Jay’s Internet Log

Early this morning, Pacific Princess will arrive at the port of Santarem, and following the completion of our arrival checks, we will make a sharp turn to starboard and out of the main river flow and manoeuvre alongside our designated berth for the day. In the evening, when all passengers and crew have returned to the ship, we will secure the ship for sea and slip our mooring lines. Once the ship is clear of the berth, we will turn to port and retrace our steps back up the Amazon River to Boca da Valeria.

Today we were in Santarem, Para. The city looks bigger than Parintins, but we never made it into town as it was far away from the pier. We took a river boat tour, which took us to a meeting of the waters, where the black water of the inlet meets the brown water of Amazon River. They mix like water and oil and both flow together. The river boat then took us down a narrow passageway where we saw lots of birds, cows, horses, and indigenous people. They live in little huts on stilts and the kids run up and down the banks waving at us. The boat stopped for us to see a sloth, but it was really hard to spot. Once we got to the end of the small river, we stopped and fished for Pirhana. Our boat only caught a few small catfish, but we could see the Pirhana nibbling at our lines. They kept stealing Heather’s bait off her hook. We both got a little too much sun on this tour, and once we got back to the ship, we shopped at a few small stands on the pier. The dinner menu didn’t look all that appetizing, so we decided to eat up in the Sterling Steakhouse. I had a tenderloin steak and rack of lamb, both of which were amazing. After dinner, instead of writing this up and seeing a show, we both fell asleep for about 10 hours.

Late last night, we disembarked our Manaus pilots and continued on our river passage under the guidance of Amazon pilots.  Around lunchtime today, we will slow down and drop anchor near the port of Parintins, and start our tender service.  In the evening, we will heave up the anchor and continueon our river passage to Santarem.

Happy New Year!  Last night, Heather and I stayed up to welcome 2012 in the bar on the top deck.  There was a band playing and streamers flying everywhere.  This morning, the kitchen staff had an impressive buffet laid out in the dining room, and they allowed me to take some photos of it before everyone dug in.  The ship arrived at Parintins around 11:00AM and Heather and I took a tender into “town”.  Mom and Dad stayed on board as Dad is still not feeling 100%, but hopefully he’ll feel better soon.  It only took 4 minutes to get to the pier, and I caught the whole trip on video, which will subsequently be sped up to last only about 15 to 20 seconds eventually.  We were not signed up for any excursion today, but we saw many tricycle drivers waiting to take us for a ride.  These tricycles were basically large wheelbarrows with a small roof and bicycle attached to the back.  A local man rode the bike and we sat up front.  He spoke zero English, so my high school and college training in Spanish proved useful.  Parintins reminded me of Resident Evil 5.  Since it’s both Sunday and New Year’s Day, most everything was closed down, and the locals were just hanging out close to their homes, singing and conversing with one another.  I mention Resident Evil 5 because I felt that at any moment, the empty, run-down streets could slowly fill with zombies.  Another characteristic of Parintins is that almost everyone rides either a bike or motorcycle.  We saw children riding motorcycles, sometimes 3 on one, with their arms stretched out, holding other kids who were on bikes, pulling them along.  Nobody wears helmets.  Our tricycle first took us to a cathedral, which was empty except for a single child, and had one of the nicest nativity scenes I’ve ever seen inside it.  We then were taken to their Boi Bamba festival stadium.  Not being on a real tour, we didn’t learn what this was, but we know that there are two teams; a red one and a blue one.  The spectators take sides and half the seats are blue and the other half red.  We were then taken down some back streets and back to the pier area, where we shopped for a bit before heading back to the ship.  Once on board, we had some cheeseburgers and took a nap.  As one would expect, there are many bugs here on the Amazon River, and somehow a cricket got inside our room.  We found it right before dinner, but decided to let him stay as a pet of sorts.  For dinner I had duckling and turkey pot pie.  We are now waiting for a production show and that will probably be it for the night.  If anything exciting happens, I will write about it tomorrow!

Throughout last night and today, Pacific Princess has remained quietly alongside her berth in Manaus. This evening, when all passengers and crew have been confirmed on board, we will slip our mooring lines, thrust off the berth, and manoeuvre clear of the dock. We will then pass Ilha Marapata on our port side and then turn to port, heading out into the River Amazon, on our way to Parintins.

Today was an interesting day. The four of us were scheduled to take a tour of the famous Opera House, but during breakfast, Dad didn’t feel well and he and Mom stayed on board. I was upset because I knew that Dad really wanted to see the Opera House, as he had visited it previously in 1963. Heather and I took the bus ride to it and were amazed at how beautiful this building was. It is nestled in the middle of the city, and stands out among the other architecture which is mostly drab and plain. The Opera House was built during the height of the rubber boom, and once it was completed, the rubber boom had ended, so it never really got much use. The different pieces of it; flooring, chandelliers, bricks, etc, were all imported from different European countries, and it is obvious when walking around. In one room, they required us to wear little booties over our shoes due to the fragile wood flooring. Downstairs they had a replica of the Opera House made out of Legos. We really enjoyed that! We then boarded our bus and drove to the Military Zoo. This is a training grounds for the Elite Military of Amazonas, and we were told that the military officers do not like their pictures taken. I found this out first-hand while trying to catch them on video! We saw Anacondas, different types of monkeys, the largest rodent in the world, Caymans and Alligators, and some really cool looking large cats. It was here where it started downpouring on us so we took refuge in a roofed-in snack bar for about 15 minutes. Once we could get to the bus, we left and went to a small native indian museum where we saw pottery and jewelry that the natives made. This tour took about 5 hours and was fun and informational. After lunch, Heather, Mom, and I walked into Manaus to see the market. We had been hearing firecrackers going off all day because it is New Year’s Eve, and when we got into the middle of everything, they were going off all around us. Watching us walk around in this crowd must have been entertaining because we stuck out like sore thumbs around the people who live here year-round, 3 degrees south of the Equator! For dinner I had Sirloin Steak and Pheasant, and Heather had four Lobster tails. Tonight there are parties all around the ship to welcome in 2012, and we are looking forward to attending.

We will be remaining alongside out berth tonight and tomorrow, before getting underway tomorrow evening.

It took a total of 30 hours to travel from Hartford to Manaus, half of this time spent in the lovely Miami Dade International Airport. The flight to Manaus was chartered by Princess Cruises and was full of fellow passengers. The plane had about 50% more crew than was required, including 3 pilots. One of the pilots sat in the very back of the plane for the entire trip, playing Skyrim on a really nice laptop. I spent some time back there talking about the phenominal RPG with him. Flying over the region called Amazonas was interesting. Looking down, all that could be seen were clouds, lush greenery, and many winding rivers. The airport is what you would expect for an airport in the middle of the jungle. It looks like something that hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years, and the bathroom I visited had a smell that I couldn’t get out of my nose for about 45 minutes, if you can believe that. Seriously, I caught a whiff of it even after our bus arrived at the pier. I am accompanied by Mom, Dad, and Heather. This is my eleventh cruise with Princess, and my first time to Brazil. Manaus is a city of 2 million people and is situated in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. It sits next to the River Negro and has a checkered history. It became very popular with the export of rubber, but quickly declined to near nothing when Malaysia could produce rubber for much less money. It now holds many favelas and markets. One of its most prized structures is the famous Opera House, which we will be visitng tomorrow. Pacific Princess is a sister ship to the ex-Royal Princess that we loved so much. It holds close to 700 passengers, and this sailing is completely full. When we boarded, our rooms were not ready yet, so we went up to the buffet, where other passengers were waiting. I had a waffle and by now was completely delirious after being awake for close to 40 hours. Heather and I decided to walk around, so we went out on deck and walked the length of the ship. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a place with more humidity. It is both hot and humid here, but after spending so much time in the freezing cold Miami airport, we were fine with it. We randomly ran into the head room steward who told us that we could head to our room. After a quick shower, Heather and I fell asleep for a few hours. I awoke and then took a walk outside on the pier.  I snapped a few photos and watched as local boats came and went. These boats are full of hammocks, and locals take them up river for either work or vacation. They are packed like cans of sardines. We then came back on board and had dinner. I planned on seeing a local folklore show after dinner, but can barely keep my eyes open, so we decided to come back to the room and sleep. That’s going to happen right…..now.

During the night, Royal Princess continued her passage south following the coast of Vancouver Island.  The ship will continue to do so until around 7:30AM this morning when we will turn to port and enter the Strait of Juan De Fuca.  Vessels transiting the Strait are required to follow a vessel Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) which separates inbound ships from those outbound.  Following the inbound lane of the scheme we will make our way east towards Victoria.  Rounding Race Rocks we shall then turn north and make our final approach into Victoria.  We expect to be alongside in Victoria around 2:00PM.

This morning, I woke up early and went to the gym again.  After breakfast, we started packing, something that isn’t nearly as exciting as unpacking was a few weeks back.  We only packed for an hour as I wanted to come and sit and wait for the final entertainment show of the cruise.  I sat and posted a single post before the Internet decided to give out on me, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post anything else until after getting home.  And now I’m home.  The final production show on the cruise was very good, and afterwards we had lunch, then finished packing.  Heather and I took our luggage up to the gym to weigh it, and it’s a good thing we did as one of our bags was 52 pounds, which would have cost $100 extra.  You’ve got to love the airlines (speaking of airlines, that’s a completely different story that won’t get written up here just now).  It was funny because we had our luggage all opened and were transferring clothes back and forth between bags in the middle of the gym.  At around 2:00PM, we arrived at Victoria, British Columbia, another port I’ve never been to before.  There’s an old Maritime law that states that a ship without 100% American crew can not start and end in US ports without visiting a foreign country, so that’s why we were here today.  Someone on the loudspeaker came on and said that there was a car show in town, so Mom and Dad took off for it, while Heather and I saw a lighthouse to walk to.  As we started walking to it, down a very long, narrow pathway that descended 30 feet to either side into the ocean sans handrails, the fog started to roll in, enough so we couldn’t see much in front of us.  I found it fun.  We saw some guys fishing and within 10 seconds of saying hello to them, the conversation turned to hockey.  Yes, we were in Canada!  We had a shore excursion this night.  We went to “The Enchanting Butchart Gardens”, a tour I signed up for because Mom loves flowers, and I’m glad that I did.  Victoria itself has a plethora of potted flowers all over the city, and it smells as such everywhere you go.  The Butchart Gardens is a 55 acre area that contains some of the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen.  The map has a route laid out for you to walk, and sometimes you’ll be walking down a path and all of a sudden there’s a huge garden below you.  It’s a place that I’d love to go back to given more time.  So, as I said earlier in this post, I am home now, and got home about 2:00AM local time last night.  The past 14-15 days have been some of the best cruising days I’ve ever had.  It may have been the itinerary, the ship, or the crew on the ship this time, but Princess Cruises has done it again, and I eagerly look forward to my next adventure with them.

Throughout the night, Royal Princess is following southwesterly courses along the Canadian coast of Graham Island.  In the early hours of the afternoon, we will continue on a southwesterly course with Vancouver Island on our port side.

Heather and I just witnessed what is probably our last sunset aboard Royal Princess, our favorite ship.  Princess is selling this ship to P&O early next year, and the probability of us being able to travel on her again is extremely low.  My whole family enjoys vacations on smaller ships much more than on larger ones, because we feel cramped and stressed out on the large ships.  Small ships are very personal, have larger rooms and showers, and are usually accompanied with the best itineraries.  I hope that Princess plans on keeping Royal’s sisters, Pacific and Ocean Princess.  We will always try to book our vacations on sub 1000 person ships for as long as they are available.  Anyways, so far this post has been written out of emotion, so let’s get back to what we did today.  This morning, we woke up at 8:00AM, partly because we were tired, and partly because we had to set our clocks forward an hour last night.  We forwent breakfast (I know, it’s blastphemous) and instead went to the gym.  After working out and sitting in the steam room for a few minutes, we met up with Mom who was waiting for us in the culinary demonstration.  We watched as the head chef, Maitre’d, and head pastry chef cooked up a few dishes and joked with one another.  It’s something that we always attend on the last day of the cruise, though today’s not the last day.  Afterwards, we toured the galley.  This ship has a most interesting galley.  Since it’s a very small ship, the galley is set on two floors, with an escalator between them, so junior waiters can walk downstairs, grab the prepared food, and then have a ride up the escalator into the dining room.  After the tour we had lunch, and then I took a few hours to have a couple of beers and a cigar on the balcony.  It was quite warm and I was comfortable in a short-sleeved shirt. We then played Bingo and lost as we always do, then got dressed up for our final formal dinner.  Tonight I had Pheasant and Heather had Lobster.  After dinner, all the junior waiters paraded around the dining room, each holding a Baked Alaska, which is a tradition with Princess.  I don’t know if other cruise lines also do this, and honestly for the longest time, I thought it was only done in Alaska, as my first cruise ever was up here, but they do it on every cruise.  It’s Dad’s favorite dessert, and mine too!  After dinner, we quickly changed out of our formal wear, lost $20 in Roulette, and walked a few laps around the track.  As the time for the sunset neared, Heather and I went to the stern of the ship and watched the sun go down one last time.  We’ll see it again tomorrow, but the ship will be in port, so it probably won’t have the same effect as it did tonight.  That’s about it…it’s bedtime now.

Today was completely awesome.  We woke up at 5:00AM and went up to the breakfast buffet to watch our entrance into my favorite Alaskan town:  Skagway.  As I arrived onto the deck, I noticed a large Princess ship coming in behind us.  At this point I didn’t know which ship it was, but it turned out to be the Sapphire Princess.  After we docked, I recorded it docking, a process which took over 36 minutes, but I plan on speeding it up so it takes much less than that.  I hope it works.  We disembarked the ship at 7:45AM and boarded the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad to take a trip up 3000 feet to the White Pass Summit and into Canada.  I love trains, and this was a great trip, especially on the way down because the engine switches sides at the top and we ended up being the last car on the way down, so the sites were fantastic.  After the three hour ride, we had lunch, then walked around the small town of Skagway.  It still has the old western feel to it that I remember, and we bought a totem pole.  This totem pole is unlike any other we’ve seen this trip, and we met the designer of it.  He autographed it for us, which was really nice.  We visited the Sarah Palin Store and bought a magnet.  Heather tried on a really nice fur hat, but we didn’t buy it.  We also saw a Bassett Hound eating ice cream.  We saw a traffic jam, which consisted of a train and two cars.  When we got back to the ship, we saw a local man sing and tell poems about the history of Alaska.  I had the best dinner of the cruise so far.  It consisted of a pineapple appetizer, French Onion Soup, then Duck in Asian sauce, a Ribeye steak, and a Turkey Pot Pie.  For dessert I had pineapple orange ice cream.  It was great.  There isn’t a show tonight as we’re just leaving Skagway after being here for twelve hours, so instead, we’re going to bed early as tomorrow we have an early rise to hopefully view some more wildlife and glaciers.

After letting go our lines in Seward, the Captain maneuvered the ship, abeam Lowell Point and took up southerly courses back through Resurrection Bay.  Rounding Caines Head, we then continued out through the Harding Gateway and into the Gulf of Alaska.  Parelleling the Kenai Penninsula, Royal Princess followed a south westerly course towards Kodiak Island.  Entering Chiniak Bay, we made our way through the buoyed channel leading into St. Paul’s Harbour.  Once in the Harbour we made our way north towards our berth expecting to be alongside by 7:00AM.

We are sitting here waiting to watch a dance show, I think about the 1920′s but I really don’t know.  I just know that I’m saving seats in the front row while eating cheese, grapes, and crackers.  This morning we pulled into Kodiak, a port that only this Princess ship goes to.  Most Alaskan cruises hit the eastern ports, and some of them start in Seward and Whittier, but only this ship and a single Clipper ship go to Kodiak, one ship per week.  Today’s tour took us to Fort Abercrombie, an old military base on one end of the island.  This was a walking tour, and we ended up walking a few miles in the rainforest.  Lucky for us, it wasn’t raining today, but was overcast.  I’ve never seen a forest like this.  The trees are very big, but what stands out is that they have moss growing on every branch.  There’s moss everywhere, and it’s quite the spectacle.  We saw a lot of different flowers, and Mom was very happy about that.  We also got to walk around some old abandoned barracks that have been turned into a museum.  This park was very nice.  After getting back to the ship, we had a quick lunch (curry chicken and rice, pineapple, and a slice of cheese pizza), then Mom, Heather, and I walked into town.  It’s just about a mile walk to get downtown, but runs along salmon canneries, so it’s quite pugnant.  There also aren’t any sidewalks, but we made do.  Kodiak has just a single traffic signal, and I took some photos of it.  We visited the Baranov Museum and a few shops before heading back to the ship, while being sprinkled on by rain.  We are now officially headed home, as we are heading East.  Tomorrow we have a full day at sea, which are always our favorites.  I look forward to not doing anything.