Finsatsea: December 17 - The Pacific Ocean

For the last two days the ocean has lived up to its name. We’ve had calm seas, blue skies and warm (actually hot and humid) temperatures. Since I last wrote we stopped in Puntarenas, Costa Rica and Puerto Chiapas, Mexico. I didn’t get off the ship in either port. I’m becoming like some of the passengers I’ve wondered about in the past who never get off the ship. In my defense, in Puntarenas I’d been on all the tours offered on previous visits and the town itself is dirty and grubby with the most prominent thing being a Burger King. Plus it was so hot that I’m surprised soles of shoes didn’t melt on the pavement. Puerto Chiapas is one of those made-up ports Mexico has created. Unlike Cancun and Ixtapa which were created to be resorts, Chiapas wasn’t, so it has a big palapa, some palm trees and a little fountain in the middle of a circle spelling out the name of the port. It was also incredibly hot and humid again. So I chose to stay on board and pretty much did nothing constructive.

This is Puerto Chiapas. Not much here.

There were some ladies dancing on the dock which was nice, but I wondered how they didn't suffer from heat attacks.

This afternoon I’m meeting the Cruise Director to have a talk with him about the music in the Club. I’ve written often enough that’s the place I like to go in the evening to listen to live music and dance occasionally. On this ship there seems to be the most bizarre scheduling of the live groups. Several times my friends and I have gone down there and the music has ended between 11:15 and 11:30. When we’ve asked we were told the next group would come at 12:30 AM. How does that make sense? A one-hour gap when there’s no music especially when there are two music groups on the ship. It’s hard to explain if you’re not here, but it’s really bugging us and I hope to find out what’s going on because it’s unlike any other cruise I’ve been on in recent years.

Enough complaining. Aside from that I’m having a lovely time. My friends and I have discovered the joys of special ordering of food. On sea days the restaurant is open for breakfast and lunch and we go there because it’s cooler and more peaceful than the other venues. (Well, I don’t make it for breakfast because I get up too late.) We’ve been ordering deviled eggs with caviar as a sort of lunch appetizer and I have to say they are delicious. It’s very decadent but my excuse is I don’t eat breakfast and I’d never eat them at home. We’ve had a couple of good guest entertainers including a marvelous Japanese pianist I’ve heard before. I haven’t been back to art class because they were making something with beads and I have absolutely no interest in that. I won’t say much about the trivia team because we haven’t been doing too well. I mean really, the last two days the final questions, which really decided the winner, were yesterday how many US presidents did Queen Elizabeth meet and today how many British Prime Ministers were there during her reign. We Americans were off by one (but that doesn’t count for anything) on the former but the Brits on our team weren’t able to answer the second question and obviously we had no clue. After Puerta Vallarta when we have many sea days we’ll begin cumulative trivia again and our day will come.

Trivia update: Today's trivia questions were all Christmas related and there was nearly a mutiny. I must explain that the most basic rule of trivia is that the person with the microphone is always right. Except this time he was absolutely wrong!!! The first controversial question was how many ghosts appear in A Christmas Carol by Dickens. The Cruise Director, who is British and should know better, said three. Anyone who has read the book or seen a movie or tv version of it knows there are four - the ghost of Marley and ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. He finally conceded he was mistaken on that one. The second controversy arose over how many and what were the names of the reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh in Twas the night before Christmas. He said nine including Rudolph, which is absolutely wrong. He hasn't conceded on that so we've added him to Santa's naughty list. Aren't you glad to know all these trivial things we spend our time on here on the ship?

More Christmas decorations have appeared. There are some really nice gingerbread villages popping up around the ship. This one outside the shop is my favorite. I love the castle or whatever it is in the middle.