Day 66 At Sea

Today was a pretty good start for the Panama Canal cruise. The weather was nice and sunny, a little cool but warm enough. I haven’t got a feel for the new crowd yet. There are still a pretty large number of people with a very large number of life experiences. There is also a pretty good cross section of people who may be a bit more active. It’s still too early to tell. I didn’t go to dinner last night so I don’t know who I’m sitting with yet. I took a look at the menu and decided that it wasn’t worth staying up late for on a night where we lost an hour. Dinner now starts at 8:30 pm….about a half hour later. I’m not real thrilled with that… I get up pretty early, Oh Well!

I noticed a comment from my friend “Whitey” about my use of the phrase "Hopefully all the disagreeable types will have left….". I tried to put it nicely rather than “Pain in the ---“. These are the people who would get on tour buses first thing and pull all the reserved for handicap signs off the seats and make themselves comfortable (they were not handicapped, at least physically). When the handicapped people would get on the bus they wouldn’t budge and send them handicap people to the back of the bus, struggling all the way. I would like to say that this disgusting practice was limited but alas it was not. These people are making there own Karma…. There we also the people who complained incessantly about anything and everything all day every day….. Unbelievable! There were the “special” people who felt they deserved to go to the front no matter how long the line. Finally, there were the people who felt in some way that they were the “guest police” who were required to chastise or make rude comments to other guests. Now don’t get me wrong, this was not the case for the majority of guests onboard. Most of the people were very nice and I enjoyed meeting many great people. As for the crew, they were tremendous (except for the shore excursion team who were the least knowledgeable and helpful people I have encountered working on a ship). Did I mention they could be a bit rude and get quite short with guests? As I said I met many wonderful people on the Asia voyage. Of note were a group of twelve ladies from New York traveling together who were just a joy to spend time with. I had a great time with Ron & Glenda from Texas who I plan on seeing again in 2009. I enjoyed bantering with Dianne from Canada, Eh. The people at my table in the dining room were a very diverse group and a lot of fun. There were many more who I enjoyed spending time with so don’t feel slighted if I failed to mention you….. All in all it was pretty good.