Month: January 2023

          I really hate to do this to you but, yes…. just before embarkation, we are going back to class. Not just any class, we’re going to attend a small seminar on Cruise Ships Sizes and the Relative Differences Between Them (101).

                   No worries, this is the only level of this course available, so you will not have a second semester to contend with!

          Ever since the Love Boat premiered on ABC Television in 1977, we’ve (the collective we) been enamored with Cruising. It is my humble opinion that The Love Boat single-handedly was responsible for the surge in that industry’s popularity, which continues to this day.

          The difference is in the dimensions of the ships that are now creeping up on the size of small cities!

                   Let’s start with the original Pacific Princess, aka The Love Boat. This veteran cruise ship, which was a good representative of the industry in the early 1970’s, was 550’ long and had about 700 passengers aboard. She was also a registered 19,000 Gross Tons.

                   My first cruise was in 1983, aboard Holland-America’s MS Volendam which was a staggering 574’ long and a whopping 14,000 gross tons!  😊 Aboard were 550 of my new best friends. The Volendam was, at that time, becoming one of the smaller cruise ships as the industry was really blossoming and the ships had already started to grow. The MS Volendam can be forgiven for her relative pint-size as her keel was laid way back in 1957 for the old Moore-McCormack Line as the SS Brasil (yes, that spelling is correct!) One advantage to her size was that she was still the right size for many ports and their docks. The infrastructure of most ports had not yet caught up with the sizes of the newer ships. Consequently, the latest ones needed to anchor offshore and ferry their passengers into port in their tenders.

          Besides, the naval architects had yet to figure out how to make their giant floating hotels look anything like a sleek ocean liner and were left with these “Boxes on Barges”

                   Jumping to present day to give a comparison, the Island Princess which will be carrying all of us on this voyage is 964’ long, 93,000 Gross Tons, and will have about 2200 souls aboard (this number will increase as more and more of you sign on to this blog!) Our home ship is 20+ years old and is a good example of ships from that era.

                    Nowadays things are getting crazy!

                   Royal Caribbean has some of the largest ships afloat. The Wonder of the Seas comes in at 230,000 Gross Tons, is 1086’ long, and keeps over 7000 (!) voyagers safely within its bulkheads, along with on-board rollercoasters, waterslides, mini-golf courses, and twenty different eating establishments!

                   I can hear that undercurrent of murmurings from the class, as you all forgot to mute your microphones “What in King Neptune’s name is a Gross Ton and how does all of this compare?

                   I can answer that Ariel!

                   Gross Tons are the way that ships are classified, registered, and generally compared. It is a measurement of the interior volume of a ship. So, The Wonder of the Seas is over twelve times the size of the original Love Boat and over two and a half times the size of our present ship, the Island Princess.

                   To put this all into crazy perspective, the Gerald R. Ford, our newest and largest aircraft carrier, is the first of ten proposed Gerald R. Ford Class Carriers (replacing the Nimitz Class) and it comes in at about 110,000 gross tons, barely worth a mention in the race for largest cruise ship. Although, she can cruise for over fifty years without ever stopping!

 Now that’s a World Cruise!

Class dismissed, please be on time for embarkation check-in scheduled for 12:30 EST in Fort Lauderdale. Remember, the ship will sail without you!

It came to me last night that there must be some sadistic Marketing Executives hard at work within the Cruise Industry.

                   Who else would schedule a Multi-Month-Around-the-World Twenty-Four-Hour-Feeding-Frenzy directly after the Holidays?

                   I’ll be honest with you….

                   We tried our best.

                   Months ago, we decided to put our best efforts into trying to slim down, get more exercise, shed a few pounds, and generally get ready for three-squares-a-day (with someone else doing all the work!)  for the better part of four months.

                    We mapped out routes here at home, down in town, and over at the local lake. Off we went as quick as two somewhat agile (one with a bad knee, one with compressed discs) could muster.

                   We were mildly successful, we kept our weights under control, even dipping lower from time to time.

                    Then it happened.

                   Cookies.

                   And all of the other accoutrements that go with them like buttered vegetables, Pillsbury Croissants (with butter), mashed potatoes (with butter) and even Prime Rib that always roasts up better when slathered with a nice coating of butter. Make it a Compound Butter if you want to feel like it’s for the spices, but it’s still butter.

                   As you are all well aware, this Dairy-Heaven-on-Earth goes on ad infinitum until we are all glowing with yellow buttery-looking skin, somewhat akin to jaundice, but much more satisfying.

                   Now….. Let’s go on that Cruise!

                   We are lucky if we even come close to that “Starting Weight” that we benchmarked all those months ago!

                   But who cares?

                   There is a Walking Track on board!

                   We can hit that puppy first thing, get our miles and miles in just walking around the Promenade Deck, shedding all of those extra pounds that crept up on us over the last few weeks and promise to stay with us (and then some) as we go forward….. if…..we are not ever vigilant, keeping a wary eye peeled for an attack of Dark Chocolate Mousse, or worse yet, the endless supply of freshly baked and warmed cookies that are always out at the local equivalent of the onboard Starbucks.

                   I feel an immense sense of Failure looming over me.

                   But as long as it’s Dark Chocolate, I don’t really care!

Happy New Year everyone! We wish all of you a great one! We are glad that you are our friends!

          Well, we’re at that point…..

          It’s called “Hurry up and Wait”

          It’s like a NASA hold on a countdown until launch, everything is in limbo.

          We’ve gone over our prep lists a dozen times looking for things to check off but it’s impossible to complete this process until it’s time to GO!

          The entire motorhome interior needs to be deep cleaned, top to bottom, inside out, and every other way possible because if not, we risk the distinct possibility of coming home to “Mold and Mildew City.”

          We do not want to live there.

          Many an article has been published (and read by us) as to the downfalls of not preparing a motorhome properly for winter storage. This is a first for us as the longest we’ve ever been “not at home” is only a few days. So, clean cloths and disinfecting all-purpose cleaners in hand, we are ready to do battle with all those nasty invisible creepies that attach themselves to any surface that has even the remotest vestige of organic material clinging to it.

Think “Greasy Fingerprints” and go up from there.

We are quite sure that we can do this correctly, but there is no way to do it until we are finally exiting.

          That, along with fridge and freezer cleaning, freshly laundered sheets, etc. and sparkling bathrooms, make for a busy last day here at the Home Port.  

          The fridge and freezer emptying has been the most fun. They will be left turned on while we’re gone for all the right reasons but having unnecessary items left inside is not in the plan. So, our meal planning discussions sound something like this, “Would you like the cauliflower pancakes with the pierogies or the chicken cilantro wontons and chocolate croissants?”

          That’s an easy one, always choose the chocolate croissants with anything!

Our front seats and dinette benches are being extricated and brought up to College Station for a much-needed re-upholstery job. This will take several weeks so it’s good that we won’t be around using the motorhome. It’s hard to travel when your Pilot’s Chair is not in place. Folding chairs or orange crates would probably not be good replacement!

 But…. they can’t be removed until we make our final trip to the Dump Station which needs to be, you guessed it…. right before we button everything up and are no longer using it!

          Hence, more “Hurry up and Wait.”

Remember those Princess Medallions that I’ve been describing?

The ones that communicate with our stateroom door, the Bartenders, and each other?

Well, they have finally arrived and not a moment too soon! They were mailed three weeks ago from California but got delayed somewhere along the line. They’re kind of nifty, they have our names on them, the ship, and the sailing date. I guess that they can be used for Christmas Tree ornaments when it’s all over (?)

 They come in the colors of the level of the Captains Circle that we are presently in. I have a few more “Princess” sailing days than Paula so my Medallion is Ruby colored while Paula’s is Gold.

          She thinks it looks like Yellow and does not like it!

          We will attain the next two levels of this program while we are on board. Unfortunately, one is not eligible for the benefits of the next levels until the completion of the present voyage.

          Maybe I can make friends with the right people and at least get Paula the next color up while we are aboard.

You all will be the first to know 😊