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CRUISES: Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas Changes Course

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

In the old days when the bus adventure might be the highlight of any vacation, small towns sometimes offered “Mystery Trips,” day explorations of the countryside. Passengers would show up at the bus station, pay a fixed amount to cover both bus fare and lunch (that would include an ice cream cone, of course) and off the bus would go with only the driver knowing where.

Sometimes cruise lines have to take a similar tack (literally) because weather, disease and even the political climate of the destination may require a change, a sudden change, in a ship’s plans. So we found ourselves snapping up a bargain rate for a cabin when the biggest cruise ship on the west coast, Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas, had to divert from its Mexican Riviera cruise because of the onset of swine flu in the country. It headed north to British Columbia. Not only did Royal Caribbean show flair and class in making the switch so easily but Victoria, once seen, often becomes travelers’ favorite city.

Fifty years ago the actress Beatrice Lillie, on the 1969 maiden voyage of Cunard’s QE2 famously asked her cabin steward, “When does this city land?” She was intrigued by its size: the huge 1,800-passenger ship displaced 65,863 tons and seemingly offered everything. Now along comes Royal Caribbean International’s 138,000 ton 3,835 passenger Mariner of the Seas.

Another old timer, Winston Churchill once said, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” Well, Winnie could never have foreseen the birth of today’s vast ocean-going liners, ships so large they can’t get through the Panama Canal. The Mariner is, well, mammoth. Of the ten largest ships in the world, Royal Caribbean International has nine (Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 is the tenth). Clearly cruising has changed direction. This ship is immense. In length 1020 feet and with its widest beam 157 feet, she can still cruise at 22 knots. That speed may not seem impressive today but the Lucania won the North Atlantic Blue Riband for speed in 1894 with those numbers when the time for the crossing was more important than the comfort. The liner United States retired the trophy in 1952 with a speed of 34 ½ knots by which time air transportation had become the choice for business travel. There is of course a price for speed. The Mariner of the Seas takes a gallon of fuel to move 16 inches. Fortunately she carries enough for two weeks. And we’re on board for only one week, unfortunately.

Ports of Call

San Francisco

What’s not to like about San Francisco (except maybe its politics)? Locals stopped to stare at this leviathan of a ship that barely seemed to have enough room to park in the Embarcadero.

San Francisco is one of those great ports (like San Diego and most of the small towns in Alaska) where you can step off the ship and immediately be there. There’s a lot to see and it’s easy to see: Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 with its 110 stores and all its action; the Aquarium of the Bay; the San Francisco Maritime Historic Park – and near it Ghirardelli’s chocolate shop. Alcatraz California’s famous “escape proof” prison can be visited either on an excursion from the ship or from Pier 39 itself. The ship left town at 9:30 PM but there was plenty of time to take in an excursion or simply take a long walk.

Five piers to the west will bring you to the National Historic Landmark submarine, the USS Pampanito at Pier 45. “See the sub’s original ice cream machine! Its shoe-box kitchen galley! The submariners’ pinups on the wall!”

Everything is in miniature. There’s more room on the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, the National Liberty Ship Memorial next door. A few blocks farther west on Beach Street, Segway Tours offers a novel way to see the city in 2-3 hour excursions “powered by renewable energy.”

The third day of the cruise was spent entirely at sea giving everyone an opportunity to explore the myriad attractions on board. We say everyone because though the ship has more than 3000 passengers, it easily has enough space to entertain them.

Victoria

Canada’s jewel of a city came up at noon the fourth day. The signs at the gangway said “All aboard by 11:30PM.” Cool! All that time in Western Canada’s oldest city. Furthermore, the city lies a mere five blocks from the cruise terminal.

Victoria began in 1843 as a Hudson Bay Company trading post and became the provincial capital when British Columbia joined the Canadian Confederation in 1871. It is indeed an old town: Old Vic Fish & Chips has been on Broad Street for more than 75 years.

It’s a 10 minute walk to the inner harbor and there visitors find the charms they never tire of seeing. The Empress hotel, though its afternoon tea has become more than pricey; the rather formal Royal BC Museum with its natural history galleries and the more friendly Royal London Wax Museum. The Pacific Undersea Gardens and for contrast above the sea, the Harbour Air Sea Plane, are both here offering choices. There’s an IMAX theater at the Royal BC Museum.

Victoria feels British; it should. Many of its residents come from British stock which may explain the gardens that grace the homes and the city. In June hanging flower baskets celebrate summer along the city streets. Butchart Gardens, first laid out in 1904 over 55 acres, has an international reputation. Many visitors could spend the entire day there. Certainly it offers another choice for afternoon tea. The part of town called Oak Bay also has two popular tearooms: Blethering Place and White Heather. So one plan in Victoria might be to have a heavy breakfast on board, skip lunch and ask around about places for afternoon tea. If you’re on a tour, ask your driver for his favorite; it’s a common question.

We took the Big Bus on a 90 minute tour around town to get an initial feel for what we wanted to see. It had – as most town trolleys do – on and off privileges. We’d traveled with them in England and had enjoyed their great London experience. Victoria’s Big Bus was a similar pleasure. The ticket is valid for two days. The 22 stops included St. Andrews Cathedral, Fishermen’s Wharf and Craigdarroch Castle with its 87 stairs. A wealthy coal baron, Robert Dunsmuir, built the castle in the 1890s. He named it in memory of Craigdarroch House -- originally built in the 14th century in Dumfries, Scotland and now said to be haunted.

The second last stop nearest to the cruise terminal is Mile Zero, the west end point of the Trans-Canada Highway.

We walked across from that stop in Beacon Hill Park to the heart-wrenching statue of Terry Fox to pay our respects to the young man who has been called Canada’s greatest hero.

Terry lost his right leg due to the bone cancer osteogenic sarcoma at the age of 18. Three years later in 1980 he started his Marathon of Hope in Newfoundland on the Atlantic Coast to raise money for cancer research. Every day he ran 26.2 miles heading west to the Pacific and was stopped after 3339 miles only because the cancer had invaded his lungs. He died a year later having met his objective of raising the equivalent of a dollar from every Canadian for cancer research.

We returned to the ship overawed by his courage.

Seattle

It takes just seven hours’ sailing to reach this city of 570,000 souls named after Noah Sealth, who lived from 1780 to1866 and was chief of the local Suquamish Native American tribe.

Seattle has always been a success story: it beat out Portland, Oregon and both Olympia and Tacoma, Washington in the early days when the success of a port depended on the railroad’s choice for its west coast terminal. Seattle is the elephant in the room in the Pacific North West and its growth to more than 3 million people in the Greater Seattle area has left many a small place envious.

More than 75 percent of its residents have internet access at home but before Bill Gates gave it silicone, Ray Charles, Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones gave it music and Bill Boeing gave it jobs. Seattle surely has style. From US chess champion Yasser Seirawan to stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, from Howard Schultz of Starbucks to Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com. And of course it’s the home of the legendary Nordstrom.

Maybe in the eleven hours passengers have in town some will indeed head for the expensive “Nordie’s” but most make for Pike’s Place for its particular charms: funky stores with stuff you seldom see elsewhere like Pike Place Fish where salesmen heave large fish across the width of the stall to be caught by the person who will wrap it for the customer. And it has Elvis shops and stalls that sell flowers and CDs and books, and places that offer to read your palms or indulge your longing for tattoos.

And you can eat. Boy can you eat! Our favorite is Pike Place Chowder. It won the Newport, Rhode Island Great Chowder Cook-Off three years in a row but now you can enjoy their simple fare in Seattle in a little café near Post Street and Pine Street. As they say, “this is the soul of the city.”

With all the Pike Place fish restaurants it may seem in bad taste then to visit the Seattle Aquarium but it’s one of the best in the country and worthy of your time.

The Aquarium reminds you to get up on deck and watch Mother Nature from the Mariner’s deck too.

Money Matters

Royal Caribbean has positioned itself as the reasonably priced company offering value -- because it senses if parents cruise with children, the children may return later on their honeymoon.

The best bargains in cruise vacations happen when you book very early -- or at the last minute. Conventional wisdom says passengers end up paying about 40 percent more on average than the posted price of the cruise for extras like airport transfers, personal purchases, spa services, excursions, alcohol and gratuities. With the present economy creating such discounted cabin rates those numbers no longer hold -- but even as the cruise lines cut costs so additional charges may creep in.

Thus although the cruise is still an all-inclusive bargain, passengers are enticed to pay extra for, say, a snack in Johnny Rockets ($4.95), or for dining in a more elegant restaurant ($20 per person for “intimate Italian dining,” or $25 each for the “best steak on the high seas,”) or even for specialty coffees after dinner in the regular dining rooms. Charges like wine tasting ($10), yoga or Pilates lessons ($12) are understandable; they are, after all, a special service and spa treatments on cruise ships have always been priced more than on land. You can cut the cost of individual sodas by buying, at the start of the cruise, an unlimited soda package for $42+15 percent gratuities for adults and $28 for those younger than 17. If you forgot your camera or like to buy from ships’ photographers, an 8 x 10 and a 6 x 8 combo is $19.95.

One shouldn’t be churlish about those charges; one would, after all, have to pay for them on a land vacation, it’s just that older cruisers remember when most of those items were included in the price of a cruise.

You can save on excursions, too, if you are not a first time visitor at a port of call and know your way around. At Victoria, BC we walked to downtown and checked out the Empress hotel, home of its renowned afternoon tea. The price of $55 each for tea seemed preposterous so we had its celebrated cocktail 1908 cocktail instead: “an Empress Blend 1908 tea with infused vodka, fresh lemon juice and frothy egg whites,” recreated to commemorate the hotels 100th anniversary. At $10 it surely compared favorably with the cost of afternoon tea. 

 
 

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