Aunt Hazel Dungey’s Painting

Ron’s great-aunt Hazel Dungey was quite an artist and his mother had still had one of her paintings at his brother Daryl’s house in Arkansas.  His brother Merlyn (in Mississippi) picked it up and brought it down to St Augustine in January where we took it to the UPS Store to have it wrapped and shipped to Seattle (it was too big to put in the suitcase to fly it back). It came and Ron unwrapped it – such good wrapping!! – and put it over the mantle in the condo.

Notice how well it is packed.

Bahamas Cruise

·        This was our first cruise, kind of a “practice” before we take our Alaska cruise in July 2019.  We were a party of eight:  Ron and Joan, cousins Lee and Nancy, who live in Palm Coast, Brother Merlyn and his wife Mary and friends Stu and Nancy.  Joan needed to go to see if she would not get seasick.  She got woozy the first day out, but then the next two days we were parked in two different ports.  So no problems then!  The last day coming home was fine, as they were going extra slowly then.

Emerald Trio

   We loved the Emerald Trio, a violin trio from Spain who ride the southern Carnival cruises.  Some of us went every night to heard them!  They had electric 5 string violins

·        Below you can find the things we had a problem with.

·         These issues may seem small, but all we had ever heard about cruising was that the food and shows were fabulous!  We were concerned about Ron’s dietary needs, but our friends said it would be fine.  It wasn’t; he had a hard time.

·         Foods.   Being diabetic and controlling food intake carefully, Ron has a very limited diet:  no starch!  (Starch changes to sugar in the mouth!)  Thus, he needs to eat only meats (non-fatty), vegetables (non-starchy), dairy and fruits.  No starchy or sugary sauces.   Diagnosed as pre-diabetic, Joan is also on his diet. Thus, most of the food offerings in the buffet are almost all verboten, since they are either obviously starchy or sugary or unknown.

·        Prior to the cruise, I called our Carnival’s representative and was told that if we told the kitchen of his dietary needs, he would get a list of appropriate foods the night before.  When we asked about this, we were told, “Well, he could eat the sliced meats.”  When we said we would need to know the carbohydrate content of the other foods, like the sauces and casserole dishes, she said, “Oh, you just can ask each chef.”  Do I need to tell you how difficult that would be?  With the long lines? and trying to find each chef? at each buffet venue?  How could we get a good answer?

·        Salads are good. There are salad bars, pretty limited but available.  However, the dressings are in carafes, rather than what we see in most salad bars and they were NOT LABELED!  Do you know what everybody was doing?  Putting each carafe to their noses to try to figure out what kind they were by the smell!  Do you think we want to try them ourselves after everyone else has had them by their noses?  We like cottage cheese on salad bars and that can be in lieu of dressing, thus, avoiding the nose-touched dressings.  But no cottage cheese was available.

·        Bringing items.  We were told we could not bring any food on board.  We would like to bring in some special foods for Ron, for example, celery, which he eats every morning, and which was not available at any time.  We might try to go to the restaurants for each meal, if possible, next time.  We were able to bring in a small amount of distilled water for his CPAC machine by freezing a bottle.

·        Shows. As conservative older persons, we did not appreciate the raunchy comedy or rock- and- roll shows. We loved, loved, loved the Emerald Trio (3 violins) who ride Carnival’s southern-bound itineraries.  We tried to go to the see the Pianoman, but he just didn’t show up that evening. 

·        Activities.    Most of our time was spent talking and eating together or just walking around.  Joan wanted to sit on the deck and read (like we see on television shows) but it was too windy.  (Then her friend reminded her that in those shows, all the ladies are bundled up with scarves.)   Poor Ron couldn't get his naps; every time he lay down for just a minute, there was a loud speaker announcement, mainly for the staff.  We never could figure out why they were so loud and blasted into every room. We told some staff members, who denied it was happening.

·        Joan wanted to swim laps; we had been told the pools were always totally full, so you could only do that in the early mornings.  Not!  As they are refilled every morning, they reek heavily of chlorine for several hours, so it would have been impossible to swim laps then.  They weren’t very crowded either, but neither were they heated.  The cold ocean water in the pools stayed cold.

·        The other issue was the crowds - just plain too many people. Long lines at the buffets.  People everywhere. But that’s how it is!  Very crowded getting off the boat for any shore walks.  Thankfully our friend Nancy was with us to tell us where to go (no clear signage) because otherwise we would have not known even where to go. 

It may be that we not “cruisers.”  But now we will know better what to do for the Alaska cruise in July.