Day 55: St. Lucia (or so I'm told)

Ruh roh. Look at photo #1, wherever it appears (top? bottom? I never know for sure), and you might be able to tell where I spent part of my day. Simply put, I'm on two antibiotics trying to ward off a root canal in St. Thomas. I spent a sleepless night cursing my dentist back home, then figuring out how to avoid a root canal in St. Lucia or Barbados or St. Kitts, and instead get one in Fort Lauderdale on a Sunday. It turns out, the medical center on the ship can help with all that. But, better yet, they provided the drugs that might eliminate the need altogether. Keep your fingers crossed. Meanwhile, I spent the rest of the day willing the drugs to work and making up for lost sleep. Thankfully, both happened, and by tonight I was eating dinner, although avoiding the crunchy stuff.

So...nothing to say about St. Lucia, other than to say there were FOUR cruise ships here today- the Noordam, the Amsterdam and the Quest for Adventure. I've never before seen four ships in St. Lucia. Talk about crazy...maybe it was good I missed it.

The ship is still under Code Red. Dr. Smith told me today that the number of Noro cases are way down, but they're keeping the Code Red precautions as a preventative measure. The buffet food displays remain half empty. Enough already (and I'm sure the crew would concur)!!

Thankfully, by 5pm I was feeling like a different person, obviously on the mend. Good thing too, 'cause it was New Years Eve!

Photo 2: the Quest for Adventure sails at sunset

Day 54: Antigua

St. John's, Antigua, is such a pretty harbor. We arrived today just before 8am, and a smaller ship, the Seabourn Quest was also in port today. After breakfast in the dining room, we walked off the ship to get some higher-speed wifi on shore. We hadn't been able to check the home security cams since we were in Fort Lauderdale, and with the winter weather across the Midwest, were particularly concerned about the furnace holding up. Everything was fine, and once again I give G the credit for setting everything up so that it could be remotely monitored from our iPhones.

As we sat using wifi, and drinking rum punches, we began to lose any momentum we might have had today. We sat. We interneted. We drank rum. After awhile, G announced he was hungry and ready for lunch, so we walked back on the ship and had pizza for lunch. This was my first pizza of the winter, but the dining room was closed for lunch today and we really didn't feel like eating in the buffet. We are STILL under Code Red Noro precautions...we had been told they would be lifted today; now we're being told tomorrow night. It's been over a week now, and honestly, it's getting a bit tiresome, for everyone.

With all that rum in our systems, we ended up napping after lunch (do you, too, see a beach visit today becoming less and less probable as I relate our day to you?). Finally, we decided we needed to at least take a walk, and so we did, just around the streets of St. John's. Being a Sunday, it was actually a good day for a walk through the town, as traffic wasn't quite as bad. We ended up at Redcliffe Quay and Big Banana wifi (the restaurant was closed today but, bless them, they leave their wifi turned on) and I was able to call Mom using Vonage. By then it was after 4pm and time to return to the ship.

We thought that there would be hors doerves today in Skywalkers, and we thought (because we had a schedule that said so) that the drink of the day was the Breeza Marina and the hors doerves the herbed goat cheese on homemade wheat crackers and bruschetta, but we were wrong on all counts. First, there were still no hors doerves (tomorrow evening, we're now told). Second, the drink of the day was the mojito, not the Breeza Marina. It seems everyone was messed up this cruise: the Patter on embarkation day listed the cruise itinerary with the days of the week off by one. Then our invitation to the Elite Lounge in Skywalkers listing the drinks and hors doerves was also off by one day. See what Code Red Noro does to a ship? Everyone is run ragged and it does show just a bit.

No matter; Rhea gave me a Breeza Marina anyway, for the special price, and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and sailaway from Antigua up in Skywalkers.

Dinner featured a British Isles menu (the new menus don't have a theme name on them like the old ones did, but it was obvious with items like Stilton and Yorkshire Pudding and Irish Lamb Stew). I just had two Stilton appetizers and my plate of broccoli and spinach and called it dinner.

Afterwards, G headed to a second performance by comedian Miguel Washington, and I opted instead to change into shorts and went up to MUTS to watch football.

Photos 1 to 5: from our walk around St. John's. I particularly like photo 5, with a computer store in a building that probably dates back 300 years.

Photo 6: sunset at sailaway from Antigua

Sunrise over Port Everglades and Fort Lauderdale

Taken December 27th on turnaround day.

Videos from Christmas on the Emerald Princess

Christmas Eve Caroling

Santa's Arrival

Kids Caroling

Day 53: At Sea

Copy yesterday. Paste. That's today. Really. It was that identical. There were only minor differences:

1.) Tonight was not a formal night (yay!)

2.) I spent about 45 minutes on the laptop using $22 of Staples Rewards that were to expire 12/31/12 to purchase TurboTax for 2012. 45 minutes! It would have taken 4-5 minutes to do with high speed wifi. That's gives you a good idea of just how slow the ship's Internet is.

3.) The entertainment tonight was comedy-magician Garry Carson. He was really good! Like most entertainment of this sort, we'd seen him in previous years. We don't remember all of his act, just parts of it, but not enough that we didn't enjoy tonight's performance very much. The funniest part was when Garry brought a boy up on stage to assist him with an illusion and asked him how old he was and the boy (Benny) said, "9". Garry said that Princess told him that to have someone on stage, they had to be at least 10 and again asked Benny how old he was and again Benny said, "9". One more time Garry said that Princess told him that to have someone on stage, they had to be at least 10 and again asked Benny how old he was. This time Benny said, "11". THAT was harious!

4.) We spent even more time trying to decide what to do tomorrow on Antigua without reaching a consensus. Stay tuned...

Photo: fruit at breakfast.

A change in programming providers

This post will probably only be of interest to future Emerald Princess cruisers, but I've been wanting to post about the change in television programming since we returned to the Emerald Princess on December 17th. Today being an uneventful sea day seemed a good time to do it.

As I mentioned previously, we've lost CNN International (anyone need to know the temperature in Kuala Lompur?) and HLN (good riddance) but there have been other changes too.

Here's what was added: Faux News, MSNBC, BBC, CNBC

Here's what was removed: TCM, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, CNN International, HLN, CNN Espanol and the Relections video channel (really!)

We really miss TCM and TNT, only because we cruise for several months and they provided variety as they didn't repeat shows cruise after cruise. The crew tells us that they miss the Cartoon Network (esp Tom and Jerry). ;-)

Here is what's stayed the same:

Princess Channel- the Wake Show in the late evening until the next day at noon and assorted documentaries in the afternoon (these are quite good)

TV Channel- sitcoms. This month's offerings: Mike and Molly, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, Whitney, The Office, Two Broke Girls, Parks and Recreation, New Girl, Two and a Half Men, and, of course, The Love Boat. None of these are the current seasons, and the Love Boat is 35 years old.

Movie Channel- this month's offerings: My Week with Marilyn, The Avengers, The Descendants, The Lucky One, Mirror Mirror, Prometheus, John Carter, Rock of Ages, Haywire, Man on a Ledge, Safe, The Artist, Men in Black 3, Arbitrage, The Three Stooges, Mission Impossible, Friends with Kids, The Amazing Spider (shouldn't this be Spider-Man?)

Romance Channel- this month's offerings: Midnight in Paris, Plots with a View, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, Leap Year, It Could Happen To You, Just Go With It, Footloose, The Proposal, Like Crazy, Return to Me, Killers, This Means War, I Don't Know How She Does It, Letters to Juliet, Morning Glory, New Years Eve, One Fine Day, The Vow

Art Channel- primarily biographies of various artists (I like these!)

Family Movie Channel- this month's offerings: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Ice Age, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Dr. Suess's The Lorax, Frankenweenie, The Adventure of Tintin, Brave, Madagascar 3, The Muppets, ParaNorman, Tangled, Big Miracle, Puss in Boots, Car 2, Larry the Cable Guy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Dolphin Tale, Hugo, Rio

Discovery Channel - Assorted TV shows from the Discovery Cable Channel, NOT the same programming as on the Discovery Channel at home.

Tour Info

Princess Shopping Channel

ESPN International

ESPN 2

Scan Display Channel

WebCam Channel

Day 52: At Sea

We moved our clocks ahead again last night, but we're wiser now...we simply never moved them back that last night before Fort Lauderdale. It saves us a lot of time. Of course, it does involve us asking each other, about 100 times during our day in Fort Lauderdale, "What time is it REALLY?", to which the other person responds, "Well, it depends what you mean by "really", which ends up frustrating the asker who ends up frustrating the answerer.

It would be easier, I think, to simply move the clocks back and then ahead again within 24 hours.

At any rate, this clocks ahead thing means that, while most of the ship is sleeping in on the first day of a cruise, we're usually wide awake, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and at breakfast in the dining room shortly after it opens (still from 7am to 9am).

And so we were today. At 9:30am I went to line dancing with Leesh, followed immediately by Zumba led by a fellow passenger. I guess I forgot to fill you in on what happened with Zumba last cruise. After mentioning it wasn't scheduled the first two days of the cruise, and that I wondered if Ryan was sick, I asked Frenchie (aka Caroline), the Deputy Cruise Director, and learned that Ryan had moved over to the Ruby to be Deputy Cruise Director there. As Zumba has to be led by a Zumba certified instructor, and there were no Zumba instructors among the cruise staff, we were Zumba-less last cruise, and would have been this cruise too (someone is coming on board to lead the classes, but I'm not certain when that is happening or for how many cruises we'll be Zumba-less). However, a fellow passenger who teaches Zumba on land was on last cruise and this one, and said she would lead some classes this cruise, and so that is what we had today, and it was great- not as crazy fun as when Ryan led it and changed out hats and wigs throughout, but excellent none the less.

Then I did a quick run to the fitness center to do some weights and then, finally, it was time for a shower and lunch in the dining room with G.

Does all this sound familiar, because as I'm sitting here typing it, it's sounding awfully familiar to me. It's hard to get a lot of variety on a sea day.

This afternoon brought some time poolside. Oh no, I don't mean to imply I got a lounger poolside after lunch...I laid my towel out on the wood border around the Terrace Pool and spent some time there. Much easier, much less drama than trying to confront chair hogs. With over 400 kids on this cruise, this ship is packed and it feels that way. 

Tonight was the first formal night of the cruise, and since Skywalkers is STILL not serving hors doerves (which makes no one happy, including the bar staff), we skipped it once again. Our time will come; there are many good nights up there in our future.

Dinner was a relatively new appetizer, deep fried sushi with kimchee and seaweed, and then beef tenderloins which, of course, Sutti served to me with grilled shrimp on the side.  Honestly...dinner literally feet away from the sea moving by, sunset viewed from our window, red wine with dinner, bananas foster flambé for dessert followed by the Welcome Aboard Champagne Party and people watching. A condo in Florida just pales in comparison.

We set ourselves up on Deck 5 in the Piazza and there was no end of entertainment. Lots of family photos:  grandma and grandpa with everyone, grandpa with his granddaughters, grandma with the grandsons, the little ones all dressed up and looking generally adorable. Yes, a holiday cruise has its drawbacks but it does provide some entertainment that we won't get next cruise when the average age goes up by 40 years.

We opted for comedian Miguel Washington over production show What a Swell Party tonight (and weren't we lucky to actually have a choice?). We'd seen Miguel earlier this winter but his show wasn't exactly the same, and we enjoyed it very much.

By then it was time for popcorn from the MUTS area (we simply can't hold off any longer, Noro or not), a fuzzy water and college football (Virginia Tech (G's alma mater) and Rutgers are tied) on our cabin TV. We can't wait for the college bowl games and NFL playoffs on MUTS.  Football on MUTS...it sounds like cruising to us!

Photos for today:  when I have nothing to show for the day's activities, I resort to food photos :-)

Photo 1:  chicken korma for lunch

Photo 2:  the new appetizer, deep fried sushi

Photo 3:  beef tenderloins with Sutti's personal touch of grilled shrimp on the size

Photo 4:  peanut butter chocolate pie on an Oreo cookie crust- surprisingly average...

Photo 5:  but we returned to chocolate covered strawberries in our cabin tonight, so who cares?

Cruise #6- Eastern Caribbean

After three southern itineraries in a row, we're heading back to the Eastern Caribbean...

Evening- Fort Lauderdale

The Emerald Princess sailed at sunset as seen from the Fort Lauderdale webcam

Day 51: Fort Lauderdale

With almost 200 Norovirus cases on board last cruise (http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/cdc-investigates-outbreak-that-sickens-nearly-200-aboard-princess-cruises-emerald-princess-76583/), even though the number of cases was way down by the end of the cruise, turnaround day was almost bound to be discombobulated. We were told that in transit passengers (those staying on for another cruise) should meet in the Michelangelo Dining Room at 10:30am to go through Immigration (ICE). When we went there at that time, disembarkation was already a bit behind schedule, so we simply walked off the ship and went through ICE on our own. There was a line, but we were speeded up quite a bit as they put the in transit passengers with the non-US passengers and had more ICE agents processing our group.

We left the ship still uncertain of our plans for the day. We were told that, due to the extensive cleaning of the ship, we couldn't return to our cabins until 1:30pm. We were offered Club Fusion as a holding place, but that held little appeal. So we knew we'd have to go somewhere to pass the time.  It seemed cool this morning, and it was, only in the low 70s ;-). We weren't certain we'd want to be on the water all day on a Fort Lauderdale water taxi.

We first walked up and over the 17th Street drawbridge and watched all the yacht traffic on the intercoastal waterway. It felt so comfortable standing in the sun that we re-thought our decision not to take the water taxi and decided to take it after all. But by the time we walked to a boarding point, under the bridge at the Hilton Marina, it was 11:30am and we knew we'd have to return to that point no later than 3:30pm to allow us to get to a store and back to the ship by the all on board time of 4:30pm. We once again decided to save the water taxi for another day.

We walked back to Walgreens to pick up the items on our shopping list, and then left when the prices were so outrageous and they didn't have the Wet Ones we needed. We walked a further 10 minutes down to Publix.  They not only had everything we needed, we saved $12 over Walgreens prices. We stocked up on Wet Ones (TWO boxes) and hopefully have enough to see us through. 

Aside from the officers, staff and especially the crew, there is no one on this ship more hopeful that this Norovirus thing is over. We said last year, when other ships were having issue after issue with it, that we'd return home rather than go through an entire winter of Noro.

Nip it, nip it, nip it!!

When we returned to the terminal about 2pm, the ship still wasn't clear to board. We waited until 2:30pm to board...but at least we were in the terminal and the in transits were the first to re-board. As we had walked back from shopping, I heard a noise I'd never before heard and couldn't figure out what it was. As we got to Terminal 2, it was obvious:  the line of people 4 and 5 wide stretched the entire length of the outside of the terminal, and the noise was their voices echoing off the hard surfaces. At least we were able to bypass all of them, all the people held on the first floor of the terminal and those held on the second floor. It's unfortunate the cruise had to start in that manner, but, really, what choice was there?

All that was soon over, though, and the first thing we did was eat lunch in the buffet before the rest of the crowd hit.   Another impact of Noro is that there are about half the choices of food in the buffet. Since waiters have to serve all the food, they've simply reduced the number of options available. That's just another reason we avoid the buffet whenever possible during a Noro outbreak. But today we had no choice; the dining room wasn't open for lunch. 

We finally sailed just over two hours late, at 6pm. By then, we were already happily seated at "our" table in the dining room eating dinner served by Suttipong and Somphong. Regardless of what each day brings, that's one thing we can count on!

Photos 1 and 2:  the west and east sides of the bridge to up

Photo 3:  both sides lower again

Photos 4 and 5:  as seen from under the bridge, the counterbalance drops as the bridge goes up

Evening- Princess Cays

It shouldn't surprise anyone that, after our busy day on the island, and after a wonderful dinner in the dining room, where we said goodbye to Kim and Jim who spent many nights this cruise at the table next to ours, I returned to the cabin intending to have an early night. G is at the 8:30pm Variety Showtime with Adam Bonk (he was that juggler we actually enjoyed several cruises ago. He's come back on the ship again) and the musician from a couple of nights ago, Delisco. We saw him in an elevator last night and I asked him if he was staying on for the next cruise, but he's not. I'm impressed: Princess seems to be recognizing that there are a lot of passengers (over 300 tomorrow) who stay on for back to back cruises, and we've had a little more variety in entertainment vs. what we had last year. We're still not pleased with the shortened shows or the fact that we seldom have a different show in the Explorers Lounge as an alternative, or the fact that they have three dance bands on board but no string quartet, BUT at least we don't have the exact same entertainment from one cruise to the next. It's been running about half the same and half different.

We are waiting until we see the weather in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow morning to finalize our plan for the day, but we're definitely NOT going to be spending three hours sitting in Club Fusion while they sanitize this ship. The water taxi is one option. Or taking a long walk down to and along the beach. Regardless, we'll need to run to Walgreens or Publix to pick up a few things, most notably more Wet Ones wipes and Dial Complete Foaming Hand Soap. And toothpaste (I was way, way off with my projected use on that, and I can't figure out why). And more mouthwash. Dental hygiene is obviously a fixation with me!

Sister Frances Xavier was old when I had her as a teacher in the 1960s, so I'm certain she's no longer with us, but I have to give her her due...when she said fractions would be an important part of our lives forever, she wasn't kidding. They're way more important than calculus and geometry and even most algebra. I've never once in my entire life needed to figure out when two trains leaving from different stations at different times, traveling towards each other at different speeds are going to meet, but I'm constantly fractioning in my head this winter. We're now 5/12 of the way through our cruise. If I brought two of something, I should still have 1 and 1/6 left; three of something- 1 3/4 left. Four of something- 2 and 1/3 left. Forget fictional story problems; this is reality math.

;-)

Photo 1: how few cars are registered on Eleuthera that they can have four digit license plates, all numbers no letters?

The Atlantic beach

Photo 1: making our way down to the beach

Photo 2: one of the caves carved by the ocean

Photo 3: the lighthouse sitting up on the cliff

Photo 4: going back the easy way, across the sand dune

Photo 5: on the Caribbean side, a couple of benches have been constructed. It's getting developed!

Final hike to the southernmost point

Photo 1: click on the photo to enlarge it, and look really, really closely to see the Emerald Princess at anchor in the distance

Photo 2: we were heading out to that palm tree on the end of the main island

Photo 3: the path through the brush (it was scratchy too!)

Photo 4: standing high on the southern tip of Eleuthera

Photo 5: our first view of the beach on the Atlantic side

Photo 6: looking back toward the lighthouse

The southern lighthouse on Eleuthera

Photos 4 and 5: check out the view, and look how thick those walls are!

The Caribbean side of the southern end of Eleuthera

Photo 1: the Caribbean beach

Photo 2: to get to the lighthouse, walk across this coral on the southern end of the Caribbean beach

Photo 3: another view of the beach

Photo 4: look for this path in the shrub growth

Photo 5: watch for roots under the palm leaves on the ground and pick up your feet!

Almost to the southern end of Eleuthera

Photo 1: G saw a Kirtland's Warbler, migrated from Michigan, before we even saw this sign

Photo 2: the brackish pond

Photo 3: the sign for the freshwater pond

Photo 4: the freshwater pond

Photo 5: our first view of the Caribbean beach