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Over The Water And Back Again—A Transatlantic Trip
By Snookums, edited by Filbert, photos by Filbert

Part 6


May 9 (Friday, Day 13, Cartagena, Spain) –

We got off the ship and walked around Cartagena.  It is a nice city, still partially surrounded by its original city wall.  We found an ATM to get our Euros.  Since it was around 9 AM none of the stores were open.   Eventually we found an open grocery store.  We bought two cans of soda and a plain looking sugar topped roll (for Snookums) for 1 euro (about $1.50).  She only ate half of it since it had a bunch of anise in it. By the time we walked back to the ship around noon the stores were open but since we didn’t need clothes or electronics or drugstore items, we didn’t go shopping.

Welcome to Cartagena

Cartagena

Tonight was when the tips were handed out.  We charged our tips to our shipboard account and then Royal Caribbean gave out specifically printed vouchers that the passengers were to give to their various servers.  At dinner Filbert was already saying that he didn’t want to give the tip to the assistant waiter (and Filbert knew we already paid for it)--and that was before the assistant waiter spilled wine on the table—again.  This is the same assistant waiter that had spilled wine every night at least once.  This time, the waiter managed to get wine on Filbert's camera.  Once again, Filbert's normally tolerant amusement of service screwups finally tipped over into the red zone of extreme irritation, and Filbert told the now-quivering guy to find the maitre d’.  Filbert explained the sloppy wine service to the matre d'.  Anyway, the camera wasn’t hurt at all (it’s an underwater camera, after all) and the assistant waiter did in fact get his tip.  However, we never saw the assistant waiter or the waiter at the end of the meal to hand them their tips so the people at the table just left the envelopes on the tables.  Other tables were hugging their waiters but not our table!

The “gala” parade