2007 World Cruise

The 2007 world Cruise has begun, so I have created a new blog at called 2007 World Cruise

The first post is 2007 World Cruise: Fwd: (no subject)

CANCER WELLNESS CENTER FAMILY WALK - 4/30/06

My family will be participating in the Second Annual Cancer Wellness Center Stepping Up to Wellness Family Walk on Sunday, April 30th at 10:00 am at Independence Grove in Libertyville, Illinois.

Please help me in supporting this cause by visiting my fundraising page and making a monetary contribution. ANY amount would be appreciated.

Last year my family was in the top ten for fundraising, and I hope to achieve this again. So again, please help us in surpassing our goal of $500.

If you are in the area and are interested in joining us at the event at Independence Grove on the 30th of April, please post a comment to this blog entry and I will tell you how to register and start fundraising.

I thank you in advanced for your support!

- The Rootbergs

End of the Cruise

Last sea day. Last day. There were a lot of goodbyes today. There is a benevolent fund for the employees. Passengers had donated $10,000 into it since Egypt. Today there was a white elephant sale. Any junk passengers no longer wanted or could not fit into luggage was donated. Then it was sold to others. One woman paid $1,200 for a T shirt. When it was over there was almost $10,000 more. With these donations they had bought TVs and DVDs for all the crew’s cabins. It has paid for their emergencies and emergency trips home.

We are unexpectedly entering Port Everglades this evening, instead of tomorrow morning. They have given the ship permission for this early entry due to a medical emergency. Someone has to be evacuated and removing them at the dock would be the best for that person. We still will not be able to go ashore until the ship is cleared tomorrow morning. Our van is supposed to be waiting for us at about 11:00 AM.

Bobbi called the dog lady today. She will have Spike ready anytime we want to pick him up. She said he is absolutely wonderful. He is a perfect dog she says, but he already knows that.

This will probably be the last world cruise letter this year but don’t stop writing me. I hope you enjoyed reading about our adventures and experiences. I certainly have enjoyed the comments and notes.

End Of Cruise Sherm Out.

Hamilton, Bermuda

Hamilton, Bermuda, our last port. Today we had a Virtuoso Voyager Club event. The ship had a very long channel to get to the port. At about 9:30 AM we went down to the dock and met our driver guide and got in our VW mini van. I don’t think we get this model in the states but it was about the size of a US mini van and it had comfortable seating for seven. Real American size seats. There were supposed to be six passengers per van so we took another couple with us. They were from California and quite friendly.
We took a drive around the island. We had not been here in several years and it was good to see that the island was still very clean and everything was well kept. There were some new fabulous homes but basically, everything was pretty much unchanged. We stopped at a house built 300 years ago. It is supposed to be the oldest house in the western hemisphere that is still in the original foot print.

There were many very interesting sights and it was a pleasant drive and our driver was very nice. At about noon she took us to Le Coquille restaurant for lunch. Lunch was excellent. It was only a five minute drive from there to the ship where we were soon dropped off.

We had a lot left to pack so we stayed on board even though we were docked right down town and literally just steps from many stores with good shopping. We spent some time packing, or rather Bobbi packed while I spent some time napping. By 4:00 PM the ship left for the long trip through the channels around Bermuda. We watched out on our balcony for quite a while.

At 6:00 PM we had a party for the whole ship thrown by a passenger named Barbara Clutz. It was held in the atrium on the fourth floor. She called it a stop your packing party. There are still clothes hung up all over the atrium lobby, that were decorations.

At about 6:30 we left the party and went into the dinning room. We were to be a table of eight tonight. The Pritzkers had invited a couple they met today. They turned out to be originally from Chicago and went to Von Steuben. He also had lived in the same area as we do.

Bobbi had given the head chef a recipe for blintzes and he was going to have them served this evening. They had folded them instead of making them into a roll but they did come out very good tasting. That was the end of my new diet. I had seconds and thirds.

Over Blintzed Sherm Out

Rubber Boats (Sea day)

Sea day. The fifth and last before Bermuda. All night long we had gone slightly south of the best course to Bermuda. That was so we could meet the Regent Navigator at sea on her way from FL to Madeira. At about 10:15 AM we did meet her.

The wind had died down to about nothing but there were some big swells. The captain of the Navigator had been the staff captain of this ship. The two ships did circles around each other and did the horn honking bit. Bobbi likes the loud deep sounding horns. Our ship played music on loud speakers that could be herd for miles. There were many people out on decks on both ships.

It was cool when the other ship got directly along side and the music echoed off it. It sounded like they were playing the same music a few seconds later and a bit softer. Then the Navigator let down an inflatable boat with outboards, as did we. Captain Dag got on and drove it. The two rubber boats raced around between the two ships for a while and then they paged Jamie, the cruise director, to come to the open door to the sea. He got in the water. It had to be cold. The air temperature was only about 65. Then he went skiing up and back between the two ships while Dag drove.

Bobbi was having her hair done at the time. She came out on deck just a floor below our suite. I took pictures of her wearing tin foil on her head. I knew she would like that. Finally, after playing for long enough, the Navigator took off and we did a U turn and went off in the opposite direction.

Tonight we had a party in the main theater. It was only for the world cruisers. They played part of a DVD they made of our cruise. I saw Bobbi on it twice. They are going to give us a copy of the DVD and then you will all have to watch it. After you watch that you have to watch the 7,000 pictures we took and put on CD. They also have about a dozen kids aboard. They showed tape of some funny stuff they did with them.

The ship’s orchestra played live. They put on a short show with all the singers and dancers from the theater company. There are also two couples that sing and play music, a singer from Latitudes restaurant, a classical guitar player, and two dancers. They all preformed and many from the crew sang. Jamie and the captain sang a couple of songs together. They better not give up their day jobs. Jamie read some comments from passengers. He had requested them and Bobbi had taken a couple of my blogs, that I send you, off the internet, and submitted them. There too were many sent in to be able to read them all, but he did include the two of mine. There was a third that was exactly the words I sent you and a fourth that was very close. I wonder if there are a couple of people plagiarizing my on line blog. I know of two on board that know about it. Anyhow, I guess my blogs must have been funny because they got big laughs.

It was a really good show and not one person left during the two hours it was on. I am going to miss this constant entertainment and some of the great people.

Happy Cruiser Sherm Out.

Sea Day

Sea day #4 to Bermuda. The ocean is rough again today. We had a bunch of good lectures today. There was one on the Bermuda triangle. I have been following this subject for many years and I can tell you, this guy knew less then nothing. It was like he put this subject in to sell himself onto the ship. He said he had never even been in the Bermuda triangle. His big claim to fame was that he helped develop Bold and something else for Proctor and Gamble before he retired and did lousy speaking. All he had was a list of some ships that went down under mysterious circumstances. He never even read any of the good books on the subject. However: There may be something to this Bermuda Triangle stuff. Cousteau is getting off in Bermuda so he will not have to go through the Triangle.

Tonight we had dinner in the crew’s galley. The Kapels had too much to eat for in room appetizers and did not come. It was just for the world cruisers. We had to bring place mats they had delivered to our rooms to gain entrance. There are crew members from over 50 countries on the ship so we had to come dressed with something we had picked up in one of the countries we visited. The only thing we had that hadn’t been packed and removed from out suite was the two hats we bought in Madeira. If you remember, they were the ones with the long hard tassel sticking straight up.

We went into a couple of crew’s quarters on the way to dinner. They were a little bigger then the first cabin we had ever cruised in, but now I couldn’t spend a night in them even on a bet. One did have a port hole. Our first did not. They were less then one quarter the size of our present suite.

Food was buffet style. One line had German and Philippine. Another had French with a chef making Fois Grau , or however you spell it, to order. There was a counter with a sign that said Chicago Hot Dogs. However, They were not. There were various kinds of sandwiches. Captain Dag was manning the smoked salmon bar. He was slicing up different kinds of the salmon. Of course there was a desert line with fruits and pastries. There was the Italian line. They had three chefs cooking pastas and sauce. Good sauce needs some good wine. I guess good chefs must need good wine also. They were sure sampling it often enough. That must have been, to make sure it hadn’t gone bad or something, I’m sure. Whenever it got slow, they were making each other bowls of pasta and eating it with plenty of wine to wash it down. They seemed to be having a good time. It was a lot of fun and the food was very good.

Madeira Hat Sherm Out.

Two Days until Bermuda

Sea day. Two more to go until Bermuda. The sea has been rough all day but has started to let up a little this evening. The bridge said we were having waves averaging 18 to 23 feet.

They removed the three crates and two rolling duffels full of junk, from the room, that Bobbi calls needful things. Maybe we will see them again when we get off. Maybe not. We are scheduled to get off at 10:40 AM on the 28th but they are lucky if they are within an hour and a half. My slave is ordering us a van to meet us then, I hope.

We’ve had some very good lectures the last few days. Lou Harris of the Harris polls is doing political stuff. Bill Miller is doing some really interesting stuff about cruise and passenger ships from the earliest to the future. Michelle Cousteau is here. He has Hi Def pictures and is doing stuff about the underwater national parks of the US. There will be Hi Def stuff of his on public TV in the next few months.

Betcha didn’t know there are 13 US underwater national parks covering some vast areas. The last one he did was Hawaii. They filmed a commercial fishing boat doing illegal fishing. They called the Coast Guard who sent a plane and then a cutter to arrest them and confiscate the boat.

He told of some other good stuff like the Japs are on the security committee of whatever international organization sees to it that endangered species are not being fished out. That is exactly like putting the wolf in the hen house. They admit to killing and taking whales but claim it is only for scientific studies. It seems that their studies consist of selling whale on the open market and they are even finding canned whale for sale. The same with other endangered species including Porpoise which they openly net and fish for. Norway also kills and fishes for all of the above.

Crusader Sherm Out.