Cruising
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2011-07-04 08:05:46 - Graham EllisSome things change ... and some things stay the same.
This is the third time I've cruised - 2000, 2004 and now 2011. I still walk around the ship, tripping over people - who seem to be 10% older, 20% smaller and 30% slower than I am. The age thing - more and more - has become a concept thing, I fear - I'm not really much younger than many people around me; I'm sure that the chap and chapess from Croydon who we shared a dinner table with last night were about our age, but where he was talking of doing one final house rennovation before he retired, I'm still excited by the things that I do and look back at the Tomcat Course I was doing last week at this time, and forward to the Java Bookcamp and Advanced Perl public courses I'll be running later this month, and the private Python Course I'm also scheduled to give.
Saturday's boarding process was ... much ... easier. I recall many fruitless hours spent sitting in a dockside shed in Venice in 2004, and a slow transfer in Vancouver in 2000. Southampton was much easier; the scanners and security were something that I don't recall from before (but then we get so used to those at airports that I may just have forgotten a quick check in the frustrtaion of a wait in both 2004 and 2000). No - these "Celebrity" folks have got the boarding much better; although we had to wait a couple of hours for the cabin, at least we were able to do so in the buffet. That's not to say there are no queues. We've gone for "any time dining" as we find the formal banquet settings, with fixed times, are "too early" and "too late" ... but "any time" meant last night that we could join the queue at any time or (put another way) we could eat whenever we liked during the evening, provided that we arrived 20 minutes or so ahead of that time and stood in line like penguins (formal night! :-( )
The ship is huge, and pretty new. We're still finding new corners across some dozen decks - with great for and aft open lift shafts and staircases to transfer up and down. But all in all the layout is striaghforward and simple, with easy directions possible by just giving a deck number and direction. For the most part, there aren't capacity limits on the facilities, even on "sea days" such as we've had so far as we sail down the Bay of Biscay. A comparison "this cruise" to "previous cruises" isn't practical here - both of our previous cruises were "Geek Cruises" where we were on board for "high level" training by the likes of Rasmus Lerdorf, Larry Wall and Monty Widenius - fathers of PHP, Perl and MySQL respectively. But this time it's a family event - an opportunity to spend some time with Lisa's siblings who have flown over from the USA to sail to the Med, and to recharge our own batteries far more fully than we've had a chance to do in a very long time. You'll note (from my viewpoint) that a "change is as good as a rest" and I'm not exactly stopped - indeed I'm relaxing by taking photos, and writing. I feel comfortable - VERY comfortable - leaving "Well House Manor" in the competent and professional hands of our team; the ringing endorsements of the way that family were looked after when they descended there last wek is further confirmation.
The biggest change? The staying in touch. I can recall on the 2000 Alaska trip how we made a beeline for the Internet Cafes in places like Ketchican, Juneau and Skagway to check in for course bookings. How on the 2004 trip from Venice to Izmir and Istanbul we all precipitated into the one bar that was internet enabled - at a huge price, and specially set up for the geeks. Now in 2011, we're online from the cabin. True, we have bought the biggest of the five connectivity packages and the speed is reminiscent of dialup as we upload, with emails and responses prepared offline - but we're so in touch and I'll confess I love it.The day's starting ... I'm going to upload this article ... and point you at more pictures if you want to take a look ... [here]