath Abbey, Salisbury Cathedral) of similar structure.
But rather than rambling on and on, as I usually do, I thought I'd just post a link to tons and tons of pictures. Take your pick between the whole set of 500-and-some, or the highlights, which are closer to 80:
• All of my England photos
• Just the highlights
And yes, it was cold. Somehow, 45 degrees in London is not the same as 45 degrees here — it's a much damper, bone-chilling cold. Luckily, I took a fleece jacket in addition to my wool pea coat, and the two of them together generally kept me warm enough to be happy. Lots of ale in nice warm pubs also helped.
HMS Victory, oldest commissioned naval ship in the world8.09.2007
"The weather is never like this here"
We heard that a lot during our cruise, as we apparently rode a fine jet of globally warmed air throughout Canada and New England. No rain, a little fog, and a lot of sun (too much in Boston).
I've already posted 360-some photos, so I won't go too detail-crazy here, but I thought I'd post a little about each of the ports and the cruise itself.
Portland, Maine
My parents had already been here several times and they really like it. Our tour started with Victoria Mansion, which I don't have any photos of because nearly everything inside is antique or a painstakingly done reproduction, but this crazy-ornate mansion was really interesting to see.
The rest of the tour was totally disorganized, although kind of hilarious. It consisted primarily of the woman who was our tour guide trying to decide where to go next, and then telling the bus driver when it was almost too late for him to do anything about it. She was all, "Turn here! Wait, no, turn left there!" We kept waiting for the driver to turn down a street and get stuck, thus having to back out. That didn't happen, but he did run a red light, and at another point the tour guide actually shushed my sister, who was not talking loudly at all. The whole thing did beg the question — hadn't they done this tour before? And if not, why didn't they plan it out in advance.
Portland, though, was very nice, despite our chaotic route through it. After the tour, we walked around and did some shopping. I bought blueberry wine, which I've yet to drink, but I find very intriguing. One thing that was really cool about Portland is that most of the shops and even the restaurants allow dogs. As a result, there are dogs EVERYWHERE. Most of them were very quiet and well-behaved. It's too bad we didn't have Rex for this portion of the trip. I told my Mom she'd just have to bring him back.
Bar Harbor, Maine
There had been a little bit of fog heading in to Portland, but nothing like what we woke up to heading in to Bar Harbor. It was solid fog, and the ship was sounding the fog horn regularly. The fog was so bad that when we got there, they had to delay the ship's tenders (Bar Harbor was the only port where the ship couldn't dock). We had an early tour and it was canceled because no one could get to shore. No, I don't have any idea why they didn't just delay it.
Because we still had tour tickets, we were able to take the first tender once they started running them, and got on an Ollie's Trolley tour of Acadia National Park. The Park was really beautiful, and we were lucky that the fog lifted enough for us to go to the top of Cadillac Mountain (which is really more of a hill, but is still apparently the tallest point on the east coast) and see.
After the tour, we went to a little sandwich stand for lobster rolls. I believe it's called the Lobster Claw, but I could be wrong on that one. If you're ever in Bar Harbor, definitely go. It's not much in the line of space or decor, but it reinforces that theory that the best seafood is in the the places that look like a hole. We got the rolls that are just fresh lobster on lettuce and bread, with some butter on the side to drizzle over it. Definitely the best lobster I've ever had.
Fortified for shopping, we did just that. Bar Harbor is a small but really charming town. It reminds me of a cross between Key West and Put-in-Bay.
Saint John, Canada
So, in hindsight, an error in strategy. My Dad, sister and I, as the family beer drinkers, had pegged the city highlights and Moosehead beer tasting tour as something we wanted to do. Tour + beer = good.
So the tour starts with us going over to the Reversing Falls. Now, the Reversing Falls is a really interesting phenomenon, caused by huge tide changes, but you apparently have to see it several times in one day (at high tide and low tide) to really get the impact. When we went, it was slack tide, which means we just saw a big boring body of water. Also, what we didn't realize about the Reversing Falls is that on the opposite side of the river from the viewing platform is a giant factory, which was dumping something into the river. I have no idea what that something is and if it's okay or bad for the environment, but the whole thing is not very picturesque. Does Canada have an EPA?
After the Reversing Falls, we drove around some and then the tour dropped us off at the market. The market is extremely old and was built by a wooden shipbuilder (the ceiling is just like an upside-down ship). It was bigger than Eastern Market in DC and definitely bustling.
Then it was time for the beer tasting. I'm all for beer tasting, but I think we all agreed by this time that we would have been better off just skipping the tour and going to a bar and drinking Moosehead. Perhaps with a trip to the market or some more fresh lobster.
Halifax, Canada
We did a hop-on, hop-off British double decker bus tour here. I originally thought this was going to be on British-style double-decker buses. But they actually turned out to be old London buses, complete with Transport for London stickers and the driver (and exits, somewhat dangerously) on the wrong side for Canada. Awesome.
I like hop-on, hop-off better than standard tours, because if you like things, you can stay as long as you want, and if they're lame, you're not stuck there. Our first stop was the Citadel, and it was actually the best one. The Citadel is a fort on the top of a hill, and it vaguely reminded me of a smaller Tower of London, except with no crown jewels. There were "soldiers" (all of them were actually civilians) drilling in kilts, and a series of mini-museums in the walls of the fort on various aspects of Canadian and British warfare. It was very well-done.
Our next hop-off was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which had a lot more hype — maybe more than anything could have stood up to. It was still nice, though. There was a signal ship, the CSS Acadia, that you could walk through, and a series of exhibits. One of the exhibits was on the Titanic (Halifax was instrumental in the rescue effort, and many of the dead are buried there). People were quick to point out that none of the items in the museum were pulled up from the ship — they're all things that were found floating during the rescue effort. I personally was hoping there'd be a little more of a British bent to things. Maybe I'll have to go to Greenwich some day for that.
We finished our day shopping at Pier 21, which was where the cruise ship docked. It was a major immigration center for Canada.
Boston, Massachusetts
It was HOT in Boston — we heard it got up to 100 degrees, and I'd believe it. If it hadn't been so hot, I'd say that the tour we took was not the way to go. Boston, like any major city, has major traffic, and our tour bus spent a lot of time navigating that traffic and not actually covering a lot of ground. But it was air-conditioned, which was a major bonus.
Our first stop was a Trinity Church, but only briefly. The tour guide said that if you'd seen any of the major churches in England, it wouldn't be very impressive, and he was right. After last year's London trip, I felt pretty eh about it.
The tour went over to Cambridge to the Harvard campus. The campus itself, at least the old portion, wasn't as expansive as I thought it was going to be. My sister wondered why it looked so much bigger than the movies. Memorial Hall, though, was very impressive — it looks like a church, but was built as a memorial to alumni who died in the Civil War. In addition to the memorial, it houses more pedestrian things like a cafeteria.
The next stop was at Old North Church, where the church sexton hung a lantern on the night of Paul Revere's ride to warn everyone that the British were coming. At that point it was the highest place in Boston. The inside of the church is still much as it was then, and although it's not as large or grand as even Trinity Church, I enjoyed it because it had such a role in history and was so well-preserved.
We got a glimpse of the USS Constitution before the tour dropped those who wanted to get off at Quincy Market. We opted to get off there, and grabbed some lunch. There was going to be some definite shopping involved after lunch by my mom and sister, but as I'm a ship nerd, I wasn't about to pass up a chance to see the Constitution, so I walked over to see the ship. It was HOT, but it actually felt really good to walk on land.
The Constitution was hands down my favorite thing from the trip. It is the oldest floating commissioned ship in the world, at 209 years old, and it is just amazing to me that something that old not only floats, but actually goes out for the occasional sail, and even has her guns fired occasionally. I did the guided tour, which meant we got to go down to the gun deck and the berth deck.
Seeing "Old Ironsides" is probably the most literary geeky thing I've ever done, but I am so glad I went. The ship is contemporary to, and even part of one of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, and to actually stand in it and get an idea of the perspective of the ships already so well described by O'Brian was awesome. That aside, it's a huge part of United States history, and really a miracle of preservation.
The cruise ship
We were on the Grandeur of the Seas again. We previously sailed on that ship two years ago to go to the Caribbean (it sails out of Baltimore, so it was convenient then, and was even more convenient now).
This time, though, I actually got seasick for the first time in six cruises. It was on the day I was walking around in the heat in Boston, which may have been a contributing factor, but my sister got sick as well. We were both sitting "backwards" at dinner, and the more the ship moved and the more I ate the more I felt like I might throw up. Generally I have no problem with rough seas -- I didn't get sick at all on the Century when we went through a storm with pretty big waves for a cruise ship to handle. But in this not-very-rough sea, the ship had this weird side-to-side vibration thing going. Normally the thing to do if you're getting seasick is to look at the waves and the horizon, but the waves and horizon weren't in synch with the motion of the ship. Ugh.
Although I've had a lot of fun during the cruise portion of our previous cruises, I think this was the one that reinforced that land-based vacations are really more my thing. Royal Caribbean, at least on this ship, is a little light on entertainment, particularly decent music performers. Unlike on land, you can't just go to a bar and drink. You can just go to a bar and drink on a cruise ship, but you'll have to listen to the easy-listening duo cover "I'm just a gigolo" for the 405th time. Uh, pass on that. I don't know why more cruise ships don't do what the S/S Norway did, which is to create an actual club and play actual good music during hours that make sense. The Norway's club didn't have any windows, and it actually looked like a club — you really felt like you were in a real land-based club.
The food was generally good, but there's always a certain point in a cruise where I actually get tired of eating. Except dessert. Heh. This is actually one of the things that amuses me about Royal Caribbean, though. You see their commercials and it's all, "You're exercising! You're jet-skiing! You're climbing a rock wall! You're walking on glaciers! You're not a normal cruiser!" And then you get on the actual cruise and people are all like, "What time is the midnight buffet?" This is actually a legitimate question, although cruise directors never fail to make fun of it, because the midnight buffet NEVER ACTUALLY STARTS AT MIDNIGHT. Anyway, maybe the people on Alaskan cruises are more active or something.
There were definitely some enjoyable things on the cruise itself. The Grandeur had a very good Beatles cover band (I think they make a loop on the Royal Caribbean ships in the area) the last time we were on the ship, and they played again. A Beatles cover band is a great idea. There should be more. But only if they don't suck. I didn't read quite as many books as I'd brought, but I got through quite a few, often in the "Solarium," a very nice enclosed pool, or in a lounge chair on the lower side deck.
So, all in all, a great trip. Now I need to start planning a new one. At this time last year I still had London to look forward to. Guess I need to get back to work on learning to speak Italian.
I've already posted 360-some photos, so I won't go too detail-crazy here, but I thought I'd post a little about each of the ports and the cruise itself.
Portland, Maine
My parents had already been here several times and they really like it. Our tour started with Victoria Mansion, which I don't have any photos of because nearly everything inside is antique or a painstakingly done reproduction, but this crazy-ornate mansion was really interesting to see.
The rest of the tour was totally disorganized, although kind of hilarious. It consisted primarily of the woman who was our tour guide trying to decide where to go next, and then telling the bus driver when it was almost too late for him to do anything about it. She was all, "Turn here! Wait, no, turn left there!" We kept waiting for the driver to turn down a street and get stuck, thus having to back out. That didn't happen, but he did run a red light, and at another point the tour guide actually shushed my sister, who was not talking loudly at all. The whole thing did beg the question — hadn't they done this tour before? And if not, why didn't they plan it out in advance.
Portland, though, was very nice, despite our chaotic route through it. After the tour, we walked around and did some shopping. I bought blueberry wine, which I've yet to drink, but I find very intriguing. One thing that was really cool about Portland is that most of the shops and even the restaurants allow dogs. As a result, there are dogs EVERYWHERE. Most of them were very quiet and well-behaved. It's too bad we didn't have Rex for this portion of the trip. I told my Mom she'd just have to bring him back.
Bar Harbor, Maine
There had been a little bit of fog heading in to Portland, but nothing like what we woke up to heading in to Bar Harbor. It was solid fog, and the ship was sounding the fog horn regularly. The fog was so bad that when we got there, they had to delay the ship's tenders (Bar Harbor was the only port where the ship couldn't dock). We had an early tour and it was canceled because no one could get to shore. No, I don't have any idea why they didn't just delay it.
Because we still had tour tickets, we were able to take the first tender once they started running them, and got on an Ollie's Trolley tour of Acadia National Park. The Park was really beautiful, and we were lucky that the fog lifted enough for us to go to the top of Cadillac Mountain (which is really more of a hill, but is still apparently the tallest point on the east coast) and see.
After the tour, we went to a little sandwich stand for lobster rolls. I believe it's called the Lobster Claw, but I could be wrong on that one. If you're ever in Bar Harbor, definitely go. It's not much in the line of space or decor, but it reinforces that theory that the best seafood is in the the places that look like a hole. We got the rolls that are just fresh lobster on lettuce and bread, with some butter on the side to drizzle over it. Definitely the best lobster I've ever had.
Fortified for shopping, we did just that. Bar Harbor is a small but really charming town. It reminds me of a cross between Key West and Put-in-Bay.
Saint John, Canada
So, in hindsight, an error in strategy. My Dad, sister and I, as the family beer drinkers, had pegged the city highlights and Moosehead beer tasting tour as something we wanted to do. Tour + beer = good.
So the tour starts with us going over to the Reversing Falls. Now, the Reversing Falls is a really interesting phenomenon, caused by huge tide changes, but you apparently have to see it several times in one day (at high tide and low tide) to really get the impact. When we went, it was slack tide, which means we just saw a big boring body of water. Also, what we didn't realize about the Reversing Falls is that on the opposite side of the river from the viewing platform is a giant factory, which was dumping something into the river. I have no idea what that something is and if it's okay or bad for the environment, but the whole thing is not very picturesque. Does Canada have an EPA?
After the Reversing Falls, we drove around some and then the tour dropped us off at the market. The market is extremely old and was built by a wooden shipbuilder (the ceiling is just like an upside-down ship). It was bigger than Eastern Market in DC and definitely bustling.
Then it was time for the beer tasting. I'm all for beer tasting, but I think we all agreed by this time that we would have been better off just skipping the tour and going to a bar and drinking Moosehead. Perhaps with a trip to the market or some more fresh lobster.
Halifax, Canada
We did a hop-on, hop-off British double decker bus tour here. I originally thought this was going to be on British-style double-decker buses. But they actually turned out to be old London buses, complete with Transport for London stickers and the driver (and exits, somewhat dangerously) on the wrong side for Canada. Awesome.
I like hop-on, hop-off better than standard tours, because if you like things, you can stay as long as you want, and if they're lame, you're not stuck there. Our first stop was the Citadel, and it was actually the best one. The Citadel is a fort on the top of a hill, and it vaguely reminded me of a smaller Tower of London, except with no crown jewels. There were "soldiers" (all of them were actually civilians) drilling in kilts, and a series of mini-museums in the walls of the fort on various aspects of Canadian and British warfare. It was very well-done.
Our next hop-off was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which had a lot more hype — maybe more than anything could have stood up to. It was still nice, though. There was a signal ship, the CSS Acadia, that you could walk through, and a series of exhibits. One of the exhibits was on the Titanic (Halifax was instrumental in the rescue effort, and many of the dead are buried there). People were quick to point out that none of the items in the museum were pulled up from the ship — they're all things that were found floating during the rescue effort. I personally was hoping there'd be a little more of a British bent to things. Maybe I'll have to go to Greenwich some day for that.
We finished our day shopping at Pier 21, which was where the cruise ship docked. It was a major immigration center for Canada.
Boston, Massachusetts
It was HOT in Boston — we heard it got up to 100 degrees, and I'd believe it. If it hadn't been so hot, I'd say that the tour we took was not the way to go. Boston, like any major city, has major traffic, and our tour bus spent a lot of time navigating that traffic and not actually covering a lot of ground. But it was air-conditioned, which was a major bonus.
Our first stop was a Trinity Church, but only briefly. The tour guide said that if you'd seen any of the major churches in England, it wouldn't be very impressive, and he was right. After last year's London trip, I felt pretty eh about it.
The tour went over to Cambridge to the Harvard campus. The campus itself, at least the old portion, wasn't as expansive as I thought it was going to be. My sister wondered why it looked so much bigger than the movies. Memorial Hall, though, was very impressive — it looks like a church, but was built as a memorial to alumni who died in the Civil War. In addition to the memorial, it houses more pedestrian things like a cafeteria.
The next stop was at Old North Church, where the church sexton hung a lantern on the night of Paul Revere's ride to warn everyone that the British were coming. At that point it was the highest place in Boston. The inside of the church is still much as it was then, and although it's not as large or grand as even Trinity Church, I enjoyed it because it had such a role in history and was so well-preserved.
We got a glimpse of the USS Constitution before the tour dropped those who wanted to get off at Quincy Market. We opted to get off there, and grabbed some lunch. There was going to be some definite shopping involved after lunch by my mom and sister, but as I'm a ship nerd, I wasn't about to pass up a chance to see the Constitution, so I walked over to see the ship. It was HOT, but it actually felt really good to walk on land.
The Constitution was hands down my favorite thing from the trip. It is the oldest floating commissioned ship in the world, at 209 years old, and it is just amazing to me that something that old not only floats, but actually goes out for the occasional sail, and even has her guns fired occasionally. I did the guided tour, which meant we got to go down to the gun deck and the berth deck.
Seeing "Old Ironsides" is probably the most literary geeky thing I've ever done, but I am so glad I went. The ship is contemporary to, and even part of one of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, and to actually stand in it and get an idea of the perspective of the ships already so well described by O'Brian was awesome. That aside, it's a huge part of United States history, and really a miracle of preservation.
The cruise ship
We were on the Grandeur of the Seas again. We previously sailed on that ship two years ago to go to the Caribbean (it sails out of Baltimore, so it was convenient then, and was even more convenient now).
This time, though, I actually got seasick for the first time in six cruises. It was on the day I was walking around in the heat in Boston, which may have been a contributing factor, but my sister got sick as well. We were both sitting "backwards" at dinner, and the more the ship moved and the more I ate the more I felt like I might throw up. Generally I have no problem with rough seas -- I didn't get sick at all on the Century when we went through a storm with pretty big waves for a cruise ship to handle. But in this not-very-rough sea, the ship had this weird side-to-side vibration thing going. Normally the thing to do if you're getting seasick is to look at the waves and the horizon, but the waves and horizon weren't in synch with the motion of the ship. Ugh.
Although I've had a lot of fun during the cruise portion of our previous cruises, I think this was the one that reinforced that land-based vacations are really more my thing. Royal Caribbean, at least on this ship, is a little light on entertainment, particularly decent music performers. Unlike on land, you can't just go to a bar and drink. You can just go to a bar and drink on a cruise ship, but you'll have to listen to the easy-listening duo cover "I'm just a gigolo" for the 405th time. Uh, pass on that. I don't know why more cruise ships don't do what the S/S Norway did, which is to create an actual club and play actual good music during hours that make sense. The Norway's club didn't have any windows, and it actually looked like a club — you really felt like you were in a real land-based club.
The food was generally good, but there's always a certain point in a cruise where I actually get tired of eating. Except dessert. Heh. This is actually one of the things that amuses me about Royal Caribbean, though. You see their commercials and it's all, "You're exercising! You're jet-skiing! You're climbing a rock wall! You're walking on glaciers! You're not a normal cruiser!" And then you get on the actual cruise and people are all like, "What time is the midnight buffet?" This is actually a legitimate question, although cruise directors never fail to make fun of it, because the midnight buffet NEVER ACTUALLY STARTS AT MIDNIGHT. Anyway, maybe the people on Alaskan cruises are more active or something.
There were definitely some enjoyable things on the cruise itself. The Grandeur had a very good Beatles cover band (I think they make a loop on the Royal Caribbean ships in the area) the last time we were on the ship, and they played again. A Beatles cover band is a great idea. There should be more. But only if they don't suck. I didn't read quite as many books as I'd brought, but I got through quite a few, often in the "Solarium," a very nice enclosed pool, or in a lounge chair on the lower side deck.
So, all in all, a great trip. Now I need to start planning a new one. At this time last year I still had London to look forward to. Guess I need to get back to work on learning to speak Italian.
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