Blackpool Pleasure Beach's Space Tower

I have blogged about this ride at the Pleasure Beach before, way back in 2008, but I was miserly with the photos then. In those days I only put a single photo on every article so, thanks to a prompt by James who left a comment asking for more photos of the ride, here's an update.

The Space Tower was opened in 1974, a 160 feet high column with a slowly spinning pod that rose to the top, spun round a couple of times and came down again. It gave some fabulous views over the Pleasure Beach itself and from the top on a good day you could see the mountains of the Lake District, the rides on the horizon at Southport's Pleasure Beach and even the Isle of Man. The latter, if I'm honest, called for not a good day but an exceptionally good day!

The pod in which riders sat had a single bench seat in a circle facing out. This was uncushioned plastic and after a bit most visitors stood up to let the pain die down!

I took this shot in black and white with a red filter on the camera to darken the blue sky almost to black. It also had the effect of turning the bright red building (which housed an amusement arcade) to white. Access to the ride was down a glass-enclosed ramp close to Watson Road and the exit from the ride was above this and led into the arcade itself. The rather weird looking structures with the curve at the top in the left foreground carried lights to illuminate the Log Flume at night.

Because the ride started to rotate as soon as it started to rise the tower and continued to rotate in the same direction at the top and on its way back down, by closing down the lens of the camera and keeping the shutter open for the full length of the ride I created this rather ethereal column of light, the spirals being caused by the tiny lights on the pod. In order for the photo not to be washed out and over exposed whilst the ride was at the very top, I simply put my hand over the lens to block all light until just before it started to come back down again.

A sunset shot, enhanced a little if I'm honest by another filter. The little purple and white striped dome on the left was a camera obscura.

A colour attempt at the column of light. Not quite as successful due to a bit of a breeze blowing on that particular night that rocked the tripod that my camera was sitting on. The ride lasted until 1993 when it had to come down to make way for the new roller coaster, the massive Pepsi Max Big One. It was dismantled and taken to the company's pleasure park at Morecambe, then embarrassing its employees by making them dress as cowboys for the wild west-themed Frontierland. Even this didn't save the park from falling into hard times and it closed in the early 2000s, the repainted tower in sponsored colour scheme as the Polo Tower (the tower itself painted to resemble a tube of Polo mints). The Tower was the last bit of Frontierland to be demolished, but inevitably it came down eventually in 2004.

Addendum: That last sentence was a little premature - thanks to a response to my article posted on Facebook by Dave Oldfield, I was prompted to go for another look and there it was, still standing on 30 March 2015. For a look at the remains of the tower on that date see this entry from 31 March 2015.

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Roatan, Honduras

Saturday 14 February 2015. We sail into port on the island of Roatan, about 30 miles off Honduras. There's a small village and a beach area right by the ship and we will spend the day there, lazing, looking around the shops and enjoying the walk from the shopping village to the beach which is on another tiny island joined to the main one by a footbridge and also crossed by a chair lift.

We were up early to watch the ship come into dock and there were a few wrecks in rather poor condition in the water. Subsequent investigation has showed that some of these were sunk deliberately to form reefs for tourists to dive.

This one though appeared during a storm in 1984 and has been slowly disintegrating ever since. I haven't been able to find out what it was or what it was carrying, though a few sites seem to think it was involved in smuggling. And of course I am thoroughly ashamed of my first thought that it might have belonged to a not-to-be-identified cruise line...

We tied up at one of two jetties and were to have the place to ourselves for the day. This was taken just after breakfast, whilst we were in search of an early morning coffee which we took on the open deck whilst we watched a few specks circling over the mountains. Some sort of raptor, but we would get a much better look at them later in the day - which we'll come to in the next article.

In this first article about Roatan we'll have a look at the shopping village of Mahogany Bay. This was specifically developed to cater for cruise ships and so has been planned as a whole and as such is very pleasing to the eye.

The immediate area around the jetties has been landscaped and planted with some suitably exotic blooms. Regular readers will know that apart from appreciating the colour and shape, plant life is wasted on me. I know enough to say if it's green it's a plant and any other colour and I'll call it a flower...

Set some of these colours against a vivid blue sky and it makes for a very pleasant environment.

There is a small shopping village with touristy bits and pieces and some bars and other more specialised shops. Again you will be invited but not coerced into the shops.

We had a wander around a few of the shops and came away with the inevitable magnets. I made a note to buy another fridge to hold them all...

We approached the bottom end of the shopping village and found a chair lift - one of those that comes up behind and sweeps you off your feet. I didn't notice anyone with skis on but it was that sort of ride... We decided to walk to the beach and get a ride on the chair lift to come back. Wrong decision in the end but not that it mattered too much. We'll see why in the next entry!

Mexican Medley Cruise Index

A Day in Costa Maya, Mexico

Friday 13 February 2015. Not the most auspicious date for a day on holiday, but we push any superstitious notions to the back of our minds and wake up to this rather lovely view.

We are at Costa Maya in Mexico for the day. Excursion trips are heading off to Kohinlich and Dzibanche Mayan ruins , which sound really interesting, but it is again an 8 hour trip and we are here to relax and chill. We start the day with a wander all the way round the ship on the Promenade Deck on Deck 9.

The view from the other side is more natural but no less beautiful. Look at the colour of that sea and the white tropical beach!

We decide we'll jump ship and have a wander before spending a nice undemanding afternoon reading and soaking up rays and long cool drinks...

Costa Maya has a small collection of bars and shops, the proprietors of which will call you in with a cheery wave and an invite, but without any insistence. A group dressed in Mayan Indian traditional dress were posing for photos.

It's a rather startling shade of pink, but not unpleasing! Sun loungers are placed around the pool with the fountains and there are plenty of bars within a few steps.

Our ship is hidden to the right behind the trees. The other ship in port was the Norwegian Dawn of NCL Cruises.

There was a series of small interconnected pools and this one offered dolphin encounters where tourists were lined against the wall and a dolphin approached each person in turn before turning and swimming on its side, waving a flipper to say "That's your lot!" We felt a bit sorry for the dolphins - the pools were only small and I suspect they may not get the chance to leave every night deciding whether or not to come back...

We came back with the inevitable fridge magnets and spent the afternoon as previously anticipated. Tomas and Maris did a half hour spot and then joined us for a bit at our table. Cor, this is the life... Shame it is only for a week!

Mexican Medley Cruise Index

Lusted Over in Cozumel, Mexico

Ah yes, it's not often that I can write a headline like that, so I'm making the most of it! Those details later however... We have to start this article at the start of the day, which is Thursday 12 February 2015 and it is only around 7:30am.

Since Tuesday night we have sailed across the Caribbean and wake up that morning in Cozumel, Mexico. It is not that long after dawn and the sun is still hiding behind the bank of cloud just above the horizon.

The first thing I had seen when drawing back the curtains from the cabin window had been the side of a large cruise ship and a lone man standing on a balcony waving at our ship. I resisted the urge to wave back and we had gone for breakfast and then grabbed the camera and came off the ship for a walk.

By the time we were getting towards the end of the pier it had become apparent that the other ship was several times the size of Thomson Dream. It was the Regal Princess and there was something distinctive about the passengers... Around 90% of them were men. And the few women were obviously er... together... The ship was evidently running a gay cruise!

As we neared the shore I noticed a mast and yards sticking up over a wall and we went to have a look at a sailing ship and instead found - a mast and yards... sitting on the dockside outside the Customs House!

The sea had a broken layer of brown seaweed floating on it that was being washed up in great quantities on the beach. A few cormorants were repeatedly diving into it, it probably had a great multitude of creatures living off it both below the surface...

...and above it. Smaller birds were walking over it, getting rich pickings of small crustaceans presumably.

As we walked alongside the beach, gangs of workers in blue with CADET emblazoned on their t-shirts were being marshalled along the Promenade, split into small groups and sent onto the beach to start bagging the seaweed, which we thought might be used for fertilizer, animal feed or even stuffing for furniture or car seats once dried. One such band filed past us and I found myself the object of unswerving eyes and a pursed mouth of appreciation. So obvious was she that I almost found myself bursting out laughing, but just nodded at her as we passed after which Fran did burst out laughing. It was only when the gangs were all deployed on the beach leaving a guard on each set of steps whose equipment included handcuffs and a side arm that we realised they were prison gangs or at least some sort of community service. Lusted over by a Mexican female prisoner... hey.. it's a start...

Blackpool has its Golden Mile of amusement arcades. Cozumel has diamond brokers. Cartier, DeBeers, etc. These shops had armed guards standing outside and a police patrol car was constantly on the strip, cruising up the length of the Promenade to turn and come back down before repeating the sequence over.

We came to a large attractive sculpture of a pair of reef divers swimming through an archway. We took each other's photos and an American voice asked "Would you take our photos if we took you together?" Two young men smiled at us and I took their camera and snapped a couple of shots at them, counting down from three to warn them when not to blink. They were from Maryland.

"It's nice here, but we are a bit wary of being mugged..." one said. For the second time I almost burst out laughing.

"I think you'll be alright along here," I pointed out. "Apart from all the armed guards outside all these shops, there's loads of prison guards up and down and there's also extra security people on this side!" One such of these latter, a huge chap in a white security uniform with a gun at his waist and a peaked cap on his head standing right behind Fran nodded eagerly at my words and smiled at the pair. "Anyone would need to have a death wish to try mugging someone along here I think!" I said and we left them, two young men from the country with the most appalling death rates from gun crime in the world, feeling nervous at being somewhere else...

The Promenade was not exactly full of features, but was attractive and had been designed deliberately to inject some fun into the setting for tourists. A series of bird caricatures punctuated planters with flowers and palm trees and we had a pleasant walk for a couple of hours. It was quite busy as we turned to go back as we were walking against a tide of our own passengers and groups of men holding hands or with linked arms and, I swear, with intertwined beards... Some looked like hillbillies, reminding me of that Sky series about the eccentric millionaire family Duck Dynasty... It was a source of amusement for the rest of the week how many times this ship cropped up in conversation and for the husband of the couple we were talking to say to his wife "There you are! I wasn't making it up!"...

We toyed with the idea of having a drink in a bar, but it was so hot and also lunch time so we made our way back onto the ship and to the open deck on Deck 11 where we spent much of the afternoon. We got showered and changed and then before heading down for a meal, caught Tomas and Maris's late afternoon set on Deck 10.

Cozumel had a different look than that of first thing this morning before the sun had come out properly! In the restaurant that night we had joined a random table but then recognised waiting staff from a previous cruise on the Celebration and we stayed with them for the rest of the week after that, sometimes at a shared table and sometimes at a table for two.

We again spent our evening in the Tides Bar, striking up conversations with people who came to sit with us and leave us as different shows elsewhere on the ship started and ended. Tomorrow, we'll be at Costa Maya, also in Mexico. Although there are some trips to the old pyramids of Mexico, these tend to be eleven hours long and Miss Franny is still recovering from being ill so we have left the guided tours for our final day when we'll have a look at some of the old plantation houses on Jamaica. This is to be a relaxing holiday and today has been a good start!

Mexican Medley Cruise Index

Joining our Dream Ship at Montego Bay

Tuesday 10 February 2015 was a long day. Twenty nine hours to be precise... We left home to travel to Manchester Airport in a taxi with one of those drivers who seem to steer in sudden panic swerves and were relieved to get there and join the queue to check in baggage. The online checking-in procedure made this very easy the first time we did it. Now that everyone does it, it somehow takes just as long as it used to anyway...

But the good news was that our bags would be picked up automatically and taken to the ship and our cabins so no mooching around the baggage conveyors when we got there.

We were flying on one of the Thomson Dreamliner Boeing 787s. They are carbon fibre not metal so much reduced weight means they fly a lot faster. I've read some stupid reviews of these aircraft that make me think some people would still manage to be unhappy if they were flown to the opposite side of the world in ten minutes on an alcohol drip, with semi-naked demigods/goddesses pandering to their every whim. The reality is there are two aisles, seats with a 3-3-3 configuration and the seats have more leg room than you would normally find. Not so much though that some prat playing yo-yos in front, reclining and straightening their seat every ten minutes isn't very annoying. Want to improve passenger experience? Easy - take that annoying button away from temptation, or make it operate the seat in front so they have to ask if you are eating or have the table in a position where it might jab you rudely in the solar plexus before they can lean back...

The seats have individual 9" VDU screens too for films/TV and games with plug and play facilities to listen to your own music or charge your bits. One of the best features of this is a repeating stream of information on the aircraft's speed, height and position along the flight path. When I say "repeating" though, it does have to repeat an awful lot of times on a 10-hour flight across the Atlantic! But watching the plane fly over various seamounts, fracture zones and abyssal plains that you've never heard of on the ocean floor is mildly diverting and watching the wind speed rise and fall as you enter and leave the jet stream is quite entertaining too.

There are two best things about this aeroplane. First is that the windows are massive compared to older airliners. Instead of a shutter they have a button which darkens the window progressively, using some sort of gel. Clever stuff. All we could see on the way over though was clouds. For ten hours...! The second is that the pressurisation is such that you get more oxygen into the blood and that, we were told and so indeed we found, drastically reduces the effects of jet-lag. I remember crossing the Atlantic in 1993 and being whacked out for a day and a half after both journeys. No such effect even when coping with the 5-hour difference in time.

And so we reached Jamaica and Montego Bay - "Whoa-oh-oh-oh....." On the transfer bus you are taught the correct pronunciation of the island's most popular saying "No problem, man..." with a refreshing lack of the stifling politically correct nonsense that means the rest of the world can call us "Brits" but if we dare to utter something similar someone (meaning "some Brit") will deem us being racist and slap us down.

We were proficient by the time we were dropped off at the cruise terminal and we trooped in with our little signed papers saying we were all healthy and hadn't coughed or sneezed for - ooh... weeks!

Once we had been checked by immigration and customs and checked in by the Thomson staff, we were able to join our home for the week - Thomson Dream. This photo was taken later in the week at Roatan, Honduras.

We were shown to our cabin, 6003, on Deck 6 and up near the pointy end. We found a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine waiting for us in a cooler, thanking us for being long-standing repeat cruisers. Honestly, it's a pleasure! And so was the wine!

We were excited about meeting up with our friends from the Philippines, Tomas and Maris, who sing as duo 2 Intense and were on the ship. We hadn't told them we were coming and were hoping to surprise them. Then during the compulsory safety drill that evening we spent most of it trying to be inconspicuous and turning away from the next lifeboat station where Tomas was helping out! I was sure he'd seen us but as he said later "You only see what you expect to see..." and we got away with it.

So we parked ourselves in front of the stage in the Tides Bar and waited. Maris walked past in the distance and we waved. She glanced round, walked on, stopped, came back, did a double take and rushed over. Result! So begins the week. Tomorrow will be a day at sea and I'll skip over that so the next entry will see us having crossed the Caribbean to Mexico where we will wake to watch us dock at Cozumel.

Mexican Medley Cruise Index

Wet London Wrap-Up

Wednesday 6 December 1995. Our final day in London and we awake to the sound of sleet hammering on the window. The TV news showed pictures of snowbound cars and we were thankful that we were to travel back to Blackpool by train later in the day!

Our 24-hour tour bus tickets are good until lunchtime so we hop on and ride down to Piccadilly where we jump off and walk a little way down the famous street. This is Fortnum and Mason, the famous purveyors of food to Royalty and Nobility. The original Fortnum had been a footman to King George III.

Piccadilly Arcade has bowed windows that are very narrow, this being a very difficult technique in glass-making for their day. If damaged I imagine they would be hideously expensive today also...

The Ritz, favourite for a spot of tea at the Ritz, you know! We were on a budget so we opted for a spot of tea at Manky Joe's...

At the far end of Piccadilly as you approach Park Lane, this is Green Park. It is so called because at one time deer were kept in an enclosure made of the upper park and at the time it was almost treeless. The deer cropped the grass so closely that the park was a great sward of green. We were trying to walk to Harrods, but the subway was closed and with a walk of half a mile in the wrong direction in order to cross the very busy road, we succumbed to the cold and got back on the bus! When we got to Harrods I was immediately pounced on by an officious little man in a top hat who pointed accusingly at the camera around my neck and snarled "You can't take photographs in here!" The lens cap was on and I wasn't showing any signs of wanting to eagerly snap away, so why so aggressive? I expect many of their customers, who would think nothing of spending hundreds of pounds on their dog's dinner, would be put off by hordes of flashbulbs going off, but sheesh it's just a shop... It must be shit being rich and having to keep thinking of ways to be obnoxious to people...

The gates to Downing Street. This short street is where the Prime Minister of England lives (at No. 10) and the Chancellor at No. 11. The gates were erected in 1990, to deny access to the public and terrorists. The IRA showed how effective they were a year later, when they lobbed mortar bombs from a parked van.

Once more from the bus and this is the Savoy Hotel. This short street is the only one in England where traffic drives on the right hand side of the road. This is to allow taxicab drivers to reach through their windows and open their passengers' door without having to leave their vehicle.

It looks beautiful and peaceful in films of Royal weddings and such occasions, yet Wren's Masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral sits facing Fleet Street, one of the busiest roads in the City. The view of a royal couple on the steps may be romantic, but they have an appallingly dirty and depressing view of a city street as they come out! This is our last photograph of the three days in London, though not the last one that I took. I took several photos inside St Paul's but the film was still in the camera at the end of the month when we were burgled just two days before Christmas. The camera, our NICAM VHS recorder (yes, I know - what the hell's that???) and a good deal of Fran's jewellery all went to make Christmas better for some unspeakable low-life scroat. Still, it gave us a reason to go again to retake some of those photos!

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Back On The Bus

Tuesday 5 December 1995. After coming out of the London Tower we went across the way and into a small shopping centre, at the back of which was a dark ride called the Tower Pageant. In this, a small circular car provides a moving platform round tableaux showing scenes from different periods in London's long history. The Romans were shown building their wooden docks, and once through the ride, an actual section of the 2000 year-old timbers is on view.

Then we hopped on another bus - though not an open air one this time and headed back towards Trafalgar Square. There were still open-topped buses going about but it was snowing, it was around minus eight degrees centigrade according to the signs and whilst we had thick coats on there's a limit to how stupid even I am...

We had just passed under the Cannon Street bridge and enjoyed a very loud and echoing siren from this fire engine that was in a bit of a rush. It reminded me that we had just passed the site of Pudding Lane, where the Great Fire of London started in 1666.

And so we came back to Trafalgar Square. We spent much of the day getting off the bus, having something to warm ourselves up - soup, apple pie and custard, and then getting back on a bus to repeat the process...

This was very new at the time - Planet Hollywood, a restaurant opened by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone. A film crew were walking backwards, filming a young girl speaking a commentary for a documentary. The cameraman kept backing into prams, tourists and bollards. In fact I'm sure I heard him exclaim "Bollards!" more than once...

And having gone up and around the corner we arrive back at Trafalgar Square! Nelson's Column commemorates England's Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, hero of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1806 against the French and Spanish combined fleet. He was struck by a sniper's bullet at the hour of his success on the deck of his flagship HMS Victory. The bullet is actually on display in Windsor Castle, or it used to be - we saw it there once. The column is tall enough for the statue to be able to see the sea. The Christmas Tree is an annual gift from Norway in gratitude for its liberation in World War Two.

St Martins-in-the-Fields. I described some of the church's history in the article on London's Great Squares so here I'll just limit myself to saying the church hosts many lunchtime concerts and does much work with the city's homeless population.

St James's Palace, the main royal residence at one time until Queen Victoria formally moved the Royal Household to Buckingham Palace, was built by Henry VIII. A nice (and true) story is of the visitor who went through the wrong door and fell down a staircase, knocking himself unconscious as he burst through another door at the bottom. When he came to, he found a stern little man bending over, applying sticking plaster to his head. It was none other than King George II and the man had fallen into the King's Sanctum! At the time of our visit the palace was the residence of Prince Charles who was at home that day as witness the two guards on duty. Only one would be on duty during his absence.

The Ritz - here, having tea would have cost around 30 pounds in 1995 and would consist of sandwiches, cakes and as much tea as you could drink. We'll come back to the Ritz later, and you can have a peep inside if you promise to behave...

The bus makes its way across the Thames giving a view across the water to the Houses of Parliament. By now the light is starting to fade.

After a brief dalliance over the river, we make our way back across Westminster Bridge and under the St Stephen's clock tower of "Big Ben".

By the time the bus had travelled back east to the Tower of London it became impossible to take photographs from the moving bus. We got off the bus to take some photographs of the floodlit building and bridge.

It was freezing cold and snowing hard - as can be seen in this flashlit shot of one of the cannons on the embankment. All those little white spots are snowflakes picked out by the flash!

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