Sunday, May 10, 2015
Today is Mother’s Day. Hi Mom! It is also our 30th
Anniversary. A big O anniversary being the reason we had originally booked O’s
Around the World in 180 days to celebrate. This is our replacement and today is
our day. It was a good day!
The fog horn started blowing about 2am and blew until well
after sunrise about the time we reached Portland, ME. So, while Mom thought it
was an impressive sail in and there are about 300 islands in Casco Bay, we saw
nothing. We’ll hope to see it during sailaway.
We had decided to not try to go ashore until well after any
issues had a chance to be resolved. Clay went up and walked. I slept in some.
We went to Sunday breakfast in the Grand Dining Room. It was our first time
there. It is a lovely room, low and aft on the ship. Lots of 2-tops around the edges
by the windows. They escorted me to a table. Unlike other cruise lines we’ve
been on they did not have any special for it being Sunday or Mother’s Day.
Usually you are offered sparkling wine or mimosas or something like that on
Sundays and holidays, but nothing special here it seemed. They were pleasant and
efficient and we both enjoyed our meals. It was very empty in there so it is
not clear if that was the reason for the service improvement over Jacques. Keep
in mind that we entered the GDR after the ship had docked, so hopefully all the
rude people were packed in the atrium. Our arrival was 8am and at 8:10am Julie
announced that we could go ashore. That is more like it! But since we didn’t
care today, it didn’t help us any.
After breakfast, we stopped by the blue desk of the local
tourism visitor. She offered us a map and marked CVS and RiteAid for Clay. He
is shopping for a pill cutter as I brought the lesser smaller travel one with
me and left the larger better one at home. While there waiting, a couple before
us was asking about Portland Discovery Tours. Clay wondered if we should do it and
we looked it up online after we got back to the cabin. We could book a Portland
City and Lighthouse Tour at 11:30am for $24 each. It would last about 1 hour and
45 minutes. Oceania offered the same tour at 9am for $69. Since we would still
have time before and after and it would drive us places we would otherwise see,
we bought 2 tickets online.
We walked right off at about 9:30am! We walked to RiteAid and
got Clay’s pill cutter and a 6 pack of Shipyard Summer Ale and a 4 pack of Allagash
White. (Take your own sacks, because they don’t provide them with purchase
here! Fortunately, we each had a nylon string pack on us.) There are about a
half dozen local breweries in Portland. Portland is Maine’s largest city with a
population of about 60K. It sits on a peninsula that is about 3 miles by maybe
a mile. It is one of the friendliest cities we have ever visited. It got quite
warm here today. So warm, that when we came back to the ship to drop the beers that
Clay changed into shorts and sandals and I changed shoes and socks for sandals.
When we came back we got caught at x-ray and the gangway behind a huge delivery
of fresh lobster and seafood! It occurs to us that part of the shore experience
problems on Marina may be the lack of service hatches. On both Regent and Disney,
crew and deliveries would be using alternate doors from the paying passengers
for the most part. I mean the crew on shore leave use the same entry/exit but
they don’t jam up lines of cruisers. Anyway, we headed back out about 10:15am and
headed in the opposite direction on Commercial Street. I should note that there
must have been a taxi line of more than a dozen cabs here. We have not seen a
cab line at any other port so far! You could easily walk Portland too! The cab
line had up a sign with fares to Kennebunkport and other places so I guess that
was the point and not seeing Portland.
We walked right across the street from the port entrance and
were stopped by a young man in a blue polo shirt from Portland Discovery. We
told him that we’d just booked online and he pointed back across the street and
said we could take a shuttle or we could walk on along the waterfront 4 blocks
to Long Wharf and pick up our tickets. We opted to walk. When we got there the
place was swamped with a large group of foreigners with their own guide. They
were there until our tour trolley left! Fortunately another uniformed young man
took our confirmation number and had us board an open air trolley to wait and he
brought us our tickets before the tour left. We had JJ as a guide and he was
funny and charming. We were glad we did it. I won a can of B&M baked beans
which are produced locally for guessing that Michigan was the state with the most
lighthouses. Sadly, I had to return it
because even as much as I love Boston Baked Beans I will not eat them straight
from the can cold. JJ said there were exactly 239 beans in each can like it
because B&M had determined one more would make them 240 (too farty). I
think it is dialect or regional accent humor combined with a pun. While we
waited to leave JJ told about how great and important their seafood industry is
and the best places to get raw oysters. Now we had afternoon plans as well. The
tour covered the East and West ends of Portland, with the Portland Observatory,
Old Port and Arts District in between. We drove by the Shipyard Brewery and it
was within walking distance of the ship. I believe I understood JJ to say that they
do free brewery tours on the hour with lots of samples. He said he used to work
there and we should all try some of the Summer Ale. We saw the home of the poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Then we drove to Cape Elizabeth were the air was
cooler and the homes more expensive. Our last stop we had the opportunity to
get off the trolley for 20 minutes to take photos of the Portland Head Light at
Fort Williams Park. It is the oldest Maine lighthouse and was commissioned by
George Washington. Behind it on a tiny rock islet in the bay you could see Ram
Island Light that JJ said was the newest Maine Lighthouse.
After we left the tour, we started walking to Even Tide Raw
Bar at 86 Middle Street. We walked by this morning coming back from RiteAid and
I had noted it, but Clay swore he never saw it. We stopped in a Cabot Cheese
shop on Commercial St. We had a bunch of yummy samples and bought some curds.
We stopped in a craft beer shop and Clay got 4 more local beers. Anyway, when
we got to Even Tide and figured we could safely spend 30 minutes there to walk
back in plenty of time before all aboard. There may have been some confusion
because we are sure the sign at the gangway said all aboard was 2:30pm and
departure was 3pm. But the newsletter says all aboard is 3:30pm and departure
is 4pm. We departed at 4:15pm. Even Tide was very busy but it looked to me like
there were 4 vacant stools right by the oysters on ice in front of the shuckers.
Clay felt they were empty for a reason. I told him to ask and the answer was an
enthusiastic yes we could sit there and be served and out in 30 minutes. It was
great. Clay was in heaven. A dozen local oysters for $29. So Clay asked the
waitress to get him 6 different Maine oysters in sets of two. They were serving
17 locally sourced oysters varieties today. He told her he wanted them plump and
juicy. The shucker took real pride in his work and under took the task. He did
an excellent job. From Damariscotta, Clay had Pemaquid, Browne Point, Glidden
Point, Norumbega, and Dodge Cove. Then he had 2 really huge oysters from North
Haven. He said they were even better than the ones he had in Boston at
Durgin-Park yesterday. (By the way, those were locally sourced too, but we
asked her twice and couldn’t understand the place name she gave us. Sorry!)
We got back aboard uneventfully. The tide had risen about 8
feet since we last saw the ship. Because we still cannot get over the size of
Marina, we looked online and Disney Wonder is bigger than Oceania Marina. Disney
Wonder has 11 massive decks, a total length of 964 feet, a maximum width of 106
feet and a gross tonnage of 83,000. Marina has 16 decks, a length of 784.95
feet, a width of 105.646 feet and a gross tonnage of 66,084. Regent Voyager has
12 decks, a length of 677.49 feet, a width of 94.59 feet and a gross tonnage of
42,363. It still doesn’t seem like Marina should look or feel so huge to us!
We sat out on the balcony as we awaited the sailaway and had
cheese curds and Clay drank beer and I had a glass of the Petit Frog white. We
liked everything. We had an excellent day in spite of Oceania today. We have no
idea if they really did a better job today or if we just did a better job of
avoiding problem areas.
We got to see the sailaway past the Portland Head light and it
was spectacular. There were a lot of folks out there waving us off.
All we have left today is our Toscana dinner reservation at
6:30pm. The clocks move forward by one hour tonight so I expect we’ll go to bed
early. Tomorrow we should be in Saint John for the Bay of Fundy. We only plan
to see the reversing falls on our own.
Julie, our CD, just came on shipwide loudspeaker to recognize, of course, all the Moms on Mother's Day. Since it had passed without any other notice onboard, I guess someone must have raised holy hell to generate that loudspeaker announcement at 5:30pm!
Dinner in Toscana was better than our experience in Jacques by orders of magnitude and that was not a factor of the different types of cuisines but because of the service. In Jacques, we waited 30 minutes to place our orders, I was wearing black and not offered a non-white napkin, Clay was never offered fresh ground pepper, they did not clean the bread crumbs up and the list goes on. In Toscana, we had prompt, happy, thoughtful service that included being offered a black napkin, pepper offered at every course and a full crumb clean up, plus more. Since Jacques was our first O meal we read a lot into it and I guess we see when we return but it is not indicative of the service throughout the ship. I had buffala mozzarella, the bread and olive oil and vinegar selection (spectacular) , potato soup (delicious), the pasta special (loved the tomato cream sauce) and chocolate lasagna. They also offered a trio of biscotti. The chocolate lasagna was just weird though it was the best chocolate I have had onboard, so I ate it. It was sitting in a pool of pistachio cream sauce so that was bad too. Mostly I objected to the weird textured things throughout the creamy center. The waiter said they were bits of tagliatelle pasta. OK. Clay had gnocchi with pesto (he liked it, I didn't), the bread/oil/vinegar (his selections tasted better than mine, we think it was his aged balsamic) salad (Clay wanted more goat cheese) and lobster Fra Diavolo with tagliatelle pasta and apple crumb tart. He loved his.
The last comment I have is that our travel agent relayed to us multiple times that she had informed Oceania that we were on this trip to celebrate our 30th Anniversary TODAY. I also filled out forms online for Oceania multiple times where I provided today's date and that the trip and the date were for our 30th Wedding Anniversary. Now there are people who would be livid about the fact that the milestone event that caused them to book a trip had gone unremarked. But, Clay and I neither one like a public spectacle, so it is always with mixed feelings that we notify a service provider of a special event. But, as Oceania asked specifically, we did expect at least say a card delivered to the stateroom. Alas, Oceania chose to completely ignore our special event. Just sayin'...
We sent laundry out Saturday morning and got it tonight. There were 6 pairs of socks, 2 jeans, 3 underwear, 4 tee shirts, and 1 shirt. This laundry service was priced at $52. We should have laundry service as one of the incentives offered to us for taking this trip, so hopefully the cost to us now will be $0. We see if that is the case when we get an interim statement in the next week or so...
Dinner in Toscana was better than our experience in Jacques by orders of magnitude and that was not a factor of the different types of cuisines but because of the service. In Jacques, we waited 30 minutes to place our orders, I was wearing black and not offered a non-white napkin, Clay was never offered fresh ground pepper, they did not clean the bread crumbs up and the list goes on. In Toscana, we had prompt, happy, thoughtful service that included being offered a black napkin, pepper offered at every course and a full crumb clean up, plus more. Since Jacques was our first O meal we read a lot into it and I guess we see when we return but it is not indicative of the service throughout the ship. I had buffala mozzarella, the bread and olive oil and vinegar selection (spectacular) , potato soup (delicious), the pasta special (loved the tomato cream sauce) and chocolate lasagna. They also offered a trio of biscotti. The chocolate lasagna was just weird though it was the best chocolate I have had onboard, so I ate it. It was sitting in a pool of pistachio cream sauce so that was bad too. Mostly I objected to the weird textured things throughout the creamy center. The waiter said they were bits of tagliatelle pasta. OK. Clay had gnocchi with pesto (he liked it, I didn't), the bread/oil/vinegar (his selections tasted better than mine, we think it was his aged balsamic) salad (Clay wanted more goat cheese) and lobster Fra Diavolo with tagliatelle pasta and apple crumb tart. He loved his.
The last comment I have is that our travel agent relayed to us multiple times that she had informed Oceania that we were on this trip to celebrate our 30th Anniversary TODAY. I also filled out forms online for Oceania multiple times where I provided today's date and that the trip and the date were for our 30th Wedding Anniversary. Now there are people who would be livid about the fact that the milestone event that caused them to book a trip had gone unremarked. But, Clay and I neither one like a public spectacle, so it is always with mixed feelings that we notify a service provider of a special event. But, as Oceania asked specifically, we did expect at least say a card delivered to the stateroom. Alas, Oceania chose to completely ignore our special event. Just sayin'...
We sent laundry out Saturday morning and got it tonight. There were 6 pairs of socks, 2 jeans, 3 underwear, 4 tee shirts, and 1 shirt. This laundry service was priced at $52. We should have laundry service as one of the incentives offered to us for taking this trip, so hopefully the cost to us now will be $0. We see if that is the case when we get an interim statement in the next week or so...
