Day 144: Grand Cayman

We have not had the best luck, weather-wise, in Grand Cayman this winter. The best weather we've had was on our first visit, when we accompanied Suzan and Greg to Seven Mile Beach. Once, the Georgetown port was closed and the Emerald Princess had to anchor off Spott's Bay (and I didn't even get off the ship). Today was cloudy and humid, but not too hot, and we had no other plans for the day other than purchasing some last minute souvenirs for the kids.

I slept fairly well, all things considered, and went with G to breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room (just toast with peanut butter today, and a decaf café Americano). We were not in a rush to get off this morning, and, apparently, neither were most people. Open tender was called around 8am (we had arrived at 7am). 

We went down to the Deck 3 tender platform carrying just some cash and a credit card. We tendered into a dock even north of the North Pier (the Carnival Glory was in port with us and tendered into the same pier). We walked along the main street to the right, along the waterfront, browsing all the T-shirt shops along the way. Nothing was hitting exactly the right note. 

Then G spotted a sign pointing to a customized hat shop down a street and behind a building. Intrigued, we walked down to check it out and hit pay dirt. T-shirts, monogrammed baseball caps...three times we walked out of the shop and thought of someone else to gift, and turned around and bought more. It was a successful stop. 

I wanted to have Awesome Ambrish embroidered on it but it wouldn't fit. And it might embarrass him. But mostly because it wouldn't fit. ;-)

It s a bit hard to read, but there was a glass floor in the shop over stone steps carved down to a freshwater pool that was the source of potable water in the 18th century

Walking back toward the tender pier, we saw a sign advertising conch fritters and turtle burgers. Intrigued by this, too, we walked down to the restaurant and ending up having lunch there. I've been jonesing for conch fritters since we missed Grand Turk last cruise, and G shocked me (I was gobsmacked!) by ordering and eating a turtle burger. (He liked it!). We went all out and ordered dessert, too, key lime pie for me (of course) and coconut cream pie for G. What we really hadn't realized is that the prices were in Cayman dollars which are worth more than US $ and, in the end, this was a lunch with a value on par with any we had in French Polynesia. Oh well. That was really the only entertainment we spent money on today. 

It rained lightly on and off the entire morning, and, by 2pm, we were taking a tender back to the Emerald Princess. We went to the cabin to deposit our purchases and ended up resting until sailaway. We were showered and dressed for the evening by 3:30pm, and went up to Skywalkers with drinks to watch as the sand bar that is Grand Cayman quickly disappeared into the distance for our last time this season. 

We stayed in Skywalkers long enough to have some nibbles when the PES Lounge was set up at 5pm, and then went to dinner in the Michelangelo Dining Room around 5:30pm. Dinner was hit and miss for us tonight, only because we are trying some things that are different from what we usually order. We both started with beef satays (yummy), then I tried the plantain chips and returned them. Not good. I ordered the turkey pot pie for my entree (comfort food sounded good tonight), but G got really brave and tried the Curtis Stone flank steak on the always available menu.  His review?  "There is no end to the chewing until I finally get bored and swallow it", which had me falling off my chair with laughter. 'There is no end to the chewing' might be good for gum, but it is definitely not good for a Curtis Stone dish and is not likely to entice people to try his speciality restaurant. 

Princess really needs to work on those three always available Curtis Stone dishes. Between us, we've tried all three and didn't like any of them. Bring back the salmon, please!!

I was started to fade fast, but we sat in the Piazza and listened to new pianist Monika Rosca. Ryszard Sulek went home last turnaround, and Monika's musical style is totally different. She plays the light, quick tempoed classical music that I love to play (though she plays it much, much, much, much better) and I could listen to her forever. G is not as much a fan and misses Ryszard's more popular music. Is it any wonder that entertainment is a subjective thing when even two pianists have different appeal?

G is in the Princess Theater listening to comedian Eric Lyden. Even if I was feeling 100%, I could not be convinced to sit though his show again, but, feeling as I do gave me a very good excuse for missing it. Hopefully, things will come together to allow us to enjoy a sunny day on the beach in Mahogany Bay, Roatan, tomorrow.  

Day 123: Grand Cayman

Our scheduled arrival time in Grand Cayman today was at 7am, and shortly before then we were awakened by the familiar ding-dong of an announcement coming into our cabin. Even in our half-sleep, when we heard Captain Forteeze's voice asking for our attention, we knew something was up. Sure enough...the Port Authority had closed the port of Georgetown on the west coast of Grand Cayman, the location where ships' tenders usually dock. Instead, the Emerald Princess was being re-routed to anchor off of Spott's Bay, on the southern coast of the island.

This was a new one for us. G quickly tuned the TV to the 'front of the ship' channel and I grabbed my iPad to see, on the Grand Cayman map I'd downloaded using the Maps.me app, just where Spott's Bay was. The webcam showed weather that looked grey, but we didn't see any raindrops on the camera lens.  As we had no firm plans for the day, the port change didn't really bother us. 

We usually tender into Georgetown (follow the finger). Today we tendered into Spott's Bay; where the blue arrow is. 

Fully awake by then, we took quick showers (that felt sooo good after yesterday) and went to breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room. Getting food for yesterday's breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet had reminded me of one of my favorite breakfasts at home, peanut butter on toast, and I ordered it for breakfast today after a bowl of orange segments. (Except at home I eat peanut butter toast made into a sandwich with lots of iceberg lettuce layered in it, thanks to Dad, but I didn't feel confident that I'd be able to convey the 'iceberg' part of the lettuce to Thai waiter Worwut and so just stopped at the peanut butter and toast). 

Naturally, our discussion turned to yesterday's game and I can promise you that the 'morning after' felt a lot better this time than it did two years ago. I so clearly remember Darko (yes, that one) the day after the Broncos humiliating defeat, spotting me from the other side of the Horizon Court Buffet, crossing over through the galley and hugging me, telling me "We will never speak of this again". Gosh darn it, I wish Darko was here right now, so we could speak of this, instead. 

Meanwhile, G has stopped by the Passenger Services Desk on the way to breakfast, getting a copy of our onboard spending statement, and handed it to me when I arrived, saying something didn't look right. Well, it certainly didn't, by a significant amount, and when we returned to our cabin after breakfast, G took a stab at reconciling what it said today back to what it said two days ago, on turnaround day. His Accounting background failed him, and he handed it over to me. 

Now this is just NOT what one wants to do on a cruise, but we also didn't want to wait until the last day of this cruise, on Wednesday, to be dealing with it, either. The last day of a cruise and the first day of the next cruise are notoriously busy days at the Passenger Services Desk. With the next cruise being only four days long, this really couldn't wait. 

That is how I found myself also trying to figure out our statement, and also getting nowhere. The funny thing is that the way the on board statements are reported have changed for back to back cruises. Instead of each cruise standing on its own, with just the balance carried forward from one cruise to the next, every statement we see goes back to when we boarded on January 4. When the statement at the end of the second cruise was delivered to our room on turnaround day morning, January 18, and I saw that it went back to the beginning, I almost tossed the statement we'd received at the end of the first cruise. Something in my accountant's mind told me not to, and that made all the difference today. 

Finally today, in my attempts to reconcile, I went back to January 4, and ticked off every spending item for both of us, day by day. Shockingly, $206 in credits from the first two cruises had disappeared all together, and a postdated charge from last cruise had been applied erroneously. The discrepancy is not small, and it's very confusing to explain.

While I was ticking and tying, G decided to get out of my hair (his words) and take a tender to shore just to see what was there so we could make some plans for the rest of the day. When I had figured out what the errors were, I took advantage of most passengers being in port and went down to the PSD to present my case. (It's still being researched). I returned to the cabin, and shortly thereafter G also returned, looking a bit green. This was different; he's never gotten seasick before.  He said that people had actually gotten sick on the tender to shore and he had gotten queasy on the way back. When I asked if we would be going over again later, he flatly declined. 

It must have been really, really bad. 

In fact, it was so bad that most (all?) of the water excursions for the day had been cancelled. Though it never rained hard, it did occasionally mist a little. But I think the wind and the swells are what really caused the issues. 

So this turned into a sea day for me, a not unwelcome one at all. We went to lunch in the Horizon Court Buffet, and decided to use a hot tub afterward, but when we returned to the cabin to change for it, G quickly fell asleep. With some time on my hands, I pulled the box of hair color out from my roll aboard suitcase under the bed (aka the toiletries storage closet) and went to work taking care of that task.

I'm actually quite proud of how well I'm handling that these days, in a tiny cruise ship bathroom.  I tuck the shower curtain behind the shower head to get it out of the way, remove the bath towels from their rack (because both of these things would get colored if I didn't), then, after the color is applied, sit on the toilet lid reading a book on my iPad for 30 minutes. Easy peasy. When I am done rinsing off the color in the shower, if my hair is Dark Blonde (Golden) while the shower curtain and towels are still white, I know it was a successful effort.  And today it was.  

G was stirring by the time I'd finished, and decided to fit in a trip to a hot tub after all, while I took the time to get ready for the evening. As I was later waiting for him to do the same, I caught most of the Super Bowl post game show and the awarding of the Lombardi trophy on ESPN. If I'd had DVR capability, I'd still be sitting here watching it, over and over and over again. 

We are so spoiled at dinner by Victor and Darko (not that one). G took the last sip of his Coke and within five seconds it was removed and a fresh glass set in front of him. I would worry about how we'll transition to being home, but this is not our first year of extended cruising. We'll cope. It won't be pretty, and the first week will be downright ugly. But we'll cope. 

We ate lightly, and quickly; because this cruise's MTP cocktail party was held at 7pm in the Adagio Lounge (cutoff was 318 days). They serve such nice hors doerves at these parties, but, having just come from dinner, it was easy to say 'no thank you'...at least until the dessert items were offered. We sat with Bob and Candy, and Phyllis, along with Chief Roddy and had a fun time chatting until the others had to leave for dinner. Bob, Candy and Phyllis all leave next turnaround day; Chief Roddy goes on vacation the turnaround after that. I think we're going to have some lonely days in our future. We will miss them!

G stayed in Adagio a bit longer to listen to Ryszard Sulek play the piano, but I returned to the cabin to attend to evening ablutions. I love it when I can get those done before G returns. I am not unlike the Bill Pullman character in the movie Sleepless in Seattle, creating an entire concert of brushing and water pik-ing and sniffing and snorting and inhaling and gargling until I'm finally ready for bed. As I've said before, at home we live the way God intended couples to live, with separate bathrooms, and G is spared the details of this nighttime routine. It's better that way. 

We skipped all entertainment tonight (comedian Carl Banks performed twice in the Princess Theater), as we did last night (production show Magic To Do). I now have the entire final season of Downton Abbey on my iPhone, and several new books to read. After spending almost 16 hours on a pool deck yesterday, some down time in the cabin is just what I need. 

Day 109: Grand Cayman

We were moving a little slowly this morning. I guess sitting in a lounger by the Calypso Pool for over four hours followed by eight hours of football spectatorship does take a toll. But let me say right now that this is not my first rodeo, even on the Emerald Princess, and we all remember how that one ended.  I am not going to get excited over the next two weeks about Super Bowl 50. In fact, I will not speak of this again over the next 13 days. Heck, I won't even think about it. And, hopefully, my left eyelid, the one that's been twitching since Q3 of last week's Broncos v. Steelers game, will get the idea that Super Bowl 50 is no big deal and calm down. 

Hopefully. 

It was nice this morning to return to a more normal schedule and go to breakfast together in the DaVinci Dining Room. Our plans for the day were simple:  to buy two Grand Cayman T-shirts (size Adult Small) and to take a long walk along the George Town, Grand Cayman waterfront in the opposite direction of Seven Mile Beach. It had been years since we'd been down that way, and even then it was by mini-speedboat on a Princess excursion. 

I don't know how many times we've been on Grand Cayman over the years (certainly fewer than we've been on St. Thomas), but I bet it's somewhere between 15 and 20 times. Our first visits were spent doing the typical Grand Cayman excursions:  swimming with stingrays at Stingray City, snorkeling Coral Gardens and a shipwreck, diving the Cayman wall and a shipwreck, shore diving on our own off of Eden Rock Dive Center, visiting the town of Hell, and riding mini speedboats around the southwestern side of this oddly shaped island. Like most islands we visit on these itineraries, spending a day on a beach didn't come until all other tourist options had been exhausted. 

But today was not the beautiful beach day we'd had here just over a week ago (it feels like months ago). There was no sun to speak of until we were sailing away from the island (typical), it was windy and it was chilly. In fact, we heard later that all excursions to Stingray City had been cancelled due to the wind. However, those things made it a great day for a long walk. 

We tendered into shore (only the 300 passengers Silversea Silver Wind was in port with us today...lucky us!) and first spent a little time looking for T-shirts. We were told by the taxi drivers trying to talk us into a ride to the beach that all the shops would be closed today due to a national holiday but were savvy enough to ignore them. It was a national holiday, National Heroes Day, but the shops were still open. And we were lucky enough to see a five minute parade complete with a marching band and participants marching in smart British-influenced uniforms. 

Our shopping completed, we started walking south along either side of the road bordering the waterfront, whichever had a sidewalk, until we ran out of sidewalk altogether. We had picked up a map of the island and decided that a beach called Smith Barcadere on the very southwestern edge of Grand Cayman was our intended goal. It was probably close to a two mile walk from the tender pier in George Town and Smith Barcadere turned out to be a less crowded, though less picturesque alternative to Seven Mile Beach. I think it's where the locals go when they want a beach day.  Another plus:  it appeared to have some decent snorkeling, too. 

We turned around and retraced our steps back to town. We stopped at a cigar bar and watched as a Cuban man hand rolled cigars. (It reminded us instantly of that Seinfeld episode). He was 77 years old and had been doing this for 60 years, using wooden forms and presses that are irreplaceable. 

It was shortly after 2:30pm when we returned to the ship. We had lunch in the Horizon Court Buffet (what is that, now?  Meal #4 since we've been on the Emerald Princess this season?). I made a huge salad from the salad bar and also brought back two pieces of a fluffy cake called strawberry shortcake. I figured I'd have one, and G could have the other. Well, by the time I finished my Big Salad (more Seinfeld memories). G had finished off both pieces of cake. I went back to the buffet for another, and they were gone; I took that as a certain sign that I was not supposed to have dessert at lunch. ;-)

We spent some time in the hot tub on the back of Deck 17, and I ran around in circles in the Splash Pool for awhile, and we watched as we sailed away from Grand Cayman around 4pm. Shortly afterward, Captain Forteeze made an announcement warning us about the Zika virus in Honduras, our port tomorrow, and its dangers especially for pregnant women or women planning to become pregnant (I guess that leaves me out). Hey, we faced down chikengunya in French Polynesia; we aren't scared (but will douse ourselves with DEET anyway). 

We napped for a few minutes (me too!) before going to dinner about 5:30pm. I wasn't too hungry after that big salad just a few hours earlier, but had gazpacho and Szechuan shrimp followed by a Norman Love white chocolate cheesecake for dessert. That certainly was a nice payback for my stolen strawberry shortcake at lunch!  We skipped all entertainment tonight, choosing instead to watch a Tom Cruise movie (probably Mission Impossible 22) and read in the cabin. The ship is nice and stable tonight, and I think I'll be asleep early, with visions of football dancing in my head. 

Whoops, sorry! That was the last time. Promise!

An aside:  I used a lot of Internet minutes yesterday texting friends during those...sporting events that I spent all day watching, and will have to seriously limit photo uploads for the rest of this cruise. I'll upload just one today, my Norman Love white chocolate cheesecake dessert. I mean, Grand Cayman was nice, but white chocolate cheesecake is even better. :-)

Day 100(!): Grand Cayman

Sleep was a bit rough last night, at least in the early hours, when we had a momentarily exciting evening after I published my blog post. We were both asleep when we heard a single beep over the PA system at 11:22pm. That woke us up a little, but less than a minute later when Captain Forteeze came on and said there was a fire in the incendiary room (which left me perplexed. Isn't that what incendiary rooms are for?) and called the crew to their emergency stations, we really sat up and took notice. G put on some shorts and peeked out of our cabin door to see cabin steward Awesome Ambrish already standing in the hall, wearing his life vest over his jeans and hooded sweatshirt. I asked G if he thought I should get dressed and put in my contacts and his response was, "I kinda think you should". 

So I did. 

Captain Forteeze kept us well informed every few minutes about what was going on down on the ship's lower decks. The fire response team was dispatched. They reported there was a fire but no smoke. They put out the fire. And at 11:52pm, Captain Fabreeze told the crew to stand down. We waved goodbye and goodnight to Awesome Ambrish, and by the time I took out my contacts, G was already asleep. Oh, to be that lucky! I had been awakened in those critical early minutes of sleep when I don't easily fall back asleep. Instead, I read. And read. And read. 

Of course, I did eventually fall back asleep, but when the alarm went off this morning, I made repeated use of the snooze button. G got up and went to breakfast, but between my need for sleep and the fact that I was still full from last night's fantastic dinner in the Crown Grill, I decided to skip it today. Instead we met up with Suzan and Greg in the International Cafe at 9am and went down to Deck 3 to board a tender for the short ride to the town of George Town on Grand Cayman. 

Sunrise over Grand Cayman as seen on the ship's webcam

The weather was picture perfect. bright sun in a clear blue sky, so we immediately caught a taxi ($5pp) to the area around Calico Jack's beach bar on Grand Cayman's famous Seven Mile Beach. The beach is not wide, and it's very sloped, but the sand is like powdered sugar and the water was clear and blue. We rented chairs for $5 each and wasted no time getting in the water (82F!!).

Suzan and G floating...and talking

It's a narrow beach, but a nice one

We spent hours alternating between floating, swimming against the strong current, playing in the waves and sitting in our chairs, and after Suzan and Greg left around 2pm to do some shopping in town, I actually fell asleep sitting up in my lounge chair, lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves. 

I fell asleep sitting up in a chair. In public. I guess I was tired.

Around 3pm, G and I packed up and took a taxi (actually, a small bus, packed to the roof) back to the tender pier. While I returned to our cabin and quickly showered, G was a star and went up to the Calypso Pool area to find us seats for tonight's divisional playoff games. Two more seats freed up one deck below us, so the guys sat down there and Suzan and I happily sat and chatted while watching the Chiefs v. Patriots (we were all cheering for the Chiefs, and found the large number of very vocal Patriots fans slightly annoying). 

Meanwhile, we grazed in the Horizon Court Buffet, eating chips and salsa and guacamole followed by ice cream.  And spicy shrimp. And pavlova for dessert (that was a mistake after the spicy shrimp).  Any admirable eating habits go to hell in a hand basket as soon as there's football. (It's the same at home, too.) We also went a long way to clearing out our growing pile of minibar items. In fact, I learned that gin is really wonderful with lemonade on a hot day. Two of them are even better. ;-)

By the time the Cardinals vs. Packers game began, the area around the Calypso Pool had cleared out quite a bit. During both games, the housekeeping and deck departments kept all the dishes, glasses and trash that always accumulates when there are that many people gathered in one spot perfectly picked up. Really, I've never seen it so neat during these games. We were all very impressed (and appreciative). 

The weather remained perfect right to the end of the second game, making it a wonderful night for football. I left after the Green Bay TD, thinking the game was over, but turned on ESPN on our cabin TV for the post-game commentary only to find out that the game went into OT and the Cardinals won. Woohoo!  

And I keep forgetting to mention the quality of the new MUTS screen that was installed during the Emerald Princess' recent dry dock. It's amazing, and provides an excellent picture even in bright sunlight. After dark it's quite impressive.  I was really looking forward to watching the Broncos game on it tomorrow. However, tonight we received the devastating (really, that's the only word for it) news that tomorrow's Broncos game will not be shown on the MUTS screen, but in Club Fusion with its tiny TV screens, and in the Deck 6 conference room with its tiny TV screens (and about 30 chairs) and in the casino with its tiny TV screens (and with smoking), just to have a stupid movie shown twice, once at 7pm and once at 10pm. Seriously????? A stupid, stupid, stupid movie??

:-(

Day 9: Grand Cayman

Prepared Wednesday evening, November 6th

It felt so good to finally get online today in Grand Cayman!  I was thrilled to see that I had only 50 emails to attend to...until G pointed out to me that my iPhone settings likely limited them to just the most recent 50 emails and I had probably received a lot more than that since Sunday afternoon when we left cell service behind when leaving Port Everglades.

He was right.  :-(

Never the less, we were able to once again feel on top of everything in our non-cruise lives, a good, albeit too fleeting feeling. And it's worth noting that our non-cruise lives already feel a world apart from our new, cruise lives.  That didn't take long, did it?

Backing up...

We have visited Grand Cayman several times before, always by cruise ship.  In early 2005, when the island was reeling in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, we visited several times in quick succession, and were able to see the horrible devastation the hurricane had caused. Boats were being plowed off the main street; cars lifted out of the ocean; both the eastern and western ends of the island were without power for months afterwards. Grand Cayman is nothing more than a sandbar in the middle of the Caribbean, flat as a pancake and narrow enough to see across from the ship's upper decks. After the hurricane, there was no where to house the construction workers brought on island to clean up. We had seen barge after barge of camping trailers brought in for workers to live in; the barges then left the island full of debris. We received a real education in the reality of life on a small Caribbean island.

G was awake early this morning and in the buffet for breakfast by 7am. I took advantage of his absence to stretch across the entire bed and sleep a bit longer. He returned to the cabin about the same time I heard the cruise director make an announcement that today's tender operations were underway.  Grand Cayman, despite being a popular cruise stop, does not have a pier large enough to accommodate a cruise ship, and tendering is required. Without the priority tendering that we have as an Elite perk on Princess, we would have had to wait in the Queen's Lounge for a tender ticket, which apportion passengers to each tender. That held little allure this morning, and gave me a chance to grab breakfast in the Lido buffet. By the time I was finished, the cruise director Dave was announcing open tender, and we quickly grabbed our wetsuit/dive skin and the dive gear we had brought from home and tendered into the little town of Georgetown, Grand Cayman. There were two other cruise ships also tendering today, the Carnival Conquest and Disney Wonder, but they were tendering to the new cruise dock. The Nieuw Amsterdam was tendering to the old cruise dock, which was lucky for us, because we were on a mission today, and that put us just a bit closer to our intended destination.

When we were in Grand Cayman several years ago, we had done some diving right from shore, gearing up at a dive operation called Eden Rock, a quick walk from the tender pier.  We had had such a great time that we wanted to repeat that today. It's one of the few places in the Caribbean (Bonaire being another, and Coki Beach on St. Thomas a third) where we can dive from shore, by ourselves, without using a dive master.

It's also a great way to do a refresher dive, getting us back in the habit of assembling our dive gear. While it quickly becomes second nature, we did have to think for a moment, connecting our BCDs (buoyancy compensating devices-  those "vests" that divers wear that support the air tank and manage buoyancy under water) and regulators (the hose/computer part) to the air tanks. Wearing 40 pounds of air tank and 16 pounds of weights (this is fun?) we climbed down the ladder in front of the Eden Rock into the water for our first dive in two years and our first taste of salt water this winter.

The nice thing about diving alone is that it allows us to go at our own pace and forces us to remember the basics of diving (especially navigation...you can't exactly ascend from 60 ft. just to stick your head above the water to see where you are), instead of mindlessly following the dive master.  We spent most of our dive at about 50-60 ft, a comfortable depth on our own. The water was so clear that it was difficult to differentiate between water and air, and when a huge eagle ray swam over us, it took us a second to realize that it wasn't a large bird. No photos, though. My Lifeproof iPhone case is only waterproof to 2 meters and had been left behind on the ship.

We did just a one tank dive, and then tendered back to the ship to get cleaned up for lunch. We were starved, which being in the water always does to us. G was ready first, and we planned to meet up in the buffet. When I joined him, he said he had a surprise in store. He led me up to specialty Asian restaurant Tamarind on Deck 11. They were open for lunch today, and he was able to get us a table. What a treat!  The setting, the food (Asian salad, hot and sour soup, four different kinds of dim sum, tempura seafood and, for me, green tea tiramisu for dessert) were all spectacular. I chose the suggested wine, called Conundrum, and by 2pm decided that this had to be the best day of our winter so far.

We tendered back over to the island with our iPhones, simply to find Wifi, and did, at a bar called The Blue Parrot on the other cruise tender dock. I was able to get a quick Vonage call of questionable quality out to Mom, work through 50+ emails and publish the blog posts I've been preparing each night. G checked on the webcams and Nest thermostat (so far so good on that). We were on the final tender back to the Nieuw Amsterdam at 3.30pm, and went out to the aft pool for a sail away party with unlimited rum cake (a Grand Cayman tradition).  HAL does a lot of little extra things like that to recognize the day's port of call. It's a very nice touch!

There was no way we could eat a full dinner tonight. We relaxed on our balcony until about 7pm, when we went up to the Lido buffet for salads and dessert ('cause there's always room for Wildberry Charlotte!). Have I mentioned how incredible the food has been?  When we were at the sail away party, we sat with a couple who does a lot of Princess and Celebrity cruises, but this is their first HAL cruise. Their first comment?  "This is the best food we've ever had on a cruise!" With nearly 70 cruises, it's hard for us to say that with certainty, but this is definitely in the top 5.  If we spent a winter on the Nieuw Amsterdam, the variety and quality of food would have us soon outgrowing our clothes.

We went to the 8pm show, called Piano Legends. Five musicians plus a guest pianist played music from Beethoven to Lady Gaga. I guess it's obvious that our favorite sort of entertainment is musical in nature, and this cruise has had a plethora of offerings that appeal.  Eclectic music performed by talented musicians...we'll always be in the audience for that!

We move clocks back an hour today, and have a 10am arrival tomorrow into Cozumel. We have actually booked a ship's excursion (!!!!) and so are hoping for some sun (pretty please!).

Photos 1-6:  lunch at Tamarind restaurant on the Nieuw Amsterdam

Photo 7:  tonight's towel animal