This was certainly not our typical type of trip, but this Caribbean cruise couldn't have come at a better time for us and provided just what we needed....a little break from the realities of life. After all is said and done, our little motto "Life is good" still rings very true.
All in all, we travelled a distance of 4,150km round trip from Port Everglades to Princess Cays, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, Grand Turk and back. The waters were calm and the weather absolutely perfect. How blessed we are to have experienced such a fantastic trip! The sheer beauty of the islands and more particularly the beaches we visited is so hard to accurately describe in words. Each stop provided us with an opportunity to experience a true tropical paradise!
I've wanted to travel to St. Maarten and Turks & Caicos for some time now and as an added bonus I also got to see St. Thomas and an island in the Bahamas. Taking in the sun and relaxing on a beach was our ultimate goal and each of the beaches provided this. The fine white sand, clear and turquoise water were perfect and such a beautiful sight! Exploring the islands in the limited time we had gave us a brief experience with the culture, the sights and gave us a sense of whether we might want to return some day for a longer time.
The cruise ship itself was great. It was clean, modern and full of different things to do. The food was all very tasty and there was plenty to go around. A few of my favourite things we did on board was movies under the stars, taking in the shows, and sitting on our balcony reading or just staring out at the open waters.
As we get back to real life, the memories of this trip will last a lifetime. More importantly I got to share this experience with my best friend, Z and that makes it that much more special.
Where we'll end up next is anyone's guess, but these globe trotters won't sit still for long, there's an entire world out there waiting to be explored. Until next time....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
Miami stop
By the time we woke up on Sunday the Ruby Princess was making her final approach in Port Everglades which meant our fabulous cruise was over. We got ourselves ready and head off for a final breakfast in the Da Vinci dining hall. Our disembarkment time was 8:40am and after breakfast we still had some time to kill, so we decided to hit the Princess Links for a quick 9 hole putting game. Disembarking from the ship was smooth sailing...we met in our predetermined spot and right on time they had us in our way. Our luggage was in a large holding area sorted by colour coded tag which represented your disembarkment time. Once luggage was found, it was off to the immigration line up which was very quick. All in all it probably took about 15 minutes to get through all this. Quick taxi ride to the airport to pick up our car rental and off we went to kill some time at Sawgrass Mills shopping centre.
Sawgrass Mills is huge, with over 300 retailers! They have practically every store you can think of under the sun. We heard about it from that Calgarian couple we met on the cruise and thought we'd check it out because we had time to kill before we could check into our hotel. It's a combination of regular retailers and factory outlet stores. We found a few good deals, but with limited space in our suitcases we didn't go too crazy. After lunch at California Pizza, where we had a very yummy Thai salad and pepperoni pizza we drove to Miami to check into our hotel.
We are staying at the very swanky JW Marriott Marquis in the downtown core...again for free, thanks to points!!!! Our room is on the 37th floor with a view of the Biscayne Bay. The room is absolutely amazing with a comfy king bed, extra spacious bathroom that has a TV in the mirror. Never stayed in a hotel as luxurious as this one before. It's supposed to be ranked as one of the top hotels in the U.S. How lucky for us to get to stay here. The hotel has several cool amenities like a virtual bowling alley, a pool table, virtual golf driving range, and a yoga room. We also got turn down service and one evening a pair of slippers were placed on my side of the bed. I've never had slippers provided for at a hotel before, that was a neat treat!
We went for a nice evening walk to check out the surrounding area and found ourselves at the waterfront, walking through Bayfront Park. The area reminded us a little of home. There are luxury hotels and high-rise condo buildings all around with some very expensive yachts moored along the seawall. The promenade was busy with people out enjoying the evening warmth. We found a little shopping area with restaurants and one was playing some latin music and had people dancing. We ended up with take-out from a Mediterranean Grill and brought it back to the hotel to eat later. The food was typical Lebanese food and really good. We had hummus, stuffed grape leaves, tabbouleh, and falafels.
Monday started off as partly cloudy and gave us a chance to sit by the pool for awhile before it started dripping from the sky. It soon opened up to full rain showers so we stayed indoors and enjoyed the hotel for a couple hours. Why not take advantage of this awesome hotel in this case? We went to the gym and spent some time on the treadmill; this time it was much easier being on stable ground. Perhaps Mother Nature was also trying to prepare us for the weather we're likely to experience when back home.
Once the sky cleared up some we ventured out to explore a little. We found a TD Bank not too far from the hotel. We went to a little shopping area called Mary Brickwell village. There wasn't too much interesting there so we decided to hop on the Metromover (a skytrain like system) which takes you around the downtown area for free. It was a neat way to get around and see downtown which consists of a lot of really tall skyscrapers.
In the evening we drove to South Beach for dinner. This trendy area is popular for its restaurants and nightclubs. We found parking along the busy Ocean Drive and walked to the very large beach. The water was still quite warm at dusk; it would have been perfect swimming water, clear with a sandy bottom. We found a Peruvian restaurant, Goyo El Pollo, for dinner and enjoyed some traditional Causas Rellena de Pollo (potato and chicken appie) and Lomo Saltado (beef, onion, tomato dish) with rice and french fries, both of which brought back great memories from a previous trip.
Oh yeah, we also enjoyed free breakfast and evening drinks and snacks in the concierge lounge as a benefit of Z's frequent stays at Marriott hotels. What a nice little perk!
View from our hotel room
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sawgrass Mills is huge, with over 300 retailers! They have practically every store you can think of under the sun. We heard about it from that Calgarian couple we met on the cruise and thought we'd check it out because we had time to kill before we could check into our hotel. It's a combination of regular retailers and factory outlet stores. We found a few good deals, but with limited space in our suitcases we didn't go too crazy. After lunch at California Pizza, where we had a very yummy Thai salad and pepperoni pizza we drove to Miami to check into our hotel.
We are staying at the very swanky JW Marriott Marquis in the downtown core...again for free, thanks to points!!!! Our room is on the 37th floor with a view of the Biscayne Bay. The room is absolutely amazing with a comfy king bed, extra spacious bathroom that has a TV in the mirror. Never stayed in a hotel as luxurious as this one before. It's supposed to be ranked as one of the top hotels in the U.S. How lucky for us to get to stay here. The hotel has several cool amenities like a virtual bowling alley, a pool table, virtual golf driving range, and a yoga room. We also got turn down service and one evening a pair of slippers were placed on my side of the bed. I've never had slippers provided for at a hotel before, that was a neat treat!
We went for a nice evening walk to check out the surrounding area and found ourselves at the waterfront, walking through Bayfront Park. The area reminded us a little of home. There are luxury hotels and high-rise condo buildings all around with some very expensive yachts moored along the seawall. The promenade was busy with people out enjoying the evening warmth. We found a little shopping area with restaurants and one was playing some latin music and had people dancing. We ended up with take-out from a Mediterranean Grill and brought it back to the hotel to eat later. The food was typical Lebanese food and really good. We had hummus, stuffed grape leaves, tabbouleh, and falafels.
Monday started off as partly cloudy and gave us a chance to sit by the pool for awhile before it started dripping from the sky. It soon opened up to full rain showers so we stayed indoors and enjoyed the hotel for a couple hours. Why not take advantage of this awesome hotel in this case? We went to the gym and spent some time on the treadmill; this time it was much easier being on stable ground. Perhaps Mother Nature was also trying to prepare us for the weather we're likely to experience when back home.
Once the sky cleared up some we ventured out to explore a little. We found a TD Bank not too far from the hotel. We went to a little shopping area called Mary Brickwell village. There wasn't too much interesting there so we decided to hop on the Metromover (a skytrain like system) which takes you around the downtown area for free. It was a neat way to get around and see downtown which consists of a lot of really tall skyscrapers.
In the evening we drove to South Beach for dinner. This trendy area is popular for its restaurants and nightclubs. We found parking along the busy Ocean Drive and walked to the very large beach. The water was still quite warm at dusk; it would have been perfect swimming water, clear with a sandy bottom. We found a Peruvian restaurant, Goyo El Pollo, for dinner and enjoyed some traditional Causas Rellena de Pollo (potato and chicken appie) and Lomo Saltado (beef, onion, tomato dish) with rice and french fries, both of which brought back great memories from a previous trip.
Oh yeah, we also enjoyed free breakfast and evening drinks and snacks in the concierge lounge as a benefit of Z's frequent stays at Marriott hotels. What a nice little perk!
View from our hotel room
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Day 7 - At Sea
Today is another sea day, a sad sea day because we're on our way back to Fort Lauderdale which means our fabulous cruise has come to an end. Everyday there is so much to do on board and this sea day was no exception. We started the day with breakfast on our balcony again - why not treat yourself when on vacation! Yesterday at dinner we found out the kitchen was doing a galley tour today which we both thought would be fun to see. So after breakfast we made out way down to the Princess Theatre for a culinary demonstration followed by the tour. The culinary demonstration was hosted by the Executive Chef Paolo Merio and Maitre D'Hotel Nicola Furlan. These two guys were a hoot to watch as they demonstrated making three dishes. We learned that everything is made fresh on the ship. They loaded about 115 tons of food on board in Fort Lauderdale. The food is purchased mostly locally in the U.S. and from Canada, but they also bring in food from other parts of the world, like Italy and France. Afterwards we got to walk through the largest kitchen on board, 16,000sf, and see a little behind the scenes in food prep. It was a quick walk through but you could see the various stations and some of the chefs at work getting ready for lunch.
Some intriguing food facts, everything in "on average daily": - fish prepared 1700; - amount of salads served 1600 lbs; - amount of pasta made 500 lbs; - amount of coffee consumed 470 gals (I contributed to my fair share here); - amount of dished washed 70,000. There are about 515 staff working in food prep/serving and total crew on board is 1,100. As you can see they dedicate a lot to making sure this side of the cruise experience is well taken care of, and they did an amazing job. No complaints on the food or service we received, well maybe only that there were too many choices of good food it was hard to decide at times!
The other day while we were docked in St. Thomas the U.S. Health and Safety inspectors boarded the ship and did their inspection. The Ruby Princess we're told scored a perfect 100 - that's comforting to hear.
We chose to relax again today and not do too much. I was still feeling the after effects of being in the hot sun yesterday, so I was very lethargic. We did get our ping pong match in though and the outcome...well not what I had hoped. I lost both sets - 21-16, 21-18. Until the next rematch!!
There was an ice sculpture carving demonstration that we found enjoyable to watch and were very impressed with the final sculptures. One was a swan and the other was the face of an Indian Chief and both were carved from scratch in 16 minutes.
Z went to go see the magician David Cats who was offering up lessons on a few of his tricks. Quite impressive when Z successfully tried two of the card tricks on me! Being the last day also meant packing and we put that off as long as possible, but got it done and then went to see the production show "Broadway Ballroom" before dinner. It was a mix of dancing and singing of some Broadway show songs, including songs from Mamma Mia and Jersey Boys. We both agreed that this was the best show by far put on by the Ruby performers.
We did the shared table option tonight and sat with the same couple from Calgary again as well as a couple from Denver and one from West Virginia. My last dinner aboard was really good...watermelon and feta salad followed by meatloaf with mashed potatoes and veggies. Z had a seafood trio appie, a beef soup followed by filet of Kingflip. Dessert of course was also part of this meal and I had an apple pie and Z a baked Alaska. The comedian Miguel Washington was doing another show tonight so after dinner we head over to the Explorer's Lounge to watch. He's really funny and it was a great way to end the day and our wonderful cruise.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Some intriguing food facts, everything in "on average daily": - fish prepared 1700; - amount of salads served 1600 lbs; - amount of pasta made 500 lbs; - amount of coffee consumed 470 gals (I contributed to my fair share here); - amount of dished washed 70,000. There are about 515 staff working in food prep/serving and total crew on board is 1,100. As you can see they dedicate a lot to making sure this side of the cruise experience is well taken care of, and they did an amazing job. No complaints on the food or service we received, well maybe only that there were too many choices of good food it was hard to decide at times!
The other day while we were docked in St. Thomas the U.S. Health and Safety inspectors boarded the ship and did their inspection. The Ruby Princess we're told scored a perfect 100 - that's comforting to hear.
We chose to relax again today and not do too much. I was still feeling the after effects of being in the hot sun yesterday, so I was very lethargic. We did get our ping pong match in though and the outcome...well not what I had hoped. I lost both sets - 21-16, 21-18. Until the next rematch!!
There was an ice sculpture carving demonstration that we found enjoyable to watch and were very impressed with the final sculptures. One was a swan and the other was the face of an Indian Chief and both were carved from scratch in 16 minutes.
Z went to go see the magician David Cats who was offering up lessons on a few of his tricks. Quite impressive when Z successfully tried two of the card tricks on me! Being the last day also meant packing and we put that off as long as possible, but got it done and then went to see the production show "Broadway Ballroom" before dinner. It was a mix of dancing and singing of some Broadway show songs, including songs from Mamma Mia and Jersey Boys. We both agreed that this was the best show by far put on by the Ruby performers.
We did the shared table option tonight and sat with the same couple from Calgary again as well as a couple from Denver and one from West Virginia. My last dinner aboard was really good...watermelon and feta salad followed by meatloaf with mashed potatoes and veggies. Z had a seafood trio appie, a beef soup followed by filet of Kingflip. Dessert of course was also part of this meal and I had an apple pie and Z a baked Alaska. The comedian Miguel Washington was doing another show tonight so after dinner we head over to the Explorer's Lounge to watch. He's really funny and it was a great way to end the day and our wonderful cruise.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Cruising the Caribbean Seas
It's 7:45AM and a warm 25C as I sit on our port side balcony cruising back up to Fort Lauderdale after an amazing past few days touring the Caribbean islands. This is the third time I 'guest blog' on L's travel page so it seams like she likes my contributions or she is running low on material. I really doubt it's the latter because L always seems to find the time to write up daily synopses during our trips...I don't know how she finds the time but it sure is nice to have a comprehensive summary of our trips documented!
You may be wondering how we picked this particular type of trip for our vacation this year. While a cruise is not our typical method of travel, we had never cruised together and were curious about what it would be like to do so in a tropical destination. We found a great boxing week deal for this Eastern Caribbean Princess Cruise and ended up booking it on a fairly quick whim followed by flights and hotels booked on our own using points. That was December last year. My usual travel research and planning kicked in shortly after that (researching the ports, pre and post cruise stay, cruise ship secrets, etc). L says she likes to leave the planning up to me and she'll continue to do the travelling bit!
In mid-March, life delivered to me, and to us, a fairly big curve ball. This is one of these 'why me, and why now?' type situations that we had to deal with all of a sudden. Without getting into too many details here, the next few weeks were hectic in every way imaginable, leading right up to the day before we were to leave for our cruise. We made it of course, glad we did, and although the curve ball is a big one and right smack in front of me, I'm planning to dodge it and get back in the game soon.
So here we are wrapping up a great week cruising the Caribbean. By now you have read about most of our activities in L's previous blog entries so I will highlight my top ten most memorable and interesting times on this adventure:
+The amazing ship. The Ruby Princess is one of the newer ships in the fleet and has tons to do on board. Good places to lounge in the sun. A great movie under the stars setup to watch the latest hits. Lounges with non-stop entertainment, decent comedy/magic/broadway shows, and some sport activities like ping-pong, mini-golf and basketball.
+Being 'disconnected' - sort of. Both of us travelled with iPads and I did bring my phone but we used these mainly while in transit at the airports and hotels as a distraction. On the ship, Internet is pricey and very slow so it was nice to be away from all the flurry of day to day emails and other stuff. Okay, I confess that we did get the basic Internet package but that was mainly so that this blog could get updated and the occasional Facebook update could be uploaded :)
+Our balcony room. Definitely worth it! We used the balcony to read, lounge, watch us arrive and depart from the ports, stargaze, eat breakfast and listen to the ocean every day. The room itself was pretty good too with lots of storage for clothes/stuff and a little fridge which we filled with water daily. The shower was tiny as expected but still roomy enough to be comfortable.
+Warm weather. With highs of 28 and lows of 26 on average, the weather was awesome! I was a little worried when theweathernetwork.com forecasted thunder showers before we left but there was nothing but sun, some occasional clouds and calm seas after the first day.
+Tasty food - and lots of it. This is what cruises are known for and Princess did not disappoint. Dining room lunches and dinner were always top notch. Speciality dinner at the steakhouse restaurant Crown Grill was amazing (filet mignon, Kansas grill steak, lobster tails, and more). Freshly baked thin crust pizza made for a repeat snack/lunch (the pizzeria also cooked up tasty waffles in the morning!). Gelato, sorbet, mousse, cheesecake, cobbler, pana cotta, and endless other deserts where too readily available and we could not say no. Fruit bowl delivered to our stateroom and room service breakfast most mornings were a nice touch.
+Princess Cays, Bahamas. This is the first of four ports that we visited. I'll warn you that there is a beach theme to each - a big reason we selected this particular itinerary. Princess Cays is a private beach area which was much better than expected! Turquoise blue water, white sand, swimming and snorkelling areas. A perfect first stop.
+Orient Beach, St. Martin. Located on the French side of the island this beach was also tropical paradise. 2 miles of the same amazing water and sand. A little choppier here with tourists tearing up the ocean on wave runners so I decided not to snorkel.
+Governors Beach, Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos. Like the other beaches, I researched this beach ahead of time and learned that it offered clear turquoise blue water and fine white sand (starting to see a pattern??) without being busy like the beach located next to where the ship docks. We took a taxi out here and spent over 2 hours in the sun, water and snorkelling.
+Coki Beach, St. Thomas. By far my favourite beach on the trip! Coki beach is small and you have to take a taxi to get there but we lucked out because we were the only ship on St. Thomas that day so we enjoyed over 3 hours of relaxing, swimming and great snorkelling at this picturesque beach spot.
++And last but not least is spending time with L who has been a great partner and made this trip fun despite all of the hectic-ness we faced before leaving.
Although I don't think we are going to become regular cruisers after this trip, we enjoyed it enough (and enjoyed all the wonderful food and pampering) that we will probably end up on another ship sometime in the future.
That's all for this edition of the 'guest blog'!
Z
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
You may be wondering how we picked this particular type of trip for our vacation this year. While a cruise is not our typical method of travel, we had never cruised together and were curious about what it would be like to do so in a tropical destination. We found a great boxing week deal for this Eastern Caribbean Princess Cruise and ended up booking it on a fairly quick whim followed by flights and hotels booked on our own using points. That was December last year. My usual travel research and planning kicked in shortly after that (researching the ports, pre and post cruise stay, cruise ship secrets, etc). L says she likes to leave the planning up to me and she'll continue to do the travelling bit!
In mid-March, life delivered to me, and to us, a fairly big curve ball. This is one of these 'why me, and why now?' type situations that we had to deal with all of a sudden. Without getting into too many details here, the next few weeks were hectic in every way imaginable, leading right up to the day before we were to leave for our cruise. We made it of course, glad we did, and although the curve ball is a big one and right smack in front of me, I'm planning to dodge it and get back in the game soon.
So here we are wrapping up a great week cruising the Caribbean. By now you have read about most of our activities in L's previous blog entries so I will highlight my top ten most memorable and interesting times on this adventure:
+The amazing ship. The Ruby Princess is one of the newer ships in the fleet and has tons to do on board. Good places to lounge in the sun. A great movie under the stars setup to watch the latest hits. Lounges with non-stop entertainment, decent comedy/magic/broadway shows, and some sport activities like ping-pong, mini-golf and basketball.
+Being 'disconnected' - sort of. Both of us travelled with iPads and I did bring my phone but we used these mainly while in transit at the airports and hotels as a distraction. On the ship, Internet is pricey and very slow so it was nice to be away from all the flurry of day to day emails and other stuff. Okay, I confess that we did get the basic Internet package but that was mainly so that this blog could get updated and the occasional Facebook update could be uploaded :)
+Our balcony room. Definitely worth it! We used the balcony to read, lounge, watch us arrive and depart from the ports, stargaze, eat breakfast and listen to the ocean every day. The room itself was pretty good too with lots of storage for clothes/stuff and a little fridge which we filled with water daily. The shower was tiny as expected but still roomy enough to be comfortable.
+Warm weather. With highs of 28 and lows of 26 on average, the weather was awesome! I was a little worried when theweathernetwork.com forecasted thunder showers before we left but there was nothing but sun, some occasional clouds and calm seas after the first day.
+Tasty food - and lots of it. This is what cruises are known for and Princess did not disappoint. Dining room lunches and dinner were always top notch. Speciality dinner at the steakhouse restaurant Crown Grill was amazing (filet mignon, Kansas grill steak, lobster tails, and more). Freshly baked thin crust pizza made for a repeat snack/lunch (the pizzeria also cooked up tasty waffles in the morning!). Gelato, sorbet, mousse, cheesecake, cobbler, pana cotta, and endless other deserts where too readily available and we could not say no. Fruit bowl delivered to our stateroom and room service breakfast most mornings were a nice touch.
+Princess Cays, Bahamas. This is the first of four ports that we visited. I'll warn you that there is a beach theme to each - a big reason we selected this particular itinerary. Princess Cays is a private beach area which was much better than expected! Turquoise blue water, white sand, swimming and snorkelling areas. A perfect first stop.
+Orient Beach, St. Martin. Located on the French side of the island this beach was also tropical paradise. 2 miles of the same amazing water and sand. A little choppier here with tourists tearing up the ocean on wave runners so I decided not to snorkel.
+Governors Beach, Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos. Like the other beaches, I researched this beach ahead of time and learned that it offered clear turquoise blue water and fine white sand (starting to see a pattern??) without being busy like the beach located next to where the ship docks. We took a taxi out here and spent over 2 hours in the sun, water and snorkelling.
+Coki Beach, St. Thomas. By far my favourite beach on the trip! Coki beach is small and you have to take a taxi to get there but we lucked out because we were the only ship on St. Thomas that day so we enjoyed over 3 hours of relaxing, swimming and great snorkelling at this picturesque beach spot.
++And last but not least is spending time with L who has been a great partner and made this trip fun despite all of the hectic-ness we faced before leaving.
Although I don't think we are going to become regular cruisers after this trip, we enjoyed it enough (and enjoyed all the wonderful food and pampering) that we will probably end up on another ship sometime in the future.
That's all for this edition of the 'guest blog'!
Z
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Day 6 - Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos
We're nearing the end of the cruise, which is sad. The cruise has been great thus far, the ocean has been fairly calm so the motion of the ship has been gentle with no signs of seasickness in this stateroom.
Today we woke up to some more beautiful sunshine and had breakfast on our balcony again. We weren't going to be docking until 1pm so we had the morning to kill. What better way to spend this time then by playing a friendly competitive game of ping pong. It's been a few years since the last friendly competitive game so the stakes were high to see who come out on top this time. The first game was a battle back and forth with Z finally winning 23-21. Not liking to lose, I suggested a best out of 3 match. I didn't fair so well the second game and lost 21-16. Ahh, until next time (likely tomorrow).
We've managed to not eat in the buffet all week, but today for lunch we decided we'd give it a try. Partly because we wanted to eat right before we disembarked and didn't want to risk having to wait for a table and also because it was just opening for lunch which meant that the food would be most fresh and not too many people would have been through.
Grand Turk is the capital of Turks & Caicos, but is a small island only 7 miles long by 1.5 miles wide with about 5000 residents. On average they enjoy 350 days of sunshine. Up until the week we were leaving we weren't sure the cruise we even stop at Turks & Caicos because for the past 4 weeks cruise ships has been skipping this stop after a bunch of tourists got sick on the island due to some problems with the water. Our week was the first week the ships started heading there again.
We decided we'd take a quick tour of the main town, Cockburn, before heading off to the beach. Cockburn town is not very large and took about 10 minutes to get to by taxi; cost $5 per person. We've spent more money on taxis this trip than anything else!! There isn't too much to see, but we got our token souvenir and saw the town's salt pond.
The crew on board really try and get you to hang out at the port beach, but we had other plans. After the town we head to Governor's Beach, which Z researched as being a much better beach. It did not disappoint. We've been fortunate to visit 4 impressive beaches on this trip. Governor's Beach is situated in front of the British Governor's residence. The beach as a partly sunken ship on the shoreline, which was pretty cool to see. It wasn't busy when we arrived so we rented a couple beach chairs for $20 and planted ourselves for the afternoon. Z snorkelled a bit and saw some really colourful fish while I decided to just wade around in the ocean before settling down with my book in the sun. This beach was pristine, white fine sand bottom with clear water. What better way to end the beach hopping than with this fantastic location!!
All on board was 6:30pm, so we got on a little earlier so we could get to diner before all the masses. We also wanted to catch two of the shows tonight and not have it be too late of a night. The magician David Cats was doing another more intimate show and we wanted to see that. He is quite amazing with his tricks. On board tonight was comedian Miguel Washington and his show was left us in stitches. We turned in after the show because I'm feeling the effects of some heat exhaustion. Have I mentioned the Caribbean sun is not to be underestimated?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Today we woke up to some more beautiful sunshine and had breakfast on our balcony again. We weren't going to be docking until 1pm so we had the morning to kill. What better way to spend this time then by playing a friendly competitive game of ping pong. It's been a few years since the last friendly competitive game so the stakes were high to see who come out on top this time. The first game was a battle back and forth with Z finally winning 23-21. Not liking to lose, I suggested a best out of 3 match. I didn't fair so well the second game and lost 21-16. Ahh, until next time (likely tomorrow).
We've managed to not eat in the buffet all week, but today for lunch we decided we'd give it a try. Partly because we wanted to eat right before we disembarked and didn't want to risk having to wait for a table and also because it was just opening for lunch which meant that the food would be most fresh and not too many people would have been through.
Grand Turk is the capital of Turks & Caicos, but is a small island only 7 miles long by 1.5 miles wide with about 5000 residents. On average they enjoy 350 days of sunshine. Up until the week we were leaving we weren't sure the cruise we even stop at Turks & Caicos because for the past 4 weeks cruise ships has been skipping this stop after a bunch of tourists got sick on the island due to some problems with the water. Our week was the first week the ships started heading there again.
We decided we'd take a quick tour of the main town, Cockburn, before heading off to the beach. Cockburn town is not very large and took about 10 minutes to get to by taxi; cost $5 per person. We've spent more money on taxis this trip than anything else!! There isn't too much to see, but we got our token souvenir and saw the town's salt pond.
The crew on board really try and get you to hang out at the port beach, but we had other plans. After the town we head to Governor's Beach, which Z researched as being a much better beach. It did not disappoint. We've been fortunate to visit 4 impressive beaches on this trip. Governor's Beach is situated in front of the British Governor's residence. The beach as a partly sunken ship on the shoreline, which was pretty cool to see. It wasn't busy when we arrived so we rented a couple beach chairs for $20 and planted ourselves for the afternoon. Z snorkelled a bit and saw some really colourful fish while I decided to just wade around in the ocean before settling down with my book in the sun. This beach was pristine, white fine sand bottom with clear water. What better way to end the beach hopping than with this fantastic location!!
All on board was 6:30pm, so we got on a little earlier so we could get to diner before all the masses. We also wanted to catch two of the shows tonight and not have it be too late of a night. The magician David Cats was doing another more intimate show and we wanted to see that. He is quite amazing with his tricks. On board tonight was comedian Miguel Washington and his show was left us in stitches. We turned in after the show because I'm feeling the effects of some heat exhaustion. Have I mentioned the Caribbean sun is not to be underestimated?
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Friday, April 12, 2013
Day 5 - St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
There is something about listening to the ocean as we sail along that is just very soothing and calming for me. It is so very tranquil. Not only that, but listening to the waves crash along the shoreline at beach time just brings me to my happy place!
Today we docked bright and early (7am) in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. The partly cloudy forecast was once again something that I could live with as the temperature reached 27C and any clouds blew over before you even realized they were there.
We had decided the night before that we'd have beach time and walk around the town a little so we didn't see the need to rush off the boat right at 7. We enjoyed another breakfast at the Da Vinci dining room before making our way off the ship at around 9. Our plan was to head to Coki beach and chill out. The taxi ride was about a half hour and the taxi was a safari type truck that could fit about 18 people. The island is quite hilly and the ride took us up and down countless hills with incredible views of the harbours and shoreline.
How to describe Coki beach? In two words: tropical paradise. A place where all your life's concerns are forgotten and you just take in the natural beauty in absolute amazement. We had read that this beach can get quite busy, but when we arrived it wasn't at all busy. We were the only ship in town, which is apparently rather unusual, so that helped reduced the number of people here. The beach is smaller than I expected, but that didn't matter because the white sand beach and crystal clear water all but made up for it being a little small. We rented a couple chairs and an beach umbrella and were set for our day. This beach had good facilities and the staff working the beach were quite friendly and took care of you. Of course everything costs money and we paid $20 for the chairs and umbrella. It was really hot and so we also bought some bottled water. Who knew we'd have to fly all the way to the Virgin Islands to get Ontario bottled water?!?
We did a little snorkelling here too and got to see some cool fish. They weren't as plentiful as other places we've been blessed to snorkel, but just the same the fish were something we'd never see back home. I really should start learning to identify different fish if I'm going to continue snorkelling, it would really help to describe them. People were also feeding the fish while we were there so that likely attracted more and kept them in the area much longer. The water was calmer than at Orient beach the day before, and it was a lot of fun just playing around. Again the ocean bottom was a fine white sand, easy on the feet and with a reasonably gentle slope out into the ocean. It's very hard to describe the beauty of this place in words and the pictures hardly justify it.
We walked the town for a short while. Boy are there plenty of jewelry and liquor shops around. We bought our token souvenir; this one is really cool, a pirate Santa Christmas ornament, and the head back to the ship. I wanted to get back in plenty of time to see us cast off.
Along the dock area, we saw a bunch of iguanas sunbathing on the rocks. I had never seen a live iguana, so that was cool. We also saw a pirate ship in the harbour and thankfully they didn't come on board. :) I think it was actually an excursion you could pay for to take a ride on their ship. When we were leaving port the pirate ship sent us off with a canon shot....that was cool! We actually left a half hour late because evidently some passengers didn't pay attention to the on board time. Our room is port side so we could see all the stragglers coming back, but for these three in particular the ship crew had parked a van at the security check point and drove them to the ship when they arrived...and it's only a 1 minute walk. How embarrassing when our entire side of the ship cheered and clapped for them!!
We set sail just after 4pm and we had plenty of time before the evening events. Tonight was our second formal night so we got all dressed up, head to the Piazza for some gelato before heading to the 7pm show. The production tonight was "Once Upon A Dream" - a musical dream/love story. It was a great show, the performers are very talent both with singing and dancing. The costumes were very elaborate too.
Dinner tonight was at the Da Vinci dining room where we opted for a shared table. We had dinner with a couple from Calgary and a couple from New York but originally from Italy. Dinner and the conversation were good. We skipped dessert, mostly because we wanted to catch the 9:15 Marriage Match Gameshow, but also because we kinda had dessert before dinner.
The gameshow was hilarious. It was just like the TV show the Newlywed Game. Four couples answered questions and then their spouse had to answer the same question to see if their answers matched. It was some good fun.
Being in the middle of the Caribbean is awesome. The evenings are so warm here and star gazing is so easy because there are no lights around, just open ocean, open sky!! What a great way to end another wonderful day in tropical paradise.
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Today we docked bright and early (7am) in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. The partly cloudy forecast was once again something that I could live with as the temperature reached 27C and any clouds blew over before you even realized they were there.
We had decided the night before that we'd have beach time and walk around the town a little so we didn't see the need to rush off the boat right at 7. We enjoyed another breakfast at the Da Vinci dining room before making our way off the ship at around 9. Our plan was to head to Coki beach and chill out. The taxi ride was about a half hour and the taxi was a safari type truck that could fit about 18 people. The island is quite hilly and the ride took us up and down countless hills with incredible views of the harbours and shoreline.
How to describe Coki beach? In two words: tropical paradise. A place where all your life's concerns are forgotten and you just take in the natural beauty in absolute amazement. We had read that this beach can get quite busy, but when we arrived it wasn't at all busy. We were the only ship in town, which is apparently rather unusual, so that helped reduced the number of people here. The beach is smaller than I expected, but that didn't matter because the white sand beach and crystal clear water all but made up for it being a little small. We rented a couple chairs and an beach umbrella and were set for our day. This beach had good facilities and the staff working the beach were quite friendly and took care of you. Of course everything costs money and we paid $20 for the chairs and umbrella. It was really hot and so we also bought some bottled water. Who knew we'd have to fly all the way to the Virgin Islands to get Ontario bottled water?!?
We did a little snorkelling here too and got to see some cool fish. They weren't as plentiful as other places we've been blessed to snorkel, but just the same the fish were something we'd never see back home. I really should start learning to identify different fish if I'm going to continue snorkelling, it would really help to describe them. People were also feeding the fish while we were there so that likely attracted more and kept them in the area much longer. The water was calmer than at Orient beach the day before, and it was a lot of fun just playing around. Again the ocean bottom was a fine white sand, easy on the feet and with a reasonably gentle slope out into the ocean. It's very hard to describe the beauty of this place in words and the pictures hardly justify it.
We walked the town for a short while. Boy are there plenty of jewelry and liquor shops around. We bought our token souvenir; this one is really cool, a pirate Santa Christmas ornament, and the head back to the ship. I wanted to get back in plenty of time to see us cast off.
Along the dock area, we saw a bunch of iguanas sunbathing on the rocks. I had never seen a live iguana, so that was cool. We also saw a pirate ship in the harbour and thankfully they didn't come on board. :) I think it was actually an excursion you could pay for to take a ride on their ship. When we were leaving port the pirate ship sent us off with a canon shot....that was cool! We actually left a half hour late because evidently some passengers didn't pay attention to the on board time. Our room is port side so we could see all the stragglers coming back, but for these three in particular the ship crew had parked a van at the security check point and drove them to the ship when they arrived...and it's only a 1 minute walk. How embarrassing when our entire side of the ship cheered and clapped for them!!
We set sail just after 4pm and we had plenty of time before the evening events. Tonight was our second formal night so we got all dressed up, head to the Piazza for some gelato before heading to the 7pm show. The production tonight was "Once Upon A Dream" - a musical dream/love story. It was a great show, the performers are very talent both with singing and dancing. The costumes were very elaborate too.
Dinner tonight was at the Da Vinci dining room where we opted for a shared table. We had dinner with a couple from Calgary and a couple from New York but originally from Italy. Dinner and the conversation were good. We skipped dessert, mostly because we wanted to catch the 9:15 Marriage Match Gameshow, but also because we kinda had dessert before dinner.
The gameshow was hilarious. It was just like the TV show the Newlywed Game. Four couples answered questions and then their spouse had to answer the same question to see if their answers matched. It was some good fun.
Being in the middle of the Caribbean is awesome. The evenings are so warm here and star gazing is so easy because there are no lights around, just open ocean, open sky!! What a great way to end another wonderful day in tropical paradise.
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Thursday, April 11, 2013
Day 4 - St. Maarten/St. Martin
Overnight we crossed the Puerto Rico Trench which is over 8500 meters deep and makes it the deepest place in the Atlantic Ocean. That's a lot of water!! I can't even imagine how much water that is, and yet wonder what lives at the bottom?
Today took us to the smallest mass of land shared by two countries....we docked an hour late on the Dutch side of the island and were greeted by "partly cloudy" skies. If their partly cloudy skies means a bunch of warm sunshine, then bring it on. We opted to have breakfast in the Da Vinci dining room. It wasn't overly busy and we got seated right away. I enjoyed some pancakes, coffee, and fresh fruit. The fruit on board is really good, especially the fruit you can get delivered to your room. Due to our late arrival, we were the fourth ship in port, everyone was eager to disembark so the line to get off was long, but moved well once we had clearance to leave.
We had pre-planned to head over to Orient beach, which was about a 20 minutes taxi ride from the port. The locals have this down to a tee, cram a bunch of tourists into their van taxis and charge everyone aboard a nominal fee. It cost $6 per person and I got to sit up front squeezed in between the driver and a really hairy guy. The driver was fun to talk to and I learned that there are about 90,000 people living on the island, you can live on either side of the island and move to the other side if you like without hassle, tourism is the only industry on the island, and unless a hurricane comes through it doesn't really rain here. It's sunny year long and averages about 28C.
Orient beach is on the French side and is a very popular beach. Given it's on the French side it is a clothing optional beach. Thankfully we didn't encounter too much of this. The beach is 2 miles of fine absolutely fabulous white sand beach. The water is gorgeous with white sand as well. Picture any photos you've seen of the tropical Caribbean waters and this was what we got to play in. The water was a little choppy but not enough to deter us going for a dip. On the beach we rented two beach chairs and a beach umbrella for $15. We were only going to be there for a few hours so I was hoping we could negotiate the price down, but he wouldn't budge. Should have had Z try in French. The beach also had restroom facilities, a fresh water shower and change room.
After some vegging on the beach we decided to head to Marigot, the capital of French St. Martin. This town was another 20 minutes taxi ride from the beach and this time cost us $20 total as it was just the two of us. The town is a seaside town, but we quickly found out there isn't much to do there. We decided to have lunch at Rosemary's, on the suggestion of our taxi driver. It turned out to be a really good suggestion. I really enjoyed my jerk chicken and ribs dish while Z enjoyed his seafood creole combo. We walked through the little market they had set up before deciding we should head back to Philipsburg, which is the capital of Dutch St. Maarten - this is also the town where we docked. Another $20 taxi ride later and we were back. The great thing of all these taxi rides is that we really got to see a good portion of the island as we made a giant loop around it with our stops.
Due to our insane days leading up to our cruise Z didn't have time to get his hair cut before and so had been saying that if we saw a barber he'd want to get a cut. Taxi driver dropped is off in Philipsburg right in front of a local salon...it would do. Haircut turned out good, despite it taking what seemed like forever and my thinking she didn't know what she was doing. We walked around the town a little....it was already later in the day and some of the shops were getting ready to close. I'm glad we hit the town later because it would have been a zoo otherwise especially with 4 ships in port. We bought a couple souvenirs and then made our way back to the ship because we wanted to get ready for the 7:15pm show - magician and illusionist David Cats from Italy. We were scheduled to depart at 7pm so we figured this show wouldn't be as busy and besides we had dinner reservations for 8pm. The show was really good and he did some pretty cool card tricks that left me amazed. We also enjoyed a new favourite drink - Key West cooler...passion fruit, watermelon, cranberry and sprite. So refreshing!!!
We decided to make reservations at the Crown Grill. This is the ship's steakhouse and there is a cover charge of $25 per person. We brought a bottle of wine on board (you're allowed one bottle each) and decided tonight would be a good night to enjoy it. They do charge a $15 corkage fee if you don't buy the bottle on board. I ordered the goat cheese and tomatoes salad which also came with spinach to start and at the waiter's recommendation the filet mignon which I wanted cooked well done. Oh my goodness!!!! This steak was the best steak I've ever tasted at a restaurant. The waiter had them prepare it butterflied and it just melted in my mouth. I was still talking about it the next day. Z had the mixed green salad, Kansas grill steak and lobster tail. We had the chef's dessert sample for, well dessert. Our waiter was Sam from Thailand and he was very surprised when I thanked him in Thai. It was a fantastic meal and a great way to end a superb day in our tropical paradise!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Today took us to the smallest mass of land shared by two countries....we docked an hour late on the Dutch side of the island and were greeted by "partly cloudy" skies. If their partly cloudy skies means a bunch of warm sunshine, then bring it on. We opted to have breakfast in the Da Vinci dining room. It wasn't overly busy and we got seated right away. I enjoyed some pancakes, coffee, and fresh fruit. The fruit on board is really good, especially the fruit you can get delivered to your room. Due to our late arrival, we were the fourth ship in port, everyone was eager to disembark so the line to get off was long, but moved well once we had clearance to leave.
We had pre-planned to head over to Orient beach, which was about a 20 minutes taxi ride from the port. The locals have this down to a tee, cram a bunch of tourists into their van taxis and charge everyone aboard a nominal fee. It cost $6 per person and I got to sit up front squeezed in between the driver and a really hairy guy. The driver was fun to talk to and I learned that there are about 90,000 people living on the island, you can live on either side of the island and move to the other side if you like without hassle, tourism is the only industry on the island, and unless a hurricane comes through it doesn't really rain here. It's sunny year long and averages about 28C.
Orient beach is on the French side and is a very popular beach. Given it's on the French side it is a clothing optional beach. Thankfully we didn't encounter too much of this. The beach is 2 miles of fine absolutely fabulous white sand beach. The water is gorgeous with white sand as well. Picture any photos you've seen of the tropical Caribbean waters and this was what we got to play in. The water was a little choppy but not enough to deter us going for a dip. On the beach we rented two beach chairs and a beach umbrella for $15. We were only going to be there for a few hours so I was hoping we could negotiate the price down, but he wouldn't budge. Should have had Z try in French. The beach also had restroom facilities, a fresh water shower and change room.
After some vegging on the beach we decided to head to Marigot, the capital of French St. Martin. This town was another 20 minutes taxi ride from the beach and this time cost us $20 total as it was just the two of us. The town is a seaside town, but we quickly found out there isn't much to do there. We decided to have lunch at Rosemary's, on the suggestion of our taxi driver. It turned out to be a really good suggestion. I really enjoyed my jerk chicken and ribs dish while Z enjoyed his seafood creole combo. We walked through the little market they had set up before deciding we should head back to Philipsburg, which is the capital of Dutch St. Maarten - this is also the town where we docked. Another $20 taxi ride later and we were back. The great thing of all these taxi rides is that we really got to see a good portion of the island as we made a giant loop around it with our stops.
Due to our insane days leading up to our cruise Z didn't have time to get his hair cut before and so had been saying that if we saw a barber he'd want to get a cut. Taxi driver dropped is off in Philipsburg right in front of a local salon...it would do. Haircut turned out good, despite it taking what seemed like forever and my thinking she didn't know what she was doing. We walked around the town a little....it was already later in the day and some of the shops were getting ready to close. I'm glad we hit the town later because it would have been a zoo otherwise especially with 4 ships in port. We bought a couple souvenirs and then made our way back to the ship because we wanted to get ready for the 7:15pm show - magician and illusionist David Cats from Italy. We were scheduled to depart at 7pm so we figured this show wouldn't be as busy and besides we had dinner reservations for 8pm. The show was really good and he did some pretty cool card tricks that left me amazed. We also enjoyed a new favourite drink - Key West cooler...passion fruit, watermelon, cranberry and sprite. So refreshing!!!
We decided to make reservations at the Crown Grill. This is the ship's steakhouse and there is a cover charge of $25 per person. We brought a bottle of wine on board (you're allowed one bottle each) and decided tonight would be a good night to enjoy it. They do charge a $15 corkage fee if you don't buy the bottle on board. I ordered the goat cheese and tomatoes salad which also came with spinach to start and at the waiter's recommendation the filet mignon which I wanted cooked well done. Oh my goodness!!!! This steak was the best steak I've ever tasted at a restaurant. The waiter had them prepare it butterflied and it just melted in my mouth. I was still talking about it the next day. Z had the mixed green salad, Kansas grill steak and lobster tail. We had the chef's dessert sample for, well dessert. Our waiter was Sam from Thailand and he was very surprised when I thanked him in Thai. It was a fantastic meal and a great way to end a superb day in our tropical paradise!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Day 3 - At Sea
Today is a sea day. It's a day of more rest and relaxation so we decided to have breakfast in our room again this morning, but with a little twist. Z went up to the Scoops Ice Cream Bar/Pizzeria where in the mornings they have a waffle station so we also had fresh waffles with strawberries and whip cream in addition to our continental breakfast. What a wonderful way to start the day!!!
You can do as much or as little as you want on board....haven't found the shuffle board yet....the Patter lists all the activities going on throughout the entire day. Today there was a vegetable/fruit carving demo going on which I thought would be cool to see. The chefs are so talented and put on a great show. They carved some really amazing animals like a monkey, duck, turtle, hen and penguin.
We tried the gym out. It's certainly a different sensation using a treadmill on a moving ship. The motion of the ship had me finding it a little difficult to walk straight (and no I didn't drink the night before) and it's definitely a strange feeling when you get off the treadmill. The gym is modern with a good number of different machines. It's located on deck 16 forward of the ship. Windows surround the outer part of the gym where the machines are so you can either watch TV or you can look out the windows and see where we're heading....on this day it was the vast open blue ocean that lay ahead. It was very beautiful, the ocean blue is a much nicer blue than back home.
For lunch we tried the International Cafe in the Piazza. We both had potato soup and I had the chicken and cheese panini while Z had the tomato, mozzarella, basil panini. Their desserts looked very tempting too, so I tried the espresso panna cotta while Z enjoyed a typical chocolate selection. They certainly don't let you go hungry on board...the food we've tried so far has been pretty tasty. I'm going to have to start watching out for all the desserts I'm indulging in or I really am going to gain weight!
There is an adults only area on deck 17 aft where we took in some sun and enjoyed the tranquility of the open ocean. The sun gets quite hot here, but this time I was properly prepared with adequate sunscreen.
It was formal night today, so we dressed up and went for dinner in the Da Vinci dining room and we opted for shared searing tonight. We enjoyed up a table with 3 other Canadians, 2 from BC and 1 for Alberta and a couple from Springfield. Dinner was good, but my well-done beef wasn't well enough for me so I didn't end up eating it all.
The Captain was hosting a Welcome Aboard party in the Piazza where they also had a champagne waterfall. We stopped in for a bit before heading to the 8:30pm show in the main theatre. Stardust was the name of the show and featured singing of some oldies and dancing. It was a good production, but shorter than I thought it would be.
We wanted to catch a movie under the stars and tonight they were featuring Bond at 10:15pm...James Bond in Skyfall. Neither of us had seen it yet, so this was our chance to see it on a big screen. They set up the area around the Calypso pool on deck 15 with cushions on the loungers. They provide you with blankets if you need and popcorn. Tonight was quite warm so the blanket wasn't really necessary. Right before the movie started they came around and offered pizza. About half way through the movie they came around again with cookies and milk. That was an unexpected treat. They really do try and make sure your needs are taken care of. They movie good and really fun watching it on deck under the nighttime sky. Great way to cap off an enjoyable, restful day!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
You can do as much or as little as you want on board....haven't found the shuffle board yet....the Patter lists all the activities going on throughout the entire day. Today there was a vegetable/fruit carving demo going on which I thought would be cool to see. The chefs are so talented and put on a great show. They carved some really amazing animals like a monkey, duck, turtle, hen and penguin.
We tried the gym out. It's certainly a different sensation using a treadmill on a moving ship. The motion of the ship had me finding it a little difficult to walk straight (and no I didn't drink the night before) and it's definitely a strange feeling when you get off the treadmill. The gym is modern with a good number of different machines. It's located on deck 16 forward of the ship. Windows surround the outer part of the gym where the machines are so you can either watch TV or you can look out the windows and see where we're heading....on this day it was the vast open blue ocean that lay ahead. It was very beautiful, the ocean blue is a much nicer blue than back home.
For lunch we tried the International Cafe in the Piazza. We both had potato soup and I had the chicken and cheese panini while Z had the tomato, mozzarella, basil panini. Their desserts looked very tempting too, so I tried the espresso panna cotta while Z enjoyed a typical chocolate selection. They certainly don't let you go hungry on board...the food we've tried so far has been pretty tasty. I'm going to have to start watching out for all the desserts I'm indulging in or I really am going to gain weight!
There is an adults only area on deck 17 aft where we took in some sun and enjoyed the tranquility of the open ocean. The sun gets quite hot here, but this time I was properly prepared with adequate sunscreen.
It was formal night today, so we dressed up and went for dinner in the Da Vinci dining room and we opted for shared searing tonight. We enjoyed up a table with 3 other Canadians, 2 from BC and 1 for Alberta and a couple from Springfield. Dinner was good, but my well-done beef wasn't well enough for me so I didn't end up eating it all.
The Captain was hosting a Welcome Aboard party in the Piazza where they also had a champagne waterfall. We stopped in for a bit before heading to the 8:30pm show in the main theatre. Stardust was the name of the show and featured singing of some oldies and dancing. It was a good production, but shorter than I thought it would be.
We wanted to catch a movie under the stars and tonight they were featuring Bond at 10:15pm...James Bond in Skyfall. Neither of us had seen it yet, so this was our chance to see it on a big screen. They set up the area around the Calypso pool on deck 15 with cushions on the loungers. They provide you with blankets if you need and popcorn. Tonight was quite warm so the blanket wasn't really necessary. Right before the movie started they came around and offered pizza. About half way through the movie they came around again with cookies and milk. That was an unexpected treat. They really do try and make sure your needs are taken care of. They movie good and really fun watching it on deck under the nighttime sky. Great way to cap off an enjoyable, restful day!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday, April 8, 2013
Day 2 - Princess Cays, Bahamas
Our "ship mail" is delivered right outside our door. The Princess Patter is the daily newsletter we get that describes all the various activities going for the day, what time and where we can find them. Today's Patter introduced us to the captain of the Ruby Princess, Commodore Giuseppe Romano, who has been with Princess cruises since 1976 and this gives me a little comfort that he probably knows how to navigate the ship.
Today started off with waking up and seeing we had arrived at Princess Cays, Eleuthera, Bahamas. We anchored just off the shore and had to take tender boats to reach the beach. But first we had our continental breakfast delivered to our room which we then ate on the balcony under clear blue skies and looking out at the vast Caribbean Sea. How to describe the water? It is absolutely stunning as it goes from navy blue to aquamarine to crystal clear. It is just such a beautiful sight.
Breakfast consisted of cereal, fruit, croissants, and of course coffee. After breakfast we prepped our things so we could catch the boat to the beach. Princess Cruises owns this stretch of beach and it is definitely set up for a large number of cruise ship passengers. They have ample lounge chairs to choose from and you can either sit and relax soaking up the sun or you could swim, snorkel, partake in water sports or beach sports. They provide a BBQ lunch served around 11:30am. We opted to eat back on the ship later and had some great pizza. Z did some snorkelling while I opted to wade into the water and mostly relax on the lounger for the day. The sun here is not to be underestimated; I figured out later when we got back on the ship.
For dinner today we tried the Da Vinci dining room where we managed to get in before it opened for "anytime dining" which is what we selected for the cruise. We liked the flexibility this dining option provided. Dinner today consisted of mixed green, sun-dried tomatoes salad and fettuccine for me while Z had the leak and veggie soup and halibut. Dessert was the Love Boat chocolate mouse for Z and cheesecake for me. Guess we'll need to hit the gym tomorrow to work off some of these extra calories.
After dinner, we enjoyed a martini demonstration in the Piazza. The show reminded me of the movie Cocktail. It was a great show, very entertaining. Tonight in the theatre was comedian Gary Delena - very funny and can next be seen on the inaugural sailing of the Royal Princess. We caught a glimpse of some ballroom dancing in the Piazza which was so very impressive. It's really amazing how talented these dancers are. There are more shows tomorrow that I hope to catch.
That about sums up today....it's been a fun filled day with some wonderful new memories with my Z!!
-
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Today started off with waking up and seeing we had arrived at Princess Cays, Eleuthera, Bahamas. We anchored just off the shore and had to take tender boats to reach the beach. But first we had our continental breakfast delivered to our room which we then ate on the balcony under clear blue skies and looking out at the vast Caribbean Sea. How to describe the water? It is absolutely stunning as it goes from navy blue to aquamarine to crystal clear. It is just such a beautiful sight.
Breakfast consisted of cereal, fruit, croissants, and of course coffee. After breakfast we prepped our things so we could catch the boat to the beach. Princess Cruises owns this stretch of beach and it is definitely set up for a large number of cruise ship passengers. They have ample lounge chairs to choose from and you can either sit and relax soaking up the sun or you could swim, snorkel, partake in water sports or beach sports. They provide a BBQ lunch served around 11:30am. We opted to eat back on the ship later and had some great pizza. Z did some snorkelling while I opted to wade into the water and mostly relax on the lounger for the day. The sun here is not to be underestimated; I figured out later when we got back on the ship.
For dinner today we tried the Da Vinci dining room where we managed to get in before it opened for "anytime dining" which is what we selected for the cruise. We liked the flexibility this dining option provided. Dinner today consisted of mixed green, sun-dried tomatoes salad and fettuccine for me while Z had the leak and veggie soup and halibut. Dessert was the Love Boat chocolate mouse for Z and cheesecake for me. Guess we'll need to hit the gym tomorrow to work off some of these extra calories.
After dinner, we enjoyed a martini demonstration in the Piazza. The show reminded me of the movie Cocktail. It was a great show, very entertaining. Tonight in the theatre was comedian Gary Delena - very funny and can next be seen on the inaugural sailing of the Royal Princess. We caught a glimpse of some ballroom dancing in the Piazza which was so very impressive. It's really amazing how talented these dancers are. There are more shows tomorrow that I hope to catch.
That about sums up today....it's been a fun filled day with some wonderful new memories with my Z!!
-
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Day 1 - Leaving Fort Lauderdale
We arrived in Fort Lauderdale at around 11pm local time. Luggage was generally slow getting off the plane but I think it may have had to do with at least two other planes arriving at the same time. We caught our shuttle to the hotel and were all checked in by 12am. We stayed at the Marriott Fairfield. As a bonus when we checked in we were told that we got upgraded to a mini king bed suite! Score!!! The room was great, the bed real comfy which allowed us some good rest after a long day of travel. Breakfast was included too so we grabbed some muffins, cereal, and yoghurts and took them back to our room in the morning so we could have a relaxing morning before our cruise. Check out was at noon. The best part of all this was that we didn't even pay for the hotel stay thanks to some points we earned through a Visa card!
We decided to pay for a shuttle to the cruise port....$8 per person directly for the hotel. A convenient way to get to the port but you're not guaranteed to be the first stop. Seems like there is a bit of a feud between the cabbies and shuttle drivers or perhaps it was just our driver. Port Everglades is in a very industrial port-like setting, nothing like the cruise ship terminal back home. We arrived amongst what I'll describe as chaos between tour buses, shuttle buses, and taxis all trying to drop off passengers. There was no orderly way about it. The check-in line was extremely long when we arrived at about 12:35pm. We thought it would take forever but it moved quickly and by about 1:10pm we were all checked in and aboard the Ruby Princess - our home for the next 7 days.
We found our stateroom quickly...Stateroom C734 which is port side, aft of the ship on Caribe deck 10. It's a lovely balcony room and is quite spacious with a queen bed. The balcony is much larger than I thought it would be and was great for viewing arrivals, the vast big sea, or having breakfast on. The bathroom is rather small but we had heard they would be. The shower is tiny.
When we boarded the staff all try to direct you to the buffet dining room for lunch, but my trusty resourceful partner knew you could actually eat lunch in one of the regular restaurants if you made it there before 1:30pm. So after dropping our carry on bags in our room we set off to find the Da Vinci dining room. Here we had a quiet peaceful lunch while most other passengers probably would have been battling it out at the buffet. I had spinach and ricotta ravioli while Z had chickpea soup and salmon. It was very tasty. After lunch we walked around the ship a little to orient ourselves, attended the mandatory emergency drill and then found a great spot starboard to watch as we set sail. We were a little tired from the travel so we retired to our room for an early evening nap. You can really feel the ship moving as it is sailing; a couple times I had to reposition myself while walking. It's a neat sensation though when trying to sleep. By the time we got up we had sailed east enough that the cloudy skies had cleared and we could actually catch a bit of the sunset. It was beautiful as it glistened off the water. What a sight!!!
For dinner we went to the Michelangelo dining room and had a fabulous dinner. Z had read that on the dinner menus they will sometimes add fruit smoothie items and tonight they had what essentially was a piña colada listed under the soup section. I didn't quite believe Z at first but then I saw one and decided to also order it because it was included in the meal and so you got a free piña colada. How good is that when otherwise you would have to pay for it?!? Never thought to consider a piña colada a soup. I also had the melon trio with port wine as my appetizer while Z had chicken broth with tortellini. For my main I had chicken with fresh vegetables (no surprise there) while Z had the fettuccine on a bed of parmesan crust. Dessert was tasty too with so many different options, but I settled with the vanilla creme brûlée (pretty good but I know someone who makes it better), and Z had the ice cream but chose a scoop of each flavour - hazelnut (so comparable to Italy), honeydew sorbet (really tasty) and raspberry (least favourite). Dinner was really good overall. We ate late and were still a little tired and I was battling a headache so we retired for the evening so we could be all rested for the next day. Before hitting the pillow we put our order in breakfast room service for the morning and our order for fresh fruit delivery the next day. What a first day!!
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We decided to pay for a shuttle to the cruise port....$8 per person directly for the hotel. A convenient way to get to the port but you're not guaranteed to be the first stop. Seems like there is a bit of a feud between the cabbies and shuttle drivers or perhaps it was just our driver. Port Everglades is in a very industrial port-like setting, nothing like the cruise ship terminal back home. We arrived amongst what I'll describe as chaos between tour buses, shuttle buses, and taxis all trying to drop off passengers. There was no orderly way about it. The check-in line was extremely long when we arrived at about 12:35pm. We thought it would take forever but it moved quickly and by about 1:10pm we were all checked in and aboard the Ruby Princess - our home for the next 7 days.
We found our stateroom quickly...Stateroom C734 which is port side, aft of the ship on Caribe deck 10. It's a lovely balcony room and is quite spacious with a queen bed. The balcony is much larger than I thought it would be and was great for viewing arrivals, the vast big sea, or having breakfast on. The bathroom is rather small but we had heard they would be. The shower is tiny.
When we boarded the staff all try to direct you to the buffet dining room for lunch, but my trusty resourceful partner knew you could actually eat lunch in one of the regular restaurants if you made it there before 1:30pm. So after dropping our carry on bags in our room we set off to find the Da Vinci dining room. Here we had a quiet peaceful lunch while most other passengers probably would have been battling it out at the buffet. I had spinach and ricotta ravioli while Z had chickpea soup and salmon. It was very tasty. After lunch we walked around the ship a little to orient ourselves, attended the mandatory emergency drill and then found a great spot starboard to watch as we set sail. We were a little tired from the travel so we retired to our room for an early evening nap. You can really feel the ship moving as it is sailing; a couple times I had to reposition myself while walking. It's a neat sensation though when trying to sleep. By the time we got up we had sailed east enough that the cloudy skies had cleared and we could actually catch a bit of the sunset. It was beautiful as it glistened off the water. What a sight!!!
For dinner we went to the Michelangelo dining room and had a fabulous dinner. Z had read that on the dinner menus they will sometimes add fruit smoothie items and tonight they had what essentially was a piña colada listed under the soup section. I didn't quite believe Z at first but then I saw one and decided to also order it because it was included in the meal and so you got a free piña colada. How good is that when otherwise you would have to pay for it?!? Never thought to consider a piña colada a soup. I also had the melon trio with port wine as my appetizer while Z had chicken broth with tortellini. For my main I had chicken with fresh vegetables (no surprise there) while Z had the fettuccine on a bed of parmesan crust. Dessert was tasty too with so many different options, but I settled with the vanilla creme brûlée (pretty good but I know someone who makes it better), and Z had the ice cream but chose a scoop of each flavour - hazelnut (so comparable to Italy), honeydew sorbet (really tasty) and raspberry (least favourite). Dinner was really good overall. We ate late and were still a little tired and I was battling a headache so we retired for the evening so we could be all rested for the next day. Before hitting the pillow we put our order in breakfast room service for the morning and our order for fresh fruit delivery the next day. What a first day!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, April 6, 2013
A Different Type of Adventure
Wake up call 4:30am not so fun after only getting to bed at 11pm the night before and then having a restless sleep for those few hours. But knowing that the alarm is waking me for our next travel adventure makes it not seem as bad! This trip, though originally booked a few months ago, is coming at a much needed time and will give us a good break from everything.
At the airport by 6am, breeze through baggage drop, security, and US immigration - thanks Nexus/Global entry. Off to grab a quick bite and some coffee before boarding our 2.5 hour flight to Denver on route to Fort Lauderdale. Flight was uneventful though I didn't get my Cheerios breakfast option this time. Our layover in Denver is about 6 hours but we decided not to leave the airport and head downtown because it's kinda far, we'd have to clear security again and we're both a little tired. So we'll wait it out in the lounge.
This adventure isn't our typical trip....we're heading on a cruise of the Caribbean. This will be my first cruise so many new experiences for me. It will give us a taste of many of the islands that we've wanted to visit and hopefully help us find one, or two, maybe three that we'll want to travel back to and spend some time. We figured this was a great way to get a taste of each even if land time is limited. And besides who can pass up a great sale when you find one?!?!?
All ready to go....weighed myself this morning. Let's see if what everyone says about eating too much on cruises happens. Hope the gym facilities are good, it's time for me to get serious about my running training. So much to do...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
At the airport by 6am, breeze through baggage drop, security, and US immigration - thanks Nexus/Global entry. Off to grab a quick bite and some coffee before boarding our 2.5 hour flight to Denver on route to Fort Lauderdale. Flight was uneventful though I didn't get my Cheerios breakfast option this time. Our layover in Denver is about 6 hours but we decided not to leave the airport and head downtown because it's kinda far, we'd have to clear security again and we're both a little tired. So we'll wait it out in the lounge.
This adventure isn't our typical trip....we're heading on a cruise of the Caribbean. This will be my first cruise so many new experiences for me. It will give us a taste of many of the islands that we've wanted to visit and hopefully help us find one, or two, maybe three that we'll want to travel back to and spend some time. We figured this was a great way to get a taste of each even if land time is limited. And besides who can pass up a great sale when you find one?!?!?
All ready to go....weighed myself this morning. Let's see if what everyone says about eating too much on cruises happens. Hope the gym facilities are good, it's time for me to get serious about my running training. So much to do...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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