Cruise and Lego land trip DAY 4 ,5 & 6
On third day it was formal dress day and as such we all got ready in the late evening by putting on suit,tie, party shoes etc.(otherwise we were moving in shorts and canvass shoes ) . Unfortunately due to other engagements we could not attend a welcome receiption by ship's captain at Sound of Music theatre but we did attended gala dinner .
DAY 4 24th May 2008
This was our last day on cruise ship and we had reached Ensenada, Mexico a small town of mexico. We came out after our breakfast at windjammer cafe and boarded a bus taking us to down town of Ensenada. It was typical of some poor indian town, with ghoda gadi , small buses, unkempt dirty roads and hawkers on the footpaths. There is hardly anything to see here excepting one BLOW HOLE ,which was away of some 1 hr journey . We took small luxury bus to it .A girl guide was too talkative and talked continously for 1 hr. She narrated the life of Mexico and problems here. One important thing she said was that Military training is compulsory in Mexico and any person of 18 years of age must attend training on every week end for 1 year and if one fails to attend, then he will not get his degree certificate, house registration, tax benefits and job too. ( inspite of this , corruption and mafia menace is rempant here , police officers are killed in day light and as such just now more than 10 police officers have left their jobs )
We reached Blow Hole in time and walked towards it which was some 500 feet away , before reaching their a hugh market came in between and lots of salesman just like mangal bazar of vadodara were callling us to come inside the shop and to see for oursleves lots of vairities of toys and other things. One such mexican samlesman called us ' ANDAR AAVO '.
Blow hole is on the sea coast having high mountain above the sea and when high tide comes in , sea water gushes inside a cave type hole and due to high tide water force , it blows high up to 50/100 feet , making loud noise. similar Blow holes are also in Hawaii,Australia etc. While returning we bought some mementos . We came back to down town area but could not get down, due to heat so came back to the harbour and boarded our ship. We immediately went to windjamer cafe and had sumptous snacks . Kids were interested in their activities at Adventure oceans and went straight their.
It is customery for the passengers to pay tips to all the room and dinning hall staff members . Here this is called gratuity to staff . Managements sent suggestions of what tips normally is expected to pay, which comes to around $ 10/- per passenger per day . Since we had booked our ticket well in advance , we were given a $ 25/- bonus refund per room, so after deducting this we were to pay this personaly to Head waiter Mr. Anthony gonsalves, waiter Mr Lobo and asst waiter also from Goa, and to room attendant in envelopes supplied by the management , . We reached dinning hall in time . Mood was jubillant in hall as this was the last dinner and all have enjoyed the cruise very much . As soon as the dinner was served all the waiters got together , announcement came that now waiters will make the farewell dance , and then waiters started dancing on the tunes, some jumping, some keeping dishes on the head, some doing somersault . All the dinners started clapping. Then it was announced that now that we have danced , you will sing and we all will dance together . ,So we all got up somebody sang and all danced for few minutes. It was most memorable event for us . we paid gratuities to dinning staff and took photos with them . We then went to Sound of Music theatre for a grand gala musical show. Though we did not like it much, younger ones did enjoyed it. We returned to our rooms. This was our last night and in the early morning we were to leave the ship.
We were informed by the staff that as soon as we leave the ship, the ENTIRE SHIIP will be decontaminated with disinfectant , even railings, door handles, doors, tables ,toilets and dinnig hall etc just to make sure that food poisoning does not spoil the merriment of the oncoming passengers and tarnished the ships image.
Monarch of the seas had 3 bars, a casino , a sound of music theatre, a gym, beauty parlour, adventure ocaean play place for kids , 4 swimming pools, 2 jacuzzis, 3 music lounges, Art gallery, cyber cafe , Library, entertainment centre, rock climbing , tables tennis, basket ball court, 2 dinning halls, 3 breakfast cafes . etc etc.
DAY 5 FRIDAY 25th MAY 2008
More than 2500 passengers were to leave the ship in the morning and as Govt immigration process needed to be done., a full proof plan was announced, where in those who wish to go early can take their baggages on their own at 6.30 am , stand in queue for check out, but those who wish to go afterwards and does not want to carry their baggages should keep their baggages out side their rooms at night after attaching coloured tags provided by the management. This baggages were to be taken by their staff on the harbour and kept it aside as per the coloured tags. Our coloured tag was yellow and were given check out time of 9.30 am. In the morning last breakfast was upto 8.30, am so we went upstairs on the 11th floor and had hefty BF. From the early morning call announcements were made for different coloured tags to proceed towards check out counters . It was started from the 10th floor with green, then blue grey, red,purple tags etc . Ultimately our turn came at around 9.15 and we went for immigration process. This was exacltly like on the Airports . Lady immigration inspector was tough and made lots of questions to us as also to Lipi and Dhrut .She asked Lipi who are this, pointing towards Nimish and Lopa as also talked with Lipi just to know her accent and type of language etc, ( Mexicans might be getting smuggled their klds through this route, so inspector was tough ) . We came out and found our luggage in the yellow room . Snehal went ahead , got the van and brought near the curb (footpath ). We loaded the luggage and our journey started towards Lego land, San Diego which was some 150 miles away, a driving distance of more than 2 and half hours.
Now here Masala cruise has become popular among Indians, as it provides indian food and entertainment. Indian tour operators book some 500/700 seats in a Carnival cruise liner and then Indians get idli sambhar and medu vada in break fast , punjabi food in lunch and dinner. Also dances on Hindi film songs are performed by indian TV artist, thus indians get entertainment of their choice.
Again we all 9 were together in van . We needed to fill the gasoline (petrol ) and look for the directions to San diego . We had a GPS so no worries . After taking freeway we moved fast towards San diego and reached Lego land at around 12.00 p.m. Lego land ( Lego Land is a creation of makers of Lego toys/bricks ) is basically for the kids and does not have good many rides for the adults, so we decided not all the members to go inside as tickets were quite high of $ 60 and even after getting discount cost us $ 44 per person that too ith a time limit of 10 to 5.00 pm (sarkari office j lage ne. Disney land is much cheaper and much much better than this and it has timings from 9.00 am to 24.00 hrs ) . It is a failure project but somehow it is running, due to some attractions in it, just like a "MINDSTORM " where in child has to programme a ROBOT on computer by himself and then robot will work accroding to that progamme.
Me, Tarla and Nimish therefore decided to go on other places and Lopa alongwith Lipi and Snehal, Nipa alongwith Anvay and Dhrut went inside. I could not narrate the rides and other fun activites of Lego land as I have not gone inside, but one can get some idea from the photos.
We first went to nearby Mexican restaurant, took some food and then went to beach played in sea water took some rest and then went to flower field which is developed like Amesterdam's famous Tulip garden. We took round trip on the field , took photos of the flowers. One big American flag was also done with coloured flowers ,we then went to Starbuck's cafe to have some coffee and donuts. As time approached for close down of Lego land (sarkari office ) we reached with our hugh van near the gate, all boarded the van and our return journey started towards Livermore .
On return we had to cover the distance of more than 400 miles which was not possible to do it in a one go from the evening and needed to take a rest at night . We therefore decided to first reach Los Angeles, take some food of our choice and then stay overnight after crossing LA. Nimish had idea that there is one pure Gujarati hotel where we shall get typical Gujarati Thali . We took phone number from Dushyant Pota , phoned in Artesia area of LA but came to know that they don't have an entire gujarati menu. so dropped the idea of going their and instead reached an nearby area of Artesia of LA and entered one SURATI FARSAN MART. a typical gujarati farsan shop cum hotel .
It was typical of gujarati environment, with unkempt not too decent tables and chiars, lot of noise, but was having everything that any gujarati anywhere in the world would like to eat it. WE all 9 members took seat and had Pav Bhaji. Kachori bhel , Idli sambhar , Puri batata nu shak, Alu chat, methi na thepla, Sev khamani, Khaman dhokla , Ragdo patis ,mango lassi and Falooda.Every item was reasonably priced and quality quite satisfactory, though typical of surati taste, it was little chilli. After mouth watering satisfying meal, we headed towards Livermore and reached outskirts of Los Angeles . LA is tooooo hugh city and is said that it is 200 km in length and 125 km in breadth.
Boys started to find a suitable night halt for us and and after trying out various ways through GPS and through phones, we could get one Motel ( all others tried out but were full ) and took exit to reach this motel. Right from the entering the area, we found that the area was not too safe, as normally in USA, grills are NOT fitted to the show windows and doors but here everywhere grills were seen fitted, which indicated that this must be an area where some robbery and other mal practices must be going on. As it was already 10.00 pm at night, we had no courage to find another motel and went to the JAY MOTEL, where we had confirmed our reservation on the phone. Motel was of most ordinary type , just low category owned by Jay Bhagat a gujarati person and his wife came out to show us the rooms. Boys agreed to take the rooms, but when we occupied the rooms, we saw as many cocroaches in the bathroom and in the compund too. we have for the FIRST TIME IN USA have seen cocroaches in 10 years, and were happy that now we shall feel at home . But kids were scared ,so we went back to lady to cancel our reservation , who happily returned our money, we found another motel which was of branded value , namely ECONOLODGE, and reached their in just 5 minutes. This was definately better, though the area was same, we felt comfortable here . Owner of this Motel too was gujarati. Both the rooms had inside common internal door, so kids were hapy in the morning to play.We immediately went to bed and got up next morning at around 9.00 am , as all were extremly tired, due to entire days' hectick schedule. Nimish brought coffee and pan cakes for Break fast from Mcdonalds.
DAY 6 SATURDAY, 26th MAY 2008
We then loaded our van and started return journey to Livermore. Filling our gas tank and taking lunch on the way we reached Livermore at around 4.00 pm.
Thus our 6 days journey ended.
It was saturday and snehal family were to return on Monday night and that , Van was to be returned on Sunday evening . so on Sunday morning we went in van to Elizabeth lake park in Fremont, took our lunch from Masala grill of Veg manchurian,paneer makhani , roti and rice which was very tasty and all enjoyed food very well. We played cricket and Anvay too liked cricket. A toy plane was also sent into air and it worked well. IN the evening van was returned at Oakland airport, some 40 miles away. On Monday night snehal family taking whole night journey reached Westoford boston area.
One major achievement , what I observed is that all the 3 kids furthered their bond of relations and came nearer to know them each other, as this are my brothers and this is our sister . Wonderful achievement was that all the 3 kids during thier together for more than 12 days never even once quarraled and played most amicably between them and credit goes to Chi. Anvay who played with them, handled them, guided and taught them and also cared them well.
My sole purpose of writing this epilogue is to preserve record of our trip and nothing more . Normally we forget minute details in a few days and most of the details in a month or so, and then when we wish to refresh our cherisehd memories or go through the photos after some years , we have no clues or details and just grope in the dark .
Any grametical or sentence building mistake be pardoned .
niranjan buch