Land at last after 6 days at sea! The days have flown by quickly because I've kept busy with sorting out photographs and trying to get my blog together. I also helped Jannos, from the shore excursions department, with collating the next tour pages together to form a brochure and then get them stapled. We were joined by Ryan, Mike's husband who is a doctor working in the ship's infirmary. Between the three of us we got the brochures done very quickly. There are no rubber thimbles on board so wearing latex gloves helps very nicely with being able to pick up individual pages, rather than rubbing wax onto our fingertips.When Paul and I boarded the Maasdam in Tahiti there was a 'code red' on board. A gastrointestinal bug was doing the rounds, some guests were isolated and all food, plates, cups, cutlery, etc was handled by only gloved staff. Floors, handrails and much more were constantly wiped down with disinfectant. There were hand sanitisers everywhere and at all the dining room doors there was a staff member standing at the door to remind guests to sanitise their hands before entering, if they didn't do so automatically. Guests, when embarking on a cruise, are asked to report to the infirmary if they have a stomach bug or feel ill. Unfortunately this was not the case and, after one particular port call, guests started to get ill. Some people didn't report it to the infirmary and so rather than being isolated in their cabins, a combination of walking around the ship and their inadequate hand-washing procedures (perhaps) helped spread what I call 'le bug' 😉. Fortunately two days before we arrived in San Diego 'le bug' seemed to have been eradicated.
At some point in time, while posting my blogs onto Facebook, Facebook blocked me a few days because they felt that one or two body painting photographs that were in one of my photo albums were inappropriate/indecent. Funnily enough the photographs have been in my Facebook album since sometime last year, so why block them now - months down the line? I know Facebook's rules and didn't feel the photographs were inappropriate because the 'bits' were painted over. But nope, Facebook felt that the pictures were indecent. Oh well ... By the time I could get back into my Facebook account I had a backlog of blog links to post but that went fairly quickly, fortunately.This morning everyone was up early. We had to meet with border control officials who boarded the ship once it had had official clearance for docking. Fortunately everything went smoothly but the chap who dealt with my paperwork was unfamiliar with it had kept asking his colleagues what to do next. He was probably used to dealing with USA citizens and their paperwork rather than a visitor who has an ESTA visa and waiver. Little did he know that he would be dealing with a lot more people further down the queue who had similar paperwork so I was his 'learning curve'.
Linda, nurse from the ship's infirmary, invited me to join her when she got off the ship for a few hours. She was meeting up with family who would pick her up from the ship. Unfortunately before our agreed meet-up time in her office in the infirmary there was an emergency call-out and all medical staff and first aiders went to the scene. Someone was about to leave his/her cabin for disembarkation and had a heart attack. Sadly numerous attempts by the doctors and support teams to get the heart started proved futile, the person's life spirit left. Staff had done their very best, and once again handled the situation with dignity and professionalism.At our agreed time I went to the infirmary and had to wait a short while for Linda while she got ready. It was good to get off the ship and I was delighted to get out and about; not at all fussed as to where we would go or where we would end up at. I was just grateful that Linda had asked me to join her because generally I don't like getting out and about on my own.
As we walked along the boulevard Linda's sons drove to meet us. It was quite fortuitous that we were waking along the edge of a car park beside the road when we were spotted so they were able to stop their vehicles in the car park rather than on the roadside. The lads had come in two vehicles because they had expected more staff joining me and Linda but they had already been picked up by friends and headed to the zoo - where we had hoped to meet up later.
First thing we did was go to Costco for a few bits and bobs then we had a nice hamburger at In-N-Out Burger (similar to Burger King or MacDonalds but I believe the quality is much better). We were going to meet up with a few other people at the entrance to the zoo but traffic was very bad and time was moving on. So we headed back in the direction of the port but diverted past Linda's house to do a bit more shopping and allow one of her sons to drop his car off at the house and join us in one car to go back to the port.At the pier we said our goodbyes and a very friendly security chap let us through the gates. Unfortunately for Linda - she had a load of bags that had to be emptied and examined - probably for contraband! My bumbag didn't contain anything very interesting - camera and mobile phone; and a plastic bag with a bottle of apple cider vinegar and insoles.
We were on board with half an hour to spare before the lifeboat drill for crew and guests started. Another ship was on the opposite pier also doing a lifeboat drill, so there was a 'loudspeaker' competition 😉. We could hear them and they could hear us as the two ships did lifeboat drills.
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| MS Maasdam's route to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico |
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