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Part Four, 5/4/07-5/5/07, is here.

May 6 (Sunday, Day 10, Acapulco, Mexico) -

Phil’s sunburn got him up before the sun, and he went forward to the Observation Lounge.  More dolphins.  Yawn.  (Just kidding, it’s always a thrill to see dolphins.  It’s even more of a thrill to take a decent picture of them, because they’re so $#%@#$ elusive!)

This was supposed to be another snorkeling day, but we turned in the tickets in time to get the shipboard credit back.  As it turns out, Acapulco isn’t a very good place to snorkel anyway, and they cancelled the snorkeling excursion due to lack of interest.  Now we have even more shipboard credit to spend…

Janet laid claim to the title “Queen of Finding Dead Animals” by locating a dead sparrow along her path during her short stroll around the Acapulco harbor area.

We went to the animated movie “Happy Feet” and decided that it was okay, but about 30 minutes too long. 

Dad is the only one on board with a scooter.  There are 4 or 5 wheelchairs, at least 2 walkers and lots of canes.  The wheelchair people should definitely have scooters since then they would have their independence.  Getting over the doorsills that are all over the ship (for the watertight doors) is impossible on your own in a wheelchair.  But the scooter does just fine.  The dining room wait staff love to drive his scooter to its “parking spot” before and after dinner since he sits in a normal dining room chair while eating.  It seems to be the highlight of their day!!

May 7 (Monday, Day 11, At sea) -

Today is another sunny day, but the temperature seems cooler than it’s been.  Phil and Dad did the tour of the bridge.  A code blue was announced around 11 AM and at 12:10 PM, the captain came on and said that we were diverting to Puerto Vallarta but that our scheduled port tomorrow of Cabo San Lucas shouldn’t be disrupted at all.  Mom encountered one of those code blue situations--a woman was running towards her saying that her husband was having chest pains.  So, we guess it’s a man with a heart attack.  Phil’s comment was something like “Traveling with old people is fun” since you just never know what will happen next.  We can only imagine the number of itinerary changes on our 65-day cruise in 2008!!!

Janet had done some online research towards the beginning of the cruise on our next cruise and Phil finally got around to doing his research and said “yes” to a Royal Caribbean 13 night transatlantic eastbound cruise on the 3,114 passenger Voyager of the Seas in April, 2008.  (We disembark in Barcelona, Spain and then will visit Stuttgart, Germany if Janet’s sister and brother-in-law will have us.)  I’m sure it will be quite different from the luxury of the 700 passenger Mariner that we are enjoying now!

Another code blue sounded during our Indian and Thai curry buffet lunch by the pool (there is a themed buffet lunch outside by the pool on all sea days), but we found out it was just a bloody nose!

We saw a steady stream of stingrays this afternoon.  They seemed to be about one or two feet under the water.  When we first saw them we thought they were turtles, but then we quickly realized they were rays since they were diamond-shaped.  None of them jumped out of the water, though.  They just floated alongside the ship in groups of two to four or so.

Rays under the surface

We stopped near Puerto Vallarta and a little boat came out with an EMS guy and a stretcher and the man that had the heart condition code blue was transferred from our ship to the little boat (and then probably to a Puerto Vallarta hospital).  His wife and a nurse from the ship went on the little boat, too.  While the stretcher transfer process was going on (it took about 30 minutes in total), a wooden “pirate” booze cruise party boat was leaving from Puerto Vallarta.  They had their loudspeakers on and were saying crazy things to our ship.  They even fired three cannon balls “at” us (that is, fired off three fireworks into the sky—away from our ship).  Anyway, it was kind of bizarre.  Since they had no idea what was going on, you couldn’t blame them for having fun.  But it was very, very surreal.

Rescue boat meets pirate ship

We had dinner at Signatures, the Le Cordon Bleu restaurant, tonight.  Mom ordered two appetizers – caviar and frog legs.  Phil ordered two, too – scallops and escargot. Janet confesses that she ordered (and ate) three desserts – vanilla bean crème brûlée, a warm gooey chocolate tart with chocolate ice cream and a lime “muffin” with a blob of chocolate ganache on top of it.  The lime muffin was good and the chocolate ganache was good, but not together!  The presentation of all the food is really the outstanding part (as well as the taste).

Phil likes scallops

Soupe Cremeuse aux Moules Infusee au Safran

Sorbet au Vin Rouge avek epice

Tournedos Rossini, bouquetiere de legumes glaces, sauce Perigueux

Baba au vieux Rhum, Crème Pistache et Fruits Rouges

Crème Brulee a la vanille de Tahiti, aux Fraises marinees et son coulis, Tarte tiede au chocolat et aux framboises, and Financier aux Amandes—Citron Verte, Ganache au chocolat Molleux

After Janet ate her appetizer the waitress put a silver tray in front of her with something on it.  She opened it and found the one bracelet that she had been looking at buying.  Mom and Dad bought it for her as a thank you for planning the trip!  It was funny since that morning Janet had told Mom about the bracelet and Mom started talking about it, too.  Of all the bracelets in the little store, we managed to like the exact same one!  When Janet went to the little store before dinner to buy it, it was gone and Janet was very disappointed.  She didn’t realize that Mom was the buyer.  It is made up of tiger eyes, clear green and blue “gems” and opaque bright green stones and matches a lot of Janet’s cruise outfits perfectly.

The story continues in Part Six, 5/8/07-5/9/07.