Mama Mia Making Many Marvel (Verily Visiting Victoria)

---

This morning is our last chance for breakfast in the Vista Dining Room, having lost an hour overnight with a change in time zones. We are not due into Victoria until this evening so you might think we have a bit of a light day. We in fact have a bit of a long day. I thought I might take this opportunity to list some of our likes and dislikes about this cruise experience, as we were enjoying a little extra time in bed this morning before going up to the Vista Dining Room. This cruise was all about our moms. On the positive side, number one on our list of observations is how helpful the staff was towards making their time on the cruise enjoyable. In the Lido, all staff: be they servers or bar servers obliged my mom by carrying plates for her, fetching water or iced tea for her or offering her a helping hand or arm to steady her while she walked aboard a moving vessel. For Shirley, they were always happy to get her the type of tea that she preferred (Lipton or Earl Gray). We all thoroughly enjoyed Alex, from his calling Bingo, to telling a Stupid Joke or serving as a judge on Dancing with the Stars (At Sea), and we both would not be surprised to sail with him as Cruise Director at some time in the future. He made this cruise more fun for our moms than it might otherwise have been. The photo staff did an excellent job and opportunity to hold forever some special moments with our mothers.



On the other hand, Sharon sorely missed the butter mints usually offered by the yum yum-man when leaving the dining room. They are sometimes available on the fixed dining floor; but, none were to be had on this cruise. In the Pinnacle Grille, French Onion Soup is no longer offered on the menu, replaced by a delicious but spicy coconut soup that my mother would never try; but, she would have loved the soup that they had offered as recently as two years ago. In the shower, HAL has reverted to separate body soap, conditioner and shampoo dispensers, which are no longer attached to the shower wall. The metal plate is still on the wall, but the new table top dispensers now rest on a small triangular wire shelf a bit lower in the corner. Now this is on an inside cabin, but it looks like it previously had the permanent dispenser. And a couple of concerns about the taco bar: the meat was a bit too spicy for my mom. She would have enjoyed some plain un-spiced (or very mildly spiced) cooked hamburger meat. Also, there was no cheese to be found for over forty minutes while we ate. My final gripe, which may be more a function of latitude than something under HAL’s control, is how ESPN2 would keep blacking out while I’d be watching the French Open. I had the same problem down in Antarctica; but, if it really was a function of latitude we should have lost all of the channels, which we did not. And finally, at the top of Sharon’s list, was the scarcity of chocolate croissants, in the Lido mainly; but, even in the dining room they were never available when the pastries first were brought by. It was 7:30am and we made our way to the dining room for breakfast, where I discovered that we’d already had our last breakfast in the Vista Dining Room. Service doesn’t start until 8:00am this morning, and the mothers were hungry. So we headed to the Lido for more French toast.



We decided to see if there were any games in the Exploration Lounge. We got a deck of cards in the Library, and sat forward in the Crow’s Nest and played a partial game of Spades. Sharon and my mother came in tied for last, Shirley came in second, and I, who offered advice to Shirley, came in first. After our game, we’d killed enough time to go to the Vista Lounge and hear the Disembarkation Briefing by Drew, the Cruise Director. It was quite entertaining, and he warned not to pack everything. He says invariably someone forgets to set aside something to wear the next day, and they’re left with nothing but pajamas. Of course it can be worse if they don’t wear pajamas.



I had encouraged the mom’s to join Sharon and I in a game of ring toss at 10:30am. I thought they might enjoy it, but they weren’t real enthusiastic. When we got there, a bit late, Alex was just describing the rules, and signing contestants up for the challenge. The ring toss game evidently got misplaced, and instead we were doing a bean bag toss competition. There were seventeen contestants. Shirley was up first against a thirteen year old boy. They both tossed four bean bags and nobody scored a point. Five points are awarded for putting the beanbag into the hole, two if it hangs into the hole but doesn’t fall in, and one if it stays on the slightly slanted board. They had to try again. This time Shirley put her bean bag right through the hole, and that was enough to defeat the boy, a bit humiliated by going down in flames to a great-grandmother. Meanwhile, on the other side of The Northern Lights Bar, my mother put two bean bags through the hole, defeating the man she was up against. Sharon and I competed next, but not against each other. Neither of us managed to put a bean bag into the hole, and we were toast, thoroughly humiliated for not making the second round as our mothers did. Shirley went down first, out in the second round. My mother’s second toss almost went through the hole, hanging on the edge. The man she was playing knocked hers in, but his went through the hole as well. My mother’s next toss hung on the back edge. This time, the man’s through knocked hers off the board, while his fell through the hole, and in the end, that was enough to beat her. Both mothers were out in the second round. In the end, an Asian daughter-father squared off in the championship, and the father prevailed. In the first round, one lady put three straight bean bags through the hole, and she looked like a formidable opponent. In the second round Alex had to pitch the bean bag to even out the draw. Alex throws a pretty mean bean bag too, and knocked this ringer out.



We were a bit early to the Win-A-Cruise Bingo and they were just finishing up a chat with the Oosterdam singers and dancers. We missed the beginning; but, it sounded like 3 of them were leaving the ship this weekend before finishing out their contract and they were still working on getting replacements for 2 of them. For the other slot one of the dancers from the previous cast is going to be joining them. Someone asked why they were leaving and they didn’t really say but sounded like there may have been something going on there. The win a cruise bingo is a single sheet three-card game for $20. Sharon has actually won the free cruise several years ago but our Bingo playing has been bad the past few cruises. The game was well attended. I actually got to stand, along with many others, but three calls later I heard someone else “BINGO”. Well, we have one last chance in the afternoon!



We ate our final meal, lunch, in the Vista Dining Room. I started with the four-cheese soufflé. Sharon and the moms chose to skip the preliminaries. I had the green chili corn chowder for my soup choice, and it was supremely good. The girls chose three minute steaks served up with shoestring French Fries. They were all happy with their choice, thought it was good, and cooked the way they liked it. I had considered getting that, but again, something else a bit more unique caught my eye. I enjoyed instead a grilled shrimp quesadilla with guacamole and Pico de Gallo. It was much less filling than the beef choice, but it’s probably a good idea that I start eating some things that are much less filling. I suspect my immediate future is going to be full of much less filling.



I went up to the Crow’s Nest to stake out a claim for Team Trivia and found a spot near the front, and bumped into a former team-mate, responsible for our Team-Name this week “My Three Daughters”. I invited him to join us saying “My Three Daughters” will be right up. He got a little miffed on one of the answers when we rejected his choice for one that Sharon and I both knew… at least I think Sharon knew it, or she was sure I knew what “AU” was the chemical symbol for. Our teammate felt strongly that it was “Silver”. Now I’m not sure if he was just being obstinate, because his suggestion of “Arthur Ashe” as the A-Train had cost us the first round championship (Sharon was pushing for the right answer), and now he was pushing us into more wrong answers… maybe that was his goal all along. Anyway, on the fifteenth question, “What country is Macbeth set in?” He comes up with an “Oh, oh, oh, I know this one… “ And he writes his answer so the team next to us doesn’t hear. He writes “Denmark”, which of course is Hamlet. With a name that starts “Mac” it has to be Scotland. But he is adamant. From the way the game had gone so far, I was pretty sure we weren’t in contention, so I let him have his Denmark. I was still reeling from the question “What is the national bird of India?” I know we’ve had this question before, but we had no answer for it now. We later learned that it is the peacock. All I can say is that we didn’t come in last.



We had to rush down to the Vista Lounge to catch the “Up Close and Personal” magic presentation by Leo Ward the magician that had performed a few nights earlier. He billed it as a show with his ten assistants (e.g. his fingers). He performed some amazing illusions with cards and showed an illusion used to con people and warned never to bet under such conditions, because those observers who are winning are the shills that try to con the rubes into putting up their money. He also demonstrated a simple illusion that can be used to fool just about anyone, and certainly good for winning a bar bet or two. But he warned, don’t go out and perform it without practicing, a lot, first.



We stayed on in the Vista Lounge to watch Dancing with the Stars Live at Sea. Drew was the MC, and warmed the growing audience up with the story of the lady who went on a two week cruise, telling the story in his distinct Aussie dialect. She had left her cat and elderly mother behind. Concerned, she had asked a neighbor to check in on them every day to make sure that they were okay. And she would call him every evening at 8 o’clock to make sure there were no problems. Things went well for the first few days, but on the fifth day when she called, the neighbor blurted out, “The cat died.” The woman shrieked, “My God, that’s horrible! You can’t just blurt out that the cat died. You need to prepare someone for news like that. Say instead, that the cat is on the roof. Then when I call the next day, say that the cat is still on the roof and won’t come down. When I call again, say that the cat is still on the roof, won’t come down and hasn’t eaten in three days. Now when I call the following day, you can say that the cat is dead. That way, I’m prepared to hear the bad news. Was there anything else?” The man thought for a moment, and then replied, “Your mum is up on the roof.” Alex was one of the judges, as was Leo Ward, the magician with the ten assistants. The third judge was one of HAL’s dancers/singers.



The six winners of the various dance classes that occurred earlier on this cruise were now competing against each other to become the winner. Later, the overall winner of each of HAL’s ships will be chosen in a later competition, and they will compete against each other to become the HAL champion for this season on a free cruise next January. We all thought that the young twenty-something gal who danced the jive was wonderful, appearing to our untrained eye to have performed flawlessly. Her dance was very entertaining, and her smile infectious. She received 9-9-8 from the judges. Alex started his commentary after her dance by saying, “You… were… great!” When asked, she acknowledged that she’s had quite a bit of dance training. The next dancer performed, not quite at the same level, doing a dance that she’d only ever done four or five times in rehearsal for this show, and Alex began his assessment by saying, “You… were… great!” This dancer received 8-8-7. Next came a smartly dressed forty-something man performing to the Tennessee Waltz. This very slow paced dance with lifts and turns was well done with a couple rough spots. In the earlier competition he had knocked his dad out, and his dad was cheering him on here. His score of 9-8-8 was pretty decent. A short stocky North Dakotan danced next, wearing his black cowboy hat and boots, dressed very snappily. He also gave a riveting performance, with a couple timing mis-steps, beginning his dance by throwing his hat to the floor. Alex again commented, saying again, “You… were… great!” Leo gave an enthusiastic endorsement ending by observing “That was no jive.” Well, actually, that’s exactly what it was supposed to be. He received 8-8-9. The final lady was overflowing with enthusiasm, proudly sixty-something and championing the AARP-generation. Earlier, after competing in the preliminaries, she had said that this experience has already made her cruise for her. She, and a big smile, cha-cha’d her way to 9-9-9; despite some obvious breaks in the routine. The judges’ scores now needed to be tweaked with adjustments for audience applause metered after each performance, and providing 15%!o(MISSING)f the overall score. When the results came in, standing at number three was the twenty-something dancer. At number two, the North Dakotan, and at number one, a completely shocked and surprised and of course delighted cha-cha queen.



It was time for the 4pm $100,000 bingo with Alex Bling the Bingo King. It was very well attended and the first prize was over $330. We didn’t win that, or the next one, or the third one either. During the blackout game, Sharon and Shirley had to rush off to Vigil Mass, because today is Saturday, and they weren’t going to get a chance to attend church on Sunday. They handed us their cards partway through the blackout game. My mother took Shirley’s card, and I took Sharon’s. Not two minutes are they gone, when Alex stops to tell his two humpback whales in a bar joke. He was rushed today, because bingo got started very late, from earlier conflicts in the day’s schedule and the large number of people playing. At fifteen calls into the game, the normal time for the first Stupid Joke, he said he would dispense with them today, to speed things along. But then at 23 calls, halfway to the Jackpot threshold, he said someone had asked him to tell this joke (that would be Sharon, who was no longer there to hear it, nor was her mother whom she wanted to hear it… oh well). “Two humpbacks are in a bar. One humpback whale turns to the other and says, ‘Ooooh Ahhh Ummm’. The sounds Alex can make with the microphone sound exactly like what we’ve all heard as whale sounds… and he does this for a while. When we heard this joke on the Veendam, told in a much broader context, the whale noises continued for several minutes, in this shortened version perhaps 30 seconds. When they stopped, Alex continued, “And then the other whale said”. Now the duration of the pause is critical to the joke, as is the amount of time doing the whale sounds, and when done right the audience is howling at this point, especially if you’ve had something to drink. “And the other whale said, man you sure are drunk.” He’d told a longer version of this joke at the Liar’s Club game on the Veendam in Jan that we still laugh about. My mom and I got within three calls of achieving a coverall when someone called “Bingo”, ending our chances on yet another cruise.



With Sharon and her mom at mass, my mom and I headed up to the Lido to grab a bite to eat before heading off on our 6:35pm City Tour and High Tea at the Empress Hotel. We’d arranged to meet up near the poolside grill on the Lido deck. The Lido was mobbed when we got there, with everyone having the same idea, who was planning to go ashore in Victoria. Except for tea being one of Shirley’s favorite things, we probably would have skipped leaving the ship altogether, especially after the hectic pace of the day, and needing to pack tonight and disembark in the morning. I checked both sides, and then decided that the port side buffet was best offering roast turkey breast, which the other side did not have. But our line was not moving for some reason; remaining still for quite a while. But it did start to move, and we did eventually get served. I had a slice of roast turkey, a slice of flank steak, some stuffing with gravy, and some freshly cooked Brussels sprouts. Everything was quite good, and hot, and I really enjoyed the Brussels sprouts. Mother received two slices of turkey, but she asked for more, and got two additional slices. She ate it all and thought it was delicious with the stuffing and gravy. It was past six in the evening, and Sharon was nowhere to be found. My mom and I went back to the cabins to get ready to go ashore. I checked the safe, and Sharon had all of the tickets for our excursion. I decided to go back to the Lido and check if they showed up. When I couldn’t find them, I went back to my cabin. I was trying to decide what to do, and then the cabin attendant, who had just started cleaning up my room as I was checking in the Lido, notified me while I was knocking on my mom’s cabin that I had a call. It was Sharon in the Vista Lounge wondering why I wasn’t there. My mom and I hurried off and got our white 16 HAL-Tour Stickers (though my Mom put hers on upside down so was on tour 91). We then waited until our group was called to go on tour. The organization on the Oosterdam for getting folks off on tour in Victoria was magnificent. It came off so flawlessly and effortlessly, that it is likely most people didn’t even notice. But having been through total chaos getting off the Amsterdam in Victoria about two years ago, I can tell you that it can be very bad. This time it was well planned and well executed and there weren’t stairwells filled with people crammed in like sardines and not going anywhere. They even had a separate gangway for the tour groups.



We got on the bus, and we drove around Victoria, as our driver pointed out various buildings and significant historical facts about the region. We visited Chinatown, not large; but, nonetheless the second oldest Chinatown on the Pacific Coast. Back in the day, Victoria and San Francisco were the two major ports of entry from the Far East. And there, by a local park, the driver points out a peacock with his tail fully extended. How beautiful, and how bizarre, that that very afternoon, this creature was the answer to one of our trivia questions. We drove up the second highest promontory in region and got a view across the bay to the US; and, also a view of several cruise ships that had been dogging the Oosterdam through Alaskan waterways. They went to Skagway while we went outside to Sitka; but they were berthed with us in Juneau and Ketchikan. The Golden Princess failed to get past the Island approaching the Sawyer Glaciers of Tracy arm the day after we successfully navigated that passage (we learned this later on the shuttle to the airport from fellow Alaskan cruisers on that other ship). It was approaching our 8:00pm tea time at the Empress Hotel, and we had a bit of a rush to get there on time (we were three minutes late).



They were ready for us to experience High Tea at the Empress Hotel, and we were seated at a table for four. Two multi-tiered silver lazy Susan style serving trays were filled with two of everything. On the bottom tray were the sandwiches: the cucumber sandwich, the egg salad croissant, the spiraled smoked salmon sandwich, something I heard as pork pate sandwich, and decided to steer clear of anything I could not confirm as being edible. The last thing I needed was a Linda-moment with the mothers; like the time in Paris when Ron’s sister spooned “mousse” on to her plate at a breakfast buffet. Maybe that being a breakfast buffet should have been a clue that what she took wasn’t chocolate mousse; although, that is what it looked like. The look on her face when she spooned some in her mouth was priceless, followed by the “Ptui! #%!&(MISSING)@,” when she spit it back onto her plate. I suspect such etiquette is not approved here. This is when I hear my mother say “What is this?” as she takes a bite of the brown bread sandwich with filling that looks awful mousse-like. “Do you like it?” I asked. She shakes her head no. So this is bad, I didn’t even get an “It’s okay.” “Hmm, I say, it might be liver pate.” She doesn’t look happy and reaches to wash the taste away with some tea. Well, at least I didn’t tell her that her dog Buddy was up on a roof somewhere. The tea was quite good, and Shirley liked it a lot. At first I wasn’t going to add anything, but then decided to add some, then quite a bit of sugar, and some cream as well, and High Teas could start to grow on you after a while (literally). The center tray contained the two scones, what appears to be a small container with whipped cream, and a couple of small jars of jam. The scones were by far the favorite on everyone’s list. The top tray contained the sweets: the lemon drop with merengue dollop, the almond cookie, the uniquely colored round marzipan cookie with chocolate and green pistachio colored checkered center iced on the perimeter with pink marzipan, the chocolate dipped wafers sandwiching either chocolate or vanilla filling. Each table had two full sterling silver tea pots, and it was all the tea you could drink and all the goodies were quite filling. I came close to trying most items, less those that I suspected of being pate. I’m pretty sure High Tea was a big hit with Shirley. Aside from that first afternoon on the Oosterdam, this was the only other tea that we attended. So Shirley’s other son-in-law Dennis has nothing to worry about with regards to being replaced as Shirley’s official escort to tea.



We then headed back to the bus but several people were late and we got off about 10 minutes later than planned. We did some driving around after we left the Empress Hotel, and our driver still headed over a bridge to get us a view of the government building all lit up in bright white LED lights. We stopped, and I got out and was able to take some impressive night-time pictures of the vividly lighted Victoria across the water, before returning to the Oosterdam for our final night. It was after 9:30 when we got back to the ship. With just a couple hours to finish packing before midnight so our bags would be ready and not turn into pumpkins, and placed out in the hall for the porters to haul away for our morning departure. Sharon assisted her mom in pushing everything into her bag. After that, my mom only allowed me to watch as she methodically put everything into her single carry-on size piece of luggage. She really wins the prize for packing most efficiently, and she insisted that only she knew where to meticulously put everything, one piece at a time. I still had to pack my carry-on and large suitcase, so standing on the sidelines, unable to speed things along, was a bit torturous; but then, how many things can you put into one small carry-on? She did finally finish, and I got back to my cabin to do my own packing. Sharon introduced me to packing cubes a couple cruises back, and they really do seem to help (a lot). I finished packing, and was ready to retire, when I remembered that we hadn’t picked up our pictures yet. I pulled on some sweat pants, shoes and a shirt, and made my way to Deck 3. I told them my cabin number, and they found the pictures Sharon and I had ordered earlier. When I reviewed them, I found two sets of the ones we had ordered; but, we had ordered 3 sets of a couple pictures we wanted for ourselves and for each of our moms. HAL pictures are a bit pricey, and you would think for the prices they charge, they would get the order right the first time. The girl asked if I could pick them up in the morning. I said that we were packing now, and had to get off first thing in the morning. She said she would see if she could get them done in one hour. I asked if I should come back in an hour, and she offered to bring them by my cabin when they were ready. They were in our cabin mail holder the next morning when I checked. We finally got to bed around midnight.

---