Wednesday April 20th, 2016 - 11 days to go...slow down,slow down!

   There are only 11 days to go until we leave on the cruise and I have so much yet to do. It's amazing how fast something like this comes up on you. It seems the more you have to do, the faster it comes up. I guess the fact that new things keep popping up doesn't help.
   On top of the 'to-do' list are getting the bike ready and getting clothes together. The bike is at the mechanic having the front shocks rebuilt. They have been bottoming out for awhile, making for an uncomfortable, and sometimes uncontrollable, ride. Once I get the bike back I have to finish the deep cleaning and change all of the fluids. It's not like washing a car. There are soooooo many nooks and crannies to get at.

Friday April 8th, 2016...23 Days To Go

Time is passing quickly...23 days to go. That's just a little over three weeks. I've made all sorts of check-lists to make sure no detail is missed. Just when I think a list is complete I find something else to add.

I finally had the remaining patches sewn on my motorcycle vest. I'm not quite sure if I'll wear it to ride but I definitely want it for our 'biker pics'. 

Completed Vest

David & Barbara
in biker clothes

Our Usual Group

For the past two cruises it was Barbara and myself and David and Annette Lissy. This trip my son Christopher and his wife Alicia are coming as well as Alicia's parents, Steve and Janet Eisner. In addition, my daughter Heather and grandson David will also be joining us in our stateroom. It's gonna be tight.

The bike is no further along. I have a ride this upcoming Sunday. After that I hope to get it to my wrench. The real challenge is going to be cleaning. I'm going to have to dismantle some things to really get in deep. As the bike gets older some parts are beginning to show their age. Some bolts are a little rusty, some parts won't come as clean as they used to and the chrome is giving out in a few places. But the pony still runs great!

Tuesday April 5th, 2016 - 26 days to the cruise...time to warm up the blog

We're 26 days out from the cruise so I thought it was time to startup the blog. Boy did it come up fast! I've been making plans, tweaking the budget, getting things ready and now it seems like there's not enough time. The to-do list is growing faster that I can check things off.

I already finished on-line check in, submitted all of the necessary bike documentation and made the custom luggage tags (like always) and I'm working on the cruise 'contact cards'. These are business cards I make up to pass along to anyone that might want too stay in touch after the cruise.

Custom Luggage Tag

This year's trip is another motorcycle cruise...eight days, seven nights with three days in Bermuda...two of them ride days. This is shorter than previous cruises but it's a small island. We've also booked a two tank dive trip for myself, Chris, Alicia and Heather. I truly wish Barb was diving too.  

This is also a 'family' cruise. Barb and I are going with our bike, Chris and Alicia are going with their bike, Alicia's parents are going with their bike and of course Cousins Dave and Annette are going with their bike. In addition, Heather and little are also coming along.

We're cruising on Celebrity Cruise Line's Summit. 

Celebrity Summit

Our two previous motorcycle cruises were on Royal Caribbean's  Explorer. The Summit is just a bit smaller but preliminary research tells me the experience is going to be pretty much the same as on the Explorer. One thing that will make it interesting will be having four people (one an energetic 2 1/2 year old) in the tiny cabin. We will have to keep the sofa bed put away as much as possible if we want to walk around in the cabin at all.

There's lots to do to the bike. I need to get the front shocks rebuilt, change the fluids and install new ignition components. All that on top of a deep cleaning. The winter riding has really left the bike dirty.  While I clean I check the tightness of all of the fasteners.

I have a new toy for this year's trip. I have an action camera mounted on my 1/2 helmet. It's not a GoPro...it's a GeekPro. Pretty nifty! It even connects to my phone via wi-fi allowing me to control the camera and view the action. 

Bell 1/2 Helmet with GeekPro Camera

I had the camera mounted on the bike's handlebars but the video was really shaky. I'm hoping that it will be steadier on the helmet, plus I can 'pan' the camera by looking around. We usually purchase the Travel Agency video but I'm going to skip it now that I have this gadget. Also, Chris and Dave will also be doing video.  

The camera is also waterproof so it should be nice to have on the dive.

I plan on purchasing a minimal internet package so that I can post to this blog daily. Good luck with that! I've never really been able to keep up with this blog on these trips.

Back from the cruise

I'm going to make an attempt to complete the entries for our trip as best I can. The slow internet on the ship was making it very difficult to keep up.

Day 3 -Thursday March 13, 2014

Today was an early wake up…05:00. I feel better when I get a little less sleep. I use the time early in the morning to take pictures around the ship, while most people are still asleep. The only people around are a few other ‘old’ guys, around my age, sitting around having coffee too.

Being another ‘sea day’ there really isn’t much to write about. We spent most of our time trying to find thing to do. Barbara went to the health spa and put in some time on the bike and treadmill. Then she topped it off with a nice long soak in the hot tub. I went down to the bike storage and completed a more permanent repair to the shift linkage. I feel confident that it will last for the rest of the trip.

After lunch we went to the ice show ‘Spirit of the Seasons’. It was pretty good. It’s amazing how fast the skaters can go on that little ice rink. After that, we took a walk over to the photo studio to take a look at the photos we had taken on the formal night. That was a bust since the pictures did not exist. We’ll try again on the next formal night at the end of the trip.

Dinner was pretty sedate and afterwards we went to the 50’s – 60’s dance party. We were pretty tired, since it was late, so we called it a night and went back to the cabin.

Day 2 -Wednesday March 12, 2014

I was surprised at how late I slept in. I had my alarm wake me at 06:00. That’s late for me. When I’m on the cruise I like to get up early and walk around while most other people are sleeping. It’s a good time to take pictures. I went to the internet lounge to set up the on-line account so that I can use the wireless. There’s a hot spot in the Promenade Café where I get coffee so I’ll be working in there from now on in the mornings. While I was on line I ordered a new shift linkage for the bike. It should be waiting for me when I get home.

The weather today is a bit sporty. The winds are howling around 55mph, giving the seas a little kick and slowing the ship a bit. Barbara and I wanted to go up and check out the jogging / walking track but that deck is closed because of the high winds. It’s supposed to get a bit sportier before it lets up. _­­­

There wasn’t a whole lot to do today. We went to breakfast around 09:30 which lasted for a while. It’s nice not having anywhere to go sometimes. We walked around, checked out some things in the shops and poked our heads into the health club. Lunch was at Johnny Rockets where we were entertained by our waiter. He spoke poor English but did some pretty good but simple magic tricks. After that we wandered around a bit more then took a nap. I hopped down to the casino for a bit and threw away a few more dollars. I really should stay away from the slots and play blackjack instead. Before dinner we walked around a bit more to wake up and stretch our legs. Having the upper outside deck closed really makes you feel caged. When we returned to the room we started getting ready for dinner. Its formal night so we had to make sure things were just so.

Dinner was great. We have a really good table. Six of us have been on this cruise together before, at the same table and the other couple that has joined us is younger but really good people.

Since it was formal night we had someone take pictures of the table. Even that turned out to be fun. Again, we were just about the last table to leave the dining room, a sure sign that we were having a good time. We moved from the dining room to the Maharaja Lounge for Karaoke. The ETA road captains were going to do some singing, which turned out to be pretty good. We didn’t hang around there long as it was getting really late so it was good night.

Day 1 – Tuesday March 11, 2014

What a way to start the trip.

 

Finally, departure day. I’ve been counting the days for the approach of this vacation and it arrived so fast. But, it’s here.

We spent the night at David and Annette’s house so that we would be close to the cruise port this morning.

 

The ride to the cruise port started out fine. It was a bit cool but not horrid. I usually won’t ride below 40 degrees and it was almost 45 so the temps were good. The skies were a bit overcast but I like that…no sun glare. David and I left first on the bikes, with Barbara and Annette following us in the car with all of the luggage. We made our way through the back streets of South Plainfield and the surrounding towns to Rt. 78, the major highway that would take us to Bayonne. There were a lot of pot holes and the roads were covered with massive amounts of sand and salt leftover from the harsh winter that we had had. We hit 78 and were finally able to open it up and make some time…not! We were cruising along at 70 mph through heavy rush hour traffic when we hit the first obstacle. There was a lane merge, two into one. That slowed things down and challenged us to stay together as the drivers in this area don’t give a crap about much, especially bikes. We worked our way past the merge and took off again only to have a small disaster hit. As we were working our way through heavy traffic my shift linkage decided to let loose.

A biker’s biggest fear is having something, anything, go wrong with a bike while you’re zipping along at highway speeds. We were trying to slow down a bit and as I tried to shift my foot shifter just flopped around. At first I thought the securing hardware for the shifter had loosed up but when I looked down I saw that the shifter linkage was flopping around. I’m blessed with the ability to keep my head when the ‘shit hits the fan’, the worse the problem the cooler I stay…sometime too cool. Anyway, I tried flagging David down to stop but he didn’t see me so I hit the gas, accelerated to about 90 and caught up with him to signal that I had to stop. Here we are on a very busy multi-lane, NY area highway pulling onto the median with two bikes and a car.  I surveyed the issue and decided that I could secure the shifter linkage with the right materials. The ball joint on the end of the linkage decided it just didn’t want to hold on any longer so I needed a way to keep the socket on the ball but remain flexible. I dug around in my Tour-Pak and found a few small wire tires. I looped the wire ties around the linkage head together and with a length of Barbara’s yarn, secured the fix in place. Done…one of my better optional engineering fixes if I do say so myself.

We got back on the backs, back into the car and forced our way back into traffic…another harrowing feat on its own. We didn’t get far before the traffic slowed again. This time the set of lanes to our right was stopped. We crawled along until we made it to the hold up. There was a care on fire in the lanes to our right. Fortunately they didn’t stop our set of lanes and soon we were past that obstacle and on our way to the ship. The rest of the ride was without incident except for the asshole maneuvers being pulled by the drivers around us and the terrible condition of the road.

We arrived at the port and were directed to an area right next to the ship to meet up with the rest of the bikes. We were met by Steve, the leader of ETA. Steve is quite a character, a larger than life kind of guy. Unfortunately he has been plagued with horrible medical issues but still remains extremely upbeat and cheerful. Since this was our second cruise with this group the procedures were known. First we parked the bikes side-by-side while we had a pow-wow. While that was going on a drug sniffing dog inspected the bikes. If the dog sits by your bike you are done. There’s always a lot of nervous shifting going on during this. Next we hopped on our bikes and side by side we moved over to a gate to await clearance into the area next to the ship. We were given access and single file, rode onto the dock right next to the ship. Here we opened our gas tanks so they could make sure we had less that ¼ tank of gas and to shoot some nitrogen gas in to displace the fumes.

Now it was time to load the boat. One by one we went up a ramp and into the ship, making sure to shut down the engines before going inside. Once inside we stored the bikes in a hallway, to be moved and secured later.

We move the bikes inside by having the operator stay on the bike while another operator push the bike. It’s a great system, especially when everyone works together.

With that done we went back outside of the ship and re-joined Barbara and Annette at the cruise terminal. They had already checked the luggage so all we had to do was to go through security and check in. They let all of the bikers enter through the ‘Diamond Member’ entrance to speed things up. Check in was a breeze. We got our passes, had our picture taken and waited for a shuttle to take us to the ship. Once on the ship we passed through another security check point and headed up to the Windjammer Café for lunch. Of course everyone else headed up to the Windjammer o it was quite a task finding a table but Barbara came through and it wasn’t long before we were sitting, enjoying our first meal aboard. When we finished eating it was about 14:00 so we headed up to the room to check things out and to see if our luggage had arrive.

There were no bags yet but we were glad to finally be in the room anyway.

We decided to take a walk around and to get my unlimited soda cup filled. The ship looked the same as our last trip but it was still exciting. At 15:30 a mandatory emergency drill was held. That was fun, yawn. After the drill we wandered around until I had to go to the first bike operators meeting at 17:00. Here we were given a briefing by Steve and the security staff of the ship. We were also issued our ‘crew’ ID badges. Because of our bikes being stored in non-public areas we needed access to crew areas so we are issued cred IDs. The meeting consisted of a lot of information and a lot of good natured ribbing. We waited for the ships staff to finish clearing the storage area for the bikes then moved back to the hallway where the bikes were stored.

Working together, we moved the bikes into the storage area, chocked the wheels and put the bikes to bed for the next few days. I will be going back down today to work my shift linkage. Better to do it today than on our first ride day.

I returned to the room to meet up with Barbara who was emptying our first suitcase. The other two had not yet arrived. In the meantime our room attendant came by to introduce himself…Byron.

Next was the ETA welcome aboard party. ETA is the travel agency that runs the bike cruise. It was an open bar and Steve entertained us with some fantastic piano playing.

 

 

We also paid our cash $325 bike fee which is used to take care of ‘business’ on the islands, allowing us to ride there. Steve spoke again, giving us a lot of information and giving some of the operators a bunch of good natured crap.

After the part we went back to the room to find that our luggage had arrived and Byron had moved it into the room for us. We quickly unpacked the suitcases then went to dinner. Dress was casual so everyone pretty much stayed in their biker clothes. A nice surprise was that there was a couple on the trip that was on our last trip and we were at the same table for dinner. There are eight of us at the table for dinner which is nice. Last time I think there were 11. Dinner was good but service was lacking. I only had one drink during dinner. I wasn’t asked and getting that one wasn’t easy. After dinner we walked through the casino, lost $10 the n turned in for the night.