Cruise #6: 5-nights to the Western Caribbean

Day 120: At sea

Our sunny and warm weather continued most of today, and we did a good job of dividing our time to be both inside and on the open decks. I awoke feeling slightly less sneezy, but still hoarse and raspy. Since it's most likely a cold, and has not moved moved into my lungs, I'm just going to let it run its course while I recover in the cocoon of care that is the Emerald Princess.

We went to breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room around 8am. G is eating what he calls his 'healthy' breakfast these days:  a huge fruit plate...and a pastry or two. ;-) Since I knew I'd be having a nice lunch just a few hours later, I had orange segments and cereal topped with strawberries. Our junior waiter today was the gorgeous and oh so sweet Marcella from Mexico, who was also on the Pacific Princess just a few months ago.

G's fruit plate...

...which cancels out this. Right? ;-)

We left breakfast and strolled out on the Promenade Deck, where we made the full loop around the ship a few times and then stopped, first at the very front of the ship on Deck 8, and then on Deck 7, watching as the ship's bow churned the water into what looked like whipped frosting. Honestly, I could sit and watch that all day long. 

The front of the promenade on Deck 8, reason #4 we're not on the Royal or Regal. 

But I had things I wanted to get done today, and we returned to the cabin for our morning pill taking activity and then, after G left to go to through the galley on the tour that follows the culinary show in the Princess Theater, I pulled out the nail polish removal pads (thank you, Jane!) and gave myself a little manicure and then simply touched up my Sally Hansen nail strips in Rock Star on my toes, applied a month ago, with a new clear top coat. That stuff wears. like. iron.  I followed that up by doing the hand laundry I'd been neglecting lately and hung it up to dry. It's funny...I don't mind Awesome Ambrish seeing bras drying on our stretchable travel clothesline, but I am considerably more shy when it come to the room service waiter who delivers our minibar on turnaround day tomorrow. These will be dry and stored away by then. 

The day was so pretty that I plugged in my ear buds (the audiobook about Rosemary Kennedy was going to *poof* off my phone tomorrow so I needed to get that finished) and plopped a Tilley on my head and went up to the jogging track on Deck 19 to walk until lunch. Mom is now walking .5 miles three times daily around her senior living facility and, darn, I need to keep up! (Go Mom!!!)

G and I met up again for lunch in the DaVinci Dining Room and I was feeling so righteous about my healthy breakfast and morning walk that I simply had a salad with orange segments and almonds topped with chicken breast...and tea with honey and lemon. I still need that occasionally to lose the Bette Davis voice. G was totally not on board with this 'healthy eating' thing at lunch and had a chimichanga and salad and tuna melt sandwich and two different kinds of ice cream, which means that I sat and watched him eat for a long, long time. 

A big salad for lunch

We squeezed in a hot tub visit and some water jogging for me (in my fav little pool which, by this point in the cruise has been totally discovered so I had to share). I was ready for the steam room by then, but G went to the Grapevine Wine Tasting at 3pm. We both squeezed in some downtime afterwards (with me continuing to power through my audiobook until the end. What a heartbreaking story!) and G napping. 

Actually, as I type all this it sounds like our day was so unexciting, but, honestly, it was our favorite way to spend a sea day. 

We kept dinner simple tonight:  G had just the New York strip steak (for two cruises in a row he says it's been the best beef of the cruise) and I had the tamarind salmon and a glass of wine. We had just dark cherry sorbet for dessert, but I've already followed that up with the red velvet cheesecake from the Horizon Court Buffet (Suzan, I wish I could send you a slice via text!). After dinner, we sat in the Piazza for awhile and listened to the music of Strings and Steel and then stayed for the short performance by Danny D'Oscar. He twirls and balances three differently shaped metal frames and it was a beautiful thing to watch. We even had a seat right in front, so I was able to take pics. 

Speaking of pics, we'll be in Fort Lauderdale in just 12 hours, so I will wait until then to upload a few photos from today. I'm still being miserly with my internet minutes on the ship because of a certain sporting event taking place in just 48 hours that might require me to use a LOT of minutes for texting. Hopefully, I'll be sending lots of :-)s, and not too many :-(s. 

Oh man...I've managed to put that out of my mind for most of this week.  Must. hang. on. just. two. more. days!!!!!!

And, finally, I ran into a couple in an elevator today who told me they had been reading my blog and, as a result, they were very excited about this, their first Princess cruise. Sadly, they've been less than impressed, and told me why. I was sorry to hear that, but, while I always try to be honest with my impressions of a cruise, I do not put others' opinions in my blog if I haven't had the same experience. I have frequently said that this is just my diary; it's not a travel review. 

With a few exceptions (most of them simply related to our transition from the little Pacific Princess to this much larger ship), we've been very satisfied with our cruise experience. It helps a great deal that the people who have the most impact on our cruise- our cabin steward, waitstaff and headwaiter- have all provided excellent service. The bar service has been sketchy with a few standouts, a photographer irritated me so much this week that I actually filed a complaint, there are not enough pool towels for them to be placed in our cabin at night, requiring us to go to the pool area in the morning to get them for our beach excursions, and I dislike the Curtis Stone always available items as much as anyone. These will not be our best cruises ever, but, let's face it, after 100+ cruises, not every one can be. However, we are having such a great time that we've added one more cruise in this series since we've been on the ship, and that really is most credible recommendation of all. 

But that has also left us with a dilemma...do we follow the Emerald Princess to Australia next year, cruise the Mediterranean on the Pacific Princess, cruise in the Caribbean or do something else entirely?  There simply aren't any bad options. 

Life is good. :-)

Day 119: Grand Turk

I actually woke up naturally at 6:15 this morning, and then quickly fell back sleep until 8:30am. Drinking too much and finishing dinner at 10pm is not a great recipe for making it to a 7am stretch class. Luckily, there is always another day...or at least a few more another days for us on the Emerald Princess.

It was actually quite nice to wake up, slowly and quietly get cleaned up for the day (G was still sleeping) and then lay back down and read until he started stirring. If I had been hungrier, I would have taken my iPad and read in the Horizon Court Buffet or the International Cafe, but I was not even the least bit hungry.  Ugh. I do not like feeling that sluggish when I wake up!  By 10am I was feeling the need for a cup of coffee, not the caffeine part, of course, as I have been caffeine-free since 1987, but the smell and taste of even decaf coffee goes a long way toward launching me into the day, whether it's at 6am or 10am.

The International Cafe was packed, but they do have a really good system of ordering specialty coffees on the Emerald Princess and, even with a wait today, it worked perfectly. There is a roped off queue where one waits to place an order, and then once it is ready, the passenger's name is called. 

Of course, you can still do what G does, which is take a seat and look fairly helpless until some lovely young lady comes, takes his order and delivers it to him with a smile. That won't work for him at home!  Oh sure, he has the helpless thing down pat, but I am not particularly lovely and definitely not young and sometimes not even all that inclined to smile at a helpless-appearing husband first thing in the morning. 

Once my coffee was ready (a salted caramel strata cappuccino, which, along with the vanilla bean cappuccino has become a favorite), I sat in the Vines area where it was a bit less busy and drank my coffee and read and listened to Strings and Steel play some great Motown hits in the Piazza. The plan was that I would return to the cabin to collect G at 11:50am, so we could go to lunch together in the DaVinci Dining Room. 

Meanwhile, Captain Forteeze made another announcement. Ruh-roh. I am starting to cringe when I hear his voice at unexpected times. Today's bit of unfortunate news was the propulsion system was still not working correctly, and, as a result, the Emerald Princess had to travel more slowly from St. Thomas yesterday to Grand Turk today. Instead of arriving at 1pm, we were now going to arrive at 2:30pm. 

Well...shoot. Again. 

But G and I had even more time now for a leisurely lunch. I was feeling the need to be very good today, and had just gazpacho and a chef's salad, less the ham and half the cheese. After the congestion in the international Cafe, it was nice to dine in relative peace in the dining room. I don't think most passengers realized it was open today. On port days, scheduled late arrivals and early departures usually mean it is. 

Our only firm plan for today was to, along with Andy, meet Phyllis in the Piazza and walk off the ship with her to give her some encouragement to purchase a piece of artwork she had seen in a gallery in the shopping area at the Grand Turk Cruise Center. We all walked off together about 3pm, at the tail end of the long line of passengers waiting to go ashore. The artwork was gorgeous, and it took no effort at all to urge Phyllis to make the purchase. Besides, helping others spend money is one of my favorite things to do!

By then it was nearly 4pm; an already short port day had gotten considerably shorter because of our late arrival. On board time was 6:30pm, but it was also formal night, and our assigned dining time is 5:30pm. We hadn't dressed for the beach, and instead hired a taxi to give us an island tour for $20pp. In all the times we'd been to Grand Turk, we had never ventured much further than the area surrounding the cruise ship pier. 

Driver Tony took us first to the only tiny town on this tiny island, Cockburn Town. On the way, he told us a little about the Turks and Caicos Islands. Part of the British Commonwealth, they drive on the left side of the road...not that it really matters. Most of the roads are single lane anyway. There are 40 islands in the Turks and Caicos, and only ten are inhabited. Grand Turk has 5000 inhabitants and Cockburn Town is the capital of the island nation. We saw the old jail, and the Prime Minster's house (The Yellow House). Aside from a few governmental buildings, Cockburn Town was mostly a collection of tiny souvenir shops. 

Grand Turk seems like quite an enigma. First, Tony said there are two cruise ships docked at the island every day in the winter, and at least two a week all summer. Every passenger pays $30 in port charges to visit the island. Conservatively, that's $150000 in revenue every winter day. There are no taxes in Turks and Caicos (income, sales or property) and land is free for citizens. Healthcare costs $10pp per month, and a college degree from any college in the world is free...with the stipulation that, upon graduation, each student returns to the island to work for six years. Most residents have bachelor and masters degrees. There were many beautiful homes with incredible views of either the Atlantic Ocean or the Caribbean Sea, since the island is only 6 sq. miles. It sounds like utopia, right?

But there are still issues. Most crime (requiring the building of a larger jail) is drug related or a result of illegal immigration from Haiti or the Dominican Republic. Hispaniola is only 20 miles away, and illegal immigrants arrive easily by boat. And just last weekend, three teenagers sent fire to the island's only high school, causing considerable damage and leaving it unusable for the near future. The roads are in deplorable shape for an island with so much tourist revenue. But it certainly is a pretty place with gorgeous beaches. 

An island tour of Grand Turk doesn't take long. We stopped at Pillory Beach and the lighthouse on the northern end of the island and then Governours Beach just north of the cruise ship pier. We saw the international airport and the monument to John Glenn, who landed in the ocean near Grand Turk after his first orbit of the earth and was debriefed at the (then) US military base on the island. The military base is now the local community college. 

Pillory Beach

G's pet du jour

The free home sites (for citizens) on the beautiful Atlantic coast 

Gorgeous- and nearly deserted, even with two cruise ships in port- Governours Beach

We returned to the pier about 5:20pm...and made it to dinner at our table in the Michelangelo Dining Room at 5:45pm. We flew onto the ship and dressed not at all formally (which means we fit in with most of the few passengers who chose to eat in the dining room). I ordered my last bottle of wine from the 12-bottle wine package I had purchased exactly one month ago today, when we first boarded the Emerald Princess. Of course, I have three open bottles and one more in our cabin, so you can tell that, while I really enjoy wine with dinner, I usually have just one or two glasses. 

We finished dinner just as the Emerald Princess pushed away from the pier about 7pm, and went up to Skywalkers to watch sailaway, although it was pretty dark by then. The Carnival Valor was still docked, but I think they were sailing right after we did. I am a bit sniffly tonight, and am tucked into bed early, well medicated with Sudafed and guafinisan.  Magic to Do is the major entertainment tonight, and I know I'll be seeing that again soon!

Speaking of entertainment, a passenger contest called The Voice of the Ocean has arrived on the Emerald Princess this cruise. Now, do I even have to mention that this kind of entertainment is not our favorite?  We must be the only people in the US who don't watch those sort of competition shows on TV; we certainly aren't going to watch them on a cruise. It was harious; in the Welcome Aboard show on the first day of this cruise, a promotional video for The Voice of the Ocean was shown, lots of loud music and something about chairs and voting and...well, when it was done, G turned to me and asked "What did I just see?"  He had no clue, and I was only slightly better informed. I really don't think we are the intended audience, just as we aren't for most entertainment performed by our fellow passengers.  That's okay...as long as we have Ryszard Sulek playing piano and Strings and Steel and a few good production shows and guest entertainers, we'll get by. 

And, finally, I keep forgetting to mention that my shorts were returned two mornings ago, with a brand new zipper perfectly inserted. I am beyond thrilled with this repair by the ship's tailor. Coincidentally, on the Wake Show that day, Cruise Director Neil interviewed the laundry master in the ship's laundry and there was even a quick appearance by the tailor, and I captured it on my iPhone. 

Did you ever know that you're my hero??

Day 118: St. Thomas

It is very late in the evening after a full and fun day and perhaps a little too much celebrating at this cruise's Captains Circle parties (CCP). Luckily. I was able to upload a few photos to this blog post throughout the day today, and they will hopefully step me through a quick recount of our day.  

We had heard from Captain Forteeze at the MTP luncheon two days ago that the Emerald Princess would be docked at Havensight today, on the east side of Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas. This is generally great news for everyone except those passengers wishing to go to Honeymoon Beach on Water Island. We had other plans for the day, and Havensight was a much better location to start from. 

We arrived early, at 7am, and despite the lure of AT&T cell phone service and unlimited data, we didn't leave the cabin until shortly before 8am. Our absence yesterday at breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room was noted and commented on by hostesses Valeria and Laura, which is really remarkable considering how many passengers they see for multiple meals a day. 

After my usual fruit and egg white omelet, I adjourned to the Adagio Lounge to make some phone calls and use the Internet. By shortly after 10am we were walking off the ship. We were lucky that the Emerald Princess was in the very first berth at Havensight; the day was hot and we had some walking to do, much of it uphill. We had arranged to check out some condos on the hillside overlooking the Charlotte Amalie harbor with a potential future stay in mind. 

A great view of the Emerald Princess; the Disney Magic. the Regal Princess and the HAL Westerdam (at anchor). The Allure OTS and possibly a Carnival ship was docked at Crown Bay.  

A view of the Charlotte Amalie harbor looking toward the west. You can just make out the top of the Allure OTS docked at Crown Bay.

I love the historic architecture in Charlotte Amalie.

We had lunch and spent much of the early afternoon around the resort's pool; enjoying the great views of the harbor. It wasn't far to walk back to Yacht Haven Grande, but the narrow streets with sheer drop offs on one side and concrete walls on the other made it a bit of a caution. Also, the day had, by then, turned pretty warm. Walking through the shopping area at Yacht Haven Grande, the occasional air conditioning escaping from a store door kept us going, and the blast of AC as we reboarded the Emerald Princess was heavenly. 

Check out the painters on the front of the Regal Princess

It was fun to see the bridge officers on the Regal watch as the Emerald Princess passed by so closely. 

We had a quick snack in the Horizon Court Buffet, then for cleaned up for the evening and watched from the buffet as the Emerald Princess backed out past the Regal Princess. Captain Forteeze had warned us about the expected horn blowing party and it went on for quite awhile, with the Emerald Princess and the Westerdam blowing their single tone horns and the Regal blowing the first bar from the Love Boat theme song. I know most people find that very cute, but I think it would grow old pretty quickly. Like by the third time I heard it today. ;-) I guess there have just been a lot of Love Boat reruns in my life recently. 

We were skipping our early dinner tonight to attend both Captains Circle parties at 5:15pm and 7:15pm. Friends Bob and Candy joined us as our guests for the early party and after the second party, we joined Phyllis and Andy for dinner in the DaVinci Dining Room. The whole evening was a really fun time with friends we've known for years. As it turned out, we missed all entertainment tonight, not leaving the dining room until nearly 10pm. Fortunately, our arrival in Grand Turk tomorrow is not until 1pm; unfortunately, I have been semi-committed to a 7am stretch class in the Fitness Center. The important word there is "semi". ;-)

If I happen to naturally awaken around 6:30am, I'll be sure to be there. 

Right...

Day 117: St. Martin

We were very excited about our day in St. Martin today, not least because the weather has continued to be perfect this cruise. Actually, the heavy rain we had the night before we missed Princess Cays last cruise was also the last time we've had less than sunny skies. 

We were also looking forward to today for another reason...new friends Chris and Dan had booked an all day excursion in St. Martin with Captain Bob, the #1 rated excursion in Phillipsburg, St. Maarten (the Dutch side of this two-flagged island). We decided to follow them to the marina, just a 15-minute or so walk from the cruise ship pier, on the outside chance there had been a cancellation and was room for one more couple. 

Our 10am arrival made for an easy morning.  G grabbed a quick breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet but I had coffee and my first food of the cruise (since January 4!) from the International Cafe. Really; I had not had even one snack from there...though I did pick up a glazed donut with sprinkles for G one morning when I was getting my coffee to take in to breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room. Today I opted for one of the breakfast sandwiches I had gotten hooked on last year on the Grand Princess. While I sat there and ate, Dan and Chris and eventually G all found me. The plan had been to meet there and walk off the ship together. 

Well...you know what these late arrivals (on time, but still later in the morning) do to the lines to get off the ship. It was interesting today to watch the line grow exponentially starting about 9:50am, to the point where there was no finding the end of it by the time the ship was docked and cleared just ten minutes later. Luckily, Security was there to keep people moving in the right direction and, once the line started to move, we were off the ship within a few minutes. Still, it's not my favorite way to disembark...and just wait until our 1pm arrival in Grand Turk in two days. 

We walked through the developed port area and turned left onto the main road, walking toward town until we came to the small boat marina area. Unfortunately, Captain Bob was fully booked and had no cancellations today, but can accommodate us later this season. We'll wait for the trip report from Chris and Dan before deciding to make a reservation. 

Suddenly finding ourselves with no major plans for the day, we considered taking a taxi to G's favorite, Maho Beach, right at the end of the Queen Juliana International Airport runway. While we were talking about that, we continued walking toward the boardwalk that fronts the wide, beautiful Great Bay Beach in Phillipsburg.  Almost immediately we came upon a lady selling a boat tour to Maho Beach to watch a KLM flight arrive from the Netherlands. These 747s are the largest planes to land on St. Martin and create quite a show as they seem to be almost within reach of those people on the beach. 

Instantly intrigued, we thought that the opportunity to get to the beach without having to take the long taxi ride in heavy traffic was a winner. We paid the $40pp for the trip and had a seat at a picnic table on the water in the shade of several palm trees. The boat held 8 passengers, and we were soon joined by others. Eventually, though, we started to get suspicious that we wouldn't have time to get to the beach before the flight arrived. G found a restaurant with free wifi and went online to check the latest flight arrival information and came back to tell us that the plane was landing in 25 minutes. At the same time, the lady selling the tour came back with our money, apologizing that there had been an issue with the boat and we wouldn't be able to go. Well...shoot. 

I was a bit peeved. If we hadn't waited nearly an hour for the boat to leave, we could have gotten to Maho Beach by taxi. But, at that point, we just needed to salvage the day, and renting two chairs and an umbrella and getting a bucket of beers on that long, beautiful beach went a long way toward doing it. We had taken our floats with us, and swam and floated and drank beers and ordered some chips and salsa and generally had a wonderfully relaxing day within sight of the cruise ship. 

The boardwalk along Great Bay Beach

G said today that he thinks this is the best beach in the Caribbean. "Even better than Carlisle Bay Beach on Barbados?" I asked. Yep, even better then that. 

One of the delightfully European alleys in Phillipsburg.

A funny thing happened when I was taking this photo of this church located right on the beach. I was wondering if Andy (Father Andy) would have a chance to see it...and out walked Andy!  He had just stopped by to take a look and discovered there was a Mass being offered there at noon...and stayed for it. 

Very near the church ;-)

There are many, many bars/restaurants along the beach with this same sort of offer.

We stayed on the beach until after 4:30pm (on board time was 5:30pm), and, in the interest of time, bought a one way ferry ride back to the ship ($5pp, but unlimited rides for the day cost $7). We had to wait quite awhile for the boat, as the Royal Caribbean ship in port with us was already leaving and so there were just a few of us left on the beach. We made a mad dash back to our cabin to clean up a bit for dinner and made it to the Michelangelo Dining Room by shortly after 5:30pm. 

When Captain Forteeze made an announcement right at 6pm, we assumed it was his "welcome back on board" announcement, and it was, but then he proceeded to tell us that our starboard propulsion system was only functioning at 50% due to a software glitch (we jokingly pictured Chief Roddy sitting in front of a computer screen furiously paging through a Windows 10 User Manual) and that we'd be staying at the pier a bit longer so it could be repaired. 30 minutes later he updated us to tell us it was still being worked on, but that we had plenty of time to get to St. Thomas by tomorrow at our scheduled arrival time at 7am. 

Still, there was excitement amongst the crew. St. Martin is a wonderful port to be delayed in, and I don't think that too many people- passengers and crew alike- would have been too disappointed if we had had to stay overnight there. Fortunately (or unfortunately), by 7pm Captain Forteeze announced that the issue was fixed and we'd soon be sailing. 

G and I decided that sailaway from St. Martin after dark under a star filled sky was more exciting than the production show Disco: Blame it on the Boogie, and went directly from dinner to the jogging track on Deck 19 aft for a beautiful view of the lights of St. Martin as we pushed away from the pier. We stayed up there for quite a while- it was a warm, windless night- and watched as the western bays of St. Martin came into view. Finally, our day spent walking in the hot sun and playing in the water made sleep more appealing from staying up for tonight's Love Boat Disco Deck Party (but what a gorgeous night for it), and we were in the cabin by 9pm. 

My favorite little pool on Deck 17 aft

The two cruise ship piers in Phillipsburg, St. Martin

We are cruising at about 9mph toward St. Thomas right now, and are feeling not even the slightest bit of movement in our cabin. It will be like sleeping in a hotel room tonight, and, between the lack of wind and starry sky, makes me hopeful that our good weather luck will continue tomorrow.