Cruising on the Holiday WaveRunner

[Terri102066]

Traveling south on I-65 from Birmingham on Friday was interesting. The north bound lanes were packed and at times, stalled. What is wrong with this picture? We arrived safely in Mobile and stayed at the Radisson. FYI, the Radisson offers breakfast and free parking. For this cruise, parking was a consideration. The Radisson deck is on higher ground and better protected from the wind.

 

The terminal was a mad house on Saturday. It seems that everyone got the information about the early sailing. We departed about 2:30 P.M. Once out of the bay the ship made full speed trying to outpace Dennis. After a few hours traveling southeast we turned southwest. This was interesting as we were skirting the outer bands of Dennis. The winds started as head on then shifted to a port crosswind. I went to bed around midnight with my bed gently rocking from side to side.

 

2 A.M. Sunday, hang on baby! I was awakened by the sound of objects crashing to the floor, one object being myself. I cleaned the mess and secured everything else. I couldn’t get back to sleep and decided to see what was up. I grabbed my GPS and headed topside. This was no easy task. I felt like a pinball bouncing off the walls. At the elevator I found what appeared to be popcorn bags taped near the buttons. These were not popcorn bags. Many people hadn’t found a bag in time. The cleaning crews were working hard.

 

I found Lido all but deserted with a strange wind coming from behind. Next I went to the forward observation deck. This was really strange. There was no wind. I smelled smoke from the funnel. The smoke was passing us! Remember the “What is Wrong?” lessons from elementary school workbooks? We were traveling at 16 knots with about a 20 knot tail wind. This explained the huge swells the ship was plowing through. We were on the southwest side of Dennis. The sailing was better by daylight. Monday we arrived at Progreso.

 

This was a great port for me as I was able to visit Chichen Itza. The family wasn’t so pleased at missing their Beach Break at Costa Maya. The stop at Cozumel went as planned with snorkeling.

 

All in all this was a good cruise. Carnival did well to save it from Dennis.

 

Jim (Hubby of Terri)

[Yazoo cruiser]

Holiday out of New Orleans last September when Ivan came calling. We bypassed Cozumel and had to go to Vera Cruz which was fine since we had been to Cozumel several times. Coming back we were told they were taking us to Galveston and bus us to N.O. since the river was closed. However, once we got to Galveston, they found out the river had been reopened and we sailed back to N.O. This gave us an extra day at sea. The captain and crew were fantastic keeping us informed and out of harms way. It was our 30th cruise and definitely one of the most memorable.