Puerto Chacabuco, Chile

Tuesday- We are in Puerto Chacabuco, Chile. We are now in the Chilean Fjords. It is very beautiful even if it is gray, misty and raining. We came into the inside passage area during the night so when we woke up this morning about 7:00 we could see the islands all around the ship. We were moving along very slowly and by 9:00 had arrived at our anchorage off Puerto Chacabuco. Frank (the onboard tour guide) had told us that there is nothing to do in this port unless you were on a tour… over 400 people did go on tours so they restricted the tenders until about 10:30 to get all the tours off before they opened them to passengers going in on their own. Since it is cold and raining, we decided not to go ashore and have enjoyed a very quiet day on the ship. It is very beautiful outside and when the sun breaks through the clouds for a few minutes it is spectacular. Now if mother nature will be nice to us and give us blue skies… we have three days of scenic cruising ahead before our next port.


The Captain just made his announcements prior to leaving port - he said there was a big storm in the Pacific and that it would be very rough tonight as we will go back out there and then south before we re-enter the fjords about 7:00 in the morning.

Random Thoughts:

The plumber finally fixed the water pressure problem in our cabin on Sunday and now we actually have enough water coming out of the shower head to take a real shower!! Our cabin has a full sized tub, but I haven’t been able to fill it to take a bath. I tried one night and after an hour I had 3 inches of water in the tub so I gave up on the idea of a nice soak and just had a quick bath.

Although all of the crew is happy and smiling and friendly as they have always been on Holland America, I’m not sure how they actually keep it up - they have to be exhausted especially with the illness problem we had where the crew had to work many extra duties. The cutbacks are noticeable; the stewards seem to have to tend too many cabins and the waiters wait too many tables - service is just much slower than it was a few years ago. I guess if people insist on these low prices, something must go and it is beginning to show. If you have never cruised before you wouldn’t notice anything, but if you have been on HAL for 10 (or so) years as we and many many passengers on this cruise have, we all notice it. One passenger summed it up perfectly, it seems that the crew/staff are reactive instead of proactive.

After saying all that, it really is a great cruise and the ship is just the size I like. She is easy to get around and there is never a line to wait for anything. I’d have no problem being one of the little old ladies that lives onboard the ship. I haven’t heard of any actually doing that on this ship as there have been on several of our other cruises. Maybe they need a mascot ‘little old lady’…. hmmm I might apply!