Give it Up for JRS

Well the final blog entry about the cruise has to be about the finals in the Karaoke contest. On the second night of the cruise, they had a Karaoke event to select finalists for the last evening. I qualified by singing 'Copacabana' by Barry Manilow. It's very lively, very quick but has 58 measures of empty space to be filled in with Dancing or re-runs from Jay Leno. 4 contestants qualified that evening. On two other nights, 4 more qualified. One wisely dropped out before the final performance in the main auditorium 'The Paladium'. I was the first of the 7 remaining participants.

It was obvious that each of them 'loved' their music. Mine was just a passing fancy by comparison. Deb filmed a very complete view of my pain. I started out just under the key for the music, then adjusted into the right key over about 4 phrases. Not one to hide, I continued and finished up to the 58 bars of non-lyrical music. That's where the video starts. At least in the last part, I was in key, although winded. So winded in fact, that I had to leave out some words. 'So let's give it up for Jim' as the MC announced:

The 1st place winner was incredible and Deb filmed him too. I think you'll agree, he deserved #1. So please give it up for Baron.

The last contestants were based on a petition write-in vote, not sanctioned, yet they helped to fill in the time so the judges could make their final decisions. Here is the dark side of Karaoke, Mike and John:

Mom was very kind to indulge me. We went to all 3 Karaoke events and sang in them all - 'Always on My Mind' by Willie Nelson was the second night. It was fun, it was enchanting, it was embarassing and now its over.

Dinner on the Cruise

Here we are at our table in the back, table 68 that we shared with Lee and Susan from Michigan.

Dinners on the cruise were overwhelmingly wonderful. I have been on a diet since mid-November and it was completely abandoned after one afternoon and as I sat to the music of the chef and magicians that served at our table. Desmond was our head waiter and had 'suggestions' from the menu for every meal. Every night there was 2 menus, one for salad, soup and entree, and one for desserts.

We had the 8:30 pm late seating for dinner. If you chose not to wait until your dinner, you could go to the dinner buffet and THEN go to the late dinner seating. On two of the nights the wait staff entertained us with music and dancing. They balanced cakes on their heads using rolled up napkins and lighted candles. Here's a video part of one of the presentations.

The song has a chorus 'Cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, Dollar' and you'll see them do hand motions to the chorus line. You'll also see a lighted jacket and one of the waiters in a King's crown.

Progresso - Chichen-Itza

The second day on land for the cruise was stopping at the Yucatan Port of Progresso, 2 hours from the famous Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza has been recently designated as one of the 7 wonders of the world. How can you miss the opportunity to see that?

Our ship sent 7 or 8 busloads of tourists to the Chichen-Itza ruins. This was a day of crowds and tour guides during the 2 hour stay.

Here you see the famous Mayan temple to the Sun God on the right with the smaller Toltec temple to the warriors on the left side. The Mayan temple survived the later Toltlec domination because the Toltecs believed in the same sun god, Quetslquatl (sp) represented as a plumed serpent. This large temple is actually built on top of a smaller temple of the same shape (and intact) which is completely covered by the larger building. The temple lines up perfectly with the Summer and Winter solstice, has 364 total stairs with an additional step on the top (for the 365 days of the Mayan calendar) and has a convenient place on top for human sacrafices.

The temple on the right side has the famous sitting area on top where people were placed during the sacrificial process. This Toltec temple is part of the 1,000 columns complex in which each column represents one of the Toltec warriors that conquered the Mayans.

This picture is to prove that we really did go there and that these photos did not come from Chris's trip. This is the backside of the Mayan temple. You can see the plumed serpent heads at the bottom of the stairs on the right side of the photo.

We also got to tour the ball field where they came together to play games. The captain of the winning team was always sacrificed as part of the honor of winning the game.

Conveniently located next to the field is a small platform for sacrifice. In the Toltec warrior

culture, they viewed themselves as being black jaguars or eagles. As you can see from the picture at the right. Both the Jaguar figure (in the bright square) and the Eagle figure (in the square to immediate right of the Jaguar), are having their favorite lunch, a human heart fresh from the sacraficial alters - yuck!

In addition to lots of stories, there was lots of vendors. This vendor was one with lots of colorful blankets, pottery and other souveniers from Pier One imports.

At the end of our tour, it was back to the bus with a box lunch and a 2 hour siesta (for those that could sleep).

This was one of our guides. The spoke English well and were well versed on Mayan, Toltec and other central american histories.