Let me preface this cruise diary by saying that though we had read on Cruise West’s website and in their brochures that the Spirit of ’98 and the Spirit of Oceanus had Internet access for sale onboard, when I asked onboard, I was told that last year Spirit of ’98 did have it, but no longer. So, all of this is being typed up roughly in real time, but I have gone back and edited pretty extensively since I cannot post entries daily and therefore sometimes things may be written in the chronology that I did not know about until later and added when editing. Sorry if that is confusing. ..I just confused myself!
Today was a very long, hard day. But, it went pretty well considering my fears. I was pretty freaked out about the flying with Meniere's Disease thing on Friday. Today I feel much more sanguine about it. I managed ok. I had a couple of ugly moments on both flight segments, but it was really just more normal motion sickness (with an extra dose of anxiety atop) and the pressurization did not trigger any ugly vertigo attacks. I still swear by Ear Planes or their equivalent! I have recently been diagnosed preliminarily by my GP with benign essential tremor. My right leg really was shaking badly. He changed my blood pressure medication to a beta blocker since that is the first line of drug for treating this condition. It knocked it way back in intensity, the frequency remains unchanged. Anyway, reading about it online I found that some say it is stress amplified. We proved that theory true. As my stress level increased the size, or intensity, of the tremor ramped up dramatically. Online, suggested that alcohol would knock back a stress-amplified tremor. Hah! Haven't tried that cure yet!
Southwest Air gets 2 thumbs up from us. All went very smoothly and right on time. From RDU on the first leg, we had boarding group A and were seating alone on row 8 with an empty middle seat. That was lucky and very comfortable. The second leg from Chicago to Portland was longer, of course, but also that plane was completely booked and since we got boarding group B on that segment we were at the back of the plane and may have had a rougher ride. All was fine until the last 20-30 minutes or so when we encountered roller coaster-like turbulence crossing, I guess, Mt. Hood. It was ugly. But, all's well that ends well. Southwest was very generous with complimentary drinks and snacks. But, I would advise avoiding the Nabisco 100 calorie snack bag of cookies. They were supposed to be chocolate chips, but I didn't taste any chocolate in those brown spots. When I was a kid we paid to feed some reindeer somewhere at a petting zoo kind of thing, being a kid, and stupid, I tasted one. That is what the Nabisco 100 calorie snack chocolate chip cookies tasted like, reindeer biscuits. I threw off a pretty good flop sweat the last fifteen minutes before landing in Portland thinking about hurling those cookies into my little vomit bag. But, just in time we landed!
So, we easily found the Cruise West rep waiting at PDX baggage claim at about 20 of 2pm. She told us we were the last 4 passengers to arrive for this cruise, which is fully booked, or right at 100 passengers. We put our suitcases under the bus, which was already full of luggage and got on for the short ride to downtown Portland and the Embassy Suites Hotel which is in a beautiful historic building. I believe we heard it was built as the Multnomah Hotel. We arrived at about 2:40pm and checked in with the hostess in the hospitality room. As we walked through the lobby, every seat was occupied with people wearing Cruise West buttons. Oh yeah, they come with the cruise documents and you are instructed to wear them through the airport to be identified. The Cruise West rep that met us there asked us if we had gotten our name tags. No. She said she had not found anyone all summer on this cruise that had. She said she did not know how the ship was handling this. More on this subject later. Clay had realized by now that he had left his RSSC Circle South America 2008 waterproof jacket on the last plane. The five of us had a conversation about how he would need a jacket during the next week. As we walked through the hotel lobby, we saw some jackets in their Gift Shop and after we dropped me and our carry-ons at a table with a few of the last chairs available, Clay went and bought one. It was pricey, but it was nice with a fleece lining and waterproof outer, but no hood. Hopefully, it won't rain or be too cold and he won't miss the hood too much.
Anyway, this seemed kind of a lost day with Cruise West and this whole hanging out at the too small for everyone hospitality room deal. People were in there playing cards and reading books, etc. I don't know if anyone had told them what time the buses were coming back from delivering the luggage to the ship before they would take the passengers. Since we were the last ones and I am nosy, I asked Cliff, our bus driver. He told me it would be after 3:30pm, probably 3:40pm and it was. But, in the meantime, for example, a Portland landmark business Voodoo Doughnuts was on the street at the back of the hotel, we saw it as we left for the ship. No one offered to tell us that! We could have used that dead hour to walk around the block and visit a Portland institution instead of vegging in a stale room, drinking melted down ice water! Again, from talking to the people at our table that had spent the night before at the hotel, it is not clear whether they had sat in that room since checking out of the hotel or what! They seemed pretty bored and exasperated though, so that was my understanding. Jeez! Want a disappointment. We had a small world experience here. Sitting across from us was a couple from Battle Creek, MI. They were talking about Olivet and other towns near them and I told Clay I bet they know some Friias from Albion. Turns out he was born in Albion and his mother lived her whole life there and died at 100. When I asked him, he immediately said I know of a Sam Friia, an attorney. Clay and I just burst out laughing. And I said, the infamous Sam Friia, my uncle. He asked if Sam was the black sheep of my family and then we really laughed as Clay replied not by a long stretch. Then everyone at the table had a good laugh. Then they came to take us away.
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| Docked on the Willamette River in downtown Portland, OR |
Anyway, they took us to the boat docked right in downtown Portland on the Willamette River. (Pronounced Will AM mitt.) We had to show photo ID and were checked off a list and allowed to cross the gangway where we were asked our cabin number and directed down the stairs. We entered on the top deck, 4. Our cabin is 104, so we had to work our way through a maze to get down there and forward. We knew it was going to be about the size of our bedroom closet, but it is really small. We were told to report to the forward lounge for orientation and to bring our personal flotation devices with us for the drill. So, we dropped our carry-ons and went up one deck and forward. This lasted about an hour. They served some snacks from a buffet and complimentary flute-glasses of red juice. Clay said it tasted mostly like maraschino cherry juice, but I thought it was citrusy so I didn't have any. They were also selling any other drinks you wanted at the bar, but they had a pitcher of ice water and glasses, so I had that. I was really dehydrated from the flights and salty snacks! By that time I was also getting headachy. Clay pointed out that it was nearly 9pm our time and I realized that on top of a hard and stressful day of travel would do it. Plus, I was really hungry by that time! The upside is that I didn't retain much of the speeches given by Captain Peter Kay, Exploration Leaders Alison Ashton and Nancy Olsen, Guest Speaker Don Popejoy, the housekeeper, the hotel manager, Ali Campbell and the dining room manager, Luis Moreno. What I did come away with was probably the most important parts. I remember how to use the PFD and where to go if you hear the alarm. We learned how to check out of the ship by moving the indicator on the status board as we leave and reboard the boat. We learned that there are no room keys because the ship is so secure! We learned that they would be making our name tags on the boat and delivering them to our cabins during dinner and that we should wear them on the lanyard they would be provided on during all times outside of our cabins, including when leaving the ship. (This turned out to be Bob’s home for the week, hanging at the end of my lanyard, just below my name tag. Handy!)
They explained about the No Knock Knots on the back of our doors. It is a piece of rope, tied in a loop. When you want to be undisturbed in your cabin, you hang it on the outside.
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| Cruise West No Knock Knot |
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| Debbie on our small double bed with window in #104 |
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| Me in front of the smallest ever closet for scale! |
Per instructed, I got to see Luis, the dining room manager, before dinner to discuss dietary restrictions. The hotel manager told us to fill out a card in our cabin notebooks if we had any cabin issues. We had a handful of wires sticking out of our wall and our stewardess, Kate, told us that it was for our missing "Narration Box". She told us that Engineering had taken the box down some time ago to repair it, but she didn't think it could be fixed or they would have put it back by now. We were told that the Narration Box was how we got our wake up calls and heard the alerts about when and where to look for things. Obviously, this is not acceptable. So, Clay carried that card up with that complaint as well as our missing umbrellas. Ali came down to the cabin with Clay to look and deliver the umbrellas. She said the Captain told her that one of the cabins has a contractor staying in it and he would have Engineering remove that Narration Box and install it in our cabin since we are paying passengers. Gee, ya think. Ali offered us a free bottle of Oregon Pinot Gris as compensation for our inconvenience. OK, that's nice but still, all we really want is to know what is going on around the ship like everyone else! Within about 24 hours of this, we came back to the cabin to find our Narration Box mounted on the wall.
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| Wires for our missing Narration Box! |
So far Luis and all the dining wait staff have been very accommodating. I must give props especially to Luis, who has been very diligent in finding me anywhere in the dining room to check in and follow up. As it is open seating, the staff never knows where I will turn up, so all the waiters have chef’s notes on what is on or off my list.
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| Clay's Salad - First Dinner |
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| Clay's Salmon - First Dinner |
Then, it sounded like someone playing maracas in the wall at the foot of our bed. Clay said it was the AC. Well, we had to leave that on or it would be too stuffy in this tiny space. Around 3am, I couldn't stand it anymore and crawled over Clay to pee and reset the AC from lo fan to high and voila maracas gone. I was earlier awakened by what I thought was a transportation nightmare; you know planes, buses, boats, trains... I was awakened by what I swore was the rhythm of a train clacking along tracks. It couldn't be possible! I opened the curtains and looked out. River, no movement. Clay asked me what I was doing; looking for a train. Huh? He didn't believe me! But, guess what? Traveling through the Columbia Gorge with us on the river are a couple of highways and a couple of train tracks. I did feel the train!
Some cabin notes. There are Gilchrist & Soames Spa Therapy toiletries. Both the soap bars and shampoo contain aloe. I react to it like poison ivy, so bad for me. Fortunately, I brought enough of my own supplies to last about 7 days, so here's hoping that the hotels we stay in later have some aloe-free products. They are putting that stuff in everything anymore!
I will close this first day's post with a series of photos Clay took of some of the many bridges of Portland that we sailed under as we left Portland, Oregon shortly after embarkation.
