Sunday, August 2, 2015
With all the locks we had to transit overnight and the
pingponging back and forth and the shaking of the side thrusters, you’d have
expected that we might have a sleepless night. You’d be wrong. We must have
been exhausted because we slept right through to daylight! Clay said I had some
kind of crisis in the night crying and crying out. He thought I was awake and
either having an attack of vertigo or a muscle spasm or cramping from the
exhaustion combined with the grip of the tremor, but I have no idea what
happened. I wasn’t awake I guess because I don’t remember doing it. I didn’t
get up all night and I observed nothing, so I call that a sound night’ sleep.
The daily program says sunrise was to be 6:08am but it was
fully light when we opened the shades at 6am. We entered a lock soon after
getting up and we hustled up and walked around to get a look. It was a deep lock
and the wall was right outside our window. Instant night! We went to breakfast
and sat on the other side in the dining room. That is where you can get food to
order. I had the daily special pineapple pancakes. They have a buffet there as
well of oatmeal and cold foods. They have a buffet out back on aft deck 4 and a
buffet earlier in the lounge. The bar opens at 9am!
After breakfast we were up and around and outdoors for the
Eisenhower Lock at Massena, NY. It was a deep lock too. A waiter at the Cliff Rock
Grille on deck 4 aft outdoors told us it was the lock where the Saint Laurent
had gashed in the bow ramming the wall of the lock earlier this summer.
Embarrassing.
We went to the port talk with the CD in the lounge from 9:30
to 10:30am. We will be off the ship all day tomorrow from 7am to maybe 6pm as
the Saint Laurent transits the Welland Canal. If Clay had never been to Niagara
Falls we would probably find that interesting and significant to stay aboard
for, like the Suez Canal but with locks! We will take the excursion. It sounds
nice except for the Hornblower boat trip under the falls which sounds stupid. I
guess everyplace that has a falls has to have a boat to take people under to
get wet. Anyway. We will be mostly in Canada for the day and will visit Peller
Estates, a winery for a tour, tasting and a lunch. We had to place our lunch
order today. Beef short ribs (me) or some kind of lake fish (Clay) or
vegetarian. We have both been unable to keep comparing this with either Marina
(I guess since it is so fresh in our minds) or ACL’s Queen of the Mississippi
(maybe due to the size). Saint Laurent compares favorably to both. It is not as
nice as Marina but nicer than QoM. As Clay keeps pointing out, it should be
nicer because the price point is higher than either of those 2 experiences. We
are nearing what looks like a large dam now so I need to go! Later.
Still don’t know what the large dam looking thing was but I
think some kind of flood control since parts were raised and small boats were
going under them. Anyway… we watched a film about the Great Lakes and the
attempt to revive the sturgeon population, the return of bald eagles and the
unfortunate introduction of alien species either by accident or intention. We
have had 3 bald eagle sightings this morning, so that has been exciting. Clay
saw one, I saw one with him and we saw a pole with a nest atop it with 2 bald
eagles sitting on it. I kind of hate being inside when all we paid to come see
is outside but it is bright and sunny and either too hot in the sun or too cold
in the wind of sailing in the shade. We haven’t found the perfect viewing spot
yet. I don’t suppose we will!
Lunch and we’ve had our first service lapse. We wanted to
sit out back and enjoy the weather and the views. But, we didn’t go before noon
and opening because Clay wasn’t sure about that. Evidently that is the only way
you’d have gotten a seat back there. Or maybe my watch is wrong. The clock on
the bedside is about 10 minutes faster than mine. Maybe we were much later
arriving than I think. I don’t know. But, we did get the chance to speak to a
woman from Tulane that we had done Dordogne with on an October alumni trip last
year. She was with her husband this year. Anyway, we returned to our dining
room table from last night. Of course, we didn’t get our wonderful waiter
again. We got Servy from India who proceeded to largely ignore us. Clay ordered
a burger mainly because he loved my crispy refried fries last night. I suspect
the reason they were refried is because they had been previously fried for
lunch. He did not get refried fries but normal ones. I ordered the chef special
Indonesian bami something. It was a bowl full of bell peppers and onions but I
managed to pick and make a meal out of peanut butter sauced chicken and pasta.
We were both coveting our old waiter’s table next door where they were enjoying
some delightful looking ice creams in architectural looking bowls. Alas, that
was not to be because we were never offered a dessert menu. After being ignored
for about 20 minutes after he removed our dishes, we got up and left hoping to
find the sundaes being served up and aft. They were not serving ice cream back there
and there were still no seats. There were more people milling about waiting for
a seat than there were available seats. Unless you just happened to be standing
next to one when it was vacated, you’d never get a seat. We couldn’t bear to
play that and left. Clay went to sit up front on deck 4 behind the high metal
mesh screen which doesn’t slow down the wind and I am back in the cabin
enjoying the view off the port side from our big windows. I am also enjoying the
quiet. I am missing the broader view of outdoors though. We just passed through
some kind of narrows. The CD announced it twice but neither time could either
of us understand the name he was saying. It is a splendid Sunday afternoon and
the area was packed with recreation enjoyers. I smell a nap in the very near
future.
This afternoon there is a lecture about the Civil War in the
Great Lakes area and there is tea time trivia. I will skip both, though I hate
to miss the CD’s announce prizes! There is a Go Next cocktail welcome reception
from 5 to 6pm and I suspect we’ll go to that. Why I don’t know because you can
get free alcohol or other beverages from 9am on. Clay had a Heineken this
morning with the port talk! I don’t know how people drink all day. I guess some
people aren’t sensitive or else build up an immunity. I almost fall asleep
after a glass of wine with dinner! Gotta go see the Singer sewing machine
inventor’s mansion on the starboard side! Later.
It was an impressive castle. That is what the signs called
it and it looked to be quite the tourist attraction. Later on the same starboard
side we saw Boldt Castle. It was an even bigger tourist attraction. This is a
crazy scenic area, mysteriously much more populated than say the Mississippi in
a place that would seem to only be able to be used much in the summer. But, I
don’t know that for a fact. It just seems like you wouldn’t want to be here in
winter. We eventually found vacant seats at the back outdoor restaurant as they
were shutting down from lunch. We had to keep moving around so they could
vacuum and clean to get ready for dinner, but we had a 180 degree view off the
back out of the wind and in the shade. I am certain that we saw more than 1000
islands.
In a perfect world, in the same amount of luggage, I’d have
remembered to pack a nightlight for the bathroom, some magnets to hold papers
on the wall (the desk is little more than a shelf and it holds the ice bucket and
water carafe because apparently the water from the tap is not potable) and I’d
have brought my own binoculars.
I am trying for a nap now and Clay is searching for his long
craved beer. There are a lot of people drinking at the back but Clay can’t find
a bartender or waiter working. I told him to just go to the deck 2 forward bar
that is supposed to open from 9am and carry it back there. For all we know, that
is what the other people did. I think we have just about decided to avoid the
cocktail party. The only reason we’d go is if Go Next’s hostesses had some information
to impart and that seems an unlikely venue so we’re inclined to skip but afraid
to miss something. We’ll see.
OK. Clay came back and thought to wake me up from my nap. I
had already been awakened by banging on the hull outside. He said it was a
wooden and rope ladder with one pilot leaving and one boarding. That would
explain it. It did not explain the line of new framed photographs being hung
down the length of our hallway all afternoon when we’d all be off the ship all
day tomorrow! Anyway, he had decided to attend the Go Next welcome cocktails.
We both changed into long pants and different shoes and Clay put on a collared
shirt. This was not exactly an informal affair. They checked us each in and got
us a drink and then escorted us to our appropriate alumni group. This is our first
time with Go Next vs. Gohagan and so we were surprised. Of course our first Tulane
alumni trip to Antarctica, we were the only ones from Tulane. To Dordogne last
year there was a group of 5 friends and then the 2 of us so again, no socializing.
There are 16 people here under the invitation of Tulane. We got to spend over
an hour with them while we drank wine. Then Clay insisted that we leave first
because he thought the dining room opened at 6pm. I told him repeatedly that I
had checked and we couldn’t go to dinner until after 6:30pm, but he insisted
that he had checked to. He checked the time for the reservations grille in back!
We came back to the room since it is right across the stairway from the dining
room entrance.
We made a point of changing tables tonight to make sure we
were in Edgar’s area. He knew we had bad service at lunch because he pointed
out to us that our table from last night and at noon were in his area at dinner
but not at lunchtime. We assured him that we had figured that out. Well it is
open seating so at some level you have to take what you can get. We got the
two-top he had served at lunch only because the couple who had occupied it the last
2 meals didn’t get there first. Clay had some oysters baked in Pernod followed
by the always available NY Strip steak. He was hoping for my last night’s
crispy refried fries but still didn’t get them. Oh well. I had pumpkin soup and
spaghetti in olive oil. That is a lot of pasta in one day! For dessert, I had
warm cherry cobbler with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was big and Clay ate
half. He had the longed for ice cream sundae from lunch time and it was a
disappointment. I had craved chocolate ice cream with marshmallow sauce. The
menu doesn’t say what flavors or toppings, just your choice of flavors and
toppings. It turns out they only ever have chocolate, strawberry and vanilla.
Edgar knew they didn’t have marshmallow and wasn’t completely sure about caramel
but came back with it. It wasn’t very tasty but Clay ate it all. He liked mine
better but only for the ice cream, I think. We were back to the room by a
little after 7:30pm and it had not been serviced. We needed the daily program for
tomorrow because during the port lecture Ken didn’t know yet when breakfast
would be served. He said to check the program before going to bed. Um…. I got a book and we tried upstairs in the
smoker’s area since it was dinner time and it is quieter and less windy there
than any other place we could sit outside but it was raining. We wound up
sitting in the lounge as they prepared it for the evening’s musical
entertainment and dancing at 8:30pm. It was 8:30pm before they finished our
room too. We kept taking turns checking and it was after 7:30pm before they
started working on our hall and from the far end so ours was the next to the
last to get done. Breakfast is at 6:30am tomorrow. We have to board the buses
at 7:45am and dinner tomorrow night will be at 7pm. It promises to be a long
day. But, Niagara Falls! Clay has never been.
