After a leisurely (is there any other kind on a cruise ship?) breakfast in the dining room, we started out to climb to the top of the Paradise Point tramway, right next to the ship for our morning exercise. This is a gondola on which we rode on our very first trip to St. Thomas in April 1999 (on what we still refer to as the hottest day we've ever had ANYWHERE). Today, G enticed me to make the climb with the promise of a pure paradise at the top of the mountain at the terminus of the gondola: panoramic views, music, entertainment, food, bushwackers (the drink for which they're famous), restrooms, a ride back down on the gondola, cold water, and buff, shirtless young men dancing around poles off whose biceps I licked salt before being served tequila shots. Okay, maybe not that last one but I can promise you that I imagined them so strongly as I trudged up the hill that I wouldn't have been in the the least surprised to see them greeting me as I arrived at the top.
Instead, after 30 minutes of climbing up a damn steep road, so steep that it was imbedded with traction marks all the way up, we were met with...a closed Paradise Point. Closed. Until this Saturday. No panoramic views, no music, no entertainment, food or bushwackers, no restrooms, no ride back down on the gondola or cold water, certainly no buff, shirtless young men dancing around poles off whose biceps I licked salt before being served tequila shots.
Just a half empty, warm water bottle and a walk back down the damn steep road. And a rain that fell during half the walk down, leaving me uncertain whether I was drenched in sweat or precipitation, and the road so slippery we duck-walked our way down.
It was a healthy way to start the day. Unfortunately, it left G ravenously hungry, and we got back on the ship and he had a second breakfast from the buffet followed up by his first hamburger of the cruise from the pool-side grill.
After a quick trip to a hot tub (him), and a stint in our cabin during which I recharged my phone and checked email, we walked back off the ship for some more exercise. We walked to the western edge of Yacht Haven Grande, a shopping and condo development that is a fairly recent addition to Charlotte Amalie. I remember, when we first started coming to St. Thomas, that it was a caution to walk from Havensight into town. No longer...now it is a beautifully landscaped walk for most of the way, and a fairly safe one the remainder of the way.
After reaching the end of Yacht Haven Grande, we turned around and walked back to the very end of the pier, past the Emerald Princess in the first berth, the Norwegian Epic in the second berth, and the Freedom of the Seas in the third berth. (Also in St. Thomas today, the world's largest cruise ship, the Allure of the Seas, and the much smaller Eurodam, both at Crown Bay. It was a good day to avoid the beaches).
Truth be told, we had read online that the Freedom of the Seas, at the very end of the pier at Havensight, had been fully chartered this week as a "swingers" cruise. I think G was intrigued and wanted to see these swingers in person. Well, the Epic's passengers were the youngest of the three ships at Havensight...youngest and most heavily tattoed. (We ride Harleys and I've still never seen tattoos like these...on women!), but the Freedom's passengers weren't the kind that, well, as G said, they weren't people he'd want to swing with. They weren't necessarily young, but they were incredibly interesting to watch.
Meanwhile, back at the Emerald, the average passenger was two generations older and hadn't swung in at least 40 years...if ever.
Despite being on the younger side of the passenger demographic, we definitely fit in better on the more senior Emerald.
It was after 3:30pm when we returned to the ship. After the rainshower while we were walking down from Paradise Point, the day had turned simply hot and sunny, with about 195% humidity. Cool showers and colder soda really hit the spot.
We were up in Skywalkers for sailaway (shrimp and Cosmopolitan night), and leaving St. Thomas is certainly a beautiful one. Dinner was up next, and then, joy of joys, we were invited to the Most Traveled Passenger cocktail party, where I enjoyed two key lime pie martinis and wonderful conversation with couple Hank and Rosemary who will be back on the Emerald again in January.
It's 10pm and my bedtime. Sunrise tomorrow is not until 6:45pm, and I'm hoping to greet it from Deck 19 during a morning walk. Mom said, when I talked with her today, that Venus was appearing huge in the eastern morning sky in Ohio. Maybe it is in the Caribbean too...
Photos 1 and 2: the walk up to Paradise Point
Photo 3: the view from the top
Photo 4: the Allure of the Seas making her way to Crown Bay (look closely and you'll see the 1900 passenger Eurodam already docked there)
Photo 5: Yacht Haven Grande
Photo 6: Sailway from St. Thomas