Vicksburg

I'd been wanting to stop by Vicksburg to visit the Civil War Battlefield for quite some time. I remember visiting Gettysburg in high school and I assumed Vicksburg would be similar and I knew that Mark would enjoy it.

The Visitor Center was very similar to Gettysburg, but that's where the similarity ended for me. Possibly because when I visited Gettysburg it was with a group of high school kids and they didn't drive us through the entire park. But at Vicksburg, Mark and I drove the entire park.

It wasn't really what I expected. There were numerous markers in red and blue to designate where the lines were and where things happened. Apparently it was mapped out by survivors not long after the war ended and is considered very accurate as to what happened and where.

Like Gettysburg, there were cannons that were in place. What I don't remember seeing in Gettysburg were all the state monuments. (I don't know whether they have them or not. If they do, I didn't see them.) States who had regiments or divisions fighting in a particular area had erected monuments with their state name. Some were all the same. For example, Iowa had the same smallish monument erected in numerous places. (After you'd seen a few of them, you  could spot them in other places.) Other states, like Ohio, had monuments that were not identical but were similar in size and style.

What's striking is how many monuments there are.

And some states, like Alabama, only had one but it was impressive.

Of course, Texas made an impression.

Many of the monuments were quite elaborate.

In addition to the monuments honoring state regiments, there were also monuments to regimental leaders.

It made for an interesting drive - plenty of places to get out and walk around - and the weather was just about perfect.

I'm glad we went but we are not likely to return. And while there are some stunning views of the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, the town really doesn't have much else to recommend it. Check out these shots of the Mississippi at sunset.

There are some casinos, but we're not gamblers. We're foodies and the restaurants in our hotel were closed except for the deli. Deli food is good for lunch but I'd rather have something else for dinner. So the second night we moved to a different hotel - Margaritaville.

They had taken what used to be a casino at whatever hotel that used to be and turned it into a giant arcade for kids. A "family" area. Wish I'd known that ahead of time. Let me just say that if I had to judge all Margaritaville hotels by the one in Vicksburg, I'd never stay at another one. If Jimmy Buffett only knew...

Battleship Memorial Park and the USS Alabama

I'd written a rambling post about the poverty I'd seen en route to Florida and in some areas of the Caribbean. I was going to have Mark give it a reality check to make sure that my rambling was at least coherent. But when I opened the post to read it to him, it wasn't there. It was the post I'd started with several days ago and had none of the edits I'd made yesterday. And since Blogger automatically saves your work every ten minutes, it was a bit odd. I'm going to take it as divine intervention. I assume I was not meant to share those thoughts with anyone BUT Mark. So we're going to move on to the next stop on our journey, the USS Alabama.

I've driven past it many times. You can't get to Florida from Dallas without going through Mobile - and that's where it's docked. I remember asking my son if he wanted to stop on the way to Florida years ago but he didn't and I wasn't going to make him. But Mark wanted to see it.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the Band of Brothers series, I'm not that much into war or weapons of war but I did find the visit interesting. It was like being transported back to the 1940s. It was set up to give you a good idea of what life was like on board the ship at that time.

Looking at it from the highway, you don't fully appreciate the size of it. I think it's far bigger than a cruise ship and of course, there's no Lido deck.

It was all going well until a group of school children turned up. Apparently they didn't have enough teachers and adult volunteers because those kids were just running amok. They were climbing on the hammocks, running up and down the stairways, and screaming at each other. We couldn't get away from the disrespectful little demons fast enough. When I was in school, field trips were meant to be learning experiences. I can't imagine what they learned from that trip.

But I learned that a new ship can be given the same name as an old ship, as long as the old ship is decommissioned.

Best advice - if you're going - go early. We arrived just as it opened and managed to have most of the tour finished before the children arrived. There was also a submarine and a number of aircraft to tour and view. We looked at some of the aircraft but decided to put the submarine off until another day.

Here are some photos.

And what does this tell you about Marines? 

The Voyage

I love warm weather and it's been too cold for too long around Dallas. So a cruise going to the Bahamas, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and St. Thomas had a lot of appeal.

While each island has it's own character, they are all gorgeous. I've concluded that I prefer the islands with volcanic origins.  They are hilly and lush rather than just flat. But again, they are all unique and all beautiful.

We were supposed to make a return trip to Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas (cruise line private island) but due to engine issues, that didn"t happen. Saved us all a bundle - we'd planned to splash out and get a cabana with a butler. But since we didn't actually get it, we did1n't have to pay for it. Plus the cruise line gave us $100 credit for our trouble. All in all, a good trip

Here are some photos.

Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

If you look closely, you can see the rainbow.

Jewel Dunn's River Resort, Jamaica

George Town, Grand Cayman

Two of the seven ships in port that day.

Cozumel, Mexico

Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

San Juan, Puerto Rico

The streets are blue in Old San Juan.

There's a similar statue of Christopher Columbus in Barcelona.

St. Thomas, USVI

Overlooking Charlotte Amalie

Magen's Bay

Sunrise at Sea

No Loyalty Perks

We are tarts when it comes to cruise line loyalty. (In truth, I have no loyalty to any brand. I have a "loyalty" card for every grocery store within a 50 mile radius. We are just tarts.)

Anyway, while some of our friends are enjoying upgrades and various perks on their cruises because they always cruise with the same cruise line - we are not. Because we choose the cruise based on who is going where we want to go -  when we want to go - at the price we want to pay.

Our last cruise was with Holland America. We were told we'd be the youngest people on board. (Darn, it wasn't true!) But so far, we've cruised with Carnival, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, Princess, and Holland America.

I liked Holland America. Embarkation was a breeze - minimal waiting. (I don't know if that was a function of Holland America or the Port Everglades Terminal. - So many variables! I just know that I've waited in line at Galveston, Houston, Miami and Port Canaveral for Norwegian, Carnival, Princess, and Royal Caribbean.)

Every cruise line has a target demographic. I'm really not sure what all of them are, but I'm pretty sure I'm not in Carnival's target demographic. They tend to have lots of kids on board - but kudos to them - you don't actually see those kids. But they also like to have events like "hairy chest" contests and belly flop contests - things that just don't hold a lot of appeal for us.

We've been happy with Norwegian, Royal Caribbean and Princess. I think it was Princess that had the egg drop contest - devising a way to drop a raw egg from the top of the atrium to the bottom without breakage. Ours didn't break, but that wasn't the sole criteria for winning - it was also a popularity vote. (If you had your entire family on board, you were more likely to win.) I also think it was Princess that had the fun champagne fountain where all the ladies were invited to pour champagne into stacked glasses.

Holland America didn't seem to have any goofy contests, and that was okay. We were happy with evening trivia and you really only need those other diversions if it's a rainy day at sea.

Anyway, we haven't been on MSC - I heard that it was rowdy - sort of like Carnival - so I was avoiding it. But I also read that they have installed state of the art safety features - so maybe I should reconsider. We also have not been on Celebrity. No reason for that other than the itinerary we wanted has always been less expensive on another line. I know there are some other lines, like Seabourn that we'll probably never consider just because the ships are smaller and consequently they charge more. I've also heard that Cunard still has different classes of passengers. Apparently this defines where you can eat. I don't know if it limits access to entertainment, but we're not likely to book a cruise that divides people that way.

But even though I may not be getting perks from the cruise line, the good news is that I always book our cruises through the same travel agent - Cruises Only. We do get loyalty perks through them. (Things like shipboard credits,/prepaid gratuities - discounts on shore excursions - and no deposits.) But if another travel agent came along offering better perks and lower prices, I'd be giving it serious consideration.

Press 1 for English

Press 1 for English and be connected to someone who can't speak it anyway. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm tired of it. Before the 80s this never happened. When companies first started off-shoring their customer service departments, I was soooo tolerant - because I was naive enough to think that those people who were answering the phone were brave souls who had moved to the United States and got a job answering the phone - something that must be extremely difficult for them given the language barrier. I was patient and tolerant because I felt like they were doing so much better with English than I would be doing with their native language if the circumstances were reversed.

But then I discovered that those people were not brave. They were not even in the United States. Some clown in a suit had decided to take jobs away from Americans and send them off to Asia where they could get someone to do it for next to nothing. That was a game changer for me. Understand that I AM culturally sensitive. Part of my role when I worked in corporate America was to identify and modify communications that might be offensive to people in other cultures. But tolerance went out the window when I found out that some companies I do business with have traded my customer service experience for "cost savings". When I can, I eliminate them from my life.

"Hello, my name is Bob. How may I be helping you?" First of all, your name is not Bob - or Steve - or Wendy. And the verb form is not common usage. The syntax is different. In short,  you don't sound like you're from around here. You really know they're "not from around here" when it's your health insurance provider trying to help you find a facility near where you live. Geography can be a challenge. If you're in Houston and you're trying to help me find a place where I can get an MRI, you might not know that Celina and DeSoto are on opposite ends of the Dallas area. If you're in New York you might not know that Dallas and San Antonio are over four hours apart. But if you're in the Philippines, you might not understand that Texas is a state and those other places are cities. So when you say "I am trying to find you a place near to Texas" - it prompts me to ask you where you're located - because you have just told me that you have no clue about United States geography. No wonder I'd been on the phone with her for 10 minutes and she hadn't been able to find anything. She didn't have a clue where to look. (By the way, she refused to tell me where she was, she just kept saying that she was doing her job - something which could have been debated, but was not disputed.) By the way, that was United Healthcare. I managed to find out about their customer service before open enrollment was over and I cancelled it and went with a different provider.

I know that babies understand you when you talk, even though they can't talk back to you. I'm not sure that's the case with foreign call center employees. There have been far too many times that I hung up with the feeling that they had no idea what my problem was, much less how to solve it. Of course, when you've truly had enough and you want to close your account, they zap you over to the customer retention department and all of those people are native English speakers. My new ploy may just be to call up and say I want to close my account because while the people in Sales are always native English speakers, they are sales and can't help you with any problems.

But then there are the incoming calls. I usually don't answer those calls, but the upstairs phone doesn't have caller ID. (It's functional but is meant to be a bit more decorative.) So I often pick up the phone if I'm upstairs. My end of the conversation often sounds something like this:

"You're who? From where?"
"Can you repeat that?"
"I'm sorry, I can't understand you."
"What are you calling me about?"

There have been a few times when I suggested that they call me back after they've learned to speak English more clearly. If you are going to solve the problem I'm having with something I paid good money for, you need to speak reasonably good English. If you want me to buy your product, I need to understand what that product is and what company you represent. It's just part of my new zero tolerance policy.