5 year wedding anniversary gift

In anticipation of our 25th wedding anniversary, Pat and I signed up for an 11-day cruise. On Jan. 8, 2000, we flew from Tucson to Acapulco where we boarded Royal Caribbean International's Vision of the Seas. Ports of call were Puntarenas, Costa Rica; Willemstad, Curacao, and Oranjestad, Aruba, in the Netherlands Antilles; St. Thomas and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The exciting highlight for us, however, was the daylight transit of the Panama Canal, 13 days after Panama took over control.

Cruise ship

The monstrous, 3-football-field long Vision of the Seas was delivered in April 1998. In the canal locks it had six inches of clearance on either side! Although capable of accommodating 2,400 passengers, there were only a little over 1,700 aboard during our cruise. Our inside cabin was on the fourth deck and comfortable though small.

The design and decor of the interior of this new ship were outstanding. The Centrum in the center of the ship was open from the fourth deck to the 10th deck and was decorated with a 3-story-high stainless-steel sea horse hanging from above.

One of our main concerns was being overwhelmed by the large number of pass engers. This turned out to be a false worry. Lounges and bars were scattered throughout the ship and even in the 2-deck-high dining room we did not feel crowded. The only exception was the theater, where we had to arrive up to 45 minutes before the show to find suitable seats.

The entertainment, which included two Broadway shows, was enjoyable but not as professional as that we had attended on a previous cruise on the Island-Princess.

Activities

Except for Pat's winning a $25 jackpot in a quarter slot, our playtime in the casino was uneventful. There was no keno.

More to our liking was, bridge. During days at sea there was a lecture in the morning and duplicate bridge in the afternoon attended by up to seven tables of players. Actually, the level of bridge play was not of the highest order. Although Pat and I are intermediate players at best, we came in first twice and second once and I won a blue ribbon for solving a bridge problem.

One event we all observed, while far from shore in the Pacific, was the appearance of a 50-foot sailing vessel off our starboard beam while we were engrossed in bridge. There was little wind, so the boat was proceeding under power. We empathized with the captain and crew, whoever they were, as Pat and I had sailed our 37-foot O'Day sloop across the Atlantic in 1986.

Food and service

We found the food from good to excellent. The fish in particular the salmon from Norway, was flaky and tasty. Beef and other entrees were good though a little chewy at times. The desserts, most of which were shown to us in advance by Helder, our attentive waiter were delicious.

The waiters were of many different nationalities. Inasmuch as I was born in Istanbul of American parents, I was interested to discover that 20 of the waiters were Turkish. I talked to many of them to brush up on my fading Turkish. Most of them knew Rumeli Hissar, the little village on the European shore of the Bosphorus, where I came into this world. Helder, among many others, was Portuguese.

I should mention, though, that my British wife wasn't happy about the buffet-style tea service. (You know how those Brits are about their afternoon tea.) On the Island Princess, tea had been brought to us wherever we were seated along with dainty sandwiches and tarts, all accompanied by soothing piano music.

Except for the minor matter mentioned above, the service throughout was top grade and contributed significantly to our enjoyment of the cruise. Guidelines for tips, in amount per passenger per day, were as follows: waiter, $3.50; cabin steward, $3.50; assistant waiter, $2, and headwaiter "at your discretion." We followed these guidelines except in the case of Helder, to whom we gave an extra tip for his "service beyond the call of duty."

Puntarenas, Costa Rica

We had decided in advance to sign up for short shore trips at all ports of call. We had seen too many passengers on previous cruises drag themselves back aboard, exhausted, after all-day trips. The short trips we did take were well-organized, interesting and, for us, just the right length.

In Costa Rica, the rich coast, we took the shopping trip as we had heard that this country was famous for its highly decorated oxcarts, large and gift-size. During the comfortable hour-and-a-half ride up into the highlands in our air-conditioned coach, we viewed coffee and cane-sugar plantations and a wide variety of trees and exotic plants.

There are two seasons in Costa Rica: the "rainy season," from May to November, and the "not so rainy season," from December until April. The abundance of rain explains the prolific vegetation that is responsible for the major exports of fruits and coffee and the wide variety of hardwoods, harvested from trees in the rainforests, which are used both locally and for export.

On arrival at our destination, Sarchi, we spent a couple of hours in the Joaquin Chaverri, Ltda., arts and crafts shopping center. Although most of the products were fashioned., from the indigenous hardwoods, other items available included leather goods, fabrics and the famous Costa Rican coffee, in small bags.

As an amateur wood turner, I was interested to find many wood products made from local purple heart, which finishes to a rich dark appearance. Major U.S. credit cards and travelers' checks are accepted as well as cash in U.S. dollars. One of the passengers purchased a large, gaily painted oxcart. Another bought a full-size desk. Both were loaded onto a truck and delivered to our ship.

The Panama Canal

Before the canal was turned over to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, in accordance with an agreement brokered by Jimmy Carter and signed in 1979, there was wide media coverage of the history and engineering details of the canal. Of particular interest to us was the 20-year effort by France that had been defeated by disease and financial problems, forcing abandonment of the project in 1900.

Viewing the dense woodlands along the waterway, undoubtedly home for mosquitoes and ticks and other nasty bugs, and the precipitous nature of the Continental Divide, we appreciated the magnitude of the endeavor. With more modern machinery, more effective means of combating yellow fever and other scourges as well as better financial backing, the United States completed the present canal in 1914 after a 10-year effort.

Since Panamanians had constituted 90% of the team managing the Panama Canal for a number of years, we had no qualms about the transit.

The Vision of the Seas entered the canal under the Bridge of the Americas at about 6:30 a.m. Some hardy passengers got up early to peer at the bridge in the still-pervading darkness. Pat and I slept through all this but rose for an early breakfast, then repaired to the fifth deck for a firsthand view of the goings-on.

In the locks, the large ships are assisted by "mules," heavy locomotives that are, provided sure traction by a cogwheel arrangement such as is common in Switzerland. Special tracks run along each side of all locks. In our case, mules guided our ship through by means of heavy steel cables secured at the bow and stern.

Many maintenance buildings were visible along the locks, most of them surrounded by neatly trimmed green lawns. Also of interest were the new tall towers equipped with floodlights to facilitate night transit of large vessels. As we entered the first Miraflores lock and the gate closed behind us, we were amazed to discover that the flooding at three million gallons a minute raised us to the water level of the next lock in about 20 minutes. Then the huge lock gates at our bow, the heaviest ever built, slowly started to open.

In one of these locks we viewed a large container ship heading through the canal in the same direction. This emphasized the revolution that the canal has effected in global sea transportation. An Ecuadorian freighter with a cargo of bananas, for example, saves 5,000 miles in the, passage to European markets. In another lock we watched a small powerboat being held in place by four long lines attended to by trained handlers. Astern of this small vessel was a large oil tanker.

The Gaillard Cut through the Continental Divide was the largest excavating job of the canal project. It has since been widened twice to allow large vessels to pass in both directions. Descending back, down through the Gatlun Locks to the Atlantic sea level was routine and we then passed through a fleet of anchored vessels each waiting their turn to enter the canal,

Curacao, Netherlands Antilles

Leaving the canal, we encountered heavy seas. There was moderate motion of our ship in spite of the stabilizers. A few passengers were seasick. I felt a little queasy so took a Marazine tablet, which, as opposed to Dramamine, doesn't make you sleepy.