Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: November 2007 Archives

So our Thanksgiving sojourn continues in the Emerald City, and it's become obvious that the moniker is not due to the gemlike beauty of the place, but a reference to the fact that green mold grows on everything. Including us, now, I think.

Along with near-constant rain and eating, we've also managed to check out some of the cultural attractions of Seattle, and there are quite a few. For instance, one day we meandered over to the Experience Music Project (EMP) and its companion, the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. The museums are a project of Paul Allen of Microsoft fame or more properly Microsoft stock fame. The museums are housed in a building designed by Frank Gehry and to be frank (heh), I really think they are not his greatest achievement. I happen to like many other buildings he's designed, like the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A. or the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. But the EMP building is, to my mind, pretty much awful. Inside and outside. Ughh.

On the other hand, the exhibits and such were pretty interesting. Unlike most of my contemporaries I seem to have avoided the "dreams of being a rock god" phase of adolescence (or in the case of the Rolling Stones, their dotage) so I've never been particularly interested in music except to listen to it. Yes, what a concept, I know. The EMP has many instructive exhibits that taught me, for instance, what a steel guitar was or that the FBI once investigated the lyrics of "Louie, Louie" which really kind of blows my mind, man. There are lots of interactive exhibits (using Microsoft products I'm sure), with film clips on monitors and stations for listening to all types of popular music from the second half of the twentieth century on.

So I quite enjoyed the museum. We arrived in the early afternoon and from the documentation we had understood that there was a separate fee to enter the attached Science Fiction Museum. This turned out not to be the case: the entry fee covered both museums. We only learned this about an hour before the museum closed, however, so we kind of had to jog through the Sci Fi Museum quickly in order to see most everything. I loved, loved, loved this museum. It so appeals to my inner, and outer, geek that the guards had to start unlimbering their Tasers before I'd leave. I'd love to go back at some point. For anyone who is a science fiction fan of any sort, I think this is one of the best places to indulge one's love for that which must not be named.

Following up on the last entry, we did get around to indulging in some Chinese food, specifically the comestibles served at Judy Fu's Snappy Dragon. The food might be described as totally awesome. Apparently it can be a little uneven; when we dined there years ago I liked it but wasn't blown away. This most recent meal was pretty much perfect from start to finish. I have a hard time now deciding whether my favorite dish was the Salt and Pepper Prawns, the Crispy Smoked Duck or the Almond Cranberry Chicken. We may have to return so I can do a taste-off.   As my dear old Dad used to say, that was some good eatin'.

We followed up our excursion into Asian cuisine with a quick sidle over to American eats and checked out a drive-in called Burgermaster. It's kind of a touchstone, so one doesn't stray too far from one's roots or something like that. Or maybe just because they make a pretty damn good burger. And good shakes, Mary really like her boysenberry shake. I tasted it - even I, a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to shakes (is there really any need to have any flavor but chocolate?), liked it. It's been many a year since I tried a drive-in and it was a nice change of pace. It's not something I want to do on a regular basis because I invariably end up dropping tomatoes or the special sauce on my shirt. Still, it was fun and I'd do it again. After I get my shirts cleaned.

Concluding our tour around town we also managed to fit in meals at Pomegranate for dinner and  Atlas for breakfast. Both were more than worthy and we enjoyed dining at each.

So tomorrow we eat the fatted turkey and consume more food than one should eat in a week. My favorite kind of holiday. Happy Thanksgiving all and don't forget to stock up on the antacids.

We're now in Seattle, the Emerald City, the Jet City, birth city of the now all too ubiquitous coffee bar, and Microsoft Vista, may it rot in hell, amen. It's raining. It's been raining since we arrived a couple of days ago. According to the forecasts it'll be raining every day till we leave. The locals are not piling their belongings into boats or making their way to the roofs so apparently endless precipitation is no cause for alarm here.

We're not staying in a hotel this time, so no reviews. We're residing instead with one of Mary's brothers, his wife and two rather kinetic boys. Not being exposed often to small children, we find ourselves alternatively delighted and appalled. Well, Mary is delighted and I'm appalled. Right now - it'll be time to switch in another hour. We have a schedule. I am at this point learning what boys of ten listen to for music. It's not quite what I remember from my youth, which I think might have been either the Monkees or the Archies, giants in the field of pop music that they were. I'm not sure what the name of the musical styles kids listen to now. A few minutes ago I would have sworn they were listening to Volga boatmen music.

So far Seattle is living up to its reputation as a great place to get a bite to eat. Last night, for instance, we had what I sincerely believe might be the single best pizza I've ever scarfed down. With a couple of Peronis on the side. Because there's something fitting about drinking Italian beer (or birra to be more accurate) with pizza. Even though the Pacific Northwest is a hotbed of beer brewing and drinking, and thinking about drinking beer, and wondering where one can get another beer - well, you can see where this is going. I think I'll go and get myself another beer.

Ok, thirst temporarily slaked, the location of this paragon of pizza that I consumed with extreme gusto is Pagliacci. Now don't bother writing telling me about that special pizzeria in your town, or even in Seattle, that is better, indeed better than any other pizzeria in the world, 'cause I don't care. First, you're all wrong. Irrevocably and sadly wrong. Second, 'cause like so many things in this world, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I am sure that there are pizzas somewhere that might be as good as the one I had last night. I will even concede that there might be a pizza someplace, at some point in time, that might be even better than the pizza I ate. But not here and not now. And to be honest my contention about the pizza being the best I've ever eaten is undeniable because for me it really is - someday I concede that there is a rather likely possibility that I will find a better pizza. Just not today, mainly because I'm not going to eat any pizza today. I think we're moving on to Chinese food.

Yesterday we also enjoyed a light lunch at a Seattle institution - Ray's Boathouse. It was scrumptious - the seafood was delightful and afterwards I was filled with goodwill towards my fellow man. This was enhanced with a cupcake and latte at Cupcake Royale afterwards. And don't ask - I don't know how one harvests cupcakes (click on the link). This was the first time we'd participated in the cupcake trend. Interesting, we'd been seeing articles about it the whole gourmet cupcake thing and I personally like the idea of 'gourmet' personal sized cakes. I mean who doesn't like that idea? Some kind of commie, I'm sure. First of all, as an engineer I appreciate that the ratio of icing is greater in proportion to the cake then in a normal cake. Second, who doesn't like easily portable cake-like confections? Not we!

Later in this trip we'll be sampling some Chinese food and what promises to be a pretty good burger. Oh, and some more Alaska Ale. Much, much more of that!

Since we've decided to travel East of Suez (though we're actually going west - it's complicated), we (Mary) decided that we needed to be inoculated against all manner of diseases endemic to the exotic East. I consented, with the proviso that there be sweet treats supplied to make the sting of the needles less onerous.

Anyhow, we did some research and discovered that there was a local office of Passport Health that specializes in travel medicine. Which means shots. In my case lots of shots. More than Mary, which I thought was rather unfair. Just because I am a few or more years older than she.

You (the customer) supply the locations where you (still the customer) will be traveling and then the Passport Health office will determine what shots you (customer - remember?) will require. You can refuse some vaccinations, especially if you're not going to go out in the country to slop pigs or eat raw chicken, but most of the recommendations are probably best observed. We (Mary again) decided to get shots for Hepatitis A and B, typhoid fever, tetanus and in my case MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) and, after much shin kicking and rib prodding from Mary, a flu shot, apparently because there was a vacant spot on one of my arms that wasn't sore.

Anyhow, the cost was reasonable, at least when compared to contracting typhoid fever, and they did give me a couple of Jolly Rancher candies, so I thought it was a fair deal. Although we're not planning on checking out any rural villages or bathing in irrigation canals anywhere, it's probably better to be safe than sorry.

Crystal Symphony is about as large as some of the Holland America ships we've sailed on, though the number of passengers is about 25-35% smaller. The crew to passenger ratio is one of the highest in the industry and it showed in the appearance of the ship and the attitude of the crew. Crystal might not have climbing walls and wave pools, but it has some of the best and most personable service we've encountered anywhere, land or sea.

The embarkation was the most painless of any we've ever experienced. From the time we got out of the taxi at the marine terminal to the time we arrived on board could not have exceeded 15 minutes total. There were no lines. At all. We handed over the luggage and our paperwork and we had our room keys in no time. The keys also had our pictures on them (taken right there) and we noticed that this was attached to a computer file that any crew member could access and use to append information to, like what type of cocktails we liked and so on. Within a day of arriving, the crew at any venue we visited more than once would know our names and preferences.

Debarkation at the end of the trip was equally painless and we were off the ship and in a taxi in less than 10 minutes.

The biggest concern we had about the cruise was our fellow passengers. From the reports we'd read and various message boards we visited, we had come to wonder if we'd fit in with the normal Crystal passenger. The cruise line is expensive - probably 50% more than a comparable cruise on Holland America and much more than Royal Caribbean or Carnival. The usual customer, then, is fairly well-heeled and also somewhat older than we are. (Of course the age issue was also apparent on Holland America, where on one cruise Mary and I thought we might be the youngest people on board.)

As it turned out, we found our fellow Crystal passengers to be quite welcoming and friendly, and we didn't feel out of place at any time. The average age actually seemed to be somewhat younger than a couple of the aforementioned Holland America cruises. Certainly we found the passengers on the Symphony to be a lot more active after 10:00 pm most nights than almost any other cruise we'd been on.

After concluding our cruise, we planned on staying at the W Hotel overnight in Montreal, but Mary found a much better deal with the Hyatt Regency which I didn't understand but I'm sure saved us hundreds of dollars or got us free breakfast or something. The Hyatt is located right downtown, on top of a large shopping mall, which we didn't actually realize till we arrived. This turned out to work out all right as we needed to find an ATM and the mall was connected via underground passage with the nearby Museum of Contemporary Arts.

After checking in, or trying to, as we were quite early, we left the luggage with the porter and decided to go sightsee. This mainly meant wandering around the mall till the museum opened. Nice enough mall, I guess, if you like those kinds of things. I don't, so I was kind of bored. Canadian commercial goods look pretty much like commercial goods in the States - who'd a thunk it?

The food court was interesting though. We found the concept of poutine, a Montreal or possibly Québécois specialty, to be one of the more gastronomically challenged dishes we think we've ever encountered. I'm all for comfort food, but even I, lover of all deep fried snacks the world over, think that somewhere we have to draw the line. For the uninitiated (this is where the weak stomached should skip ahead to the next paragraph), poutine is a dish consisting of French fries covered with cheese curds which is then slathered with brown gravy. We saw this dish offered at several places in the food court, including a national burger chain. Makes your arteries harden up just thinking about it, doesn't it?

Another dish we'd not seen before, which we think must be a local or Canadian development was hot turkey sandwiches consisting of two slices of bread with the meat inside, covered with brown gravy and then a pile of green peas on top of that. This is one reason I love wandering about to see what the locals eat. When people of other cultures point fingers at Americans and their affection for Cheetos, I can point right back at stuff like poutine.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (known as the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal by those of a French persuasion), when we finally got in, was quite good, with several exhibits we enjoyed (Vik Muniz' Reflex in particular) and one that was a shining example of why people like me should never be permitted to be contemporary art critics. I think that most people would consider dousing an installation with napalm, torching it, dancing around it in glee, and then salting the earth afterwards a little harsh as criticism. And I was strongly tempted to do just that to the one exhibit we decided was not quite to our liking, taking into account our admittedly bourgeois sensibilities. In this case, I think Mary agreed with me and might even have supplied the matches.

After a small noontime repast in the museum café, which was quite tasty (leading to a long conversation about whether we've ever had a bad meal in a museum café - we decided the answer was "no") we decided to get all checked in to the hotel and then walk down and investigate the Old Town area, which we'd skipped out on the day before. Again, lots of souvenir stands. Again, lots of art galleries. Old Town Montreal was perhaps not as densely populated with galleries as Quebec City, but there was still quite a respectable quantity. There are also many, many cafes and bistros; as a matter of fact it's probably the most prevalent business in Old Montreal. We stopped to rest and indulge in a frosty cold one before walking back to the hotel and relaxing for the evening.

Overall our impressions of Montreal did not quite meet our expectations. Before going we'd heard quite a bit about what a nice city it was. And the inhabitants (at least the 20% or so who weren't standing outside smoking), seemed pleasant enough. The city, however, was not our cup of tea. The architecture is a real mishmash. There are lots of empty lots scattered all though the built up area of the city that kind of detract from the ambiance. The time of year we were there (late Autumn) is, I'm sure, not when Montreal can strut its stuff. I guess we were looking for something that was a little more evocative of La Belle France and got instead a slightly frenchified version of Milwaukee. We'd like to try it again and see if maybe it was just bad timing, a lack of planning on what to see, or a slight case of rumbly tummy we got from the three plates of poutine we ate.

We decided, for a change of pace, and to avoid the airports, and because it was fall, to take Amtrak's Adirondack train from Montreal to New York. It takes a bit longer than flying, though with the delays common in New York these days, maybe not that much longer - nine hours total.

We discovered accidentally that the way to handle getting on the train in Montreal is to find a red cap or whatever train porters are called nowadays, and tip him to take your luggage. This allowed us to skip the quite long line at the entrance to the train platform and go down an escalator on the side. So we boarded while the rest of the passengers were still waiting up on top. Another benefit is that the porter directed us to sit on the left side of the train if we wanted the best views of Lake Champlain on the way down or on the right side if we wanted to watch the Hudson River. We chose the left and were glad we did.

The trip was very pleasant and relaxing. The seats were comfortable and it was nice to be able to get up and walk around whenever we felt like it. The scenery was everything we hoped - quite a bit of leafy color and the contrast with the blue of the lake was stunning.

Immigration is done right on the train - you don't even have to leave your seats while they check the passports - well, unless you're an unemployed Kuwaiti engineer like the fellow seated next to us, in which case they do a little extra screening in the café car, which I'm pretty sure didn't involve electrodes or watching professional wrestling or whatever interrogation techniques are popular this year. But even that seemed to take only a couple of minutes.

Food on board was a bit below blah: packaged sandwiches and microwaved burgers. Beer was available, which I may have sampled a couple or four times. Mary thought that the next time we do one of the longer trips on Amtrak, we might consider getting a picnic lunch from a deli before leaving. Anyhow, we did a bit of reading, a bit of scenery watching, and a bit of writing, which was easy because every seat had a nice electric outlet for the laptop.

The whole experience was very civilized and a lot more fun than tromping around airports, getting strip searched, and sitting in a much smaller seat on the plane, not to mention waiting for four or six hours for a gate to open up at your destination.

Back in the Big Apple for the last four days of the trip, we stayed again in the Trump International Hotel. This time we made sure to specify that much as we liked hearing cars crushed along with their drivers at three in the morning we really would prefer a room on the side of the building where there's only a leather-lunged homeless guy reciting the Iliad at the top of his lungs. And our wishes were honored. Actually we got a two tier upgrade to a one-bedroom room suite and this was much nicer than the room we stayed in before the cruise left. Again we had a little kitchenette, though this time it was actually a separate roomette. We had a living room and a separate bedroom. The bathroom may have been slightly bigger than in the Junior Suite - hard to judge, I forgot my tape measure. There was a dining table in the living room, which made our room service meals that much more pleasant.

Over the next several days we did several touristy things I hadn't done before. We went to Bloomingdale's, ostensibly to get a couple of things for yours truly, but in truth I ended up seated in the women's shoe department with a number of other men, murmuring approvingly every time our wives and girlfriends tried on another pair, and thinking wistfully of the games on television that we were missing right now. And the cold beers. I did buy a couple of pocket squares, a bow tie and a new set of cufflinks and studs, so it wasn't all Mary, Mary, Mary. There was a Mike thrown in there too.

F.A.O. Schwartz was a mad house - to be expected on a weekend. They sell some massively cool stuff though and Mary had a hard time pulling me out of there. What can I say? I'm just a big ol' kid at heart.

We had one special treat planned while we were in New York: a cheese and wine tasting at the Artisanal Cheese Center one afternoon. It was an excellent event made even better when it turned out there was no stinting on the wine refills. The Center's director, who led the workshop, is associated with Picholine, a restaurant we'd tried on our last visit to New York, which turned out to be one of the best places we've ever eaten.

After the cheese tasting we had a little time to kill before the Broadway show we were attending that evening, so we, or I should say I, decided to do a little snacking along the way as we walked to the theatre. We made a stop at a Papaya Dog, which I think is the New York equivalent of a 'Berto. For the uninitiated, in San Diego during the 80's and 90's there was a semi-famous taco stand called Roberto's. Well, it was a success and success breeds copycats. Mostly the copycats were family and friends of the original Roberto who went off and started their own taco stands. They wanted to make sure that people confused them with the original, so they all named their taco stands some variation on the name Roberto. So soon there were Alberto's, Umberto's, Adalberto's and Jilberto's. The stands all offered the same basic selection of Mexican fast food. Eventually, all taco stands in San Diego came to be called "'Bertos" by most people. In any case, getting back to New York, I think Papaya Dog is some variant on Papaya King or Gray's Papaya, the somewhat more famous hot dog stands. We had a couple of dogs and a papaya drink. Both were surprisingly tasty.

A few blocks later, Mary saw a sign for a 99 cent pizza slice and she dared me to have one. Of course I had to meet this challenge as I am a man, and we do all kinds of stupid stuff when someone dares us to - it's who we are. It wasn't bad at all. I was all up for a bagel or falafel but at that point we ran out of time so I had to delay my street food marathon for a later time. I did have a corned beef on rye at a deli after the show, along with an interesting tidbit called deep fried mac and cheese wedges. Strictly for scientific purposes, you understand. Scientifically, I can say that they weren't bad. Not great but not bad. Corned beef was pretty good though.

You might wonder how I felt when we got back to the hotel, after this somewhat varied diet. I felt fine. I had a nice cold beer before I hit the sack just to make sure.

On this stopover in New York we decided, in light of the food fest on board the cruise ship, to limit ourselves to only one nice dinner out. We spent that at Veritas, which was as excellent as our last visit. Limiting ourselves to one fancy schmancy dinner, though, left me with a loophole I could drive a truck though, and drive I did. I convinced Mary to spend one lunch at another restaurant we'd both been interested in trying for some time now - Gramercy Tavern.

We were especially interested in Gramercy Tavern due to our secret affection for Top Chef, the reality cooking show on Bravo. One of the judges is Tom Colicchio and he was at one time the chef at our little luncheon location. He's no longer associated with the Tavern, but it was still a good excuse. In any case, we did have lunch there on a Friday afternoon and except for one misfire on Mary's entrée (the fish was totally undercooked - sushi-like even), which was quickly replaced, the whole meal "exceeded expectations," as my old performance reviews used to say. Well, I should say that was a ranking on the performance review - not like I ever got that ranking. Mine was usually more like "shows up for work more often than not." In any case, I had expected that Gramercy Tavern was probably over-hyped, much like the one-star Michelin restaurants we've tried in Italy, but it was as good as I had heard and the experience was quite enjoyable. We'll be sure to go back, if and when we find ourselves with the opportunity.

And that was pretty much it. I'll add a short description of the two Broadway shows we got to see soon. The Lion King will almost certainly be posted over on Mary's site as it is a Disney show.

Day Ten

Today we arrived in Quebec City, Quebec Province, Canada. The weather, as has been the case for almost the entire trip was quite warm for this time of year and the skies above are clear. There was quite a bit of watchable foliage in the area for a change and we decided to get off the ship soon after we docked to go and check it out.

The ship was docked adjacent to the Old Quebec or Vieux-Quebec. The cruise terminal was quite large and modern, quite possibly the best we saw in any city on this trip. One person we talked to in Halifax told us that they had close to 150 cruise ships dock there this year with a total of 160 planned for next year. And I think this is all over a period of around 2-3 months per year.

Old Quebec, though a fairly small area was rather nice and we enjoyed it greatly. The tourist area was jammed full of ticky-tacky souvenir stands, quite possibly the densest conglomeration of t-shirts, shot glasses, and coffee cups with snappy slogans like "Kiss Me, I'm French-Canadian" on the face of the planet. Or at least since, Bar Harbor.

Trust Mary to see beyond and behind the souvenir stands and find the art galleries, of which there were more then a few. Actually, quite a few, a surprisingly large number of them. Off hand I'd say from our own observations Quebec City must be the Art capital of Canada, or at least Quebec Province or barring that, say southeastern Quebec Province. We toured many art galleries and fortuitously escaped without purchasing any when the piece Mary really liked turned out to be a bit big for our mantel. Or so I said. But I am an engineer and things like measurement and space considerations are my area of expertise and that's just the way it's going to be. Till she tells me otherwise.

The drawback to Quebec City, insofar as Mary especially is concerned is that the city is situated on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River which rise quite precipitously from said river. Mary automatically downgrades cities that in her estimation require her to snap on a safety line and crampons in order to ascend the streets. And there are lots of stairs and steep streets around there. There is a funicular below the Chateau Frontenac which allows people to bypass the Himalayan like ascent but we wound up going up the hill around on the other side of the Old Town and so did not get a chance to use it till we came back down.

Quebec City is one of the only fortified cities left in North America and there are extensive walls and fortifications facing the river still in evidence. If the United States ever decides to finally conquer Canada and in the process forgo any military developments since the Age of Napoleon, Quebec City will be all set. Though with the state of the dollar recently we might have to contend with Canadian buyouts instead. I wonder if they'd take Texas off our hands?

After the long and arduous trek to the summit of Quebec City we settled into the Chateau Frontenac for a little heavy breathing (not that kind!) and a drink in the bar. I tried a Sleeman Silver Creek Lager and a nice little brew it was too. At one time, many years ago, sometime after the Dark Ages but before the Reformation, I used to imbibe a great deal of Canadian beer as it was at the time both cheap and tasty. Since then I've become what some might call a beer snob but I think this is an unfair and inaccurate characterization. It's not that I've outgrown some beers, it's that there are only so many hours in the day and as Mary is overly fond of pointing out, there are periods during the day where it is inappropriate to consume beer. I believe she developed this thesis when I announced my plans to install a cup holder in the shower. So back to Sleemans - if I ever find this on a beer menu somewhere here down in the lower forty eight I will be quite willing to drink it again.

After liquid refreshment was consumed we decided to try the offerings of the local bistros. Since it was a nice day, all of the cafes had their sidewalk seating open and we partook. We found a pleasant little café with quite good food (we determined this by peeking inside and checking out to see if the place was filled with tourists or locals - when locals we eat). This method isn't always infallible, especially in the US, otherwise places like Hooter's would be out of business. But it works in most other places that don't consider chain restaurants haute cuisine.

Our meal complete we walked about some more, absorbed some more tourist ambiance, and repaired back to the ship, filled with fond memories of Quebec and a couple of coffee mugs emblazoned with pithy French sayings that we don't understand but I'm sure are hilarious.

Day Eleven

Last day of the cruise and we have to spend it in Montreal. And for the first time during a port stay it's raining. And it's still kind of warm. Unlike Quebec City the cruise ship terminal isn't in quite as scenic a spot and it's a bit of a walk from anything. We made the mistake of taking a shuttle bus into the downtown area which is not really what we wanted but we misread the map and did not discover till the next day that the old town area was only like a ten minute walk from the ship.

Downtown Montreal was not quite what we expected, at least the area where we were dropped off. We believe that the intention was to drop us off in an area that had little in the way of visual appeal and was adjacent to the high end shopping district so that people from the ship wouldn't be as tempted to waste time seeing the sights but would instead purchase stuff and help float the provincial economy. Apparently, the high end shopping district butts up against the red light district or Montreal isn't really picky where those type of businesses are located. We walked a couple of blocks in the wrong direction, wrong only if I was uninterested in peep shows and nudie revues, and Mary told me I was indeed uninterested in such entertainment. In any case, we did a circuit of a couple of blocks in either direction from the point where we were dropped off and didn't see anything that appealed. And it was still raining. So we went back to the ship. I'm sure if we had not already planned on staying an additional day in Montreal after we disembarked we would have forged onwards and found the fun. But we didn't today.

Day Twelve

Disembarkation went as smoothly as embarkation. Unlike pretty much all other cruise ships we've been on we sauntered down to breakfast and had a leisurely meal. As we weren't flying out that morning we had plenty of time to enjoy our repast and then go and collect our remaining belongings. No sitting in the theatre for our debarkation group to be called or waiting around in the dining room unlike other cruise lines. On the way out we decided to go up and inspect the penthouse suites since there were sure to be some open. And there were. Same décor but a good deal more room. They looked quite comfortable.

Our bags were ready and waiting when we entered the cruise terminal and we had a porter and a taxi in a snap and in less then 5 minutes we were on our way to the hotel. And thus concluded our cruise on Crystal.

I'll put together a little review of the cruise ship itself and how it compares to others we've experienced. Hopefully I'll have something up in a few days depending on how much cleaning I have to do around the house.

We recently tried the new

From the outside the hotel is unprepossessing. It looks pretty much every other mid-scale motel on the market. We understand that the Hyatt Place properties were all Amerisuites at one time, though there may be some new purpose built ones now. Ours was located adjacent to a large luxury mall on the south side of Denver. The large number of office complexes in the area obviously account for the location - I'm guessing that the target audience is business travelers and not Nordstrom shoppers. Since we were staying on a weekend night, the rates were as comfortably low as the place was uncrowded. We did see a couple of families which makes sense at the prices we saw, especially if you're looking for something just a bit more upscale from Motel 6.

What strikes you when you first enter is the impression that you've mistakenly popped into a Starbucks instead of a hotel. The front desk looks distinctly like the counter for a coffee shop or something similar. We didn't understand the concept at first: one does not interact with the staff - one uses the handy kiosks for checking in. We committed a faux pas and tried to communicate with a live human being at the desk who, if this had been an airline would have just pointed at the kiosks and told us to use them and quit bothering him. Obviously, our live human had not trained at Southwest Airlines and he cheerfully checked us in sans comments. As a matter of fact, so low key was the approach that we didn't realize that there were kiosks to use till Mary saw it in a promotional video in the room. We really would have tried the kiosks had we been aware of them, if only to see if it would be possible to glide through life without interacting with others.

The counter adjacent to reception, such as it is, features a display of cold and microwaveable food items. Many's the time we've flown somewhere and arrived quite late or been delayed and forced to stay overnight in godforsaken places like, say Lagos or Dallas. In most cases by the time we arrive at the hotel, whatever food service they had on-site (which is usually little or none) would be closed. After spending the day in the seventh circle of Hell that is modern day airline travel, we usually could use a nice sandwich and maybe one or two (or in my case, five or six) nice cold beers. By removing any human interaction beyond that needed at a Starbucks, Hyatt Place has arrived at a solution of sorts. I can't vouch for the food being offered but from appearances it looks about as good as that offered in any coffee shop or snackery and probably better than an interstate convenience store. And there's wine and beer. So you still have that.

Seriously, if presented with a choice in hotels near airports when we're delayed overnight or when we arrive somewhere late in the evening, I'm going to be much more inclined to take a Hyatt Place for this reason alone. I know they'll have something to eat on premises. Well, at least something more than the year and a half old peanut M&M's in the mini-bar.

The lobby is arranged to facilitate meetings, with lots of nooks and crannies, just like Thomas' English Muffins. Some even have curtains to pull across the entrance in order to give a little privacy. Being out of the main lobby and the traffic therein is a big plus for business travelers who don't want to have to meet customers or clients in bars or restaurants. Even topless bars and restaurants.

The rooms are spacious and are more properly described as mini-suites. Although they have a separate sitting room area there is only a divider (no door) to isolate the bed from the rest of the room. For people on business this is pretty nice as they have a larger sitting area to work or relax in without having to make due with either the bed or the usual uncomfortable chair provided in standard business class motels.

There is a large sectional couch in the sitting area and it's pretty comfortable to sprawl out on while watching TV, working on a laptop, or reading. There's plenty of room for two people to do all of the above. There is a semi-monstrous flat screen TV on a swivel mounted in between the bed nook and the sitting room, so it could be viewed comfortably from either location.

The subtly Japanese influenced design in the rooms is attractive in a minimalist way and there are some higher end features like granite countertops. The room came equipped with a coffee maker and real cups - not plastic or Styrofoam. The bed was big and comfortable, with fitted cotton sheets and a down comforter. The comforter was too hot for us, but a cotton blanket was also provided.

The carpet is contemporary with a muted pattern. Inoffensive and not as likely show stains. Storage was a little limited but since the usual guest will be a business traveler who's living out of a rollaboard anyway this shouldn't really be considered a drawback.

As mentioned earlier, the Hyatt Place we stayed in had been acquired and converted from an Amerisuites (we believe) instead of being purpose built. When the place was renovated they put the money into the lobby area and the room décor. What wasn't changed were the bathrooms, which are slightly dated, and an older in-room A/C unit which was fairly noisy. Due to the noise from the A/C, a rather too warm comforter and a bout of indigestion from way too many tapas that evening I found myself too uncomfortable to sleep and snatched a blanket and settled down on the sectional sofa. I actually enjoyed a fairly good night's sleep on the sofa after the liberal internal application of some Rolaids Soft Chews.

The next morning we breakfasted in the eating area attached to the lobby that they have called the Kitchen. There's a free continental breakfast every morning and one can purchase made-to-order items also. There's also 24 hour service with pizza, salads, soups and the like which we didn't try (the tapas again). The continental breakfast was fine and much better then ones we've encountered in other suite motels which shall remain nameless.

Hyatt has a winner here for the business traveler who isn't looking for a five star experience. We liked it enough that in cases where we need to just spend an evening in a motel we'd look for a Hyatt Place to do it in.

Days Eight and Nine

We have finally reached the relaxing portion of the trip with a couple of days without port calls. We're just sailing across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, enjoying a bit of rain and wind, gloom filled skies above and white capped waves below. I think it's hot buttered rum time.

We are doing all the normal cruise things for a change now that we don't have port calls to distract us. This consists primarily of eating more things, getting our drinking started earlier in the day and forgetting about those pledges to improve our minds. So we missed the classes we signed up for  - the Berlitz French course and the Yamaha keyboard course. I felt bad later but that was then. In the meantime we spent a great deal of time reading, watched a couple of movies, and I walked around the deck a couple of times. Mary went to afternoon tea while I played Two Years Before the Mast, braving the sea and the elements. Or something like that. It might have been my means of skipping the tea, but that was just unfounded supposition on Mary's part.

We did get some hours on the computer. Speeds weren't quite up to landline standards, but they were still respectable, though the prices were most definitely not, at twenty cents a minute.

Over the course of our two sea days, as well as a subsequent day in Quebec City, we tried both of the specialty restaurants on board and the Vintage Room wine dinner. The first specialty restaurant we tried, Jade Garden, is an Asian fusion restaurant. Apparenty it is associated with Wolfgang Puck in some manner and serves some of the dishes from his Chinois restaurant. We enjoyed the food immensely and the service was as good as in any in the main dining room, if not better. I could go on and on about the succulence of the lobster appetizer or the stunning spiciness of the prawns but then that would be just taunting. Suffice it to say that the meal was excellent and we would take the opportunity to dine there again in a flash. Interestingly enough we were seated at one of only four or five occupied tables in the restaurant when we dined at Jade Garden, while probably another ten or so tables went empty. Perhaps the majority of the passengers are of an age group that is more comfortable in an Italian place rather than an Asian venue. We'd have a chance to check that out in a couple of days.

In the meantime we participated in a Vintage Room dinner. Basically it is a wine tasting dinner, with different wines served with every course. In this case all the wines were hand picked by the head sommelier on board and from what we tasted he is a talented judge of wines. I won't bother to list all the courses or the wines we drank, but we did discover a couple of new varieties of which we were unaware that we intend to seek out when we get home. The dinner is expensive and limited to 12 guests (our dinner had 11 total) and held only once or twice per sailing. We definitely thought we got our money's worth out of it.

I wish we could say the same about our last specialty restaurant experience at Prego, an Italian themed restaurant, in case the name didn't clue you in. Unfortunately it turned out to be the only disappointing meal we had during our entire cruise. It wasn't that the food or the service was bad or anything. It just wasn't up to snuff with anything else. The food was lacking in any real excitment or snap, instead being fairly pedestrian middle of the road Italian. After the excellence of the Asian restaurant our expectations were probably unduly high. We both decided that we'd rather eat in the main dining room than in Prego.

Mary quite enjoyed her tea. It was served every afternoon but we only attended once. We'd probably have sampled it more often if we weren't already busy still digesting lunch when it was served.