Michael Reports on his April 2005 Vacation
Miami Beach is an overbuilt dowager of kosher highrises and insane traffic. We drove one day with Jeanne's sister Eleanor and brother-in-law Mickey to Key West. They had both recently been to Cuba, so they told us that Key West was a spiffed up version of Havana. We toured the Hemingway house and returned to spend another day in Coral Gables, which is a high-end shopping area. I made Jeanne walk forever to avoid having to take a cab to get to the Coast where we were to meet at a tourist site called Vazgaya. Finally, I relented far enough to get on a shuttle bus with the local rabble. The guy on this crowded bus right in front of us had a case of Tourette's so the adventure was the last I will be allowed to take this kind of short-cut with Jeanne I am sure.
Vazgaya is a fantastic house and grounds on the water sort of like the Huntington Library which was built and furnished by the International Harvester heir who was probably gay, died young and left the estate to the City to operate as a tourist site. I liked that and the alligator and everglades tour, but then it was on to the Cruise.
The Zeiderdam is about the size of the Queen Mary (82000 tons) and is operated by the Holland American Line. It had a mind-boggling security system involving a personal id card which is read by a special machine which shows your picture on the machine screen but not on the card. It was fascinating, and the card was required on your person at all times . I was probably the only one of the 1800 people on board who lost his card. It probably dropped out of my pants, and I had to go through an embarassing riggamarole to get it replaced.
The cruise to the Caribbean really emphasizes shopping. I am sure the cruise line gets some percent of the take when their passengers shop at the ports. St Thomas was a frenzy of shoppers in every duty free and tax free diamond and gem store imaginable. St Thomas is the American Virgin Islands but they drive on the left side of the road. We then went to the British Virgin Islands where they properly drive on the left side of the road and then on to Nassau which is also a left side of the road country. I talk about the driving because these tiny hot islands are all choking with automobiles,; the pollution, danger to pedestrians and congestion makes them all more hellish than charming.
Avalon which in many ways is similar to the Islands I just visited has it right by essentially allowing only golf carts and not ordinary vehicles to choke the ambiance. If I were running the Islands I just saw I would prohibit vehicles in the tourist centers and try to regain some of the charm the places must have had when the pirates were using them for staging areas for raids, and the coconuts and bananas could flourish once again. We did manage to take a long tour of Tortola and took some leisure in a wonderful restaurant in Nassau, and I managed to use up all of my limit on the credit cards.
The ship had frenzied Las Vegas type entertainment apparently created by a guy who was carried away by the need for energy. The food was good and our stateroom with a veranda I thought quite commodious but Jeanne would have liked it a bit bigger. I would not blame her since I caught a bad cough and cold which she endured in our close quarters. Our meal-mates were salt of the earth types from Massachusetts, and we enjoyed their company. All in all I did enjoy the two weeks, and I like cruising and I liked my company both in Miami and on the ship so I would say the only squirms were on the first day out there was a bit of a storm and the ride was pretty bumpy. After that it was all smooth sailing. MH
July 9, 2005