Date: Jan 1, 2007 1:58 AM
Subject: Sunday, December 31, 2006
Sunday, December 31, 2006
HAPPY
NEW YEAR
If it's Sunday this must be Progresso, Mexico. By golly it is.
We docked at about 7:00 this morning. Central time that is. Last night we had to turn the clocks back one hour. We had been to Progresso before, about four years ago. Nothing looks the same.
Last time we docked right in town. Now they built a new pier and a 7 mile bridge / roadway. It had been a dusty little town with no tourist amenities or services. We couldn't even get a cab.
I thought it was just a small town of about 5,000 but they tell me it is 50,000. They have people from the upper Midwest buying homes to retire. Much cheaper then the US.
We had signed up for an off road, drive it yourself, dune buggy tour. It turned out to be so popular that they canceled it due to the fact I was the only one signed up for it. So we took a walk to the end of the ship pier and saw the new area of tourist shops. There was a guy hawking tours to Merida. The ship listed it as 45 minutes each way. The cab guy said only about 25. Its only 20 miles.
Merida is the state capital. It has about one million people and was started in the 1500s. It was supposed to copy the town of Merida in Spain. We got in a Nissan Sentra that they had some other name for. Big mistake. Now there is no question. I am not Tinkerbell. Even with the front seat all the way forward, I do not fit. My feet kept falling asleep. Bobbi said so did I for most of the way there. The part they call the downtown was all blocked off for New Years parades. We drove around and saw some old very nice buildings. Most of which were huge houses. Almost all had been bought up by US companies and they were being used for offices and or service. As you drove along you could see buildings in all kinds of disrepair or just poorly kept. Almost everything is dirty and in need of paint.
Here is another city you don't want to see. I have known people that have been going there for many years. There is a nice beach and some tourist bars right across from the beach but the main reason to be there is, it is cheap. Popular brands of beer are $1.00 a bottle.
The other reason to stop here is it is the dropping off point for many of the Pyramids. Some close and others a long way. The most famous is Chichen Itza (Cich en It za). It is amazing to see but a tour takes 8 hours and it is very hot and dusty with very limited facilities. Most of the others we have seen.
Tonight we are invited to the staff captains table for New Years dinner. The captain is not Dag, the captain from last year and the only full time captain of the Seven Seas Voyager, ever. I will have to find out if Dag is just on vacation or what. The staff captain chose us before captain Knute could. That is the new captain. The k is pronounced (Kn oot). The staff captain is new also.
Knute was gang plank to welcome us back from our tour. He asked where we had been. Knute is very soft spoken and sometimes hard to hear. He is also very sarcastic. He said it must have been very exciting. Upon which Bobbi replied, "Oh yes. He slept most of the way there."
I am sure that by now everyone has heard about the bombings in Laem Chabang (Bangkok), Thailand. We are supposed to be there on March 16 for an overnight stay. This was one of my favorite places we visited last year and we looked forward to going back. They put us up at the Peninsula Hotel. The hotel, food and service was outstanding. The sites were amazing. The shopping was unbelievable. You could find most anything in the world at ridiculously low prices. We went to many places and always found the people friendly. It would be a shame to miss this. I know of no place they could substitute that would be equal.
Dinner was great again. That's lobster two nights in a row. They are just small ones but delicious and you can have all you want. The sugar free desserts are the best I have ever had anywhere. Last year they were not too good. The new chef is great.
There were only five of us at the staff captains table. The other couple are the entertainers in the observation lounge tonight. She sings and he plays piano. I think we may join them for the New Years celebration rather then the main show in the theater. Teo Srdelic is the staff captain. He is from Split Croatia. His English is excellent and he is very nice. Everyone seemed to enjoy listening to me or they were very polite. I don't think I ever shut up, but that happens a lot. What the heck. For the kind of money I'm paying the hired help better pretend they like listening to me. We did exchange some very interesting information though. I recently read that cruise ships are no longer allowed to have fire arms. The article said that even the traditional Capitan's pistol is no longer allowed. Teo's answer was, welllllllllll, you will have to ask the captain about that. Then he said not true after the other couple left. The lowest open deck at the rear of the ship is all fenced in now. Pirates are for real but no big threat to cruise ships. It would be stupid to attack a large cruise ship now. In possible danger areas they go at full speed. They do all kinds of drills to ward off possible attack and if you were a pirate, who would you want to attack. A slow freighter you can possibly sneak up on with a maximum of 30 to 40 people or a cruise ship with well over a thousand. He told us that Dag is coming back on the 9th of January when the world cruise starts. Teo leaves about the 19th but returns in March.
The main celebration was in the atrium on the 4th floor. There was good music and lots of noise but we chose to go up to the observation lounge at the front of the ship on the 11 th floor. There the lady we had dinner with was singing poorly. We had only walked in at 11:30 and it was almost midnight so we stayed for New Years. Right after we said hello to the singer lady and quickly departed to the atrium where they were playing good music and the singer was very good. While there we ran into the Rabbi and his wife. He said he would like to see us at the services on Friday evening. I said I used to be Jewish. We might come not. They didn't hear the not. Then we ran into the girl, from last year, that guided us from the Picasso Museum to the bus in a terrible down pour in Barcelona. Then Bobbi got tired (drank too much) so we went back to the room so I could send this.
Party Guys Out
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