MacMania 7 — All Set for Roaming the Caribbean Seas!
Once you have enjoyed your first cruise vacation, you may well feel that, from that moment on, your life can be categorize into two states: being on a cruise and waiting to go on your next cruise.
After being in that latter state for some 15 months now, there will be a state change tomorrow, as I’ll be boarding the MS Volendam for MacMania 7. Cruise ahoy, baby!
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Compared to last year’s MacMania 4.51, there’s one major difference, and that’s the itinerary: whereas the MacManiacs cruised the Western Mediterranean last year, the destination this time is the Caribbean, with ports of call being Half Moon Cay, Aruba, Curaçao, the Panama Canal, and Puerto Limón in Costa Rica.
Yup, sounds pretty cool, but it also means that a bit more time and effort is required to get to the ship in the first place. To be precise, it took about 14 hours to fly with my favorite airline, British Airways2 from Düsseldorf via London to Miami.
If you should ever consider going on a cruise which requires a comparable travel effort, adding an extra buffer day between the flight and the cruise ship’s departure is a very good idea. Especially if that travel involves clearing US immigration, which, in my case, required waiting in line for a full 90 (yup, ninety!) minutes. Even changing queues twice didn’t help much: it was always my line in which someone way up front had some problem either communicating with the officer, or with their paperwork, or whatever.
On that note: if you’ve ever travelled to the US as a non-US-citizen, you surely have heard those horror stories that the INS officials will send you back to the end of the queue if that green immigration form isn’t filled out correctly? Not true. Sadly. I saw folks in line who hadn’t even filled out anything, but were they sent back to the end of the queue?! No! Instead, they were kindly asked to correct that form, and “just come back to me here” afterwards. Great, so I couldn’t even find comfort in someone screwing up more than I did by those queue changes. Must have been a case of bad immigration karma, I assume.
At least it turned out that the officer I eventually talked to (let me pause here for a moment to remind you that this was after waiting for about 90 minutes. Ninety. Nine. Ty. Minutes!) came up with some seriously funny, yet insightful, remarks about current US politics, which cheered me up big time. Until I headed for the baggage belt, and started wondering what had happened to my suitcase during all that time…
When I arrived at the baggage belt, my flight wasn’t listed anymore, and, even worse, none of the officials there were able to tell me which belt was assigned to my flight. I have to admit that this kind of situation makes for great exercise: gets your heartrate up to 140 in no time without any physical effort. If my cardiologist knew about this, he’d probably advise me to not even bother with jogging anymore, but simply travel to the US more often.
Well, all’s well that ends well, and eventually I did find my well-traveled suitcase in a darker corner of the baggage hall and could proceed to the exit nearest to me. Turns out, I was literally the last person they were waiting for for the bus transfer to the pre-cruise hotel in Fort Lauderdale. (If the friendly elderly lady from the Isle of Wight, who had to wait for me, is reading this: I seriously apologize that it took so long. Should I run into you anywhere on the ship, I’ll gladly buy you a glass, or two, of your favorite beverage to make up for it.)
After all this hoopla, I finally arrived at the Renaissance Plantation hotel, taken there by a superbly funny bus driver, who drove — nay: chauffeured — said elderly lady and me in a full-size Greyhound bus from the airport to our hotels. One bus, two passengers, one funny driver. Suh-weet.
It was during that drive that I fully realized that I hadn’t been in Florida since ages, as I usually visit the West coast thanks to Macworld Expo San Francisco, and even that destination hadn’t been on my calendar since January 2005. Feels great to be back in the States 3. Now, let’s see how I can get over this jet lag thing…
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As I mentioned earlier, it’s a Very Good Idea™ to add an extra buffer day between your travels and the ship’s cast-off. It let’s you get acclimatized (from dry lower 50s to very humid high 90s is pretty intense), shake off at least some of your jet lag, and have ample time for last-minute pre-cruise shopping. E.g., if — and I’m using a totally arbitrary example here (no, really!) — you mistakenly think that razor blades are still welcome aboard a plane when packed in your carry-on baggage.
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With all that out of the way, I could fully enjoy the Pre-Cruise party at the hotel: great food, friendly catering staff, and a chance to meet a few nice folks who will also be on the cruise, so here’s a heartfelt “Yo!” to Neil, Randal, Jill, Chris, and quite a few others.
Best of all, I met Derrick Story face-to-face for the very first time at that party. Derrick’s the guy who offered me the opportunity to blog for O’Reilly, and I am seriously grateful for that. Thank you so much, Derrick!
Well, after that party is now over, it’s time to take one final photo of the Florida sunset, catch a sack-full of fairy dust, and get ready for tomorrow’s embarkation.
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If you’d like to read about last year’s cruise, you can step through the whole story by starting with day 1, or browse the list of posts. ↩
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I’m being serious here: I love flying with BA. Their planes aren’t in a worse shape than other major European or US airlines’ and their pricing is OK, so there is no factual reason not to fly with them. However, the one thing I seriously dig about BA is their distinctly British service attitude. So far, I have not flown with any other airline whose stuff are so friendly and attentive as BA’s. What about the service on Lufthansa, you say? You’re being sarcastic, now, aren’t you? ↩
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This is supposed to be a vacation, so let’s not mind the political situation here for now. ↩
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