CRUISE VIGNETTES 50, Ecstasy

A CRUISE ON OUR 52nd ANNIVERSARY
By the time June 2, 2003 approached, Emmy had been having health problems, so we didn’t want to schedule something, then have to cancel at the last moment. We had no reservation, and were just going to take pot luck, and luckily there was a cabin available on the Ecstasy. Here again, since we had never been on this Carnival Cruise line ship before, this four day cruise fit our Anniversary dinner tradition, just fine.

On the morning of June 2, we drove from home (in La Quinta) to the new cruise ship dock in Long Beach. The Queen Mary has been docked there for many years. In 1988, for our 37th anniversary, we had spent the night in the hotel inside the Queen Mary. Some years ago a round building had been built to house the Howard Hughes “Spruce Goose,” the enormous flying boat he had constructed near the end of WWII. In the meantime the airplane had been moved to Oregon, and this building was converted to the Carnival Cruise Line terminal.

Emmy was dressed in a nice blouse and pants, but when compared with the grungy looking crowd, she looked very neat. Other people noticed this also, and while we were waiting in the long, long line, two different Carnival supervisors came over and complemented her for the way she was dressed. It’s difficult to remember how people dressed on cruise ship years ago, when you see the sloppy looking clothes they wear today.

We left Long Beach at 5:00 PM, and by 8:00 AM the next morning we had gone the complete 22 miles to Catalina Island, just off shore. We got off the ship, walked here and there, rode a taxi up the hill, then back to the ship.

When we arrived in Ensenada, since we had been here several times without being excited about it, we again hired a taxi to take us downtown, we then walked and looked, then back to the ship. We are on this ship for the cruise part, not the port part.

We disembarked in Long Beach the next day, got our car out of the parking garage, and drove home.