On our way
Yes, we wore masks on the plane while people were loading. Didn’t want anyone sneezing and coughing all over us as they went by. We will wear them in any indoor crowd gatherings as well and probably on the way home.
It’s 6:30 a.m., and we are sitting in The Club Lounge at SeaTac with our good friend Jocelyn, having a light breakfast before our flight to Montreal. And I am calm now.
Calm as compared to yesterday when Oceania sent us the second of two e-mails making changes to our cruise. First, we got one on Monday letting us know that due to their new ship not being “waste-water certified for one of the ports, they would not be able to get into that port (Saguenay) that we were really looking forward to. They did send us a $500 Future Cruise Credit, but that means you have to buy another cruise from them to use it. And, of course, it comes with lots of restrictions on time and cruise that you can use it on.
I was ticked at this one because Oceania should have known in advance that they needed to be “certified” to get into this port. They should have switched to another port if they couldn’t get “certified” in time. As it is, we will have another sea day or should I say another day cruising in the St. Lawrence seaway. It was not a horrible experience, but it was not what we were hoping for.
Then yesterday, we got another e-mail that “in order to accommodate the vessel’s operation needs,” we would not be boarding at 11:00 am but would now be able to board at 2:00 pm. Ok, you are thinking, that’s not such a big deal. But it is to me, and here’s why.
First, about three weeks ago, I stayed up until midnight to be on their website in order to get an early boarding time…which I did. We love getting on early, and the hotel we are staying in has an 11:00 a.m. checkout time, so this worked perfectly for us. But here’s the rub. Instead of saying, “Those people with 11:00 am times will now board at 1:00, those with noon times at 2:00, etc. they had switched to those with BIG suites will board at noon, the ones with small suites at 1:00 and all the rest of us at 2:00. If you have read this blog for a while you know I HATE the caste system that so many cruise lines are adopting. It harkens back to the early 1900s when every ship sailing had (as the Titanic did) First Class, Second Class and steerage. In this case, we are in steerage. Thankfully, when I got the e-mail about this, I was out walking, so I had a chance to cool down before I got home. If you read in the news about a madman walking around Redmond Ridge screaming and swearing at a cruise line, that was me.
Which brings us to right now. 7:09 a.m., sitting the waiting area of the S gates at SeaTac waiting for a flight we should have been boarding right now. We all got up at 3:30, got picked up at 4:30 (by the wonderful Julian from Century Car Service) and were at the airport by 5:10. Through security and waiting by 5:30. We followed all the rules. And what do we get for following all the rules—a delayed flight until 8:15. I know, I complain too much. But again (like the two cases with Oceania), this is just bad management. They say they are fixing a minor mechanical problem. Well, the plane they are fixing has been sitting here overnight. So why didn’t they fix it then?
The good news out of all of this is that we are again…traveling! So I just hope we get to Montreal, meet our friends and family, and have a wonderful time for the next 17 days. I promise not to complain too much in the days to come (unless it is really bad) and to start posting a ton of photos with the next post.
Picking this up in Montreal. It’s around 8:45 here (5:45 at home). I have been up since 12:30 a.m. our time (couldn’t sleep), and I want to finish this up. The flight was very nice. Really impressed with Air Canada. It has a great entertainment system, outstanding flight attendant, and comfortable seats. The food was OK (a parsley omelet? Really?). Customs in Montreal was outstanding. Quick, easy and right through. All is done by machine with a single check at the end by a human. Really well done. Then we had a mix-up with Uber that I will have to handle with my credit card company. And I could not believe the amount of cigarette smoke at the airport so much so that I got a doozy of a sinus headache. Not inside the airport, you got slammed with it when you stepped outside.
When we finally got to the hotel (which is very nice–more on that tomorrow) and I got some sinus medication, and we found Mike and Cathy, and then we went to dinner…all was well, especially after we stopped at the hotel bar on the way back for drinks. Our hotel is right at the entrance to Montreal’s Asian section. So a special shoutout to Jocelyn (who lived in China for a few years) for finding us an amazing DimSum restaurant for dinner. It was really funny that the one she found was literally about four doors up the street from our hotel. The food was fantastic. We just ordered a ton of steamed and fried DimSum and pretty much ate it all. I am still stuffed two hours later. I mean, check this out.
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- Pork
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- Lamb with Cilantro
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- Chicken
We are back in our room now, exhausted but happy and I need to be up by 5:15 so I can get out and get my pre-dawn photos in and have some very cool sights in Montreal to show you later this week.
We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Besides us, we are traveling with a group of five that includes our regular traveling companions, my brother and sister-in-law (Steve and Jamie) and three of our best friends (Mike, Cathy and Jocelyn) as well. It should be an interesting trip as one of our party (Jocelyn) will be on her first cruise. Steve and Jamie are now seasoned international travelers, and Mike is well-known in the cruising world for his outstanding travel reviews (
We first met Mike and the first love of his life, Carol, on a cruise in 2005, and we became close friends. The six of us (including our best buddies Bob and Judy) traveled together quite often over the years in between. Sadly, in those intervening years, we lost both Judy and Carol. We traveled with Mike alone once, but we could tell it wasn’t his best trip. Travel is something you need to do with someone. About three years ago, Mike met Cathy, and if you check out his website, you will see they are traveling like crazy.
It is even more fun that our good friend Jocelyn is also joining us. It’s her first cruise. We always say that Jocelyn is the person who introduced Kathleen and I. She really didn’t do the formal introductions, but way back in November of 1997, when I was going through my divorce and feeling very sad, she came into my office in downtown Leavenworth and gave me a kick in the ass pep talk—told me to get on with my life. She told me about a dating website where she had met a nice gentleman that she had started dating. She talked me into checking it out right then and there. It wasn’t like dating websites now; it was more of a bulletin board where people posted what they were looking for in a partner. And the very first posting I saw…was Kathleen’s. The rest is history.
We are doing a cruise on a brand new cruise line (for us) and a brand spanking new ship. As long-time readers of these posts know, we were very loyal Celebrity cruisers, have done a few on Holland America and gave Viking Ocean a try. But our friend Mike has been sailing Oceania without us. And he keeps telling us how great it is. So when Kathleen and I heard that he and Cathy were doing this cruise, we decided to come along. We were lucky to do that because this cruise was (at that point) sold out. We were only able to get “guarantee” staterooms. That meant we had yet to determine where we would be on the ship, but we were guaranteed to have someplace to sleep. We got the last “guarantee” stateroom about a year ago. Since then, other guarantees and stateroom reservations have been opened, so Jocelyn, Steve and Jamie could join us.