New York - part 2

Woke a bit earlier than I hoped when a tanker pulled in right next to our ship.  Some guys on deck were really loud.  Not sure but I think it was probably used to fuel us up for the long trip across the Atlantic.  I went for breakfast in the windows cafe, which is the buffet.  It was very good, definitely better than the QM2 buffet.  They also served tables for coffee, again unlike the buffet on QM2 which was more like a cafeteria.

But because I was up early I did manage to go for the run I wanted to do.  I went north along the Hudson river, it was great.  They have done a nice job of revitalizing the greenery along the path.  It wasn't too busy but a few cyclists and locals with their dogs, probably from the three "Trump Place" condo buildings bordering the road.

I also went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It's very large, quite overwhelming actually.  you could easily spend a day there, but I opted for around 2 hours of strolling through various exhibits.  Will have to go back.

I was going to go to the Intrepid Air Museum which is right next to our pier, but it was lined up both in the morning and afternoon with school field trips.  Because the weather was so nice, I spent the last couple of hours around the pool getting some sun.

We sail out in about an hour...looking forward to it.

Here are a few pics.  I'm not yet on the satellite internet plan so can afford a few.

A shot of the ship docked.

The pool area, filling up as people come back from the day in New York.  You can see the cruise ship Balmoral off to the right.  It was the other ship that had a Titanic Memorial cruise.  It started from Southampton.

My stateroom, very small but functional.

A Partial Day in New York

Got here a little late due to a "cargo issue" on the plane out of Toronto.  But as I hoped, the embarkation process was truly effortless.  I drop my luggage to the porters, walk in to the terminal...it's virtually empty.  Go through security: "oh don't worry about taking your laptop out of your carry on" they say to me.  Next to check in and walk on the ship.  Immediately the stress starts to disappear.  As I walk onboard the champagne is offered and they tell me that lunch is on until 4.  Because we are a bit late it's now 315 so I check out my room (more on that later) and get some lunch.  (The Air Canada pretzels didn't cut it).  Even though I'm at the end of the lunch period, I get a nice plate of veggie pad thai and some salads.  It's warm enough to sit outside and quickly I'm offered some wine, which is included with lunch and dinner (different than most cruise lines).  So much for the run I was going to do.

Everything goes down really well and I go back to my room.  It's smaller than QM2, as is everything on this ship.  But it's very comfortable.  Bottled water and soft drinks stocked (again,different from most cruise lines). My luggage arrives shortly after as does my room steward who introduces himself. Olivina is his name.  I'm assuming he's from the Phillipines.  Nice fellow.  As I start unpacking, if there was any doubt about going for a run, they announce the muster drill will be held at 4:45.  Good thing I stuck around.  I unpacked and went to the drill which was well organized.  Our group assembled in the main dining room and got the run down on what to do if you hear the alarm.  Basically:  go to the station and follow the instructions.  It's not too hard.  I have to say that with the smaller ship, it seems like it would be a much easier task to move all passengers and crew into the lifeboats.

Another safety procedure that I didn't hear last year:  if there are children with parents, they children are given coloured bracelets to wear.  If, by chance, the parents and kids, are not together when the alarm goes off, the parents are to go to the muster station and the crew take the kids to the appropriate area.  Makes sense.  Having said that, I haven't seen one child on the ship!

By now it's 530 and I take a taxi to the meat packing district for dinner at Barbuto.  Thanks to our good friends Gina and Blair for this recommendation.  A relaxed, neighborhood place, that seems to have been a garage at one point.  I had ricotta and sweet pea bruschetta followed by the best gnocchi I've had.  A couple glasses of chianti to wash it down and all was good.

I walked over to Greenwich to the Bluenote and took in the show with Jim Hall.  It was superb.  He's not the youngest guy but he still plays a great guitar.  The songs ranged from blues to brazilian to jazz, all very accessible.  If you aren't a jazz aficionado, I think you would still have liked it.  He also had another guitarist named Jullian Lage playing with him.  He was fantastic.  I will have find some of his recordings.

So maybe tomorrow I will get that run in, or the spinning class at 4.  Just as long as I'm on deck for the sail away.  Weather looks great: 70 and mainly sunny!

And I'm Off

Currently in transit flying to New York on Wednesday morning.  It's interesting how much more relaxed I feel when it's travel for vacation instead of work.  Also helps to check bags....I keep feeling like I forgot something though!

Something that Azamara does more than other cruise lines: overnight stays in port.  At first I thought it was a little strange to start with a night in New York but as I started to plan, the more I liked it, especially in a city like New York.  Most cruise ships come in to port early in the morning, disembark all passengers, clean the rooms, and then let the new passengers board.  It means they will board all passengers in 3 or 4 hours.  While last year boarding 2500 people on QM2 was very well organized and low stress, especially compared to air travel, on this trip, I can board any time after noon today.  So a smaller ship, with people arriving throughout the day, it should be a very easy process.

But, of course, the real beauty of this is that I get a little more than 24 hours in New York, without having to come early and get a hotel room.  There are a few things I have planned.  Weather permitting (and so far it looks good) I am looking forward to a run along the Hudson River.  There is a parkway around most of Manhattan and I should be steps from it from the ship.  Tonight I have tickets to the Bluenote jazz club, Jim Hall quartet is playing.  I can't say I understand jazz but definitely enjoy it and what better way to take it in than at a club in Greenwich Village.

Tomorrow I have some options ranging from one of the art museums or maybe the Intrepid aircraft museum, next door to the ship. I think it may be a game time decision!

Journey leaving New York for the Titanic Memorial Cruise

The two Titanic memorial cruises are now well underway.  Yesterday (April 10), Azamara Journey left Manhattan to start its voyage.  I managed to watch a bit of the sail-away on a fantastic webcam in New York harbor.  Here is the little ship on her way to leave the harbor under the Verazanno Narrows bridge.

Courtesy of NYHarborWebcam.com, used with permission

This webcam, by the way, is not your average webcam that's grainy and updates once a minute.  This webcam is high-def, full motion.  It is extremely clear and provides a really nice view of ships coming and going in the harbor.  I haven't seen much better streaming video.  I highly recommend it, especially next week, say April 19th around 6pm!  Yesterday this shot was taken just after 6pm and Journey should have departed at 5pm, the same time we are scheduled to depart next week.  So, if you have time on your hands, mark your calendar and check in around 5:45 pm EDT.  Weather permitting I will be on the top deck as we go under the bridge!

Check out the web cam at: http://nyharborwebcam.com.  The same folks run other webcams, for example in Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale.  It's a much busier port, in terms of cruise ships that is.  For ship lovers, look there on the weekends, it's full and usually has the largest cruise ship in the world, Oasis of the Seas, positioned there (no desire to go on it personally!).  That webcam can be found at http://portevergladeswebcam.com

 

Fire on Azamara Quest

By now I'm sure most of you have heard about the fire on the Azamara Quest cruise ship.  It happened on Friday March 30, after a stop in Manilla. While the fire was extinguished quickly, it knocked out the engines and power for 24 hours.  Luckily, the engineers on board managed to get minimal power back, allowing it to sail to port in Sandakan, Malaysia.  All passengers are safe though 5 crew were dealing with smoke inhalation issues, one reported as serious.  As I'm less than two weeks from departure on Azamara's other ship Journey, which happens to be identical to Quest, you can imagine I have been doing some reading to understand more about the incident as well as how the crew dealt with it.

The first thing to note, though it might seem obvious, is that a fire on a ship as sea is indeed a very dangerous situation.  It seems like it was extinguished within minutes which was absolutely crucial to avoiding it turning into a deadly event. While I'm not sure if it's true, I read that the one seriously injured crew member was trapped in the area with the fire due to the fire doors closing automatically when fire was detected.  Most unfortunate that a safety feature for the ship could have caused one individual to get injured.

The next thing to understand was how the crew dealt with the situation.  Unlike the ridiculous antics by the Costa Concordia crew, it seems like the Azamara crew performed perfectly.  People were asked to put on their life jackets and assemble at their muster stations whereby the captain kept everyone well informed of the situation.  And after 2 hours or so, they were told they could stand down and that they were out of danger.  Every report I read indicated that the crew were fantastic in dealing with the situation and kept the passengers calm.  I even saw some raw footage that clearly showed people calm, sitting down and listening for further directions, even some people were laughing.

Finally, how was the situation dealt with post fire.  The fact that the crew got the ship running again and able to return to port on its own power seems to have been an amazing feat.  There was 24 hours prior were there was no electricity but the crew ensured the passengers were as comfortable as possible despite no air conditioning.  Free drinks became the rule and while the kitchen had no power, BBQs on deck  kept people well fed.  Everyone was also given free internet access and free phone calls to relatives.  And when the ship did make it to shore, the first person to greet the passengers and apologize was the President and CEO of Azamara, Larry Pimentel.  And as I searched through news stories and videos, not one report could find any passenger with anything bad to say about the crew or the way the situation was handled.

You learn a lot about a company and its employees by how they deal with difficult situations.  I'm more confident than ever about the safety and standards aboard Azamara and still looking forward to those sea days.

Titanic Anniversary

There will no doubt be much media coverage leading up to the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  It happened on April 15, 1912 on it's way to New York from Southampton.   There are two cruises  organized as memorial voyages to the tragedy.  These cruises will be complete with several lectures and discussions about the ship and the event itself and will stop on the exact spot, at the exact time, of the Titanic's sinking to remember those who died. 

One of those ships is the Azamara Journey.  It will leave from New York on April 10th and arrive back in New York on April 18th, 100 years later to the day that the RMS Carpathia docked in New York with the survivors it rescued from the Titanic.  It's also the day that I will board the Journey.

You can find more information here: http://titanicmemorialcruise.co.uk/

Time for another crossing.

It’s been over 8 months since I complete my transatlantic crossing last year and I think it’s time for another!  I got the bug last year and looked into several QM2 crossings during the remainder of 2011.  I followed several blogs of people writing their stories of sailings: the weather, both smooth and stormy seas, the food (mostly good), and the people, always interesting.  I researched all cruise lines looking for possible itineraries that would satisfy the craving just to be at sea.  In December I started to fixate on a January eastbound crossing.  Prices were good (some would say not surprisingly given the time of year).  My biggest concern was not the potential for storms but the short days.  I loved seeing the sun early in the morning and setting during dinner.  But despite this limitation, I decided to give it a go only to find out on the morning I was ready to book that it was sold out!  Turns out I’m not the only one with this problem!  Transatlantics draw a unique crowd. 

So I looked at other voyages but had trouble getting excited about them.  The Caribbean?  Nah.  Mexico?  I don’t think so, my self defense skills aren’t very strong.  I came close on a panama canal transit – business travel got in the way of that.  Then an interesting trip from Lisbon to Barcelona with stops in different places like Madeira and Casablanca.  But it got sold out too.  (Besides with only 3 days at sea, what’s the point!)

So whether it was due to trips getting sold out or just my own procrastination, the date kept moving out a month at a time.  What do you know,  the dates started to get into the transatlantic season.  Cunard runs regular crossings starting late April, right through until the end of the year.  I considered doing their first crossing at the end of April however it’s also the time that other cruise lines reposition ships from the Caribbean and warmer climates to the Mediteranean and other European destinations for the spring and summer seasons.  Azamara Club Cruises is a small line with just 2 small ships of 694 people each.  They are owned by Celebrity and market themselves as an upscale boutique line.  They are sailing their ship the Journey from New York to Roeun France April 18.  It’s sooner than if I waited for the QM2 crossing and has 8 days at sea instead of the 6 on a QM2 crossing.  And to top it off it has a day in New York at the start and a day in France to finish.  How civilized.  It's a repositioning cruise as the ship will spend the spring and summer in the Mediterranean so it's really the only time this year for such a voyage.  So I booked it and made flight arrangements shortly after. Here's a pic of the ship...looks nice!

So, if anyone is still listening to the blog, I will write a few more updates before and during the trip.