We woke up to clear skies with the temperature at 79 degrees. The humidity was the same at 79% with 14.3 mph winds. We expected high winds since we know there are 2 hurricanes off of the coast. More about that later.
There was a need to straighten out the details of this 7-day Mexico cruise, which has mistakenly been combined with the 4-day coastal cruise making it an 11-day voyage. We did not book it that way, so we have two separate booking numbers. We may have paid a little more but in the long run, we gain much more shipboard credit and other amenities with our President's Club perks. This has occurred once on a past cruise, so we know to watch what gets posted to our account.
And this is where our newly embarked Mariner's rep came into the picture. Her name is Margaret and has come highly recommended by good friends currently sailing on the Volendam. Considering that she flew from the east coast a day ago, we really appreciated her help. She reached out to us the afternoon we met her in the Crow's Nest gathering. We had made a list of missing things, and she checked into every one of them and had it all corrected by the end of the day. We thanked her for going the distance with this, and more so, saving us the hassle of trying to explain this to the front desk folks.
Captain Thomas came on at exactly noon with his updates. The Zaandam had sailed 326 nautical miles since leaving San Diego, with 428 more miles to go to reach Cabo San Lucas. He expected to arrive to the bay by noontime and drop anchor shortly afterwards. This will be a tendering port, and he hoped to drop the boats before 1pm. He predicted clear skies with temperatures of 82 degrees and low swells of seven feet. Then he went on with some information regarding Hurricane Simon, a category 4 storm that was predicted to move northwest by the weekend. They were monitoring the conditions and reported no cause for concern....yet.
It is worth mentioning a letter of safety and security for the upcoming Mexican ports. We recognized the form letter because we got the same letters on the world cruise at every segment. And that was sailing in the Pacific Ocean for most of the 133 days. It dealt with street crimes and related situations where thieves take advantage of the cruisers. Not meant to scare us, but just a reminder of stuff that happens worldwide in the way of crime.
One other flyer we all got after leaving San Diego was the offer of Have-It-All for $75 per day per person. Many passengers must have bought this package because we can tell by the huge number of beverages being served in the dining room at dinnertime. The noise level has risen quite a bit as well, especially with the younger crowd. Oh well, that used to be our group of up to 10 friends that sailed year after year. We were really noisy until we learned to keep it lowkey until after 10pm. The game of cork-forking comes to mind......
Speaking of dinner, we had figured it was a dressy night due to the Captain's welcome toast. But it was casual instead. One of us had tomato soup while the other had a shrimp quesadilla and Caesar salad. One entree was a beef barbacoa which was more like a fajita. The other main was slice tri-tip steak served tender and tasty. A shared dessert was a slice of carrot cake made with lots of slivered walnuts - the way we like it.
Looking forward to the stop in Cabo since it has been a few years since we were here last.
Bill & Mary Ann
