We have heard our friends talking about cruises and had decided they really weren't for us. We like to push vacations to the max. Every minute planned way in advance with as much packing in of activities as possible. I started getting concerned when we read that the average age on the Statendam (the cruise ship we went on) was 65. I was really concerned when I looked at the shore excursions available and it appeared the most physical one was a 3 hour 8 mile bike ride...on a path. I was kind of panicky. I was picturing us going crazy locked on a boat with lots of sparkly clothes and bingo for 5 days. So I called my friend Genevieve, who should really be my travel agent. She told me that the boat is like a floating hotel that feeds you. O.K., I could handle that. She also sent me to a cruise review website that gave me some good ideas for the ports we were going to. I started making calls about rental cars and lined up rental cars at the three ports we went to. I also lined up a zipline tour, which I have always wanted to try. We had other plans, some that worked out and others that didn't. Regardless, we had a GREAT time.
We started a trip by nearly missing the plane. We arrived five minutes after the airline was supposed to have closed their check-in. We weren't aware that they closed at 8:00. Oops. Luckily, the attendent was the daughter of a friend and she stayed late for us. This flight was one of the things I was most excited about. I have never flown across the ocean without my kids. It was really fun. I got to watch a whole movie. We arrived in Vancouver the next morning and they sent us to the port in a taxi. We checked in and after awhile they herded us to the boat. We were happy to see that there were others that weren't of the retired age. We were also happy to greet the lunch buffet. Really happy.
Some of the activities we took advantage of on the boat during the five days were a massage (my first ever), country dancing, movies in their little theatre, a cooking class and a class on how to make towel animals, played basketball, tennis, and ping pong, watched a couple of shows, ate a lot of food, including a dinner with Stewart and Kristy, and watched for bear/scenery while moving through the chanels.
We got off the boat in Victoria, BC, Port Alberni, BC, and Astoria, OR. In Victoria we went ziplining and then hiking in East Sooke park. Ziplining was OK, but not quite the adventure I expected. I was thinking of going from tree tops to the ground and having to run at the bottom to avoid smashing my head into the ground. My sense of adventure is so warped, compliments of marrying Rusty. On our hike we had a seagull come visit us for lunch. No seagulls in Hawaii so that was kind of fun. We hiked to some petroglyphs. I wonder if todays graffiti is tomorrow's petroglyphs? We thought it was so cool to see the moss all over the trees on our hike. We even took a picture of Russ sticking his finger into it to show the kids how deep it was. It went to the end of Rusty's finger. The next week we went on a hike here and Kyleigh wanted to test the moss like we had. She stuck a two foot stick into it and didn't reach the end. I guess we were so impressed with it there because it was the same kind of landscape we grew up with, but it had moss all over it.
In Astoria we were hoping to find someone that would rent us a boat and some crab pots, or go clamming. We couldn't find anyone that rented things out and low tide wasn't very low. We ended up driving to Mt. St. Helens. A surprising highlight. For one thing, our "road trips" can only be about an hour in any direction on Kauai and we both enjoy a drive once in awhile. We took the wrong way on the way there and drove for three hours. They have a great visitor center that we stopped at. It has a cafe so we ate lunch on the deck overlooking Mt. St. Helens. We also read up on the history and read some first hand accounts. We planned our trip back based on the three hour trip up there, and got back to Astoria in half the time. A plus because we got to take pictures in front of the Goonies house (the house where they filmed Goonies). That was one of Rusty's all time favorite movies. I even talked Russ into lifting his shirt and doing the "truffle shuffle" in front of the Goonies house. Sorry, I promised him I wouldn't post that one. While we were there we could hear sea lions barking. We drove toward the sound and found a pier that was absolutely covered with sea lions. We got to watch them for awhile before we had to make our way back to our floating hotel with dinner waiting for us.
The bottom line is I have done a 180 on my opinion about cruises. It is so cool that while you sleep and gorge yourself on tons of really good food they are traveling for you. When you wake up you are there and can go about your business. We would totally go again.
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