Home Again

This morning I woke up extra early and was able to see us sail under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was bittersweet as I remembered being so excited when Ross and I cruised under it as we departed.

I took some pictures and then went back to bed to doze for a while. When we got up for good, we were docked in San Francisco.





We decided that we had enough time for a quick breakfast. The Lido buffet was busy and we were not able to sit next to the window or even in our usual section. The food was excellent, of course. Both Ross and I had a Belgium waffle for our last meal on the ship.





After breakfast, we hurried to the Starlight lounge to wait for our turn to depart the ship. We were in the first group to be called and our disembarkation went smoothly, aside from some confusion on the part of our porter.

I did not know what mode of transportation we were supposed to take and the porter did not understand what I meant when I said that we had a Crystal transfer to the airport. He tried to put us in a taxi. One thing I love about Crystal is that there is almost always an employee nearby when you need one and this was no exception. The porter was quickly intercepted and the employee directed us to the correct bus. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to get through the rather long security line.

I love the very appropriate saying that traveling requires a whole lot of "hurry up and wait".





Our plane ride was uneventful (just the way I like them!) and my mother was waiting with our daughter to pick us up from the airport.

The best part of the day was finally being able to eat dinner with our favorite dining companion.






Since we've been home, many people have asked us if we had a good time and if we would go back. We did have an absolutely wonderful time and if money and time were no object, I would hop right back on the Symphony and just sail where ever she was headed. Alas, we live somewhat more mundane lives, with limited vacation time and a budget. Practically speaking, a trip of this magnitude only comes for us every 5 years or so.

I had a serious bucket list desire to see Alaska and we are very happy we went. We loved it, but now that we have been there once, I am sure that we would elect to go somewhere new next time. Paris sounds awfully fun...

So will our next big trip be a cruise? Maybe.  And if it is, I would probably come straight back to Crystal, which was near perfect. The absolute best part of cruising for me, was not having to plan anything. I loved knowing that the ports, excursions, classes and even meals were all just waiting for us. I am a type-A planner and a stay-at-home mom so (paraphrasing Claire Dunphy), a family vacation is usually more like a business trip for me. But tis trip was a true vacation in every since of the word.

One thing I did not like and did not anticipate, was how very short our time in each port would be. If I only have one chance in my life to go to the Mediterranean, I am not sure if a cruise is the best way to do it. Do I really want to try to see Rome between the hours of 10:00am and 5:00pm before we sail away to our next destination?  I don't think so.

I suppose I will have quite a long time to ponder this before I have to make a decision, and as far as decisions go, what a fun thing to get to think about!

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Sea Day 4 - Part 2

In the afternoon Ross and I went to the casino for a Texas Hold'em tournament.



We weren't thrilled with the structure of the tournament. They doubled the blinds every 10 minutes which made for a very fast game. I was out fairly quickly but Ross placed 4th or 5th and won a t-shirt and a $10 match certificate for the casino.



Ross wanted to use the matching coupon from the casino to play craps so he put in $10 and the casino matched his bet with an additional $10. I had never really played craps before, but Ross let me roll for him.

I was nervous because the croupier told me that the dice had to hit the far end of the table and it was hard for me to get the hang of throwing them. One time, I accidentally threw one of the dice off of the table! Another time I got in trouble for asking out loud, "Am I not supposed to roll a 7?"

But I did get to practice rolling the dice a _lot_ each time before hitting a dreaded s-e-v-e-n. The dealer suggested that I may have found myself a new career. At one point, a man who had cashed out already, scurried back over to the table when he realized it was my turn to roll again.



In the end we won exactly $195 off of that $10. Which meant, considering the price of the Texas Hold'em tournament, we came out just about even. Lol.

We were still doing very well at the craps table when we quit (always the best time to quit gambling!) because we wanted to get to the last show of the cruise. The four headliners all did short encore performances. We again really liked the ventriloquist Mark Merchant (pictured below with me) and the comedy pianist Dale Gonyea. There was a dance team and a singer whose performances were a bit underwelming.




After the show, we went back to our room to finish packing and change for dinner.

When we were leaving we had an odd encounter with our room stewardess. This was not the first interaction like this and she was the only employee on the entire cruise that we were not absolutely thrilled with.

She stopped us and asked when we would be leaving our room to go to breakfast in the morning. We shrugged our shoulders and said that we hadn't thought about it. She insisted that we give her a time, saying, "It would help me a lot if I could come in and just make the bed while you are eating breakfast. I won't touch any of your things or anything."

I said, "Our flight is at noon so we are in the first group leaving the ship in the morning. I really don't think we are going to be up early enough for breakfast."

She replied, "Breakfast opens at 6:30 am though, and you can't even leave the ship until 8:15 am! You will have plenty of time to go eat."

I could just could not guarantee that we would have enough time to go and eat so I said, "Well, I don't know, but if we do go, we will hang up the "Please make up room" sign and look for you so we can tell you." She unhappily said that would be okay.

Maybe she was just trying to be helpful, but she was so pushy. Every other Crystal staff member would have been thinking about how to help us instead of the other way around.

After that we wondered around the ship until dinner, visiting the shops, Palm Court and the Bistro one last time.

It was a bit drizzly, but warm enough that we were also able to walk around outside. Below I was standing at the very back of the Symphony.




Ross was standing on the promenade deck.




Below is a picture of me with our senior waiter, Peter. We loved getting menu suggestions each evening from him. One evening, when we were moving to our friend's table, and thus were going to have a new waiter, Peter stealthily pulled me aside for a moment to whisper his recommendations, which I thought was very cute.



To start we both had a roasted beet and goat cheese napoleon. I liked it much more than Ross. I don't think he had more than a bite. It was a bit too goat cheesy and I agreed with him that it would have been improved with more of a contrasting sweet flavor. The beets were too bland to stand up to the large amount of goat cheese.




We also both ordered (on Peter's strong recommendation) the sautéed sweetbread which were wonderful. I have only had sweetbreads a few times, but I thought these were the best I've eaten.




I tried the cream of chicken soup which I didn't love. In general the creme of vegetable soups have been great, but the ones with meat lacked flavor.



Ross had a crab cake salad, which was delicious. Every crab cake we have gotten on this cruise has been outstanding and packed full of crab.



My walnut shrimp entrée was perfect. The shrimp were plump and complemented nicely by the sweet walnuts and mild creamy sauce.




Ross ordered the roasted Long Island Duckling which was a bit inconsistent. Ross liked either only the white meat or the dark (sorry I've forgotten which) and thought the other was not cooked properly.




For dessert Ross ordered the chocolate and peanut butter cake, which was very dry.




I ordered the ginger crisps stuffed with orange risotto which were okay, but oddly, a bit greasy. The crisps were very crisp (maybe a but too thick?) and the whole thing was rather difficult to eat. The orange risotto stuffing was very good though.




After dinner we stopped outside the dining room at the menu board that always displays the next day's meals. Ross commented how sad he was that the lunch menu was for the new passengers boarding the next morning instead of us.

We went back to our room and finished puting the last few thing into our suitcases before setting our alarm to wake us in the morning.




In the week, I will write one more post about our flight home and a few parting thoughts about our trip.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone.

Sea Day #4 - Part 1

We started with breakfast at the Lido Buffet again today. Below is a picture of the congee station.






And I had a bowl of it again with tofu, seaweed, crisp shallots and sesame seeds. It was very tasty and I know I will remember it fondly when I am back home eating my usual toast and peanut butter for breakfast.







We had two really outstanding servers at the Lido, Jonathan and Suresh. Below is a picture of Suresh, who always gave us spectacular service in the Lido and occasionally in the main dining room. As an example, he noticed that we always sought out a table by the window at breakfast. During the Grand Gala Buffet, when Suresh saw us walk into the dining room, he stepped forward, took both of our plates and rushed them to the last remaining window seat.




After breakfast, we went to our last bridge lesson and then searched for the pictures that the onboard photographers had taken of us. Below is a picture of the hallway where all of the pictures were displayed.




The pictures were pricy so we only got 2 of them. This one is my favorite:




We also played team trivia again, but didn't fare as well today with only 6 out of 15 answers correct. Your sample question for the day:

Q. In the cockney rhyming dialect what does, "I can't Adam and Eve it!" mean?

After the trivia game, we spent quite a while trying to check in an print our boarding passes for our flight home. Crystal offered a free 20 minutes of Internet time to all passengers for this today, but with the ultra slow connection, that wasn't enough time for us. We eventually decided to just log off and try again later when there would be less people using the bandwidth.




The picture below is of the amazing computer lab they have set up for computer classes. We didn't take any of those classes, but were impressed by the huge monitors.




We ate in the main dining room for lunch. I started with an avocado and palm heart "cocktail" that was very good. All the avocados have been really delicious.




Ross ordered a jumbo shrimp cocktail, which was good, although I don't like my shrimp drowned in cocktail sauce the way it was presented here.




For the main course, Ross had a shrimp salad that was good.





I ordered a pan fried white fish over paella and it was fantastic. I am so sorry to say that I forgot to take a picture. There was a lot of seafood in the paella and it had a very well seasoned and slightly spicy flavor. It was one of my favorite lunch items for the entire cruise.

A. "I can't believe it!"


To be continued in Sea Day #4 - Part 2


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Ketchikan, Alaska

We were a little late getting to Ketchikan, AK this morning. We didn't arrive until almost 10:30am because of rough seas last night.

We went to the Bistro for breakfast this morning. The Bistro serves a much smaller selection of breakfast offerings than our usual Lido buffet, mostly just pastries, some sliced meat and fruit. We both had smoked salmon and cream cheese on a bagel (Ross) or toast (Shannon), along with fruit and a cappuccino.

After breakfast, we took a tender to Ketchikan. When we left the Symphony, it was cloudy, but not really raining.

Fifteen minutes later, when we arrived in Ketchikan, it was pouring rain. I estimate about 1/3 of the people on the tender didn't even get off. They just stayed on and went back to the Symphony. Of course, we didn't let the rain stop us.

There was an interesting statue of an eagle near the dock that many people were taking pictures of.

The main drag looked almost exactly like the other Alaskan towns we have been to, full of jewelry and trinket stores.


We stopped at a post office and I wrote and mailed several post cards.

This beautiful totem pole was in the center of town.

We made our way to Creek Street, which is a historic part of Ketchikan. The entire street is a wooden boardwalk that was built above the creek. It used to be the red light district, but now is full of historical buildings, local art and curio shops. We thought it was one of the most interesting places and the best shopping location for the entire trip. In the picture below, Ross was standing on a regular street, and you creek street is across the creek and behind him.

I am standing under the entrance sign to Creek Street.

Ross is standing in front of the infamous Dolly Arthur's house. Dolly referred to herself as a "sporting woman", but I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine what sport she was playing.

We thought this fish bench was adorable and I was about to take a picture of Ross in front of it when nice couple we had met at our wine tasting walked by and offered to take the picture of both us.

There is a hidden trail in the woods leading from one of the main roads in Ketchikan to Creek Street. It was aptly named "Married Man's Trail" because the single men were able to use the public way. :)

At one point the creek turned into more of a rushing waterfall. I wish I had a better picture, but behind Ross is a "salmon ladder" that many of the salmon use to make their way up the stream instead of the rapids. The creek was so flooded, running high and fast that we only saw a couple of salmon trying to get up it though.

After viewing the salmon ladder, we headed back to the ship. We made it back in time for afternoon tea again.

I mentioned the scone's right? And the fresh whipped cream and strawberries? Oh my, these were good.

As the Symphony prepared to sail away from Ketchikan, I desperately tried to post my blog and send some emails before I lost contact with the Internet again. I took one last picture of Alaska before we headed back towards San Francisco.

We lounged around, reading, until it almost dinner time. Ross snapped this picture of me getting ready.

It was another casual night (as all port days are), but dinner on this ship is never a blue jeans and t-shirt sort of casual.

We ended up being invited to eat dinner with our friends again this evening so I wasn't able to snap any photos of our food. We had a wonderful time talking with some of the members of the Cruise Critic message boards I read, along with 2 lovely couples we met from Australia.

After dinner we went to see Dale Goneyea, who is a comedy pianist. Ross and I both thought he was wonderfully entertaining. The highlight was a very funny song about our cruise set to a montage of the Les Miserables sound track. (Something like: "At the end of the cruise, you're another size bigger! And that's all you can say for the life aboard...") I was very glad we went to his show, and I would recommend seeing his show if you get the chance.

Only 2 days left of our cruise! Tomorrow and the next day will both be sea days as we head back to San Francisco.