You say Tortola, I say Tortuga...

So we've pulled out of Tortola and are making our way north to Castaway Cay. It will take our 8th sea day in which to make the trip, arriving a bit later in the morning at the island and leaving late afternoon in order to make Port Canaveral in good time Saturday morning.

Tortola is a smaller island than yesterday's St Maarten. The town is right there at the end of the pier, but many of the activities are on the other side of the island. As one cruiser asked: Why didn't the captain park the ship on that side?

We're now headed westerly south of the many islands before turning northwest towards the Bahamas. Instead of 18,000 feet of water we're in only 180 feet, though we are speeding along at 22 knots (our top speed is 24 knots). We'll be passing up the eastern side of the Bahamas so hope to avoid the storm presently crossing Florida and predicted to affect the states as far north of Vermont.

And blessed relief, the toilet just flushed! For the last half-hour it has just sat there. Calls to engineering resulted in replies that they were aware of the problem and were working on it. A recent call from Guest Services checking on the status of the problem brought a negative response from us. However, it seems to be working again. Whew!

On board ships, the sanitary system is run under a vacuum system. If for some reason there is no vacuum, the toilet doesn't flush. Last week there was a problem for a short time with a brief delay, but it righted itself. This time it took a bit more (two calls to Engineering before it was fixed. I'm guessing that the problem was area-wide and not just our cabin like the phone and shower problems earlier this week. We've never had problems on Disney ships, but it's making up for it on this voyage.

It will soon be time to visit the spa for my appointment for the Men Only Spa Treatments (hair cut/style, Frangipani scalp massage, and Spa mini-facial). Haven't had a hair cut in a month from a new shop down the street in SMA ($20mp = about $1.49). We'll see what Alex can do for a bit more (!). Michael is there now. Then tomorrow are our manicures. At least we'll be leaving DCL looking better!

Last Sea Day – Monday, September 27th

Or perhaps it should be titled Ick! The humidity of the Caribbean is Back! This is actually the last sea day of the Atlantic crossing, but we still have days in St Maarten, Tortola, the real last sea day, and Castaway Cay before docking at Port Canaveral on Saturday, October 2nd.

What can I say about the intervening days? It's only been a week since my last post and it's included both dinner and brunch at Palo (we're on the waiting list for an additional dinner; others have told us that they had no trouble booking additional nights; we'll see if they love us or not), dinners rotating through Lumiere's, Artist's Palate, and Parrot Cay in addition to breakfasts and lunches at Topsiders Grill, the food court on Deck 9, new shows featuring talent brought on board at Funchal (a hypnotist, a comedian, and a magician with a new set of talent boarding at St Maarten), and the daily Cookies & Cream drinks at the Cove Cafe in the adults only section of Deck 9. Mustn't forget the Martini, Mojito, and Margarita tastings, too.

We found that you can download Kindle books while in the middle of the Atlantic, so running out of reading material has been solved. We've learned to deal with the on-board laundry (luckily the do-it-yourself laundry was too busy to use...) and the short-comings of the formal wear rental company. Lots of down time spent reading and napping. The sun was hot, so time was spent in the shade outside the Cove Cafe (coffeehouse) or in the cabin. Although the larger suites were nice, our cabin works fine. And the balcony is shaded with a huge open-air porthole for watching the world slide by.

Tonight is another production number developed especially for this Mediterranean season, Walt Disney, The Dream Goes On. Over the next few nights we have Jodi Benson, the Crew Talent Show, the classic production Disney Dreams (with more special effects than you can shake a stick at) at which I will cry at the ending when Tinkerbell sprinkles her fairy dust over the entire theater (I start to tear up thinking about it), and Remember the Magic: A Final Farewell (don't know this one).

Then it will be time to say goodbye to all the friends we've made on board during our 14-day crossing of the Atlantic and cruising through the Caribbean.

Once we're back in Florida we've 6 days in WDW at the Boardwalk Villas with Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, Food and Wine in Epcot, and non-stop bus riding to the various parks for fun, adventure, and dinners at our fave restaurants.

Should be able to blog on a daily basis while there. Then a quick non-stop flight to Mexico City on AeroMexico (Mexicana being in bankruptcy; Note to Self – will our travel insurance cover the cost of the new tickets if Mexican doesn't refund our money?), a stay at a nearby hotel, and bus/taxi the next morning back to San Miguel – home, sweet home. Collect the dogs (hope they remember us) from their boarding kennel and we'll be back to normal. I suppose it's time to buckle down and drill the holes in the walls to hold the nails from which we'll hang the pictures.

Life at Sea - Tuesday, September 21st

Awoke this morning to a quiet sea as we sailed towards Funchal in the Medeira Islands (Portuguese). And we are all alone as far as the eye can see. In past days there was always some bit of coastline on the horizon – primarily Spain, but also Morocco as we left Gibraltar.

Today is different. We're presently about 240 nm from Gibraltar and still 350 nm from Funchal in pretty deep water (about 14,000 feet) – enough to give us non-swimmers pause. Okay; we just don't think about it. Anything deeper than we are tall is all the same – too deep – which includes most swimming pools!

Leaving Barcelona we spent a day at sea, arriving in Gibraltar on Monday morning to a bit of overcast sky. It was windy, too, up on the rock so our excursion was canceled when the winds caused the gondolas to be shut down for safety. Although the tour was postponed until the afternoon, there was no guarantee that it would go forward at that point, so we bowed out and spent the day aboard ship. There was a brief downpour in the morning, but we were in our cabin at the time and didn't notice it until we went looking for lunch and thought they'd hosed off the decks.

Today will again be a quiet day as we work our way to the Medeira Islands for tomorrow's stop. Our excursion on Funchal has already been canceled due to the effects of Hurricane Earl. So we'll be having a long time aboard ship including the following sea days, until we reach St Maarten in the Caribbean.

Time to enjoy relaxing days, catching up on Disney movies (surprise), eating well, and enjoying the Disney stage shows in Walt's theater. Life is rough! It will be rougher if my Kindle runs out of new books to read. Hope to replenish its library tomorrow while in Funchal. Don't think there will be a connection out here on the open ocean with paying for it!

The only bad news today is that the tuxedo rental company had sent the wrong shirts to us: my shirts were not of the wing collar style; Michael's shirts were of the wing-collar style, but were the wrong size – unless his arms would suddenly shrink about 3 inches in length. A call to Guest Services who contacted Wardrobe and replacement shirts were found for delivery today. However Wardrobe called this morning to tell us that the shirts had regular collars, not wing collars, so we're back to wearing bowties with regular collars, which looks rather dorky. And all the cufflinks and matching studs (both from the rental company and those we brought from home) are useless. Guess we should have ponied up the money to pay for the extra baggage and brought our own formal wear along. Next time we'll know better!

Disney at Last!

After falling asleep last night to the continuing deluge we awoke to a cloudy, but dry, day.. Up early, packed, and ready to go. This is the day we'd been waiting for for nearly two years – the TransAtlantic cruise began today!

After a quick dash next door for coffee and a croissant we loaded our baggage into the bus and made our way to the port. A huge cry went up from the riders when we first spotted the Magic. Well, actually a huge cry went up when we thought we saw the Magic – and again when we did see the Magic.

A lot of bustling around to get our baggage checked-in with the ship, a lot of waiting for the previous passengers to disembark and the cabins to be tidied, a lot of time to process everyone on board for the cruise, and finally our boarding group number (2) was called and we were on our way up the gangway.

We normally cruise on the Wonder, but the Magic is very much like her so there were few surprises. A scrumptuous lunch in Parrot Cay and our cabins were ready. We've been spoiled cruising in concierge with our favorite cabin: a sideways Category 3. Not quite as deep as other cabins but 3 cabins wide, there's lots of space – and space is at a premium aboard a ship. Our Navigator's Cabin was much smaller (1/3 the size), but with a partially enclosed verandah that we might actually use instead of our w-i-d-e verandah upon which we seldom step. And enough room for all our things.

Montserrat for Beginners

We spent today visiting the monastery of Montserrat. We awoke to rain, so after a quick coffee and nosh at the cafe next door, we headed out to find an umbrella. Not many stores open that early in them morning in Spain. I'm used to Target which opens at 8 am. However, after getting rather wet (jackets and ball caps), we found ourselves at the Tourist Information office beneath the Plaça Catalunya, which opened at 9 and stocked umbrellas. They say Barcelona all over them, but they kept us dry.

Umbrellas in hand, we then made our way to the Julia Travel Agency where we exchanged our voucher for tickets and met our guide, Jordi, and boarded the bus to Montserrat. Jordi (the English version of his name is George) – and it's a soft 'j' like Zsa Zsa, not a hard 'j' as in 'jump' – kept us entertained with facts about the city, industry, countryside, history, and the monastery along the way..

We went as far as the little village at the foot of the mountain and then took the cog-wheel railway to the top while others continued on the bus. And it's not really the top. There is a funicular that will take you the rest of the way to the real top of the mountain. However, the clouds persisted and the top was enveloped in clouds so we stuck to the precincts.

Fascinating place. Originally built around 1000 AD, it was destroyed by Napolean's army and the present monastery was rebuilt around 1900, making very efficient use of the space on the shelf on the mountainside. There's even a small hotel. The boys sing gloriously and the new pipe organ is quite grand. The basilica itself is a bit ornate (check out the many, many chandeliers – each different) but not overpowering. We saw the Black Madonna from afar and did not stand in line to parade down the side aisle and up behind the apse to touch her for a blessing. Warning, if camera flashes disturb you, no one follows the 'No Camera' rule inside.

We finally returned to town after an hour's delay on the highway. Not that they'd use them on a highway, but around town there is a scheme of temporary-use bicycles. For 30 euros a year, one is given a card which will allow you to borrow a bicycle for 2 hours' use. You drop it off at a depot near your destination and someone else may use it for their trip. Users number nearly 200,000 and there are many dozen depots around the city.

Since it was late, we decided to walk the Ramblas as we had done last night. This time we walked all the way to the port, passing many outdoor cafes, flower vendors, hawkers of toys, and local folks who dressed as statues and cadged coins from those who took pictures with them. Some were quite good.

We eventually found a place for sangria and a bite of dinner and afterwards went searching for a better sangria. Eventually found the cafe where we'd lunched on Thursday who made their sangria with a darker red wine. Ordered a few tapas to munch with the sangria and listened to a couple of guys debated how to spend the rest of the night – and their complaints about the price of their wine.

About that time it began to rain again. After a tremendous flash of lightning and peal f thunder right overhead, a deluge began. As the cafe was closing up, we took our umbrellas and headed back to the hotel, hopping over flooded gutters and discovering that our umbrellas weren't entirely waterproof in heavy rain!

Safely back in our room, toweled off, we fell asleep. Rather, I fell asleep while Michael went off in search of other cruisers staying at the same hotel and congregating in the first floor lounge.

Greetings from Sunny Spain!

Well, it’s actually raining right now, but it’s 4 am so it doesn’t really count, right? Has it been sunny – check my forehead after riding around on the top of a double-decker bus all day without a hat!

We finally arrived at the hotel about 1 am after traveling since Tuesday morning, just a little bit cranky. The trip to Leon and flights from Mexico went well, however there was trouble from LAX onward.

We arrived at LAX five hours early for our 9 pm flight to London and on to Barcelona only to find out that it wasn’t departing until 11 pm. The agent at the BA ticket counter assured us that there would be time to make our connection in London so we settled down for a long wait – and it was long. Particularly when the flight didn’t take off until nearly 11:30.

Pleasant flight and all. Seating in World Traveler Plus is much roomier than World Traveler (not as good as their Business Class (Club) which has seats that flatten out to make beds…), but nice. However, arriving late at Heathrow Terminal 5 and taking transport to Terminal 3 could have worked except that we needed to go through security screening once again. Even with priority, we tore down the corridor to our departure gate only to be met with a group of fellow passengers from LAX being led back to booking agents by a B.A. employee. Even though they knew that their flight from L.A. with passengers booked on the flight to Barcelona were arriving late, the plane did not wait for us.

(I still blame the agent at LAX who didn’t change our flight to their 6:30 flight for which we were in plenty of time. And would have eliminated this whole problem.)

However, they booked us on their later flight to BCN so we eventually made it to the hotel by 1 am after taking an airport bus into town (only 10 euros for 2 instead of a taxi for 50 euros. Luckily, the city is alive at night and we were able to find a tourist info kiosk that was open and able to direct us towards the hotel.

This morning we were up (not early), chose to have breakfast sitting on the Rambla watching the world stroll past and eventually walked down towards the Plaça de Catalunya, found the office to exchange our pre-paid voucher for the ticket for the hop-on/hop-off bus and spend the day seeing the sights.

Although it was billed as hop-off/hop-on, lines at the more interesting sights were so long, we decided to stay on the bus and take pictures from afar. Between the blue tour in the morning and the red tour in the afternoon, we saw most of what BCN has to offer.

Eventually it was time to take a nap while Michael went to the 1^st floor lounge (like England, on what we would call the second floor), where he met several of the folks staying here who would be on the TransAtlantic cruise!

Our evening stroll down the Ramblas (it goes all the way to the port, though we didn’t walk it the whole way) ended when we returned to the neighborhood of the hotel for a 10 pm dinner of tapas and sangria. Yummy!

At the start of our walk we did scout out the travel agency at which we need to exchange our voucher for tomorrow’s (now today’s) trip to the Montserrat Monastery in the hills outside town. Turns out it’s about a 5-minute walk from the hotel. The Praktik Rambla is an older hotel that’s been ‘boutiqued’ up and is very comfortable. The bathroom is to die for! Dark green subway tiles, a square waterfall shower head, spiffy flat, square basin, et cetera. Our room on the third floor (fourth floor in the US) is dead center and at the front of the hotel and has a small balcony overlooking the Ramblas. Quite happy with the location, too – only two blocks from the Plaça Contalunya, sort of the center of the interesting part of town.

Although today’s trip does not include a double-decker bus, instead using a coach and cog-wheel railway (you know how I am about alternate forms of transportation) to reach the mountain top, I’m wearing a hat!

A Vacation from a Vacation

Having recently retired, it was time to take a vacation.

Actually it was a vacation initially planned two years ago when the cruise first opened for bookings. Getting three weeks off at work was a gamble, but got it approved last year. However, having retired in the meanwhile, we've added a week at WDW following the cruise, so we'll now be gone a month. Kenneling costs for our four dogs preclude any additional time away from home.

One day to go and there's still things left on our to-do list, beginning with figuring our the status of our tuxedo order. We had recently acquired our own tuxedos/dinner jackets/etc for the cruise, but with the new charges for extra luggage, decided to rent formal wear that would be delivered to the ship.

Placed the order last weekend. Haven't received the promised email confirmation but noticed a charge on the account. Only for one tuxedo and it's not the full amount. Since we leave tomorrow and must pack our tuxes if need be (and buy additional luggage space), I'll be on the phone at 7 am NYC time to make inquiries. It's less expensive to take our own - even with the extra baggage charges, but schlepping around 5 suitcases will be a drag, so to speak. What did we do before wheeled cases?

There's also one last mail pick-up here in town, taking the dogs out to the kennel in the countryside, one last load of laundry to do (we got the washer/dryer up and mostly running), arrange a ride to the airport, book additional luggage with BA (it's cheaper in advance) if we're taking our own formalware, getting Euros to start us off in Barcelona, picking up our INAPAM card this afternoon (we need it for the return trip), and probably a few other things I haven't remembered. Oh yeah, packing for the trip.

I may need to eliminate some of the things I grabbed yesterday. We intend to use the laundry services on board the Magic and there's a washer/dryer in our villa at WDW. No need to pack an outfit for every day, is there?

Much of the time aboard ship is being planned by a group of Dissers, so we won't have a chance to get bored while bobbing our way across the Atlantic. In fact, we may need to time at WDW to recuperate. They have more activities planned than you can shake a stick at. Glad I loaded some new books on my Kindle if I need time away from all the hilarity.

I should explain that 'Dissers' are members of the Dis (pronounced 'Diz' as in Disney) internet forums. Many of them are veterans of the first transAtlantic voyage last year and most of them know each other. They have posted over 2500 message on the XAtlantic thread, beginning before the bookings were announced.

Planning has run amok! We have special shirts to wear for the first meet-and-greet aboard ship before it embarks Saturday. And the hilarity continues from there. There are special activities on board for group members, there are special shore excursions, the list goes on. Some are already in BCN. Some are sailing back-to-back Mediterranean/XAtlantic cruises.

We're all slightly nuts!!! (er, enthusiastic!) We have pre-ordered wine for dinner every night and there are several bars on board, so we'll get through this somehow with only minor liver damage.

We had our airline tickets before this retirement thing came up, so we are only in BCN 3 days before the cruise, in time for some light sightseeing: Gaudi's Segrada Familia chapel - still under construction and estimated to be finished in 2040 - and other 'Organic Modernista' buildings and gardens; Monserrat & its Black Madonna (with a cog railway ride!); Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso called Catalonia home (Catalonia has it's own language; I wonder what happened to my handy list of phrases in Catalonian?); and Santa Maria del Mar has one of the widest Gothic naves. We hope to squeeze in some time on a Segway, but that's fungible.

Guess I'd better get back to bed for a few more hours of shut-eye before the day begins. I'll try to post along the way, but the transAtlantic cruise time will probably be silent. There is internet aboard the ship, but it's muy $$, so there may be a gap until we hit WDW.

Cool, Clear Water

After a busy day yesterday with our Pedro, his helper, and the washer/dryer guy we enjoyed a delightful evening at Tacos Don Felix. For years Tacos Don Felix was a sort-of impromptu restaurant under a large tent on weekends only in our colonia of San Rafael. Even then there were tablecloths and a chandelier.

Now the restaurant has been moved into his house and garden atop a hill in the same colonia with the same menu (or possibly enhanced). A charming menu featuring very tasty meals served by charming and skillful staff in a charming setting. And he remembered us from our first visit some months ago when we first arrived in San Miguel.

The entrees include the seven taco platter featuring seven tacos with seven different fillings including one with a huitlacoche filling made from the fungus which grows on immature ears of corn. Sounds a bit gross but in the sauce in which it is served it has a very rich, mushroomy flavor. Don't think about what's in it; just concentrate on the rich flavor.

The only distraction was a nearby table of the-ladies-who-lunch having dinner. So very stereotypical, they could have been drawn from a Stephen Sondheim musical.

Today Pedro et al have abandoned us for better offers. We still need to call in a washer technician to check out the sequence in each washing cycle, but we can do that next week. By attending the washer we can cancel the multiple rinses for which it has developed a fondness.

The dryer seems to be functioning normally, which means the technician managed to follow the pictures in the instructions for converting it from natural gas to LP which we have in SMA. And they figured out that the sensors needed to be reconnected so that the drum would turn. We had to tell them to connect the vent -- and show them how the metalicized exhaust hose expanded to reach from the machine to the vent in the wall. And for this they wanted $2600 mp! I think we were taken, particularly since we now need to bring in a repairman to check out the finer points of the washer.

Michael thinks that - if and when we move - we should leave the washer/dryer behind for the next tenant. Our landlord showed us the new home he was building next to his house. A bit small for us; otherwi se we might consider it.

Today we're getting clean water! Although the water pumped through the municipal system may start out pure, by the time it reaches a person's home it has had a chance to become contaminated. It's don't-drink-the-water time.

As a result, we use a fair amount of bottled water which is purchased in large garafons which are upended in a dispenser on the kitchen counter. Washing one's teeth occurs in the kitchen where it is safe to rinse one's mouth with the purified water. Showers are taken with one's mouth firmly closed, lest the water finds its way into your digestive system and acts up.

Most homes in Mexico have either a cistern and/or a large black plastic tinaco on the roof for holding water. The tinaco on the roof provides the water pressure for your home as well as stockpiles water if the municipal supply is interrupted. Our tinaco holds 750 liters or nearly 200 gallons. It was drained in anticipation of the person who would clean the sediment and whatever else is in there before refilling and adding the purification system.

Finding the correct valve that turned off the water to the house was an adventure itself, but suffice it to say we finally found the correct valve and let the excess water flow down the drain. The cleaner is here now emptying the rest of the water and any 'stuff' that had accumulated in the tinaco. I believe our landlord said that it had been cleaned 'recently,' but Michael (who is brave enough to climb up the ladder to our 4th floor roof) assures me that we're getting our money's worth hiring the cleaner.

Once it's ready to go, we'll turn the water back on and the cleaner will leave a plastic capsule in the tinaco that contains ceramic spheres which are treated with colloidal silver. The colloidal silver has antibacterial properties and makes our water supply safe and toxic-free for the whole house. 1 part silver to 10,000,000 parts water destroys all microbes without causing harm to man or other animals - more effectively than chlorine, I'm told. It's the same type of system used by NASA for water purification.

We've just now turned the water supply to the house back on and can hear the water refilling the roof reservoir. In about 3 hours the water should be purified and ready to go. We'll be able to wash our teeth in the bathroom instead of the kitchen near the garafon; the water the dogs drink from the toilets will not upset their stomachs; and we won't be constantly running to the local tienda for another garafon of pure water.

This is living!

Rain, Rain, Don't Leave Yet!

We all knew I'd get around to the weather again, right? While folks were saying that the rainy season was over, I was hoping it wasn't. I like rain - especially electrical storms. Grew up in the midwest where it rained all the time. There's a reason it's so green most of the year (except for the time it's white): rain.

I've even given thought to establishing a mini-weather station that hooks into the weather underground via the 'net. There are no 'official' weather reports from SMA, as we don't have an airport. And the weather here in the highlands can vary dramatically every few miles - witness the rain we can see in the mountains that doesn't reach us. There are two mini-weather stations already - one in a suburb and one out in the campo, but there's always room for one more central, eh?

So yesterday morning we woke up to a wet bedroom terrace. The precipitation had dwindled to a mere mist by the time we awoke, but it was water. Then yesterday there were lots of dark clouds in the sky with rain in the mountains against which we nestle, but nothing reached the city.

So this afternoon when the natural light in our office dimmed from the six small skylights, we joked that perhaps it was going to rain. A moment later it was raining. Goush, goush; thunder and lightning (there must have been lightning somewhere, I'm sure, to go with all the thunder); and all the skylights (including the ones in the two boveda ceilings and the one that provides light to the office bath and kitchen) pitter-patted with the rain.

It turns out that the epoxy patching job I had done on one of the skylights in the office held; no dripping. As the thunder continues to crash and roll we're snug in our house with the dogs gathered around (or perhaps they're looking for their dinners?).

Enjoy it while we can; the dry season will soon be upon us.