Travel Maven Blog ...... David Molyneaux posts from TheTravelMavens.com

Penguins, elephant seals star on a cruise expedition to Antarctica, South Georgia Island, Arctic waters

As travelers, we waltzed in, after the wildlife had endured arduous, dangerous migrations to breed, feed, molt, and play. They performed their basic stages of survival in a dramatic, awesome theater of nature

Macaroni penguins on the rocks, Le Lyrial at anchor at Cooper Bay, South Georgia Island (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TravelMavenBlog.com)

By David G. Molyneaux

Turret Point, King George Island, Antarctica

At the bottom of the earth, as the summer temperature reached a balmy mid-30s, I encountered a penguin on a mission. Each of us was walking alone on a remote beach where our paths soon would intersect — the traveler overstuffed into a red polar jacket, the black and white penguin, Adèlie in species, looking sleek and dapper.

My friend, the Adelie penguin, awaits his space in Antarctica

Water’s edge was to my left. The penguin, ahead of me and to my right, was shuffling steadily toward the sea. Until, simultaneously, we stopped our progress. Did the penguin judge intentions? No question who would give way.

Before our wet landing on Zodiac inflatable boats from our cruise ship, expedition guides had explained that our role was to give the wildlife space, so as not to cause them to alter their natural behavior. Besides, penguin patience is far greater than that of humans.

Following protocol, the human retreated about two paces. Which apparently was sufficient. The penguin resumed its deliberate waddle to the water, hopped into the sea, and swam away in a series of penguinesque breaststrokes graceful beyond imagination, a style that guides call “porpoising.”

“See you later,” I said, smiling at the crazy thought of recognizing this penguin again. From a distance, they look pretty much the same. And their numbers, in and around Antarctica, were astonishing.

King penguins form a colony at the bottom of Heaney Glacier at St. Andrews Bay, South Georgia Island. CLICK on pictures for a larger view

Though the long journey to my seventh continent — a total of 20 days round trip from home in Ohio — was aimed primarily at observing penguins, I had no expectation that my eyes would feast on at least half a million of them. Nor that I would feel an intimate connection, even for a moment, between a pampered vacation traveler and a single creature in the wild on a life-sustaining mission to feed.

That exhilarating experience was a highlight of a trip that unfolded swimmingly in January (2022), operated by venerable luxury expedition leader Abercrombie & Kent (A&K).

My fellow travelers and I explored amazingly close to species of seals, penguins, and seabirds on South Georgia Island and in icy waters and landings on the White Continent.

Cruising Lake Michigan on the S.S. Badger ferry, Ludington to Manitowoc

And on to Wisconsin’s charming Door County

In October’s late afternoon sun, passengers on the S.S. Badger relax their way to Ludington, Mich., with a nap, a book, a game of chess, and gazing at Lake Michigan on one of the last ferry runs of the year. (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TravelMavensBlog.com) CLICK on Picture for full screen

                                      Published by Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer

By David G. Molyneaux | TheTravelMavens.com

LUDINGTON, Michigan – May brings the return of travelers, lining up their vehicles at Ludington’s Lake Michigan docks to board the famed S.S. Badger. The ferry is a National Historic Landmark, as well as an enjoyable ride across the lake toward summer vacation destinations in Wisconsin above Milwaukee: to Door County, and all points west.

For Ohioans, the ferry between Ludington and Manitowoc, Wisconsin, is an alternative to the laborious multi-lane highways to Milwaukee, including the traffic crawl through Chicago. From Cleveland, the total drive to Manitowoc, north of Milwaukee, usually is at least eight hours. Charming beach vacation towns in Door County are another two hours north.

Riding the Badger is not really a timely shortcut — the 400-mile drive from Cleveland to Ludington is about six hours and the ferry ride another four hours. The choice is less about time and more about the fun that includes a break from the tedious concrete.

Besides, nearly everybody likes a boat ride. The 410-foot-long Badger, launched in 1953 to haul rail cars across Lake Michigan, is designed for all weather. You may sit outside gazing at the lake, inside near the windows or find a quiet spot to curl up in a chair for a snooze, perhaps play a rousing game of cards, while the captain does all the work to get you and your vehicle to Wisconsin.

Cruise Around the Island of Fire and Ice

Daydreaming of Vikings in 874

By David G. Molyneaux

Godafoss, one of the great waterfalls of Iceland (photos by TheTravelMavens.com)

Akureyri, Iceland

On a cruise to the North Atlantic islands that lie between Europe’s Scandinavia and America’s Newfoundland, your imagination may wander back 1,000 years or more, especially on the island of Fire and Ice.  

To picture the Vikings’ first glimpses of tempestuous Iceland in the 9^th century, get to sea, which is easier than ever as expedition vessels and comfy cruise ships are adding remote port stops to their itineraries.

Cruising Iceland’s waters not only offers visits to isolated fishing villages and daunting landscape, but also a sense of historic perspective of the wanderlust of the rugged Vikings who were a fitting match for this island.

Just South of the Arctic Circle

Much of the Iceland coastline has an angry, forbidding look. Huge swaths of cold purplish-brown lava are the result of eruptions from as many as 200 volcanoes. In March 2021, the Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted after lying dormant for 800 years, and months later still was spewing lava and expanding its flow. Snow-covered, jagged mountain peaks form a backdrop. Huge Vatnajokull, one of the largest glaciers in the world, creeps toward the sea to the south. 

Viking Ocean Cruises did a series of Iceland circumnavigations this year. On a one-week cruise aboard Viking Sky in July 2021 I could not clear my mind of the daunting welcome mat that nature has laid down. If you had arrived at the southeast coast centuries ago by small boat from Norway — water, food, and patience running low — consider your attitude: I sailed all these days for this?

Akureyri sits at the end of Iceland’s longest fjord and is the gateway to waterfalls and geothermal hot sulfuric mudflats

And yet, discovery of Iceland — inevitable given its position and the curiosity of Scandinavian seafarers — turned out to be a triumph: The island is home to great fishing grounds and enough raw power on land, from water runoff and shooting geysers, to provide some of the cheapest electricity in the world to residents who live under what some experts consider today to be the oldest democracy on the planet.

Masked, Vaxxed, Patience Tested, A Return to Sea on Star Breeze

By David G. Molyneaux

Look carefully at the Star Breeze and you will not see the seams where the ship was cut in half and 84 feet inserted (photo by Windstar Cruises)

St. Martin, Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean

For the first time in more than 15 months, vacationers from North America began boarding in June 2021 a small selection of cruise ships that had been activated from their slumber during the pandemic.

Among them was the 312-passenger Star Breeze that glided out of the harbor at Philipsburg, St. Maarten, bound for … maybe St. Bart’s, said the captain, maybe not.

Even the captain did not know where we were going. After all these months, Covid-19 remained the phantom captain, the rascal behind the wheel. When would the old reality return? When would the virus release its watch?

Turned out that the answer was: No time soon. Our expected one-week itinerary changed nearly every day, and passengers were confined to a vacation bubble in a pandemic costume party that included masks, social distancing, and friendly yet serious enforcement. Our experience, while delightfully relaxing and comfortable aboard a spiffy ship recently enlarged and renewed, sometimes was not the carefree voyage that cruisers normally expect.

For me, the tradeoff of occasional annoyances for a return to sea was fully acceptable, but travelers who are planning to cruise or to join any other group vacations this summer should be aware that the pandemic has added stress to the experience. Restrictions are expected to improve as the calendar turns toward fall.

In the meantime, be vaccinated and be prepared to be tested and managed; to carry a mask and paperwork of testing evidence; and to be flexible.

Hiccups, we had a few

For my June trip with Windstar Cruises, vaccinations were required, and we were tested for COVID four times, once at home before we were allowed to board a plane for St. Martin. Everyone on the Star Breeze in June was an experienced traveler, aware that our cruise would have its hiccups.

My year without travel: Reflecting on the pandemic and staying close to home

Fran Golden and David G. Molyneaux, Sitka, Alaska 2017

'I miss connecting with fellow travelers, even simple smiles and nods of recognition ... I miss the kindness of strangers that appears naturally on the road — and from locals I encounter along the way'

By David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com, republished from The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com

 

Without a building or human in sight, we arrived at a fork on a woodsy trail with no idea where we were going, for which we were grateful.

A serendipitous choice passed through a patch of red and yellow leaves still dangling in November, perhaps just waiting for these two world travelers who were thankful even for the slightest sense of being lost in Berlin.

No, not that Berlin. Germany and all the other countries of the world are off the discovery charts in this self-protective year of 2020. Instead, we were exploring a ridge of trails about an hour’s drive west of Cleveland in Edison Woods MetroPark in Berlin Township, Erie County.

Poland? No, Cleveland. The bust of Frédéric Chopin, composer and virtuoso pianist, is in the Polish Garden on East Boulevard in Rockefeller Park (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com)

What a lifestyle change this year has been, without travel.

Sky Princess crew use computer pads to make cruise service more personal

OceanMedallion is easy tech at work

The 3,660-passenger Sky Princess, anchored off Princess Cays in the Bahamas (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com)

By David G. Molyneaux
TheTravelMavens.com

If ever you have been unclothed or otherwise unprepared for visitors to your cruise ship cabin, and realized suddenly that a steward has unwittingly entered the cabin to tidy up, you will see immediate vacation advantages in the techy OceanMedallion distributed free to passengers by Princess Cruises on an expanding number of its ships.

Not that Princess is touting cabin privacy as the key attribute of the pokerchip-sized medallion. Instead, cruisers will hear about easy boarding at the beginning of their voyage and using their smart phone to order goodies from a deck chair for quick delivery.

Key to the OceanMedallion is that crew members know who you are, what you typically consume, and, especially, where to find you.

Crew members carry a small computer pad. On the pad, each passenger is a circle, which moves as you move about the ship, a medallion dangling from your neck.

Enter a bar and the bartender sees your image in a circle arriving on his pad. Sit in a deck chair and want a coffee? A whiskey? A slice of pizza? Order it on your smart phone. A waiter will find you and your medallion. And voila!

Snazzy restaurants, go-kart track, ‘Kinky Boots’ highlight big city life aboard new Norwegian Encore

Norwegian Encore, newest big cruise ship of Norwegian Cruise Line, sails out of Miami for the winter of 2020, moving to New York in April. Eduardo Arranz-Bravo, of Barcelona, created the artwork on the hull (Photo by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com)

By David G. Molyneaux
TravelMavenBlog.com

Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas

My first mission on the 3,998-passenger Norwegian Encore, now cruising weekly into the Bahamas and Caribbean out of Miami, was to secure a seat to “Kinky Boots,” the Tony-award winning musical that is a must-see on this new ship. But a woman at the box office on Deck 7 said that all tickets to the show already had been reserved.

“I just came aboard,” I said.

“You can reserve up to six months ahead,” she said. “Seats will be available tonight. Don’t worry.” Theater reservations (all seats are unassigned) must be claimed 10 minutes before the performance begins.

“The show is free,” she said, “so lots of people just don’t show up, or they are running late. For the 10 o’clock show, you will want to be in the stand-by line by 9:40 pm.” Which I was, joining about 100 other happy passengers in a last-minute rush to more than 100 empty seats.

The outstanding show is about a drag queen named Lola and an English shoe factory saved by its transformation into a maker of non-conventional footwear. Before you go, you might want to slip into some long, sparkling boots. Red is best.

My wife and I cruise often, but it had been a year since we sailed on a big, big ship, and getting acclimated during our recent voyage on Norwegian Encore took some patience, and a few calming beverages.

 

Vacationing in a big city buzz

 

Life in big cities and on big ships can be busy, frenetic, and noisy, but that’s expected by people who choose to reside and/or vacation in such stylish with-it worlds.

Passengers book a cruise on ships such as Norwegian Encore because there’s exciting stuff to do, sophisticated dining choices, high quality entertainment, and charges of energy that accompany bunches of people moving about, laughing, having some drinks, hurrying to dinner — or standing in line hoping to get into a sold out show.

Sounds a lot like New York or Las Vegas, which is what Norwegian has in mind when designing its new cruise ships.