World Cruise Day 129/152 - Cartagena, Spain - Mayday-Mayday, COVID facts, and mothers

Cruise day: 129/152

Ports days: 64
Sea days: 65
Countries: 22
Continents: 5
Ports: 47

No, we're not in trouble. It is May 1st and May Day.  And, it marks the first day of the month when our cruise will come to an end.  So...Mayday, Mayday!

Before we get into today, I want to address a few things, mainly COVID-related.  First - cases.  For some reason, because I write this, people approach me on the ship with questions about cruise-related things.  I want to point out that I am most certainly not an expert, but I do know how to ask questions and who to ask.  One question I get a lot is about the COVID case count.  At one point, the Captain, in his sea day noon report, would give the current case status.  That doesn't happen anymore.  Since Viking isn't telling us what the facts are, in typical schoolyard fashion, people are making it up on the fly. 

My bridge partner was talking to someone in art class who is friends with one of the folks that walks everyday who ate dinner with one of the Baggo players who knows somebody that went to last night's show who has a friend that had a drink in Torshavan three days ago, and they said we have 15 cases of COVID onboard!

Ridiculous?  Not really.  If Viking doesn't tell us what the facts are, people come up with their own truths.  Arlona heard someone actually say they heard there were ten cases and I heard someone else say there were fifteen.  Seriously.  So, what did I do?  I talked to people that have these strange and mystical things - things that we don't find very often anymore.  Things that once were heralded but now are dismissed as outdated and useless.  What are they?  Facts. I went to the folks that wear the stripes - the ones that are in the know and have facts, not rumor and innuendo.  Do you want to know what the facts are about COVID on the ship?  We have two active cases on this ship.  Both are passengers, and most of you that are on the ship know who they are as they have not made it a secret.  I certainly won't divulge names here, but they are a married couple.  She went positive first and he went positive a couple of days later.  No crew members are positive.  No other passengers are positive.  There are exactly two cases.  Period.

Now, let me address the other part of this equation.  The protocol had been that close contacts of a diagnosed person were immediately quarantined for a few days and released if they remained negative, or, if they went positive, they were isolated.  That was the old protocol.  The new protocol does not require quarantine for close contacts.  Why?  As I have been told, again by the folks wearing the stripes, testing has shown that Viking's PCR test that we all do every single day detects a positive case before that person is contagious.  This means that if they isolate the person immediately upon detection, they have not spread anything.  How does this explain the married couple that went positive a couple of days apart?  Most likely, they both got infected in the same place, at the same time.  It just took longer to incubate in him than it did in her.

So, to reiterate, there is no COVID spread on the ship.  There are two active cases and both are passengers and they are a married couple.

Back to our regularly scheduled World Cruise blog...

We were still at sea this morning, so that meant bridge lessons, this time on minor suit transfers.  Wow, the game of bridge is complex.  

You see a lot of ships when you're cruising up the middle of several very busy shipping lanes

We played for an additional hour and grabbed lunch.  We docked in Cartagena, Spain around noon.  

It looked like they were conducting sailboat classes in front of the Celebrity Constellation

The Wonder of the Seas' stern is just ahead of our bow - you can really see how much wider they are

This was the second Cartagena on our itinerary, the first being Cartagena, Colombia.  Unfortunately, we missed that port due to Colombia's last-second change in COVID policies for cruise ships.  The only issue here in Spain today is that we are the little kid on the block.  Also in port, are the Celebrity Constellation and the Royal Caribbean Wonder of the Seas.  Let's see how we stack up...

Viking Star

Length: 748 feet

Passenger decks: 9

Double occupancy capacity/max capacity: 930/930

Crew: 602

Celebrity Constellation

Length: 965 feet

Passenger decks: 12

Double occupancy capacity/max capacity: 2170/2170

Crew: 999

Royal Caribbean Wonder of the Seas

Length: 1188 feet

Passenger decks: 16

Double occupancy capacity/max capacity: 5734/6988

Crew: 2300

To put that in perspective, if you cut the Viking Sea in half side-to-side and placed one of those halves right in front of the bow of our Viking Star, you'd still be 66-feet shorter than the Wonder of the Seas. Both of the other ships have more crew that we can have passengers at full capacity! At full capacity, the Wonder of the Seas has six times more people onboard than we do at full capacity. 

For us, every style of cruise ship has pluses and minuses.  We've been on all different sizes of ships, including a couple of these Oasis-class RCCL ships as we find things to like on all of them, just like we do right here on the Viking Star.

Our tour today was the included tour, Ancient Roman City of Cartagena. It was a combination of walking and a bus tour around Cartagena and then out to the west tip of the area, Cape Palos.

Cartagena has a sea wall built around it in the 18th century

We caught a quick glimpse of the town area

This was sticking up inside the wall as we made our way back to the starting point.

At this point, we got off the bus and started the walking tour of Cartagena.

I'd hate to see this guy without coffee...

There were lots of pretty flowers all over the place

Entering the square

OK, I guess this is art

I guess this is too

I wasn't sure if this is a mail carrier or a soldier

There is a Roman theater in Cartagena from the period when the Romans occupied this area.  We toured the museum built around it and viewed artifacts that have been recovered.

Two anonymous tourists admiring the artifacts (thanks, Norm!)

Built between 5BC and 1BC, the design was similar to the other Roman theaters we have visited on this cruise

This one was much smaller than the others we visited

The view from the top

Thanks for the capture, Anna!

After completing the theater visit, we had free time to tour the city on our own for about 30 minutes.

The main walking area's tile work was stunning

We then departed Cartagena and headed to the eastmost point, Cape Palos. We saw their lighthouse that was built in 1865 and lovely views of the Mediterranean.

The water was a beautiful shade of blue

Even though you can't see them, Arlona's eyes are also a beautiful shade of blue

We headed through a former mining area on our drive back to Cartagena. They used to mine iron, lead, and silver to ship to Rome. Mining has been abandoned as the runoff from the mining operation made much of the area toxic.

These stacks were all over - ventilation shafts for the mines

We arrived back in the port and headed back to the Viking Star.

After another nice dinner in the World Cafe, we went to tonight's show, once again featuring Magician Kristian Grey.  His performance was spot on tonight and he was wowing the audience over and over.  It was a great performance.

To all the mothers that might be reading this - Happy Mother's Day.  Before you all start correcting me that Mother's Day is May 8, well, I'm in Spain writing this and in Spain, Mother's Day is May 1!  Actually, it is the first Sunday in May, and that is today, May 1.  Why?  Glad you asked!

It turns out that in Spain, Mother's Day dates all the way back to 1644 and took place on December 8 to coincide with the national celebration to honor the Virgin of Immaculate Conception.  After Woodrow Wilson made Mother's Day a thing in the US, Spain decided to split the celebration into two, one honoring the Immaculate Conception and the other honoring maternity.  Finally, in 1965, Spain moved Mother's Day to May as May is the month of the Virgin Mary.  So, Happy Mother's Day from Spain, all you maternal types!

Tomorrow is a sea day as we make our way east-to-west through the Strait of Gibraltar en route to Porto, Portugal.  We're time-warping tonight, but in a good way, gaining an hour to UTC+1 or five hours ahead of the US east coast.  Yea sleep!