Statendam - Oct 17 - Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas - we dropped anchor at 8:50 and we're cleared by 9:40. Even though this was a Sunday, 90% of the shops were open. Having been here many times before we just walked around and shopped. Being as this was a tendering port, we noticed that tender #8 was missing a window and one of it's engine gave off a lot of black smoke. When we got back to the ship, we noticed that many areas of the ship were no longer cool - nor did some parts of the ship cool down during the evening.

Smoking - there are a lot of smokers on this cruise and in some areas, the smoke was really bad. On this ship the port side in the Crow's Nest and port side by the Lido Pool are the designated smoking areas. All areas around the Navigation Pool are smoking areas. But we noticed that people would pick up ash trays around the Lido Pool and move them to where they wanted to smoke regardless of the rules. This was very noticable at the Casino Bar. Even though the bar tender would remind people which side was the designated smoking area, they just looked at him and kept on smoking. We knew this bar tender from previous cruises and we explained to him that because of the poor ventilation at the Casino Bar we wouldn't be able to have our after dinner cordial there anymore.

We noticed that all the hallways and carpets in various areas were sprayed today with some kind of disinfectint.

So that everyone can enjoy appetizers while having cocktails, the hours have been expanded: cocktails are from 4:45 - 6:15 to accomodate the 5:45 and 6:15 dinners. The 8 and 8:30 dinners have cocktails from 6:45 - 8:15. Big improvement over our Maasdam cruise.

KK, I am really enjoying reading your daily review of your cruise. This is really giving me a good idea of what may happen on the Ryndam next week.

Thanks so much.

Smoking - there are a lot of smokers on this cruise and in some areas, the smoke was really bad. On this ship the port side in the Crow's Nest and port side by the Lido Pool are the designated smoking areas. All areas around the Navigation Pool are smoking areas. But we noticed that people would pick up ash trays around the Lido Pool and move them to where they wanted to smoke regardless of the rules. This was very noticable at the Casino Bar. Even though the bar tender would remind people which side was the designated smoking area, they just looked at him and kept on smoking.

I find this very strange. I thought that there has been a lot less smoking on ships in recent years. There are fewer Americians and Canadians who smoke these days.

Was the passenger mix different than on other HAL cruises?

I was thinking the same thing, maybe there were more Europeans and South Americans on board. I am a smoker, but am very careful where I smoke, and hate to offend anyone.....jean :cool:

There weren't very many Europeans or South Americans on this cruise. But there were a lot of people in their 70's, 80's and 90's who really could smoke up a storm. And with the bad air-conditioning and poor ventilation, the smoke just hung in the air in several places on the ship.

Many mornings as we walked by the Casino, you could smell the smoke from the previous evening as well as see a blue haze in the far carners of this area.

At 11 PM there was the Baby Boomer's Music Night in the Crow's Nest.

Seems like smokers are pushing back.

This does not excuse their lack of consideration, just an observation that they have taken the offensive in this battle.

It is said "you get back what you put out."

Forgot to mention that we turned the clocks forward another hour tonight.