I broke down this morning and bought Internet access for the rest of this cruise. It cost $120. The good news is we had Starlink access onboard. The bad news is the speeds were erratic. These are two tests I took within a few minutes of each other:
I also purchased two excursions through the app – one each for Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas. This cost me $74 in total. I’ll tell you about those as I do them.
This was our second day at sea on our way to Puerto Vallarta. We traveled at around 19 knots the whole day. I didn’t feel much of it.
Breakfast in the Windjammer was quite good. It was consistently good throughout this cruise. Dinner was also.
Later on I picked up my daily gift from ECP guest services, these sunglasses:
I went through the rest of the day until the Morris Day concert. This was purple night and formal night. I would say most guests matched to either one or the other. Some combined both, which impressed me.
Also impressive were Morris Day and the Time. They got the crowd out of their seats early and kept them out with their music and showmanship. They did a great job. I thought this was the best concert I saw onboard the whole week.
They didn’t play “The Latest Fashion”, my favorite song from them. I didn’t expect them to. It’s very obscure. They also didn’t play “Donald Trump (Black Version)”. It’s much too soon for that one, but they did play several other songs from their back catalog that I didn’t expect them to get to. It all worked very well.
I had dinner and retreated to the cabin after the show.
On the fourth morning of the cruise, like magic, we were docked in Puerto Vallarta. I thought it was a nice city, and more impressive than I expected. I had an excursion here to see various sights in town. I was part of one of several groups that met in the main theater so we could get off the ship in an organized fashion.
Sebastian was our tour guide. He was a young one.
Javier was our driver who expertly guided our big yellow bus through some sometimes twisty, narrow, and cobblestoned streets.
We made some stops in the downtown area.
This was supposed to be a 4 hour excursion, but we were out on the town for well over 5 hours. I was surprisingly exhausted when I got back and immediately took a power nap.
When I woke up, we were about ready to leave town. Goodbye PV. Maybe I’ll be back.
Later on that evening was the concert by Autograph.
First, some background (mostly for me). Autograph was part of the Los Angeles hard rock/metal scene that emerged in the 1980s. Some I’m a big fan of (RATT and Quiet Riot), some I can’t stand (Poison and Motley Crue). Autograph was one of the good ones, IMHO. I have their first album, “Sign In Please” and have enjoyed it through the years. Their one big hit on the pop charts was from this album. I’ll talk about it more later. They also played three other songs from this album.
Random notes:
1) Those other songs from “Sign In Please” didn’t get much of a reaction from the crowd – no bigger than the songs from their later albums
2) It took them 5 songs to get to their first one from this album. I was starting to wonder if I was in the right place.
3) I practiced recording video with these songs. This was not prohibited; only in the main theater was filming not allowed. Don’t expect it this video to appear on social media now or ever. As a videographer, I’m very glad I have a day job.
4) On one song, “Send Her To Me”, the lead singer straight out asked who had heard of it. I screamed as loud as I could (it’s a good song, the lead song on their first album). There were maybe two others who did the same. Sometimes I wonder who comes to these concerts and why.
5) This leads me to two other points. First, attendance was lower than I expected – only about 150 people in an arena that fit about 500. A considerable number were by the stage (no seats out front this time; I sat in the bleachers)
6) The lead singer also asked how many were born in each decade by voice vote. As you’d expect, the 60s and 70s were near even. But I’d say about 10% were from the 80s and 5% from the 90s. I assume they’re children of the true fans and were dragged here kicking and screaming. A couple of people confessed to being born in the 50s – like Sting noted in one of his more obscure songs.
The singer did his best to try to engage us by singing along, swaying our hands, etc. Sometimes the results seemed weak, but that’s partly because there were so few people around. And they were introduced by former MTV VJ “Downtown” Julie Brown. My favorite song from them is their big hit from 1985, “Turn Up the Radio”. They closed the show with it.
Overall I thought the newer songs they played were pretty good. I’ll have to research them more. The band was good and they played well. This was a good concert and I’m glad I went.
The next report will be from Cabo San Lucas.