Friday November 15
Jennifer and I dropped Garrett off at his 6 am church class,
then headed north to NYC. We were
planning to spend the day in the city, see a show, then get on the ship around
midday Saturday. We left the car
at Metropark in New Jersey and took the commuter train to Penn Station. We checked into the hotel (elements by
Westin at 39th and 8th, using our SPG points, natch) at
10:30 am and were pleasantly surprised that there was a room ready. We didn’t have much of a plan for the
day, and ended up meandering through midtown. We ate Korean dumplings at Mandoo Bar, then caught the IRT
to the financial district. We spent
some time at the 9/11 Memorial Site, paused by the names of friends who had
died on that awful day, stood in the shadow of the survivor tree, and reflected
on the preciousness and unpredictability of life.
We headed back to midtown and happened upon a Crumbs bakery,
so we of course had to stop and sample the offerings. Halfway through my thin mint cupcake, Jennifer informed me
that it had 950 calories. She
knows how to kill my joy. Heedless
of the risks, I plunged on. I staggered
back to the hotel in the early stages of a serious sugar coma and recuperated
on the bed. We were not that
hungry before the show, so we stopped by Chipotle for a quick bite.
I had not told Jennifer the name of the play, but just
before arriving I told her it was a Spanish play called Once (pronounced
OON-say). It took her a little
while before she figured out I was pulling her leg. The show was almost like a concert, with the small company
singing and playing guitars, violins, and other stringed instruments, while
weaving a boy-meets girl story set in Dublin Ireland. It had minimal props, unlike most Broadway productions, allowing
the music and story to flow unhindered.
We quite enjoyed it.
Upon returning to the hotel, I mentally ran through the
departure checklist for tomorrow and realized we had forgotten to bring our
passports. Oops! I had electronic versions of our
declarations pages available, and knew we could print them at the hotel. I called the cruise line and was told
that they could not assure that we would be permitted to board without our
physical passports. I researched
options for immediate delivery of documents, and found that Greyhound had a
delivery service – all we had to do was get someone to deliver the passports to
DC’s Union Station, pay $22, and 5 hours later they would be at NYC’s Port
Authority. Good deal. We got hold of son-in-law Josh, who
agreed to drive to Union Station.
Crisis averted.
Saturday, November 16
Josh called at 1:20 am to report that he was at Union
Station, and no one was at the delivery desk, even though Greyhound’s web site
said it was staffed 24/7. The Greyhound
ticket agent was clueless, he said, and added that, without a delivery ticket,
the bus driver would not take an envelope containing two passports. Josh asked various passengers if they
would be a courier, but found no takers.
With no other alternatives, Josh proposed that he drive north and I
drive south and meet each other halfway.
Off I went to Penn Station to catch the next train to Metropark, then
headed south on the Turnpike. Josh
and I met up at 4:10 am in southern NJ, then we each turned around and headed
back. I got to the hotel at about
7 am, about the same time Josh pulled got back home. Sleep is overrated anyway.
I tried to doze for a few hours, then we roused ourselves
for a quick breakfast and headed to the pier. We found a long line waiting to check in. The Coast Guard had decided to make a
surprise inspection of the Norwegian Gem, thereby delaying embarkation. We boarded at about 1 pm, dropped our
bags at our room, then went up to the spa to arrange for unlimited access. We were told that the spa would open as
soon as the ship sailed, so we headed back to the buffet for a leisurely
lunch. As soon as the ship blew
its horn for departure, we headed back to the spa. We knew from our experience during our Europe trip on the
Gem’s sister ship that the spa would be our primary destination while on
board. We watched from the spa’s
forward windows as we sailed down the Hudson into New York harbor. I thought of all the ships and people
who had arrived or departed from those piers: troops going off to war in Europe and returning home;
immigrants (including my mother’s family) craning their necks for a glimpse of
the Statue of Liberty as they sailed in the harbor and processed to Ellis
Island; colonists filled with excitement and trepidation; the Italian explorer
Verazzano as he first mapped out the harbor. The setting sun reflected off 1 WTC, newly crowned as the
tallest building in America at 1776 feet high. As dusk fell, we sailed under the Verazzano Narrows bridge
and into the open Atlantic.
The Gem’s spa is larger than the Jade’s (the ship we sailed
on this summer out of Venice), and has a large common soaking pool with two
huge faucets that, when you push a button, spews out a wedge-shaped line of
100+ degree water with the force of a power washer. Standing under that while letting it pound on your shoulders
was like getting a very powerful massage.
Both Jennifer and I lingered under our respective faucets, moving our
backs so the water spray would pound up and down our backs. When we had our fill of that, we
alternated between the hot tub soaking tub, the heated stone recliner chairs,
the lounge chairs, or withdraw to the gender-specific areas for the sauna,
steam room, and individualized whirlpool tubs. What a wonderful place to relax.
Sunday November 17
I expected to sleep well last night, since I got no sleep
the night before. What I didn’t
count on was being so tired that I would not awake when all the Diet Pepsi that
I drank on board started to leak out.
I ended up stumbling to the bathroom, grabbing a towel to throw on the
bed over the wet spot and falling back asleep. In the past couple months my nocturnal incontinence has been
largely under control because of the imipramine, so I have not been
consistently wearing pads. Oh,
well, good thing we have a cabin steward to change our beddding.
Today and tomorrow are sea days – no ports of call – so
R&R is the order of the day.
More accurately, eat, spa, nap, eat, nap, spa, nap, eat, and maybe go to
the evening show. I’m certain to
gain weight on this cruise, but one of the few advantages of having Stage 4
cancer is that I don’t care.
I got up at about 7:30 am. Jennifer was sleeping deeply so I put on my swimsuit and
t-shirt, slipped out of the cabin and went up to the buffet for some food and
await the 8 am spa opening. One of
the cooks made me a surprisingly good omelet, and I found a quiet corner and
ate while watching the sea. Now
that we are in the open Atlantic, the ship has a distinct rocking motion, far
more pronounced than the Med or our prior Caribbean cruises.
I was one of the first customers in line for the spa at 8
am, and ended up staying there for more than three hours. Jennifer showed up at around 9 am,
having enjoyed her sleep in. I
noticed that my shoulders were sore, and once I went under the blasting faucets
I deduced that I might have overdone it the night before. Sometimes leisure demands sacrifice, so
I experimented with different positions for the water flow for the maximum
effect. Of course, I had to rest
from all of my labors, and the heated stone chairs were the perfect place to do
so. Mary Chapin Carpenter’s lyrics
from “To Italy” came to mind: “What if we spent
all of our days, improving our minds, learning new ways to be lazy / It wouldn't
be too much of a strain / Relax after breakfast till lunch comes around
/ Can't
wait for dinner, oh, I need to lie down / And refuel, out by the pool.”
Tonight’s show was a comedic juggler named Charles
Peachock. Perfect cruise ship
entertainment – he didn’t take himself too seriously, unlike the in-house
singers and dancers who act like they are professionals, when they are only
slightly better than a high school troupe.
Spencer ran the Philadelphia marathon today. We’ve been off-line, so we don’t know
how he did. I am impressed at his
dedication to run marathons and Tough Mudders, and am glad that he is remaining
committed to his choice of sobriety.
His ongoing determination to fight well his battles inspires me to keep
fighting my battles.
Monday, November 18
Today is another sea day, and largely a repeat of
yesterday’s schedule. Jennifer
joined me for breakfast and the morning spa routine. She brought 5 books with her, and already has plowed through
two of them. I brought one hard copy
book and several more on the iPad, and have yet to turn a page. At some point I’ll do some reading on
this cruise, but not yet. I’m
still feeling residual lethargy from the chemotherapy, and find it exhausting
to concentrate for extended periods.
I can walk up several flights of stairs and not get totally winded, so
that is small progress, but physically I still am nowhere near my pre-chemo
form (which was not all that spry to begin with).
Tuesday, November 19
It takes two and a half days to sail from NYC to Puerto
Rico. Today’s scheduled arrival
time in San Juan is 3 pm, so the morning routine is once again a relaxed
breakfast, then relax in the spa.
We usually emerge at around noon, nicely poached and ready for a nap
before a later lunch. It’s a hard
life, but somebody’s got to do it.
We had booked a shore expedition to go up the El Yunque
National Forest. I generally avoid
shore excursions arranged by the cruise line, as they are overpriced and
underwhelming. But because we
arrived so late, I knew time would be short and daylight waning. We queued up and loaded into minibus
for the hour drive out of San Juan and up the mountain into the rain
forest. We spent a while at the
visitor’s center, then drove up to El Coco waterfall, a pretty cascade down a
nearly vertical rock face. We left
as night fell. The drive back to
the dock seemed much longer than the drive out. We briefly walked around the old town, realized we were
tired and hungry, so made our way back to the ship for dinner.
Wednesday, November 20
We arrived in St. Maarten at 8 am. We spent a week on the island in 2007, and have stopped here
on two other cruises, so we were pretty familiar with the island. I’d arranged to rent a car and get away
from the cruise ship crowds. We
were glad we did, because there were nine (!) ships in port. We stopped at a grocery store for some
picnic supplies, then crossed over to the French side of the island and headed
for Friar’s Bay, a small beach with powdery white sand well off the beaten path
that we’d discovered six years ago.
We rented padded chaise lounges and an umbrella, and whiled away the
day. I stayed under the umbrella
except for a brief time in the water, since I didn’t want to burn by newly bald
head. At about 2 pm, I noticed I
was getting burned anyway – the UV rays must have been pushing through the
umbrella.
We drove to the Minguet art gallery – another place we’d
visited in 2007 – and purchased a couple of posters. We also stopped by the Harley Davidson store so I could get
a St. Maarten HD shirt. With all
the ships in port, we ran into heavy traffic getting back to the ship, so it
was a good thing that we left when we did. It was a great day on one of our favorite Caribbean
islands.
Thursday, November 21
Today was St. Thomas.
We had planned on going to Megan’s Bay, but the weather did not
cooperate, as it was raining most of the morning. We took our time getting breakfast, and eventually decided
that we’d just spend some time in Charlotte Amilie. We’d spent several days on St. Thomas and St. John in 2005
or so, and knew the layout of the town.
We ended up buying gifts for each of the kids, while trying to avoid
what I called “the German stuff”, aka junkunschloken.
We returned to the ship in time for a late lunch, then went
to the spa for several hours.
Tonight’s show was an occasionally funny comedian named Bud
Anderson. He tooted his own horn a
bit too much for my taste, but you get what you pay for.
Friday, November 22
The ship anchored in Dominican Republic waters in a bay off
of a town called Samana. We took a
tender to a small island beach called Caya Levantado, where we spent several
hours slathering ourselves in sunscreen and basking. It was a perfectly lazy beach day. We had to be back on board by 3 pm so the ship could start
its two and a half day journey back to New York, 1619 miles to the north. We headed straight to the spa, where we relaxed some more,
then had a nice dinner in one of the specialty restaurants.
Jennifer has been reading Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card,
and after she finished it, I picked it up to reread it. I then returned to Ender’s Shadow,
which I had read some time ago, as well as the second and third books in the
Shadow series. Not strenuous
reading, but perfect for my chemo-addled brain. I then downloaded the fourth book of the Shadow series
(Shadow of the Giant) and have been plowing through that. It’s great to lay on the heated stone
recliners in the spa and read.
My cancer was diagnosed two years ago today. It’s been a long two years, and in many
ways has turned my life upside down.
I feel like I’m compressing 30 years into three years.
Saturday November 23
Another sea day and we head back to New York. I spent more than four hours in the spa
– Jennifer came up a bit later – then we found some lunch and took a nap. The sea has been getting rougher as we
sail north in the open Atlantic.
Saturday evening, crossed the boundary of a cold front. The temperature dropped 30 degrees in
about 3 hours, the wind spooled up to gale force, and the waves got steadily
larger. Our cabin is in the center
of the ship, so we have the least amount of pitching, but we can still feel the
pitching of the 1000 foot ship in the waves.
Sunday, November 24
We woke up to feel the ship moving in the heavy seas. We headed to the spa located on the 12th
deck above the bridge, and watched as the bow crashed through waves over 40
feet high. At times the spray
reached up to the windows of the spa.
I was grateful that we were on a ship larger than a WWII aircraft
carrier. Even so, it was such a
bumpy ride that the ship had to slow down to about 20 knots. Winds were over 60 knots; walking
across the outside pool deck was like walking through a wind tunnel. The captain warned that we might be
latte arriving in NYC tomorrow. We
spent the afternoon watching three NFL games and dozing in our cabin. We’ve discovered that the brownies that
room service delivers are mighty tasty.
Monday November 25
Our arrival in NYC was delayed by two hours due to the heavy
seas. We got up at about 8 am,
packed up (one small rollerboard each), had breakfast, then went to the
Spinnaker Lounge above the (closed) spa to watch us sail back under the Verrazano
bridge and into New York harbor, with the sun shining on the face of the Statue
of Liberty.
Our delayed arrival made disembarkation a rush. Even though the first hour was supposed
to be for passengers with carry-on luggage only, it seemed that everyone was
crowding to get onto dry land. We
shuffled along and finally got off, found a cab and went straight to Penn
Station for a train to Metropark.
We were on the road by 12:30 pm, and made good time on the drive
home.
All in all, it was an enjoyable cruise.
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