Thursday, December 13, 2018- Los Angeles to Seattle

Thursday, December 13, 2018- Los Angeles to Seattle

We really enjoy cruising, but hate the flying necessary to get to and from cruise ports.  Today’s journey started off smoothly with a final breakfast in the buffet.  I opted to have one last Norwegian waffle with the iconic Brunost brown goat cheese.

Our transfer from the ship to LAX was handled smoothly through Viking.  However, LAX is really lagging behind the world in International Airport technology and service.  The TSA staff seemed harried and the airport itself is cramped and dirty.  There are long lines out of most of the restrooms, and most of the elevators seem to be out of service, forcing us to lug our carry on luggage up and down stairs.  There are very few dining or shopping venues in the terminals, and the satellite terminals, that have to be reached by buses, have virtually no services besides an overcrowded and filthy toilet, and a pay-to-use American Airlines lounge.  The Wifi was also practically unusable because it was so unreliable. Come to think of it, LAX is the worst international airport that we have been in by a wide margin since we began traveling a lot. 

Once we got to our gate, we learned that our flight had been delayed by an hour, prompting a text alert that we might not make our connection from American Airlines.  Then moments later, the screen above our boarding gate changed again, now showing a delay of over 2 hours, so there was no way we would make our connection in Phoenix.  We went immediately to the American Airlines Customer rebooking center several gates away. Fortunately, when Ben got there, there were just a handful of people there, but one of the 3 customer service agents had her hands full with a woman who was having a full blown melt down, shouting both at the agent, and her husband on the end of her cell phone.  OMG, it was like Armageddon had arrived. Fortunately, Ben got the agent next to the one handling the meltdown, and she was able to rebook us on a direct flight from LAX to SEA on an American Eagle flight.  Because there was no longer a connection in Phoenix, we were actually going to end up in Seattle a little earlier than our original flights.  We didn’t even need to rebook our Whidbey Sea-Tac shuttle.

It was kind of fun running into fellow Viking Star passengers as they found their way around the terminals and gates to their outbound flights.  With such a small ship, it was hard not to get to know many of the fellow passengers.  A gal who played on a trivia team that sat right behind our team is also from the greater Seattle area, and they ended up on the same American Eagle flight.  We ended up having to gate check Ben’s carry on bag because all the overhead storage in the Embraer jet was full.   The sun was heading down rapidly as our jet was taxiing to our gate, and it had been raining.  It was a relief to find all our luggage at the carousel after our Baltic trip.  

As we drove our car home from the shuttle drop off lot, it seemed like the last 3 weeks were all just a dream.  Our first Viking Ocean cruise was a pleasant and enjoyable vacation.  We had been looking forward to seeing how the Viking Ocean cruise experience would compare with our previous cruise experiences on Princess and Norwegian.

The Viking cruise experience would be ideal for a demographic that is in their late 60’s to 70’s, enjoy sitting in the living room reading books, attend book clubs with wine pairings, must have a glass of wine or beer with every meal, hates crowds, enjoys bus tours and academic lectures. 

Viking has done an excellent job of designing their staterooms for function and comfort. The bathrooms are second to none, although we wished there was a thermostat to control the heated bathroom floor, which got too warm during the hot weather portions of the cruise. They do need to find a way to add a few more drawers to match Princess for storage space, but trading a few drawers for that spacious bathroom seems a worthwhile trade-off.

The public areas on the ship are very simple and elegant- a nod to their Nordic roots.  It felt more like a hotel than a cruise ship.  Think Volvo, rather than Cadillac.

The inclusive pricing on Viking would hit a sweet spot for those who have to have beer or wine at every meal, unlimited internet service and laundry.  If you didn’t have to have wine or beer at every meal, could get by with finding wifi hotspots at ports of call, and only do laundry once a week, you’d save a fair bit of money on more midstream cruise lines like Princess or Norwegian.  

Although the specialty dining venues have no extra cover charge on Viking Ocean, the cruise fare is high enough that you are simply pre-paying for access to these venues upfront.  The Chef’s table did offer an interesting and unique dining venue for us since we don’t typically choose to dine in places featuring Nouvelle Cuisine, and Manfredi’s did seem to offer a wider menu selection and better quality than the Princess or Norwegian cruise lines’ Italian specialty restaurant venues.  

Viking Ocean does offer a free land excursion in every port of call, but we found the excursions to be rather uninspiring and routine drive around the city, get out at an old town plaza to walk around and shop for 30-45 minutes, and then back to the ship.  On Princess or Norwegian, such excursions would be worth between $50-80 per person.  We did all the included tours, which are a decent basic introduction to these ports of call, but if they hadn’t been included at no cost, we would probably have booked more active or interesting tours.  We likely would have spent more per person at each port of call, looking back at the excursions we did on our Baltic cruise and South America cruises.

As for the overall dining experience, we would rank Viking Ocean a little below Princess, but above Norwegian for the quality, presentation, and service in the buffet and main dining room.  Since the Viking Ocean ships serve smaller numbers of passengers (930 vs 2500-3500), there are understandably fewer options on the buffet, but the quality of the food they do prepare is generally good. It’s also very nice that the wine, beer, espresso drinks and gelato are included without premium charge.

Where Princess beats Viking Ocean is their baked goods and desserts (Princess wins easily here) and service in the dining rooms and buffets.  Viking seems to hire younger and less experienced staff compared with Princess, although we did encounter a handful of very good waiters, whom had all had prior experiences on other cruise ship lines.  

Viking’s wait staff seem to depend too much on the iPhone apps they use to enter orders.  They use the app to determine what silverware to put out for each course and when to do it, but on Princess, the waitstaff consistently got our orders correct much more frequently than they did on Viking.  This is surprising since they enter your order on the iPhones, but if you proceed at a normal pace in giving them the order, their fingers consistently fall behind.  We learned that towards the end of the cruise and would specify each course and then watch the waiter to make sure he was done checking off all the boxes on his iPhone app before proceeding with the next course.

In terms of attentiveness of the staff during your meals, they were also slightly below Princess, but certainly better than Norwegian, where it was mostly set and forget.  But I’d have to say that even on Norwegian, they got our orders correct more often than on Viking Ocean.

The acoustics of most of the dining venues on the Viking Star were too loud for our tastes.  It was difficult to carry a conversation across a table. Viking needs to incorporate more sound absorbing decor into their dining venue designs.

What disappointed us most about our Viking Ocean cruise experience was the entertainment, or the relative lack thereof, particularly on the sea days.  We really enjoy participating in trivia.  The Viking Star only offered one trivia game on each at sea day and none on port days.  The trivia was done in the Explorer lounge, where there was never enough seating.  It got to be unpleasant for people to have to show up 45 minutes to an hour early to start to scrounge up seats and coffee tables to write on.  They really should have did the trivia at a time when they could have used a dining room like the Chef’s Table or Manfredi’s.

It was also disappointing that they only had general trivia- no multimedia, music, special themed or movie trivia.  On a Princess cruise, there are at least 2, and commonly 3 trivia games available during the course of the day on sea days, and even at least one trivia game on port days because many people choose to stay aboard at the more common ports of call.  They also didn’t really offer any sort of souvenir prizes.  Granted, nobody really needs key chains, coasters, water bottles or notebooks, but it’s fun to barter and exchange prizes on Princess.  On Viking Ocean, the winning team gets a round of Mimosas.  If you didn’t care for their Mimosas, you were out of luck.  

The cruise director’s staff did double and triple duty on the Viking Star, and were all very talented people. Given the limited resources on a ship that accommodates only 930 passengers, they did an admirable job with their shows. They put on shows on par with what we have seen on the Norwegian Pearl, but Princess has both Viking and Norwegian beat by a wide margin on the quality and variety of their stage productions and shows.  While we didn’t miss the casino, we did miss the dancing girls and fully instrumented stage band and string ensembles.

We never spent any time in the Casinos of the Norwegian or Princess ships that we have been on, but a few passengers we encountered missed not being able to play Bingo during the cruise.  There were Scrabble boards and many places people could sit and play cards or do jig saw puzzles, but on Princess and Norwegian, they have card tournaments, speed sudoku, bean bag (or penguin) tosses, paper airplane contests, boat building and racing contests, egg drop contests, and many more dancing classes, bars and lounges to enjoy.  There was no karaoke on the Viking Star.  

Viking did do a good job on their academic lectures, with specialists in history, culture, science, and natural history.  Our favorite was Dr. Carin Bondar, who was our resident biologist with a real flair for presenting interesting and bizarre science.  She should really have her own TV show.  She could easily knock Mr. Nye, the Science Guy out of his prime slot.

It was very convenient that most of the lectures were video taped and available on demand shortly after the actual presentation, so we could watch them at our convenience.  We found watching the history and culture lecture before bedtime to be an easy way to fall asleep.  We have certainly had some terrible speakers on Princess and Norwegian for port talks and lectures.

The video on demand system was well designed, and when it was working, it was even better than the Princess version.  It was unfortunate that the system went down on our 3 day stretch at sea between Guatemala and Cabo San Lucas.  The had attempted to do a system upgrade over the air that failed. We were in danger of being bored during that stretch, but were forced out of our room to attend the lectures in person, so that kept us moving.

The internet service was about on par with Norwegian and older Princess ships (0.5-1 megabit per second download) but vastly inferior to the Ocean Medallion internet service we experienced on Regal Princess during our Baltic cruise in July (5-10 megabits per second download).  We hope that level of service spreads throughout the cruise industry.  It was particularly vexing that the Viking internet service provider blocked access to all Apple servers during nearly the entire cruise, so iCloud services including photo streams and sharing, Apple News, and cloud syncing of notes and other iCloud documents didn’t work.  You couldn’t even load the Apple.com web page. I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out why I couldn’t get my files to exchange between my iPad and iPhone until I figured out that all Apple servers were blocked.  The IT staff on the ship were aware of this, and said they were working on it, but by the end of the cruise, it was still an ongoing problem.

In summary, we had a wonderful 21 day cruise from Miami to Los Angeles on the Viking Star.  We can check Cuba off our bucket list, and don’t feel the need to ever go back there again.  It’s funny that we now find ourselves experienced Caribbean and Panama Canal travelers.  Our favorite port of call was San Diego.  We’re glad that we got to meet up with Carl and visit the San Diego Zoo again. The antics of the koalas were unforgettable.  And we would book another Viking Ocean or River cruise in the future depending on finding a port intensive itinerary with very few at sea days, and a particularly good deal like free air fare to bring the overall cost closer to Princess fares.

Since we enjoy longer duration cruises, which include more sea days, and really enjoy the entertainment they offer on Princess, Princess will remain our cruise line of choice for now.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018- San Diego

Wednesday, December 12, 2018- San Diego It is hard to believe we have reached our last port of call.  When we awoke, the ship was already in its slip on the Broadway Pier.  From our port side balcony, we could see the Maritime museum with the Star of India sailing ship, and a rusting out Russian submarine in the distance, as well as the San Diego Airport. We had to get up early to clear customs and immigration.  This didn’t involve much more than lining up in the Chef’s Table restaurant to cue up to a Passport agent in Manfredi’s restaurant who briefly examined our passport, room key card, and checked our names off a list in front of them.  We didn’t have to declare any purchases, particularly our Cuban purchases of rum and cigars. We then filed up to the buffet for breakfast.  There was a beautiful sunny day awaiting us with partly cloudy skies.  We tried to set up in the Aquavit terrace, but found it too windy and cool.  There were also some big sea gulls lurking about, so we moved inside to finish our breakfast.  

We texted Ben’s brother Carl, who lives in San Diego to coordinate our plans.  He had actually used a rental electric bike that is unlocked with a Smart Phone app, and rode it from his condo in the Gas Lamp district down to the Broadway pier.  He was favorably impressed by the appearance of the Viking Star, but security at the head of the Pier wouldn’t let him anywhere near the boat.  When we were leaving to board the bus for our included San Diego tour, we briefly chatted with Carl through a driveway in the fence, next to one of the security guards.    

After establishing a plan to meet in the afternoon after we had lunch on the ship, we started walking back to the bus.  Then a big security guard, who was armed with a side arm, started yelling at us to stop and to return to the gate area.  We pulled out our room key cards and had the other security guard confirm that we had never left the pier, and were simply having a conversation through the gate and fence.  Boy, they sure are nervous and jumpy about security at the cruise ship pier.  We boarded our bus, which took us just down the street past the Midway Aircraft Carrier museum, which we learned was the most visited military museum in the country.  We then stopped for a photo opportunity at the oversized statue of the sailor kissing the nurse.  We learned the name of the statue is “Unconditional Surrender”.    

                             

 

We then piled back into the bus and then drove along the waterfront where our guide pointed out the Coronado bridge and passenger ferry service that cruise ship passengers could later use to visit the Del Coronado Hotel.  Then we drove by the Seaport Village tourist area and the convention center, before turning uptown through the Gas Lamp District.  

We drove right past Carl’s condo as we drove through downtown on the way to Balboa Park.  We were given an hour to explore Balboa Park.  We saw interesting static displays in front of the San Diego Air and Space museum which included one of only five Convair Sea Dart supersonic jet seaplanes built in the 1950’s.  Apparently, the advent of the super-carrier eliminated the need for a supersonic jet to have to operate as a seaplane.  There was also an always impressive Lockheed Blackbird.  This one was a CIA A12 version.  It’s hard to believe all these decades later that the Blackbird remains the fastest air breathing plane in the world, able to exceed 3 times the speed of sound.                                

We walked through the international village, which was closed, and past what is apparently the world’s largest outdoor pipe organ, obscured by a huge rolling shutter door. They had recently had a huge Christmas concert with the organ.  We then walked through the Timken Museum. It was funny that the name was familiar to Ben because one of his first Mechanical engineering assignments as a student at MIT was to call out specifications for a design using Timken Roller Bearings.  This was the same Timken family of roller bearing fame.  They had a unique collection of handmade Christmas ornaments made by Hord and Schlappi.  They filled a rotating Christmas tree (undoubtedly supported with Timken roller bearings), and hung from the ceiling.                              

The Timken family collection includes many works of art from several artists including one by Rembrandt, so we got to take a selfie with a genuine Rembrandt.

We also walked through the Botanical Garden conservatory before we ran out of time and had to walk back to the bus.                          

The bus then took us to the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, where we hand an hour of free time. We chose to revisit the Mormon Battalion museum where young Mormon docents dressed in period costume used acting and unique audio-visual effects to tell the story of how nearly 500 soldiers for the Mexican American war were recruited from Brigham Young’s Mormon camps.  They never fired a shot against the Mexicans, and ended up blazing some of the trails for the transcontinental railroad, and building many structures California and the desert southwest.  One of the docents was a young Korean girl who was really working hard on her English skills.                  

 

As we waited for our group to reboard the bus, we found a souvenir stand that had some Luchadore masks.  We asked how much they were, and the man tending the stand said $20.  We said that was too much for an impulse souvenir, and started walking away.  Then the guy said “For you today, you can have for $12”.  So now we have a souvenir Luchadore mask, ala Nacho Libre fame.

We grabbed a quick lunch back on the ship and got ourselves pumped up on Coke Zero to get us through the afternoon.  We then met Carl in front of the Star of India, and the Maritime museum.  Carl proved to be an excellent docent on the various boats and submarines in the museum. We had no idea that the Russian submarine there was one of 4 in the waters around Cuba that was carrying nuclear tipped torpedos. When this sub developed trouble, it had to surface in the middle of the US Naval fleet enforcing the blockaid of the Cuban embargo.  The US sailors provided aid and assistance to the submariners, not knowing that the submarine was carrying nuclear warheads.  Once the Russians were able to recharge their batteries, they went on their merry way.  

Carl also has conducted extensive research regarding the ferry boat “Berkley” that is part of the Museum.  This boat may have played a key role in one of the biggest pranks in intercollegiate sports history- the kidnapping of the Stanford Ax during the Stanford vs Cal Berkley game of 1889.  Some day, we may hear about this tale on the History Channel’s Mystery of the Museum show.                    

We think Carl should apply to be a tourist guide for Viking and other cruise lines because he is really a very talented and convincing docent.  He drove us to the San Diego Zoo, where he told us that the giant leaping lion sculpture in the ticket plaza is actually the world’s largest 3D printed work.    

We dropped in on the Pandas, but only one was on exhibit, and it appeared to be irritable, pacing back and forth between the two exhibit areas while a cranky old woman docent rendered a monotone dialog over the loud speakers admonishing visitors to keep their voices down (ironic that she was using the amplified PA system speakers to do this).  

Next, we paid a visit to the Amur leopard cubs that we had seen earlier in the year.  Boy, have they grown into big cats in just 5 months since we last saw them in June.                

The highlight of this visit was the Koalas. As we walked by, we noticed two of the Koalas on the ground sizing each other up on either side of a steel fence.  Then they climbed up into the tree structures of their enclosures to get a better look at what their neighbor was up to.  We have never seen Koalas so active.  One was actually jumping from the ground to get up into his tree structures, and both seemed to be craning their heads and jockeying for an ideal position to spy on his neighbor.                  

We took the sky tram cross the park to visit the Polar bears and all 3 were hanging out together.  That pretty much took us to closing time.  Carl dropped us off at the Broadway Pier.  We left him with some of the excellent cookies from the Viking buffet.    

We had our very last dinner in The Restaurant, and treated ourselves to double desserts because our waiter promised us the featured strawberry donuts would be very much worth it- and he was right.  We ran into Dan and Mona, from our Trivia team, after we had finished, and chatted with them for a bit. We learned that one of their daughters is a professor at the UW Tacoma in Economics, and that Dan and Mona will be visiting her in a few months.  She is excited to take the Victoria Clipper to Victoria for high tea at the Empress Hotel after we had mentioned that as something that you can do during the winter months.   There was a Chocolate extravaganza in the Atrium to celebrate the end of the cruise and the start of the holidays.  The ship’s crew has also assembled some huge gingerbread houses for decorations around the ship, and they smell delicious.    

We stopped by to listen to the lounge band playing some Motown and 70’s tunes in Torshavn lounge, and marveled at how good they sounded, despite being a bit loud for the tiny lounge, and only having about 4 couples for an audience.   

We then set about the very sad task of packing out belongings back into our suitcases, and setting most of our suitcases out in the hall for delivery to the cruise terminal for our airport transfer tomorrow. We arrive in Los Angeles at the crack of dawn, and will begin our journey back to Whidbey Island tomorrow.    

 

Tuesday, December 11, 2018- At Sea from Cabo San Lucas to San Diego Day 2

Tuesday, December 11, 2018- At Sea between Cabo San Lucas and San Diego Day 2   We awoke to find the ship oddly stopped off some islands.  A check on the GPS revealed that we were between Islas de San Benito and Isla de Cedros, about halfway up the Baja peninsula.  Ben went up to the Explorer’s Lounge to investigate, and discovered that a medical evacuation was underway.  A small Mexican Coast Guard boat had come alongside our ship’s starboard side.  Their crew was having some difficulty with keeping their boat alongside the tender embarkation door on the starboard side of the Viking Star.  Eventually, a medical bag and two passengers were transferred, and the Mexican Coast Guard boat shoved off.  It then headed off towards Islas de San Benito, which was the opposite direction from the mainland, but a closer inspection of Islas de San Benito revealed a small Mexican naval vessel off the shore of the island.  The Viking Star’s crew had cleared off the tables and lounge chairs from the Aquavit Terrace to prepare for a helicopter medical evacuation, but that was canceled when the transfer by boat plan came to fruition.  They must have figured out that the safest approach would be to take the passengers to the navy ship, which has a helicopter pad on the stern, and then transfer by helicopter to the Baja peninsula.  

After the rescue, We saw a small pod of dolphin swim up to our ship and through our bow wake from our balcony.  Ben then took a walk around the promenade deck, discovering a couple of stowaways on the deck.

     

 

 

Our trivia team was all geared up for the last trivia of the cruise.  We made a decent showing but ended up bridesmaids with 11/15, while a single winning team managed 12/15.  The winning team had been sitting at the bar and knew the London department store established by an American in 1909 was Selfridge’s.  We had incorrectly guessed Harrod’s.  Nobody knew how many months it took for a cashmere goat to produce enough wool to knit one sweater (48 months), and none of us could come up with the name of the collar style named after a fantasy character that was flat with rounded corners and was popular through the late 19th to 20th centuries (Peter Pan).  Ben had guessed Madeline, who happens to sport a classic Peter Pan collar, but came on the scene in 1938, while the Maude Adams’ Peter Pan costume, for which the fashion craze began, dates to 1904.  But that pretty much excludes the 19th century altogether.  But we had an excellent trivia team.  Had there been a progressive team trivia over the course of the cruise, we would have easily won since we won 4, and tied for 2nd by only 1 point on all the games we didn’t win.  It was just as well that the team by the bar had won, because there were certainly some sore losers in the Explorer lounge that resented our winning streak. 

 

 

We wanted to see what kind of discounts were offered for booking a future cruise on board so we called the future cruise desk to see what their hours were.  We learned that they are only seen by appointment, and were nearly completely booked, but they did have a cancelation open up, so we were able to get in today. With Viking, they did offer $200pp off the cruise fare and $100pp OBC if you booked your next cruise onboard.  They also offered $500 off airfare if you booked before December 31.  We were hoping to find free airfare and $1000 off, but there was nothing close to that.  We were initially interested in details on the Mekong Delta River cruise.  We learned that you had to be very physically fit and adventurous to do this cruise because the heat and humidity can be particularly oppressive, and some of the shore excursions require negotiating your way through mud and razor grass lined jungle paths.  The future cruise consultant warned that it was very 3rd world.  We learned that upgrading from their discounted economy air fare to premium economy or business class pretty much eliminated any discounts on airfare.  Princess EZ Air seems to be a better deal for premium economy and business class upgrades. So we may be crossing the Mekong Delta river cruise off our bucket list of destinations.  We got a quote on the Mekong Delta river cruise, but didn’t end up booking it. We’ll budget those funds for the Indian Ocean Odessey Princess cruise that we are still on the waiting list for in January 2020.

 

 

We binged our way through the last of the port talks and enrichment lectures on the video on demand system.  The enrichment lectures were good for inducing an early afternoon nap.  We also watched the movie “The Catcher is a Spy” with Paul Rudd playing the spy.  It was quite a contrast to having just seen him playing Ant Man- another movie we watched this week on the video on demand system.  We didn’t realize what a versatile actor he has developed into since he started in rom-com’s.  

 

 

Free champagne was served at the Captain’s Farewell reception in the Star Theater.  Interestingly enough, the Captain was really bidding farewell as he as at the end of this contract, and will be leaving the ship in Los Angeles to return home for a few months vacation and rest.  Then he will take over the new Viking Jupiter.  They did parade many of the ship’s staff through the theater and onto the stage, probably testing the maximum capacity of the stage.  This was then followed by the final stage show by the Viking Vocalists and band.  The lounge band and singers did a few numbers as an opening act before the Captain’s Farewell reception, and it is notable that both of the Filippino vocalists inthe lounge band are better vocalists than the featured Viking Vocalists.  The main show was an ABBA song book.  While the Viking Vocalists put on an entertaining show, they just didn’t really manage to hit the vocal harmonies that ABBA is notable for.  The two female leads sang too much in slightly off unison instead of harmonizing, and one of the female lead vocalists has nasal and indistinctly weak vocals.  It was a better show than the usual Norwegian Cruise lines show, but paled in comparison to the usual Princess production stage shows that we have become accustomed to.  

 

 

Dinner tonight was particularly enjoyable as we had a farewell dinner with our fellow trivia partners.  We dined kind of late, so the crowd had thinned a bit.  This made it possible to actually have a conversation across the table because it was less noisy.  The wine flowed freely, and the menu featured real broiled New England lobster.  No lobster bibs, but the lobster in drawn butter was delicious.

 

 

We arrive in San Diego at 7AM, and have to clear customs by excursion groups onboard.  Our group is scheduled for interviews at 7:45AM, but it sounds like it should go pretty quickly.  We are scheduled to do the included tour, which will include stops at Old Town, the Waterfront and Balboa Park.  After lunch, we plan on meeting Ben’s brother Carl, who a snowbirds in San Diego, to head to the Zoo for a quick visit to say hello to the Pandas and leopard cubs again.

 

 

 

 

Monday, December 10, 2018- At Sea from Cabo San Lucas to San Diego Day 1

Monday, December 10, 2018- At Sea from Cabo San Lucas to San Diego Day 1  

 We like the weather as we head north because it has been cooler, but sunny and dry.  It is now in the mid 70’s outside with partly cloudy skies.  We are falling into our old habits as we head into our home timezone, sleeping in later and later.  We barely made it to the buffet before it closed.     Our trivia team is now getting a bit of a reputation as we racked up another win today.  The weirdest question was what male animal explodes after mating and dies?  Answer- Honeybee.  

We hit the fitness center after lunch and were treated to the sight of dolphins leaping through our wake through the fitness center windows, which are situated just above the waterline.    

 We attended Dr. Bondar’s last lecture on New World Monkeys.  We were hoping to see her incorporate one of our pictures into her slide show, but alas, not on this cruise.  She did say that twins are the rule among New World Monkeys. She said they are fraternal twins, but share a single placenta.  Afterwards, we asked her how that works, but she didn’t know the specifics of how two separately fertilized eggs can end up sharing a single placenta since the placenta originates from the fetus and invades the lining of the uterus, at least in humans.    

We ended up watching all the other lectures on Mexico’s political and economic turmoils, and the port talk on San Diego on the TV.  It’s a good thing we can watch those on our bed because it’s hard to stay awake all the way throught those.  

We were able to get into the Chef’s Table with a same day reservation for dinner.  The theme was the Venice Carnival.  While we are now quite used to the Amuse Bouche textures and wine pairings, the food was tastey, and the wine can’t help but put you into a good mood.    

We wound up the evening watching “Life of the Party” and “The Spy Who Dumped Me”, both of which were pretty forgettable movies.  We turn our clock back an hour to Pacific Time tonight, and have yet another day at sea tomorrow.

Sunday, December 9, 2018- Cabo San Lucas and San Juan del Cabo

Sunday, December 9, 2018- Cabo San Lucas and San Juan del Cabo   Ben awoke just as the ship was approaching Cabo San Lucas and the Land’s End formation El Arco de Cabo San Lucas.  It was still pre-dawn. The ship dropped anchor just inside the bay formed by Land’s End and the bottom of the Baja Peninsula as the sun rose in the east.  

The temperature had dropped to the lower 70’s and the humidity had also fallen dramatically, so it was quite comfortable to have our breakfast on the Aquavit Terrace on the stern of the ship as a constant stream of fishing and tourist boat streamed out of the harbor at Cabo San Lucas, and headed out to Land’s End and beyond.    

Our included land excursion was scheduled at 11AM, so Ben was able to work off some guilt in the fitness center before we had to get ready to board the tenders that would take us ashore.  

Our shore excursion loaded us up onto buses and took us from Cabo San Lucas Marina to San Juan del Cabo, an old city center about a half hour drive from the marina.  Viking really makes a big production over trying to get all the passenger groups organized (Line up two by two), and they are very considerate to make sure passengers aren’t left standing in the sun any longer than is absolutely necessary.  They also make quite the effort to accomodate the mobility restricted, who are mainstreamed into all of the excursion groups.  This means that none of the excursion groups can move any faster than the slowest and most disabled member.  While politically correct, this approach limits what a group can see in the time permitted. We wish that they would stratify excursion groups based on mobility and fitness so that each passenger can have an optimal experience, rather than a tedious or overly strenuous one.    

There are pharmacies that cater to tourists, advertising all manner of medications available without prescription. There is a chain of pharmacies with a particularly offensive bit of advertising for their Viagra.  

  Once we were disgorged from the buses in the square of San Juan del Cabo, our guide lead us to a jewelry store that would let us use their tiny bathrooms for free if we showed them our guide’s sticker, and then we had an hour to explore on our own.  There is a Catholic Church on the square, known for the tile artwork over the entry depicting it’s founding priest being dragged to his death on the streets of the city by the local indigenous people.  The church itself was conducting a Sunday Mass when we arrived.  The inside of the church was actually quite modest, and a bit run down. There were Christmas decorations on display in the square, and the weather was perfect.  However, San Juan del Cabo just didn’t seem to be all that exciting.  Wandering the streets, you find many of the same items being sold at many of the stores.  There were a few jewelry stores with some nice items for sale, but nothing was what you could consider a good buy, or something uniquely San Juan del Cabo.  The Dias Das Muertos merchandise is interesting to see, especially after having seen Disney’s Coco, but we really don’t need inventory for future garage sales.  We did find some luchadore masks, which would have been an amusing gift, but we couldn’t find anyone to give us a price, so we left empty handed.    

 

We did try our hand at some photography techniques the ship’s seminars have been teaching, and the town did provide some decent backdrops for our experiments.

 

The trip back to the ship got us to the Marina with time to explore a bit more, but since we had spent a couple of weeks in Cabo with our kids back in the mid 2000’s, there wasn’t much we really needed to or wanted to see.  We walked around the marina for a bit of exercise and then headed back to the ship.  

       

 

 

After returning to the ship, we had lunch and then a relaxing dip in the infinity pool, with an unbeatable view of Land’s End.        

Lobster Thermador was served in The Restaurant. They used a spiny lobster and picked the meat out of the tail and body. The meat was diced into chunks and then reconstituted with a rich sauce of egg yolks, cream and cheese in the shells.  While rich, it was not quite as satisfying as picking huge chunks of lobster meat from a New England lobster.

 

The Star Theater show featured all of the cruise director’s staff and performers doing a variety of duets. The Filipino club singers are particularly talented, but some of the other pieces performed by the Viking Vocalists and band were a bit off. Still, it was entertaining and you could tell they put a lot of effort in trying to entertain us.  Just not quite up to Princess standards, though.  

 

We finished off the evening watching a movie called “Searching”.  It was kind of creepy and featured a lot of social media presented in an unusual format.  It was unusual in that it starred a Korean family, and Deborah Messing playing a police detective- and psycho protective mom.  It really seems to advocate helicopter parenting. We’re glad it didn’t end as horribly as it might have.  It is nice to have the on-demand video system back up and running though.  And after 19 days, some Apple services are starting to be accessible, but still not working like they should.  Funny that a Cruise ship should be so reliant on software, and yet the software is so poorly written and buggy. 

 

We have two last sea days coming up as we work our way from Cabo San Lucas to San Diego.  We hope to see some whales and marine life.  We could see some whale watching boats just off El Arco following some whale spouts in the distance before we left Cabo, so maybe we’ll get lucky.