Monday, May 11, 2015
We went to bed at around our normal 9pm last night, after
moving our watches and clocks ahead by an hour. We still must have felt the
hour’s loss or else we slept really well in calm seas because I was up first
this morning at 6am. I thought I was getting up to pee in the night but it was
light outside the curtains and Clay was still asleep. I think he was completely
flummoxed and confused. He missed his morning deck walking and it was the first
morning that we weren’t fogged in!
We showered and went upstairs to Terrace for breakfast as we
were approaching Saint John, New Brunswick. Clay had 2 eggs over easy and a
trilogy of breakfast meats with a potato cake and 2 slices of whole wheat toast
and 2 glasses of orange juice. I had Greek yogurt with raspberries and
blackberries. The blackberries have been fresh and juicy for the past 2
mornings! I have figured out my perfect coffee onboard O. I take the coffee cup
from the table to the cappuccino machine and fill it. Then at the table I let a
roving waiter top my cup off with regular coffee until I feel I have had my
normal size cup of coffee. The machine delivers a lukewarm drink. The waiters
carry around scalding hot coffee. The combination is just right! Oh and Marina
has Truvia stocked everywhere I’ve had coffee.
We arrived in Saint John right on schedule at 8am. The ship
was not cleared to disembark until 8:45am. The floating gangway affixed to the
Marco Polo Cruise Terminal is directly under our balcony. Disembarkation is
through deck 6 today. We just stayed out of the way again since we were in no
hurry. I only had one thing on my list of to do’s today. I had printed out the
tide table for the day here and how to get to the reversing falls. We picked up
an Uptown Saint John Map in the cruise terminal and a volunteer greeter gave us
a collectible pin of the Three Sisters Lamp. We saw the 3 red lamps on a green
pole as we were sailing in. It was gas in 1848 when installed and is now
electric. It was a navigational aid to line up on to enter the channel. It has
2015 on it and the card says it is the first in a series of Saint John iconic
images that sjport.com will distribute. Cool. There were a lot of volunteers in
there and they were all giving different and largely incorrect information and
none of them knew what time the tides were today. As you might expect, they
could all sell you a tour though.
With only a little trepidation (mostly on Clay’s part) we
walked up Water St and sat in the rain in the bus shelter and waited for and
boarded Bus 1 and paid our $2.75 each and asked the driver for Reversing Falls.
He called us to get off and told us where to go and where to stand to get a bus
back and to ask any that stopped there if they could return us because his
return route was called Bus 2 but Bus 7 and Bus 8 also stopped at Water St. So
we wound up returned on Bus 8. We asked him for Water St. and again, he told us
yes and told us when to get off and pointed out the ship. Several people we met
walked both ways. They said it was a mostly scenic riverside walk on a pink
sidewalk most of the time and took them about a half hour. So it turned out to
be perfectly easy. The problem was the bad timing of our port stop vs. the tide
times. All of our port stops have been at least an hour shorter than the
published schedule for the itinerary. It happens. So we could not get off until
9am and all aboard is 3:30pm for a 4pm sailing. Low tide was at 12:10pm and
high tide should be at 18:21. So we knew we could see the falls reverse. But, I
had hopes of catching a slack tide of calm between the 2. I had told Clay we
had no reason to arrive at the falls before noon, but whether the rain or his
lack of confidence or what we were out at the falls by 10:15am or so. We
watched tide bottom out and the regular falls emerge while we walked to both
sides of the bridge and all the overlooks and all around the wooden statues at
Wolastoq Park (where we saw a groundhog!) and to the floating wharf below the
falls. I had set a goal to go wait for a bus by 1:30pm. We ate snacks we had
carried out around noon. We only made it to shortly after 1pm before we headed
back to the bus stop.
We had seen a closed Beavertail stand down on Water St. I
told Clay I had hopes of a Beavertail in place of a slack tide and he
despaired. He told me I was just continuing to set myself up for
disappointment. Ha! It was open. I think the guy said they open at 11am. They
had a bigger menu than the one we went to in Halifax. They had poutine and hot
dogs served in wrapped Beavertails and Beaver Bites sundaes. (You’ll have to
Google Beavertails if this is mystifying to you. It is a local specialty of
fried dough and delicious!) I had maple and Clay had Nutella. We went through
the Pedway (interior elevated walkway) to City Market, the oldest continuously
operating farmers market in Canada. It opened in 1876 and the ceiling is
designed to resemble the inverted keel of a ship. We stopped at one of 2 Tim
Horton’s in the Pedway and I got a dark hot chocolate for $1.40. There was also
a Starbucks in there. Clay bought a local candy bar in the Saint John Old City
Market. It was a Pal-o-Mine and was some kind of peanut butter flavored nougat
cover in chocolate and there 2 pieces in there. He says he wouldn’t get it
again. I thought it tasted okay.
Back onboard and they are working to get the gangway
disassembled. Hopefully we will finally disembark on time. It is a little
disturbing when you reboard and hour or more than when you planned because the
port time was reduced and then the ship is delayed leaving and you just sit
aboard looking at shore. Oh well. I know it happens. I don’t have to like it.
We did leave close to 4pm as posted today.
I signed up this morning for 4pm Evening Stretch at the
Fitness Center and it is time for me to go. I’m back. Half an hour and probably
a mistake. Oh well, ya gotta try.
We still haven’t decided where to have dinner. A shortcoming
of Marina is no promenade deck outside. There is nowhere to walk even part of
the ship outside on a lower deck. If you want out, it is either your own balcony
or to the pool deck and above.
We have picked up a couple of phrases in our last few days’
touring. I didn’t take time to relate them on the day, but since we keep
referring back to them, I’ll share now. In Central Park we learned Desire Lines
or Desired Line. The designer or architect plans a path, or walkway and users
“beat a path” that they desire. That beaten path is a desired line. Nice, huh?
The other was at the Portland Observatory Tower. According to JJ, our guide
there, every port along the Atlantic seaboard and probably worldwide once had a
similar tower. The ship owners paid a monthly fee for someone to keep watch for
their ships from the top of the tower. This one had a view 40 miles into the
Atlantic and is the last one still standing in North America. Anyway, the
spotter would see your ship that he was paid to watch for and he would run your
flag up his pole so you could see it from all over town or for the port below.
That would give the ship owner several to 7 hours to arrange a pier berth to
dock his ship and unload or load his cargo. This gave rise to “your ship has
come in”.
Tomorrow, we are supposed to be in Halifax, Nova Scotia from
10am to 6 pm. My only goal there had been to have a Beavertail, since I got
that done today who knows. Clay said I could have poutine instead. I might have
both! We haven’t toured the Citadel there so maybe that if it is nice weather.
If it’s bad weather, maybe the Immigration Museum. I’ll let you know tomorrow.
Oh, just read in tomorrow’s newsletter that the local port authority in Halifax
will provide a complimentary continuous shuttle from the port to the Public
Gardens! That is fantastic news as it is a slog all uphill! They say it is a
15-20 minute walk and I’m sure that is true but it is all uphill. It is right
next to the Citadel so that will be convenient for us if it happens. Of course,
in Boston when the shuttle situation only half way happened it was provided by
Oceania so maybe tomorrow will be good. Stay tuned. Oh, also the newsletter
shows this port has been shortened by an hour too. We leave at 5pm instead of
the previously published 6pm. I think if you’re reading this and planning
independent touring on Oceania, you need to be aware that on our cruise anyway
uniformly every port stay has been shortened by 1 or 2 hours. I realize stuff
happens, but this feels a little more like bait and switch. Sell a cruise with
long port days and once they’re onboard plan to shorten the stay because there’s
nothing they can do about it. Not classy. Feels sleazy.
Some comments about toiletries. Our cabin 7055 came
furnished with Bulgari toiletries. None of the products stocked in our cabin
right now contain any aloe. Aloe makes me break out in rash and hives like
poison ivy, so this is a good thing. Clay is using it with no problem, since I
didn’t know and we doing a lot more than O cruising, I brought my own
supply. The other thing is the big
supply of Purell hand sanitizing wipes that Mom gave us for Christmas is not
causing any problems. Even though Purell lists aloe as the 3rd
ingredient, there seems to be none in there because we are using about 10 a day
right now and no problems!
Back from dinner. We chose to go to Terrace again because it
is casual and because there is more dining flexibility of choices that in the Grand
Dining Room. Like pizza, pasta and a wok station as well as a grill. I thought
I would have either potato & veg curry with rice or coq au vin. I have had
and liked both. I have even cooked coq au vin. When I got to the buffet, both
dishes were in covered pots. I hated to ask to see in both, so I just ordered
coq au vin (which the GDR menu described as served over tagliatelle pasta). I
have never seen anything called coq au vin like what was in that pot. It looked
like breaded, fried chicken in brown gravy with heart shaped potato cakes
scattered around the top. I was literally agape and speechless. The server
picked up a chicken leg and a heart and nestled them together and tried to hand
me the plate. I shook him off. He offered to take the heart shaped thing away.
I finally regained speech thanked him but told him I couldn’t take it because
there was nothing on that plate that I would eat. I walked to the other end and
got a wedge of fried camembert with cranberry chutney. Then later I went up to the
wok station and got a custom cooked chicken lo mein. I liked it. There were no
desserts I wanted. How is that even possible when they have a chocolate dipping
fountain? Think Golden Corral. But, perhaps I dis Golden Corral unfairly
because I have never tried there chocolate fountain. It might be yummy. The
chocolate fountain on Marina is not very good. How can molten chocolate not be
tasty? I have no earthly idea. Honestly, I find it mystifying. That’s it for me
tonight!
Oh, Clay would like to register a complaint as well. The so called mini-fridges or minibars are perhaps cooling boxes. But they are not refrigerators because they never get or keep anything more than a little cool, certainly not cold. He's about to lose it! We're getting ice deliver morning and evening and still have to go up to Terrace to get more once or twice a day. I know we could call and get more delivered. We have asked for more when one of the stewardesses is out in the hall. But, it is a pain.
