Sunday, March 8, 2009

Cruising abord the Regal Empress

In 2001 I was on a bowling team in Yonkers NY - one of the team mates was a travel agent. The team booked a cruise for a huge discount cause of the number of people booking. I dont remember how much - but it was a cruise to Nowhere out of NYC.

The cruise left Friday night - we started boarding at noon on Friday. They called it the booze cruise. We spent the weekend dancing, eating, drinking and walking around the ship.

We had an ocean view room - which was nice. The all you can eat buffet on the top deck was amazing, but it was pretty boring.

The ship was really small and you could walk it through in a matter of an hour. Because it was our first time on a ship we had no idea about how things worked. Friday night was just party party party. At dinner we ate at the restaurant and had to dress up really nicely. It was a nice weekend get away.

A year later - we found a bargain with the same cruise line - We too a cruise to Canada - leaving NYC on Monday and returning on Friday.

This cruise was supposed to stop at Bar Harbor, New Brunswick St Johns Canada, Portland Maine, and Martha's Vineyard. We actually didnt make it to Bar Harbor because the winds were too strong and the little ship could not make it into the port. So we docked somewhere else. We took a bus excursion to see various places along the way. One of them was the home of Lizzie Borden. The second stop was Canada - to see the Bay of Fundy.

Well along the way, sometime over night the ship 'broke' something. It cause the ship to move rather slowly. We didnt arrive in Canada on time at all - we were a few hours late. Now because of where we were, they informed us that the Bay of Fundy - the tides move every 6 hours from high tide to low tide. Fresh water to salt water - and this only have the 'crew' 20 minutes between the tides to 'fix' the ship. This caused us to be stuck in Canada for 2 days. We missed the opportunity to visit the other ports.

Upon leaving Canada - we watched as they took off the gang plank and listened to the Scottish man play his song while we were leaving. Within a few minutes - we saw a taxi pull up, and while we couldnt make out what was being said, apparently this person was supposed to be on the ship and missed it! So they were now stuck in Canada!!! Everyone watched with anticipation as to what was going to happen. We watched the taxi drive away down the pier. The went to another smaller boat. I didnt know this then, but sometimes - there is a pilot 'driving' the boats out of ports. This smaller boat carried the people that missed the boat. We all watched at the smaller ship pulled up against our ship. They tossed in a toddler, some bags and two adults! It was the highlight of the trip!

We were still traveling slower then normal. We missed the other ports and were 'at sea' for the rest of the time until we arrive in NYC. It was then that we noticed that all the other passengers were senior citizens. We called it the Geriatric Love Boat! We were not able to go to the captains dinner cause we didnt have dress clothes - only to find out that its not required! What a bummer. This was the last cruise we went on with the Regal Empress - they actually moved the ship out of NYC and its no longer cruising there.

This experience kinda killed cruises for us and we didnt go on another for a long time.