$73 for a Gondola Ride?

Wednesday September 30, 1992 Venice, Italy

We slept in beautifully until 7:45. We needed that. Hurry up and get ready. They stop serving breakfast at 9:30. I feel good. We have a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, bread, fruits, and juices.

At 10:30 we take the launch to Venice. We stay til 2:30 just wandering about. Everything is so expensive. We only buy a gondola ride for $73 and a gelato ice cream for $3. There are street vendors everywhere. It's a sunny day and warm. There were no street vendors when we were here in February 1987 (out of season). There were so many people this time.

We have high tea with desserts on the ship at 4:00. Could serve as lunch, did today. We watch a hot air balloon rise out of the city and later land in the city. Strange.

We dress casual for dinner. It's good. We go to Welcome Aboard show and to bed.

Looks like Mom and Frank are having no trouble adjusting to the time change from California. That is great news!

I cannot believe that in 1992 a gondola ride cost $73. Just for curiosity sake I checked to see what it costs today, 20 years later. A 35 minute gondola ride with others goes for $57 and a private gondola ride with serenade is $223. I don't know if Mom and Frank took a private gondola ride, but if so, the price sounds about right adjusted for inflation. I hope they didn't pay that much to go with a group!

Ugh! It sounds like a big tourist trap, even at the end of September, which would seem to be off-season.

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Wednesday April 8, 1992

Alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. We leave on our tour to the waterfall at 8:30. I have breakfast in our room. We are in Ocho Rios, Jamaica today. We are in a nice air conditioned van with 8 others. It's hot and humid outside. Our driver takes us to the rain forest past alot of poverty. The forest is beautiful. Next stop is a lovely garden, Shaw Gardens. We take lots of pictures.

Our next stop is shopping in 2 malls. Too many street vendors and pushy vendors. I don't like it. We buy nothing. Last stop is the fabulous waterfall you can climb, Dunn's Falls. Too much for us to climb but we watch and take pictures. We are back on board for lunch. We relax the rest of the day. We watch a movie in our room and nap.

Show tonight is Grease. Great, but I leave a little before it's over. I'm too tired--bed.

Ric and I visited Jamaica in 1989, 3 years before Mom and Frank stopped there this day. I am in total agreement with her impression. It was extremely hot and humid (we were there in November.) The poverty was very depressing. Ric and I stayed in Montego Bay where our resort was surrounded by chain link fence to keep the locals out. It sounds like the driver of Mom and Frank's van was sane, but Ric and I took "public transportation" one day from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios to see Dunn's Falls, and were shocked to find out that public transportation consisted of 16-20 passengers stuffed into a VW van while the driver weaved in and out of traffic at high speed. For the "privilege" of being in the front seat we had to pay extra for this experience, but we did not know this until we arrived in Ocho Rios! We also visited the marketplace in Ocho Rios, where vendors shouted and grabbed at us for our attention, and several women even grabbed my hair to try to get me to pay for having my hair braided in dreadlocks. It was creepy. Also, every block or so someone would try to get us to buy marijuana, which is legal there. We went to Dunns Falls, which was beautiful, and we joined a group from a cruise ship who were hiking up the falls, just like the group pictured above. At the end of the hike we got someone to take a picture of us at the falls. The photo below was taken of Ric and I at the Falls in 1989.