If you have questions, I can be reached at dickason@shaw.ca.
Chapter 29 - the “tale end”
These tales began in Chapter 1 with the Dickasons missing a trans-Pacific voyage on the Canberra in 1966, and the ensuing chapters have covered forty years of travel. There have been more travels since 2005, but many readers have kept abreast of these recent trips through other channels, so this is to be the final chapter.
A few highlights of these recent journeys are summarized in the following paragraphs, and then this monster work, 11 months of writing, editing and revising, will end [mercifully did someone say?].
More cruising on Celebrity with itineraries on the Pacific Coast, to and from Hawaii and on the Mexican Riviera dominated the voyages after Xpedition, with the Dickason rising status in the Celebrity Captain’s Club providing increasing benefits, and booking future cruises on one ship while on board another became a familiar pattern and had advantages.
One memorable cruise was on the newly re-fitted Century, and for this one the Dickasons began with three delightful days in Barcelona with hop-on and off bus travel, a hotel on Las Ramblas, and with food and music dominating. The cruise had several aspects which meant life was never dull; a midnight medical evacuation by helicopter not far from Gibraltar; a reversing of course to search for a missing passenger after Madeira [he was not found]; seven great lectures on trans-Atlantic cruising history on seven sea-days from John Maxtone-Graham; Les being drafted to show his slide-show to music from Galapagos in the cinema; a medical evacuation in daylight from Century to a US aircraft carrier which sailed alongside our ship; late arrival in Miami as a result of the zig-zag crossing..... subsequent changing of post-cruise arrangements for almost all passengers.
There was a one way cruise from Vancouver to Seward, Alaska, after which the Nanaimo Dickasons stayed with the Anchorage Dickasons [not blood relatives but good friends] and flew with Gene as pilot in his small float plane. The intent was to fly around nearby Mount Dickason, but the weather prevented this event. A visit to a duck shack on a lake was substituted, along with some low, scenic flying over the Anchorage area.
Playing traitors to Celebrity, the Dickasons reserved a stateroom on Oceania’s Regatta for a Baltic cruise one June. The larger Celebrity ship itineraries for this area
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only spent two nights in St. Petersburg, and docked many kilometers away from the downtown area. Comparatively tiny Regatta docked in the river, only a kilometer from the Hermitage and the Mariinsky Theatre, and the ship spent three nights there. The Dickasons had pre-arranged visas for Russia and so were able to walk independently off the ship and to the Hermitage, ballet, opera, and into the shopping districts between the ship and other destinations. All other passengers on the ship, being without visas, were obliged to be on tours escorted by a guide. Being there during the White Nights of mid-June meant daylight until almost midnight [the photo above right was taken after 11pm with Hermitage in the background to the left of the left lightpole].
The other ports on this cruise were also a delight, and so was the food and service on Oceania.
Not all recent trips have been at sea. A hotel on the left bank in Paris was our home for four days before we caught the TGV to Strasbourg, collected a car and drove to a rental cottage [not owned by the RIchards] in the Alsace region of France. After a very relaxing week there touring small villages, visiting vineyards and wineries, eating well in restaurants and dining ‘at home’ in the cottage, we returned to the same hotel in Paris for four more days [a pregnant Anna Netrebko did not sing in the opera for which we had bought tickets six months previously] and fell in love all over again with Notre Dame, Saint Sulpice, and walking along the Seine at night.
The Dickasons escaped from Paris by the skin of their teeth because La Greve [strike] appeared suddenly again. We arrived at the Metro station early on our final morning just as the last train had left before the unannounced work stoppage. Fortunately we knew the bus routes, and caught a bus to Gare du Nord [the strike was not going to begin there until noon] and boarded a train to the airport. It did not move for almost 40 minutes, but eventually, with Dickasons jammed in like sardines with other airport bound travellers, the train did leave the station and we made our flight to Heathrow with just minutes to spare.
A very different cruise was a ten day Caribbean itinerary round trip from San Juan with Les cruising solo as a Special Interest Lecturer [hired for Celebrity by the agency Sixth Star which had put Les through an extensive interview process, and had vetted his lecture titles and descriptions]. On sea days it was time to be a lecturer; on days with Galaxy in port, Les was able to wander ashore, but also spend time on board fraternizing with passengers and generating interest in the lectures to
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come. There were only three sea days, but a representative of a large travel group approached the Events Coordinator on board and asked for a fourth lecture, just for them, on a day when Galaxy left port in the early afternoon.
This experiment as Special Interest Lecturer resulted in a phone call from Sixth Star just three days after Les had returned home after spending a few days in San Diego after meeting Pat there en route to Vancouver. Would he be interested in flying down to San Juan to join a different Celebrity ship in three days time to give lectures on two back to back cruises? Despite the tempting perks - Pat and Les could sail at a very reduced fare, receive discounts on drinks on board, have special fares on air travel to and from the ship - Pat was not keen to cruise as the ‘wife of’ and Les found the Galaxy cruise to be more like hard work than relaxation, so the career as Special Interest Lecturer started and ended with one cruise.
Celebrity initiated a second cruise line, Azamara, with two small ships and an itinerary in the Mediterranean appealed. The Dickasons spent four days pre-cruise in Venice in a very convenient B&B, and this visit coincided with the much longer stay of Venice expert and long-time Nanaimo friend Thora who was renting an apartment with husband Jerry.
The first dinner in Venice was at their apartment, along with two other Vancouver Island friends, and much Prosecco and good Italian red wine accompanied Thora’s cuisine inspired by local markets. Arrangements were made for the four recent arrivals to meet Thora the next morning - and the famous 7 hour walking tour of Thora’s Venice took place from 9am to 4pm.
Over the next three days, wherever the Dickasons went either on foot or by vaporettos, it was obvious that the chosen site had been on or near the route taken that first day.
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Too soon the cruise began, and Azamara Quest, her staff, crew and cuisine impressed everyone on board. Ports in the eastern Mediterranean were new experiences for the Dickasons, and towards the end of the cruise, Quest docked in Sorrento allowing a visit by local train to Herculaneum with its impressive archeological display of life in the pre-eruption period before Etna destroyed Pompeii and this town too.
Disembarkation was in Civitavecchia and a train to Rome and another B&B for four nights followed. The owner of the B&B, Luciano, was a marvel, and his advice on times to visit sites, buses to catch, weather, restaurants and his ‘cousin’ whose car service took us to the airport at the end of the stay combined to make the first visit to this city doubly enjoyable.
The Dickasons enjoyed Azamara’s Quest so much that a cruise into the Sea of Cortez on sister ship Journey was booked while on board Quest. It was another fabulous itinerary, and has been booked again for 2014, this time on Quest.
Cruises to Alaska and through the Panama Canal provided a very different perspective in that Les found and reserved a forward facing stateroom. It was possible to sit at the circular window and watch as Summit [to and from Alaska] and Infinity [Panama Canal] cruised through very scenic parts of the world. The Alaska cruise had another first - a total surprise for Pat.
Friends Janet and Roy often complained that the Dickasons were travelling when Pat celebrated a birthday, and when the back to back cruise from Vancouver to Seward and return clashed with yet another birthday, Janet complained. Les semi-jokingly suggested that they fly to Anchorage, meet the other Dickasons there, take the train to Seward and surprise Pat by meeting up with the Dickasons as the ship left to sail south - and celebrate the birthday on board.
Janet, Roy and Les kept this secret for over six months, and on the afternoon when the train arrived in Seward Les organized the timing so that the Dickasons were in the wildlife sanctuary downtown. Pat really was surprised when Janet and Roy arrived at our table in Cova for pre-dinner drinks.
Land based recent travels have included ten days in Surprise, Arizona where the Dickasons stayed in the second home of Edgewood neighbours during the Vancouver Winter Olympics, while the neighbours were back in Nanaimo for family reasons. There has also been a return visit to Palm Desert with a stay in the same motel as the first visit those many years ago, and to small hotels with kitchen facilities - one in Waikiki and the other in Palm Springs.
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A total change in travel style was when the Dickasons began to explore renting apartments, and found one in Vancouver for a week when there were tickets to opera, symphony, a play and a recital by Renee Fleming. Despite the weather in late March, walking and using local buses proved possible and convenient. Subsequent apartment or condo reservations have been made, and San Diego and Palm Springs during the winter of 2012/13 were a delight as the Dickasons mixed sightseeing, walking, reading, jigsaws, eating out and eating in as a complete change from cruising.
As this too lengthy set of tales ends - thanks to Pat for being the critic and corrector when reading chapters before other readers, and for sharing almost all of the travels, whether gods were smiling, frowning, angry or laughing.
The author and Pat at the Trevi Fountain, Rome, 2009
Highlight photos from recent trips mentioned above are up-loaded to SmugMug. Click on http://lesnpat.smugmug.com/ and there you will find albums which you can scroll through or watch as slide-shows.
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