Day 15/138; 2022/2023 Viking Neptune World Cruise
Last night we had a fun time being contestants on ‘The Marriage Game’ hosted by Cruise Director Bruce in the Star Theatre. After having such great professional entertainment provided by Viking so far on this cruise, last night was going to be 4 couples on stage playing ’The Marriage Game‘, entertaining the audience. We hadn’t gone to the Star Theatre with the intent of being a part of the game, but when Bruce started asking for couples who had been married 50 years, 40 years, 30 years and then newlyweds; there were no newlyweds or even people who had been married up to 10 years! Viking definitely draws an older demographic, so then Bruce asked ”Is there anyone married between 10-15 years and I put up my hand! Well little did we know what we were in for!
If you remember back to the 1960’s and 1970’s when the show ”The Dating Game” was on tv, this was how the game was set up last evening. The 4 women were asked to leave the stage and Assistant Cruise Director Michael entertained the women in the off stage dressing room of the Star Theatre, while the men were asked a series of questions. Then the women were brought back out to the stage and the men disappeared and we were asked a series of questions. Finally the men were brought back to the stage and the fun began!
The first few questions were quite easy. ”What kind of car was your husband driving when you first met”. Being in the Automotive industry for 20 years, I would definitely remember he was driving a Jeep Cherokee when I first me him. Yeah! 10 points for us.
Next question: “Where was our first kiss”. Easy…in his condo in Etobicoke, Ontario. Then things got quite a bit tougher... Richard was asked if he was stranded on a desert island with another female who would it be? And he answered “Lydia Ko” from the LPGA! Oh my goodness. What a random answer. We got that wrong of course. Then Richard was asked ”What was my bra size?” He got that wrong too. I was asked what has Richard spent money on that was a waste of money and I responded GOLF BALLS! He is always losing golf balls, so buying them is a waste of money. Instead, he responded spending money on his old 1994 Cadillac in Florida was a waste of money! Anyway, at the end of the evening, we were tied for dead last. We did not get into a domestic, which was good and everyone was given a bottle of sparking wine for being good sports.
We ordered room service last evening for our breakfast this morning, because we knew that trying to get off the ship on the first tender would be a rush.
It was such a lovely treat to be able to eat our delicious breakfast out on our balcony ‘Al fresco‘ before we headed out for the day. There was way too much food, so we saved the muesli in our in room refrigerator for breakfast tomorrow.
Our view this morning from our balcony as we ate breakfast! Land’s End promontory site of Lover’s Beach and El Arco, a natural archway in the sea cliffs which is the iconic view most people know from Cabo San Lucas.
There were two other ships in port today which were also at anchor off Cabo San Lucas.
Carnival Miracle (with the whale tale on the right) with 2,124 passengers which went into service in June 2003 and the Discovery Princess with 3,660 passengers which went into service in March 2021. These cruise ships are much, much bigger ships than our 930 passenger Viking Neptune!
Yesterday during the port talk on Cabo San Lucas we were advised that there would be tenders running from the Neptune into Cabo and that guests who had independent excursions would be able to catch a tender after 10am. Oh dear!……We had already arranged to meet out private transfer from the pier to the golf club at 10am so we could make our 11am tee time. This is where I step away and Richard to the rescue excels!
My husband Richard is a transportation guru having spend his entire career in different facets of the travel business and now working part time still as a freelance, bilingual Trip Director, with a speciality in Transportation. Richard knows how to speak the lingo required to get things done in his business, so I left things to him and last evening we had our Red Tender tickets delivered to our stateroom before we went to bed. First thing this morning Richard was also downstairs at Guest Services confirming our tender timing and when we should be in the Atrium to wait for our tender.
Waiting in the Atrium on the Viking Neptune to receive word to proceed to ‘A’ deck and get on our tender into Cabo San Lucas this morning. I think bringing our clubs raised a few eyebrows this morning, but they were also great conversation starters to meet some new people to find out what excursion they were doing today.
Our tender arriving at the port in Cabo San Lucas.
When we arrived at the port in Cabo, there were the usual assortment of people trying to sell us tours for whale watching, taxis, etc, etc, but we had our own private transfer pick up booked to take us to the golf club directly and also to bring us back to the pier after golf.
Richard waiting for our transfer. If you look closely at his golf bag you can see it is being held together with a shopping bag and duct tape! We had two ‘Sunday bags’ hanging in our garage, in our home in Florida for many years and we decided that to bring our clubs on the World Cruise, we would put both sets of our clubs into our ‘Sunday bags’ and then put the ‘Sunday bags’ into one large golf travel bag. For extra padding we used bubble wrap to protect the clubs, but when we took the clubs out of the travel bag this morning, the bottom of Richard’s old travel bag was disintegrating, so we did the best we could and found a recyclable shopping bag and some duct tape we had used for another purpose, and voila! A new ugly ’Sunday bag’. We are hoping to get to a golf shop in L.A. on Saturday to replace Richard’s ugly golf bag. I’m sure the very nice golf club we played today thought that the Beverley Hill Billies were showing up to play golf with bags held together by duct tape and old shopping bags!
Our tender had gotten us to Cabo around 9:45am, so we had to wait a few minutes before our car and driver private transfer arrived.
There was no mistaking that this car was meant for us this morning! Luis was our driver and he provided some lively commentary about Cabo on our 22 minute drive to the golf club.
Cabo Real Golf Club, a 7,037 yard championship golf course between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas which was designed and built by Robert Trent Jones Jr. featuring seaside and mountain holes, with numerous sand traps and arroyos. The pro shop looked very well stocked and inviting, so of course I had to buy some souvenirs of our visit to golf in Cabo.
Some nice golf clothing to remember our visit to Cabo Real. Richard’s shirt has billiard balls on it if you look real closely. It reminds him of his ‘misspent’ youth!
The landscaping at the golf course was absolutely gorgeous!
Our clubs safely on a cart and Richard asking where the driving range was so we could warm up for 10 minutes before we played.
Richard teeing off on the 1st hole.
The 5th hole, par 4 with the beautiful azure blue water of the Sea of Cortez in the background. The bougainvillea on the course was stunning!
Waiting to hit on #7, a very guarded par 3.
I really enjoyed seeing other flora and fauna on the golf course today. At one point we saw a monarch butterfly along with some blue butterflies and there was also a swarm of dragonflies on one tee box too.
It is not a good idea to go looking for golf balls near these cactus!
Or these cactus either!
Gorgeous flowers on the course today.
The round was a bit slow today, being that it is a resort course but the recommended time to play was 4 hours and 30 minutes and we were exactly on pace for that timing as we were playing. Richard was worried about the return transfer to the pier in Cabo since we had tee’d off at 11am and with a 4.5 hour round we would be finished at 3:30pm. Our 22 minute drive back to Cabo San Lucas was hopefully not going to be in traffic, as we needed to get our tender back to the ship and be onboard before 5pm.
Richard about to tee off on the 18th hole. A stunning and challenging par 4 with a really tricky 3 tiered green. I had a really good round today with a 2 over par front nine of 37. If only I could have kept it together on the back nine, finishing with one birdie (I missed 3 straight birdies on the front nine too) and shot an 81. The more mountainous back nine was trickier and was more of a test of target golf which for the first time playing a course is harder to judge.
We managed to finish in the 4.5 hours required for the round, and found our transfer car and driver Luis waiting for us as soon as we were finished our round. A quick 20 minutes back to Cabo hearing about all the rich and famous who make Cabo their homes, and we arrived at the pier to find a very long line for the tenders back to the Neptune.
We knew we were in the right place because Micah from the Neptune was getting people lined up for tenders to return to the ship. We had to wait for 3 tenders before finally getting on a tender holding 83 people headed for the Neptune.
There is our ship! I took this photo through the window of the tender so it is not the best, but at least it gives you the perspective of how far we had to go today to meet up with the Neptune which was anchored in the bay off Cabo San Lucas.
We definitely ‘loved me (some) tender(s)’ today as we enjoyed our day in Cabo San Lucas golfing. I think The Marriage Game last evening also proved we still love each other tenderly to be able to laugh out loud at our strange answers to Bruce’s questions and have a bit of self deprecating humour thrown into the mix too.
We headed out of Cabo on time at 6pm and are now heading north, where we gain another hour tonight and we will be on pacific coast time. The weather is heading south as we head north too, so L.A. will be quite a bit cooler than we have enjoyed so far on this trip.
Tomorrow is the big day! The Snowperson Building contest judging will be held in the Wintergarden at 1pm. We are ready for the debut of our designer inspired snowperson! And finally I can share some pictures of what we have been working so diligently on as a team of 4 initially strangers and now compatriots. Fingers crossed we win! We did a very creative snow person, so let’s see how the competition stacks up (pun intended) on the Neptune tomorrow!
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