The Cruise

The Cruise

March 31- April 13

After reluctantly checking out of our 5 star dream of a hotel we found a taxi and headed over to the cruise terminal to start the two weeks of bliss we’d been anticipating since the day the idea popped in to our heads! This cruise was going to have it all and help us see the southernmost part of the continent we otherwise would have had to miss…. Or so we thought! :)

The cruise started out amazing, we were on the Holland America ship Veendam sailing for 13 nights from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Valparaiso, Chile. Holland is an awesome cruise line, but they're kind of geared toward a slightly different crowd than what you might see for example on a typical Carnival caribbean cruise.... Let's just say we probably brought the average age on the cruise down a good 10 years just by being there and we stuck out like sore thumbs, really cool fashionable sore thumbs but sore thumbs none the less. Despite spending the next two weeks on this floating old folks home (oh come on, it was too good to pass up) we were pumped to be there! We got to our room and found out we had somehow scored a handicap ready room. I'm not sure if they saw our ages and thought there must be something wrong with them to choose to come on this cruise alone, but we weren't going to complain because that meant in addition to having more space in the room, including a couch (a couch! Can you imagine having that kind of space on a cruise ship?), we also didn’t have to suffer through a bathroom the size of a shoebox. Talk about having high standards!

We were too cheap to buy any actual cruise pictures, but McKay was sneaky enough to snap this great shot of us as we were getting on the boat! :)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention in addition to the couch, it had a whole separate side chair as well! :)

The MS Veendam!

We got on the ship on Easter morning and despite the lack of Easter egg hunts on board, the food was awesome! We had both been starving ourselves in anticipation of gorging ourselves for *free (I added the asterisk, because as anyone who's taken Econ 1500 knows, there's no such thing as a "Free Meal") and the food did not disappoint. They only had the Lido bar buffet set up at certain hours for each meal, so it seemed like they were able to put a little more thought and preparation in to everything they served. And as a bonus they always offered a 4th full meal buffet at 11:00 pm for those night owls on the ship who hadn't already fallen asleep while sitting in front of a tv.... After discovering this magical 4th meal, we didn't miss it once. Just to make you all jealous I'm going to go ahead and highlight a few of our favorite foods from the ship. The Chocolate Chip Cookies, I don't know what's wrong with other cruises but Holland had these down pat, the perfect combination of cooked but still soft and gooey. We grabbed a few of these every time we passed the dessert bar and found that the best way to wash down our 4th meal was with a plate of these and a big glass of milk! Incidentally during one such of these wash downs I introduced McKay to the beauty of adding a little half and half to the skim milk that was available to make it taste better. Sounds great until he started drinking the half and half straight up! :) The Hamburger grill, this place was legit! All the delicious fresh grilled cheeseburgers, hot dogs, or bratwurst you could eat plus fresh thick fries on the side. Let's just say we were regulars there! The Taco Bell bar, was it officially sponsored by Taco Bell? No, but did that mean it didn't taste just as good to our Taco Bell deprived bellies? Absolutely not, I had as many beefy 5 layer burritos as my every growing tummy could handle!

I finally got my Lobster and Filet! I love formal night! 

I know what you're probably thinking, ok, enough about the food let's get down to the ports. Surely they must have been more interesting than that 10 minute rundown of your complete dietary intake over the course of the cruise. Well, that's where you might be a little disappointed... We got to our first port in Montevideo, Uruguay on Day 2 (April 1), it was nice. Reminded us a little bit of Buenos Aires but not quite as cute and quaint. We walked around for what felt like a sufficient amount of time before heading back to the boat talking about nothing other than the food we were going to devour!

Welcome to Montevideo, Uruguay please keep your hands and arms inside your pockets at all times...

Looking at MV from the beach front walkway.

Ride 'em cowboy! This is the Plaza De Armas in MV, stylish isn't it?

Oh ya know, just one of your average run of the mill guards, standing watch over the tomb of someone important in Uruguayan history... They have to sit there day after day ignoring anything or anyone around them. This guy was good too, I don't think I could have let the jelly beans up my nose go... 

What more can I say, this was the highlight of the city for us!

Ahoy matey, I've spotted the flag of Uruguay arghh!

On Day 4 we had another stop in Puerto Madryn, Argentina. It's about halfway down the Argentine coast and the fall cold weather was slowly starting to creep in on us. There wasn't much to see here but we did have fun walking around town admiring all the fancy graffiti...

Puerto Madryn... And there you have it!

If Harry Potter spray painted on a wall doesn't get you excited, well then I just don't know what will!

For those of you who have spent countless sleepless nights worrying, there's no need to worry anymore... Rollerblading is alive and well in the great country of Argentina! This was at least the 6th person we had seen wandering down the streets in Argentina on wheels. 

Just your typical romantic beach picture with the cruise ship in the back ground, sorry if you're jealous.

These were the cutest sea lions hanging out on the docks by the ship, we didn't even have to pay for the $160 excursion to see them!

After that we were supposed to have stops in Ushuaia, Argentina (the southernmost official city in the world) and Punta Arenas (the southernmost city in Chile) as well as pass through the Strait of Magellan and what is referred to as glacier alley. Those 3 things are the real reason you do this cruise so we were beyond stoked to check them out. Unfortunately at about 5:00 in the morning on Day 7 just as we were supposed to be pulling in to Punta Arenas, the captain came over the intercom and informed us that he had to make the hard decision to skip both ports and the straight of Magellan due to impending weather with swells up to 80 feet. We definitely understand the safety aspect, but of course we couldn't help but be disappointed especially because that then meant we were going to have 6 straight days at seas! The good news was that since we had so much time on the ship we found the gym and decided to workout for the first time in 4 months, the bad news was being stuck on a ship for that long with unlimited supplies of cookies and taco bell tacos it didn't matter how many times we went to the gym! :) It turned in to a long 6 days and the ship didn't stop rocking the whole time, multiple times at dinner had people throw up at the table and have to excuse themselves while running to the bathroom. Unfortunately this hit us the hardest on my birthday and we both ended up being so sick throughout the day we could barely get out of bed, ughh. At least it was a birthday I'll never forget. :)

Passing through our alternate route to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it was so beautiful! 

 Who state? U State!... Yep just made that one up on my own...

This is the amazing glacier we passed, I bet it was even prettier in real life, we wouldn't know cause we might have slept through it... In our defense, this got pushed up a day early because of the skipped ports and somebody forgot to let us know.... Also it was super early in the morning, like 8:30... Luckily we had friends who were willing to share their pics with us!

They did end up giving us one extra stop on Wednesday April 10 at a place called Puerto Chacabucco, population 1200, there were more of us on the ship than in the whole town. As we were waiting in line to get off the ship there were already people coming back on that were shaking their heads mumbling, "not worth it" over and over. We should have taken the hint, but we decided to check it out anyway despite all the rain and cold! Once we got in to Chacabucco, we realized there really was nothing to see and decided to take a bus in to the slightly larger town of Puerto Aysen, where they boasted of having a whole grocery store and one bar with wifi. Unfortunately the wifi was out and the grocery store wouldn't take any of our dollars. :)

You've now seen as much of Chacabuco as you ever need to see. 

And this is the tourism sector of the port... All of it... No really...

Puerto Aysen! Now that we've taken this picture we can head back... :)

Our last port of the trip was on Thursdsay April 11 in Puerto Montt, Chile. This place had a bit more to offer and we had an awesome day! Ok, that might have been mostly due to the fact that we had been deprived of internet so long and we were finally able to log in to facebook and see what we had missed in the last week!

Here we are at Puerto Montt, you can tell by the big sign behind McKay.

As we were walking the 3km from the port in to town minding our own business, we suddenly notice a cop motorcycle pulling up on the sidewalk right in front of us and another cop on a motorcycle rushing in behind him. They both walk up to this kid and pin his arms behind his back and throw him to the ground. In the meantime we hear some sirens and see another cop car zooming towards us, it flips a U turn and comes skidding to a halt right next to the other officers. The officers haul the kid to his feet, rip off his backpack and literally throw him in to the back of the police car and all 3 vehicles drive away like nothing happened. This all happened within a matter of a minute and then it was gone! They didn't say anything to the kid and I can still see the scared panic'd "Oh crap my parents are going to kill me" look on his face. Later we saw all these cops in the main square and it was filled with kids getting in their faces. Apparently the kids were protesting something to do with the school system and we picked the wrong day to be there.

View of Puerto Montt from the ship!

We ended up having an amazing time on board, not because of the places we stopped but because of the people we met! Seriously being the youngest ones on a ship like that made us stand out and by the end of the trip it felt like we couldn't go anywhere without having to stop and chat with someone we had met somewhere on the trip... I guess what I'm trying to say is, we really were big deals! :)

He's smiling so big because he's so good at growing such a big man beard, and because he knows he's about to look like this....

Yes, I let my husband shave a disgusting molestache, I still have nightmares about it...

These were a couple ladies that we met at dinner one night. The one on the far side of me likes to travel to Mexico so obviously McKay had to tell her all about Chiapas and the big waterfall there called "Chiflon". I don't think she ever remembered our names but would always say "Chiflon" as she walked past us to say hi.

We may or may not have smuggled out an entire bag of those delicious cruise cookies to take with us on the road. It took us a day and a half to sneak those out of the kitchen without drawing too much attention to ourselves. :)