Southern Cruise Category

Today is “turnaround day” for the cruise. We got up at about 6:45 AM, showered, and got dressed to go to the buffet for breakfast. It will be an interesting experience for us, we have never done “back-to-back” cruises before, so we are not quite sure what to expect. Last night, we received our new cruise cards and instructions on how the process works for those staying on board for the next cruise. It would have been easier if we were not changing cabins, or planning to get of the ship, but on our case, we were doing both.

Everything was packed, and we had our valuables in Stephanie’s backpack. We were not quite sure if we were supposed to wait in the cabin to be moved, or just go off the ship and let the ship’s personnel move us. In any event, we could not move until our next cabin was ready. Our cabin steward, Tony, was keeping us informed as much as he could. We opted to just wait in the cabin to see what transpired. About 9:00 AM, we got a knock on our door, and someone was there with a luggage cart to help us move all of our items. Stephanie and I helped to get the hanging clothes on the cart’s hanging rack, and we placed some of the smaller bags on the bottom of the cart. We both rolled a suitcase and off we went to the new room, one floor down and a little more forward.

We unloaded everything, and put the hanging clothes in the cabin closet and we were done moving. It had been pretty painless other than some of the uncertainty, and of course, packing and unpacking. The balcony cabin was set up a little differently from the previous inside cabin, so we had to figure out where to put things while we unpacked. The other interior room had actually been a little larger, and had more shelves and desk space. This balcony cabin had a bigger closet, but less shelves.

We went ahead and unpacked while we had the chance, and put our valuables in the safe. With passports in hand, as well as our two backpacks, we ventured to the passengers services desk to see about getting off of the ship. We either had the choice to remain on the ship and go through immigration at 11:30 AM in the Princess Theater, or get off of the ship and go through immigration just like we were leaving, and then get back onto the ship later with the normal Embarkation process. We did have special “Passenger in Transit” cards which we were supposed to show when both leaving and getting back on the ship.

We went through the normal Customs and Immigration, and after a short wait in line with the other passengers who were leaving to go home, we handed our Customs Form to the custom’s agent. Since we had purchased a ring for Stephanie in St. Thomas, we had put that value on the customs form as well as some other small items. The agent indicated we would have to pay duty since we were allowed only $800 per person duty free. I asked about the additional exemption for having visited St. Thomas, which doubles the normal exemption to $1,600 per person, which more than covered our purchases. He asked if we had made the purchase in St. Thomas, and we said yes, and then he said we were right about the additional exemption and let us go through. I had to believe it was a test, and that after having already processed most of the passengers from the ship, he certainly knew that the ship had visited St. Thomas. I am not sure why the US Customs has to be such a burdensome experience as compared to other countries.

We walked out of the terminal and started our walk to Publix to purchase some items, specifically canned Canada Dry Ginger Ale. We first stopped off at a Walgreens, which was really close to the port, just to check prices. We continued on to Publix, which was probably about one mile away.

We also visited the Total Wine, and decided to purchase two bottles of White Zinfandel to put in the cabin refrigerator. We are allowed to bring on two bottles at Embarkation. Next, we went into Publix, and they were having a Buy Two, Get Two Free special on the Canada Dry Ginger Ale 12-pack of cans. We had not intended to purchase that much, so we asked if we could get two for half the price of four, but that was not how the special worked, so we ended up getting four 12-packs. We also purchased some fresh limes for our beverages since the limes on the ship had not been that fresh so far, they are just cut up too many days in advance.

We loaded up all of the ginger ale in our backpacks, along with the other supplies and started the walk back to the ship. Of course, all of the extra weight made the walk harder, and the hot, humid weather did not help. By the time we got back to the terminal, we were both pretty sweaty.

We asked a port attendant about getting back on board and to see if our “In Transit” cards would shorten the process. We got to go to the head of the security screening line, and made it through without incident. Since we already had our cruise cards, we did not have to do the check-in, which was pretty crowded by this time. We were led to the Elite holding area, and by the time we got there, boarding was in progress, so a short time later, we were back in the room. It had taken about 25 minutes from the time we got to the terminal to the time we got to the room on the ship, not bad.

We changed into our bathing suits, applied sunscreen, and headed to get some lunch in the buffet before heading out to the pool deck to lounge in the sun.

A little later, we purchased a bucket of Dos Equis beer, which is buy four, get five. This was our first direct alcohol purchase for the cruise, and it felt funny after being on the beverage package for the previous cruise.

We also did not have to attend the emergency drill, another benefit of having already been on the ship from the first cruise, which was another first for us, and a little eerie. We did see a few other passengers, presumably from the first cruise, who also stayed out by the pool during the drill. The entire drill was played on the PA system, so we still had to listen to the drill. The best part was the update the Captain gave on tomorrow, and the proximity of the cruise to the path of Hurricane Joaquin.

The Captain announced that we would not be going to Princess Cays tomorrow, which we had anticipated from yesterday’s experience, where it was too rough to visit there. In addition to skipping Princess Cays, we would be taking a different route, much nearer to Cuba through what the Captain said was the Old Bahama Channel. He did not expect the weather to be that bad other than some higher wind, rain and rougher seas, but we were not expected to be closer than about 220 miles from the hurricane. We will just be adding another sea day as we head to St. Thomas, where we are still scheduled to arrive on time on Sunday morning.

The ship left promptly at 4:00 PM, and we had a nice sail away. We talked with a couple from Saskatchewan, Canada who had boarded today. Aye! They were nice, even with all of the Aye’s thrown in during the conversation.

It was a pleasant sail away, and had been nice sitting in the sunshine knowing we were in for a cloudy, windy day tomorrow.

We have a much more personable cabin steward on the cruise, he is also from India, similar to Tony, our last steward, but has a much better and friendly personality. His name is Kushalie. Of course, for this cruise, we are getting him to bring ice for our cooler each day so we can enjoy all of our stocked supplies.

We did find out from one of our bartenders at the Seaview bar, Jorge, that there are happy hours on board where we can buy beer at buy one, get one for $1, so he suggested we purchase several, and he will change them out for cold ones any time we want, a great suggestion since we could not keep them cold in our already loaded refrigerator. That is even a better deal than the bucket special.

It had been a long day, and almost as tiring as last Embarkation Day, but still easier. We did not want to go to the dining room, so we showered and got dressed for the buffet for our diner, which is our tradition on Embarkation days. Afterward, we headed back to the cabin to relax and watch college football on the TV, and enjoy some of the Rhine Wine we brought on board and have been keeping cold for the last ten days.

Today was a sea day due to the hurricane in the Bahamas, Hurricane Joaquin. This had originally been scheduled as a visit to the Princess Cruise Lines Private Island, Princess Cays. The sea day was a much better alternative in our opinion, we are not big fans of visiting Princess Cays. It is not that great of an island or beach, but I suppose for folks who do not get the opportunity to visit many warm weather beaches, it is a treat.

The skies were mostly cloudy when we awoke this morning, but the wind was blowing about 30 mph according to the ship’s weather report on the TV. All due to being near Hurricane Joaquin Luckily, the wind was blowing almost directly from the stern of the ship, so the relative wind on the decks was almost non existent. Had we been going in the opposite direction, it would have been an entirely different situation, we would have had winds of around 45 mph or greater out on deck.

The ship was not really rocking that much either since we were going with the waves. The Captain made an announcement about the weather at around 9:00 AM, and informed us we would see the worst of the conditions later this evening as we got closer to the hurricane. The ship was heading through what the Captain called the Old Bahama Channel, which is apparently a main shipping channel just north of the island of Cuba. This was not the normal cruise ship route from Ft. Lauderdale to St. Thomas, our next port of call, especially when the ship normally visits Princess Cays first, which is in the eastern Bahamas, and requires a more easterly course.

We ended up seeing a lot of ships pass us during the day, including a couple of cruise ships heading in the opposite direction, apparently also avoiding the worst of the hurricane.

We looked at the plot of our course on the cabin TV and we were really hugging the coast of Cuba, approximately 15 miles away according to the noon ship’s position report, which seemed closer than we normally sail from land.

After lunch, the sun actually came out and we were able to sit out in the sun on the pool deck, having to relocate a few time as brief, but heavy rain showers passed by. Late in the afternoon, the rain cleared away, and it was mostly sunny until near sunset.

We enjoyed a couple of home made VO & Canada Dry Ginger Ale drinks in our Yeti Cups, which were great to use because of their size and their ability to keep ice from melting too quickly in the hot sun. We had brought the Yeti cups specifically for the second cruise, knowing we would be supplying our own “refreshments”.

Later in the day, we witnessed a small bird crashing into some of the glass on one of the upper decks, and the bird came falling to the deck, not far away. Stephanie went over to see if it was OK, and one of the Deck Attendants got a box to put it in while it recovered from being stunned. It did not appear to be severely injured since it was able to get up, but it was obviously stunned. Apparently, when this happens, the environmental officer on the ship gets involved because of the possible spread of illness by birds from one area to another. The crewman indicated they would keep the bird overnight, and try and release it in the morning, but were not allowed to keep it longer, or to give it anything other than water. Hopefully, it survived.

We went back to the cabin and got ready for dinner. We were not sure if we would go to the dining room or to the buffet, we had not yet viewed the menu for the dining room.

First though, we went to the Vines Wine Bar and had some of one of our bottles of Sangioveso Silverado Wine that we had purchased on the previous cruise. We had a couple of glasses before watching a special martini show featuring a couple of our favorite bartenders from the Seaview Bar, Rommel and Jorge. Stephanie was able to get one of the free martini’s from Jorge.

After the show we headed to dinner, which ended up being in the buffet after we consulted the dining room menu and not seeing anything of particular interest.

After dinner, we returned to Vines to finish our bottle of wine, and have a couple of desserts from the International Cafe. We visited with our bartenders, Russell and Ronnie, which we enjoy taking to.

We went back to the room to consult the Princess Patter and look at the ocean from our balcony. We decided to get a glass of our wine stock from the room and head back out to look around some of the shops in the Atrium, and then go to the comedy show at 10:30 PM in the Princess Theater. We ran into the jewelry sales person for the Sophia Fiori at the jewelry shop, Jerry, and finally got to meet his wife, Carolina, from Mexico. We talked with them for a while, they are really fun, and are much easier to talk with since they are independent contractors, and do not work for Princess.

We went to the comedy show which featured Cary Long, and it was pretty good. That ended around 11:15 PM and we headed back to the cabin to sit out on the balcony and watch far off lightning from a thunderstorm. It was peaceful to listen to the waves crashing against the bow of the ship.

At about midnight, we retired for the evening.

 

Today is a day at sea as we continue to our next port of call, St. Thomas. The weather conditions improved dramatically overnight, the seas were quite calm, as well as the wind. The hurricane has moved northward, and we are moving southward, so we are continuously getting farther away by each nautical mile we travel.

Of course, we took the opportunity to sleep in a little, having no real plan for the day other than to sit out by the pool.

When we finally got up and got ready, we headed to get some breakfast at the buffet. Once we completed breakfast, we went to the Club Six Bar to work on some of the blog postings while our room was being cleaned. Unfortunately, after about ten minutes of peaceful quite, some type of presentation started about skin care products, and was being played over all of the speakers in the bar. So much for peaceful quiet. We only lasted another twenty minutes and then had to leave.

Luckily, our room cleaning was complete, so we applied our sunscreens and headed to the pool deck for some sun. It was nice out on deck, there was a good breeze, and a high thin overcast in the sky to help keep it cooler. After a while, the wind picked up some, and almost became too strong to enjoy being out on deck.

The photo staff for the cruise gave a presentation on the giant outdoor TV by the pool on using different modes on digital cameras, and it was actually pretty interesting. Stephanie’s camera has mode settings, but we never have used them much, so the seminar helped us to understand how they functioned.  Since I do not have modes on my camera, I have never taken the time to learn how they work.

It was then time for some lunch, Stephanie got some pizza from the pool deck pizzeria and we went into the buffet so I could get some sushi, which was just fair, as usual. There is not much selection, and they never have tuna, which is my favorite. None of the sushi they serve is raw, and the salmon is all heavily smoked.

After lunch, we headed back to the room to make a couple of refreshments, and then headed back up to the Seaview Bar for their “flaring” demonstration, which is the bartender’s juggling act with bottles and shakers. It was really good, and our favorite bartenders ending up giving us a couple of the free drinks they made, it is good to have connections.

We headed back to the room to get showers so we could attend Catholic Mass at 4:15 PM. There had been a listing in the Princess Patter, the on board activities directory, about a Catholic “Service” that was being hosted by a fellow passenger. It was a confusing way to describe what we hoped was a Mass. When we got to the Princess Live Theater, which was the listed location for the event, we found out that there was a priest on board as well as a deacon, both from California, and both retired from the same parish. The deacon was traveling with his wife, but all three were in the same travel group.

During Mass, the priest announced that there would also be a Mass on the last Saturday evening of the cruise, and they would take up a collection for the parish on the island of Dominica, which we visit in the next few days. The money will be sent to the parish to help with recover from the recent tropical storm damage. After Mass, Stephanie and I talked with the deacon about our school supplies we had brought on board to take to Dominica, and he was glad to take them to the local parish on Dominica for the children. It was interesting that we learned they were just two cabins down the hall form us.

After Mass, we headed back to the cabin to get ready for the first of two formal nights on this cruise. Tonight is the Champagne Waterfall and Captain’s Reception in the Atrium. Once we got ready, we headed to the Vines Wine Bar, also in the Atrium, to have some of the wine they are holding for us.

Once the reception begun, the waitstaff were serving free champagne throughout the Atrium, so we had a coupe of glasses of that along with some of the small snacks they were serving. The Captain came by and we took the opportunity for a picture and to thank him for taking us on a safe route by the hurricane.

We had already consulted the dining room menu and decided we would opt for the Alfredo’s Pizzeria, the same dining option we did on the first formal night on the previous cruise. Once again, the service and food was excellent, which is why we like dining here.

After dinner, we headed up to the Seaview Bar to visit with the bartenders there and to have a nightcap.

We headed back to the room to see if the Clemson vs. Notre Dame game was on the TV, and we were surprised to find that it was. It was already in the fourth quarter, so I got to see all of the nerve wracking ending, not having enjoyed the first portion of the game where we had apparently played much better. I was glad to see Clemson win, but it was not that fun to watch, too close for comfort.

After the game, we called it a night. Tomorrow, we visit St. Thomas, USVI.

It was a sunny morning when we awoke as the ship was already being tied up at the Pier in St. Thomas. Last night we had decided to try and visit Meagan’s Bay, a popular beach on St. Thomas. We were not in a hurry, so we slept in a little, starting to move around about 8:30 AM. We had apparently slept through the announcement given at 8:00 AM that signified the ship was ready to disembark passengers. We were thinking that there must have been a delay, but when we looked outside from the balcony, passengers were already going ashore.

We got ready and headed to breakfast in the buffet. It was quite crowded, apparently a lot of passengers had not gotten up early to go ashore today, just like us.  St. Thomas is probably one of the most frequented stops for cruises, so a lot of the passengers have likely been here before, and not in a big hurry to get off of the ship.

After breakfast, we headed back to the room to put on sunscreen and our bathing suits. We gathered up our gear and headed off of the ship to get a taxi to Meagan’s Bay. They use a lot of vans and open air trucks for taxi’s here, so we had to wait until there was enough people to fill a van that was the next taxi in line at the exit of the port terminal. It was not a pleasant experience, some of the drivers were not happy with the dispatcher that was directing passengers where to wait and what taxi to get into, almost to the point of getting into arguments. We finally had ten passengers for our van, enough for a full  load,  so off we went.

We have never been to Meagan’s Bay, and the drive was interesting, since the beach is on the other side of the island. We went up and up on a steep, winding road, and when we got to the top, we went down and down, also on a very steep and winding road. We finally got to the beach, and paid the $4.00 per person entry fee to the park.

We headed to the beach and although it was nice, it was not as spectacular as all of the write-ups and reviews had suggested. It was possibly due to the windy, rainy weather that had been in St. Thomas yesterday. And although today was sunny, there was still a lot of clouds, and a the sky was hazy with moisture.

We sat on our beach towels for a while, and then decided to walk to the other end of the long beach. It was more peaceful at the other end, so we put down our towels and stayed there and took some photos.

After a while, we headed back to the middle of the beach area to sit on a picnic table and dry off. We took this opportunity to call home and get an update on all of the rain and flooding. We did not know it was so bad, but luckily, both of our mom’s were safe, and everything was OK at the house.

We had also been getting some information via text messaging, which is free through Verizon on St. Thomas. Unfortunately, we had to purchase a special plan to be able to make calls through Verizon since they do not provide cell service in St. Thomas for calls.

We headed back to the taxi dispatch area and after a short wait, boarded a taxi heading to downtown Charlotte Amalie, the port city. We got off in the downtown area and walked to the Trident Jewelry Store to visit with them. I had them resize a watch band I had purchased before the trip, but did not have the special pin removal tool for taking out some links for sizing. We talked with our buddy Mash that we had met on the previous stop in St. Thomas, and he got us a Bushwhacker drink to sip on while we visited. We had told him we would be back today, and he was happy we had come by. Since the Royal Princess was the only ship in port today, there were not a lot of shoppers, so I think the staff in the store was a little bored.

After a short visit, we left and headed for the Green House, a local eatery and bar. We had a couple of Presidente Beers and a Macho Nacho platter. It was really good, and we used their free WiFi on our phones to catch up on email and Facebook. There were a lot of pictures on Facebook showing the flooding at home, which was so much worse than we had imagined.

After the late lunch, we took a taxi back to the ship. We stopped along the rocks of the harbor because there were several large Iguanas that hang out there, and Stephanie wanted to see them. She did not have any food, so she was teasing them with a piece of paper to get them to come nearer for some photos.

We boarded the ship and headed up to the room for some refreshments while we waited for the ship to leave. We watched the ship’s departure from the balcony, and enjoyed the nice breeze as we cleared the main channel and headed south.

We showered and got dressed for dinner, we were opting for the Mongolian Bar-B-Que that was being served in the buffet. We had really enjoyed it on the previous cruise, and it was just as good tonight.

After dinner, we walked around some of the shops in the Atrium. There was not a lot going on tonight for entertainment, so we headed back to the room to watch a movie on the TV from the large listing of free On Demand movies.

We also prepared or snorkel gear for tomorrow’s stop in Dominica, where we are doing an all day island tour through an independent tour company.

Today we are stopping in the port of Roseau, Dominica. Dominica had been hit hard with a tropical storm on August 27, 2015, and we had initially been worried that we may not be going there when we had booked this cruise. They received about 12 inches of rain in 24 hours, and we could see some of the devastation from the flooding and landslides on our tour. However, before we get to the tour, we need to start from the beginning of the day.

We were scheduled to meet our tour group between 9:10 AM and 9:30 AM, with the ship scheduled to arrive at 9:00 AM. We got up about 7:30 AM so we could eat a good breakfast before the tour.  Unlike our previous tour in St. Lucia, they are not providing any food on this tour, but had informed us to bring some snacks. We had forgotten to go to the International Cafe last night to get some sandwiches to bring today, they usually have a good selection, but only serving them after lunch. In the morning, all you can get there are some sweet rolls and croissants. We first looked at the International Cafe before heading to the buffet, hoping we might be wrong, but we were not surprised when they only had breakfast items in the International Cafe, nothing that would suffice as a meal for lunch.

We headed to the buffet, hoping that they might have something better, but settled for getting a couple of rolls and a couple croissants after we finished our good breakfast.

We headed back to the room and gathered up our gear for the tour. There was a snorkel stop on this tour, so we packed our snorkel gear in our dive bag, along with some towels and camera gear in a separate backpack.

We got off of the ship about 9:05 AM, and headed to the meeting place outside of the main terminal. There were about twenty people on this tour, so they separated us into two groups of ten, and we loaded up in the waiting vans

We drove about 35 minutes before we made our first stop at the “Champagne Reef”, which is a snorkel spot along the beach that has some gaseous bubbles coming out of the sea bottom from volcanic activity. After signing a waiver, we headed down a boardwalk to the beach.

A lot of the boardwalk had been washed away by landslides during the storm, so much of the walk was on a rocky shoreline that had been restored after the storm. We finally made it to the area where we entered the water, and it was very rocky. The rocks were mostly round stones, but some were quite large. In addition, we could see that the visibility of the water was not going to be good, there was a lot of silt washing onto the water from the beach area restored after the massive landslides.

We put on our snorkel gear and walked into the water from the very rocky beach before we put on our swim fins. Once the entire group was in the water, our guide took us out to the reef. The visibility got better as we got farther from shore, but was never great.

There was some interesting coral and fish on the reef, and on the outside of the reef, the water got deep pretty fast, going to a depth of about 75-100 feet. The guide had informed us that before the storm, you could easily see the bottom, even at that depth. However, it was not clear enough to see the bottom now.

The guide showed us some old cannons that were on the bottom, but we did not get much history on how they had gotten there.

Then we swam over to the area where the “champagne bubbles” were coming out of the rocky bottom. It was only about 10-12 feet deep, and the gasses were venting in a lot of locations, mimicking the bubbles in a glass of champagne. It was pretty interesting.

The guide went to the bottom and collected some of the venting steam/water in his snorkel, and then brought it up and poured it into our hands, it was pretty warm compared to the sea water temperature.

That was the end of the snorkel tour, so we headed back to the rocky beach to remove our gear and walk back to the waiting van, first stopping off at the main building to rinse off and pack our gear.

The next stop was in the Botanical Gardens, which highlights many of the trees and plants that grow on the island. There was a very large Banyan tree that was quite impressive.

Next, we headed to the Ti Tou Gorge, which was used in the filming of the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It was an area carved out of the rocks by a small waterfall. We put on flotation belts and swam into the dark gorge.

The water was about 65 degrees according to the guide, and it took some getting used to, it was cold.

We went into the gorge as a group, and posed for some pictures at the waterfall in the back of the gorge before swimming back to the entrance. It was a really nice experience.

The next stop on the tour was the Trafalgar Falls. During the ride up into the mountains to the falls, you could really see the devastation from the rains, there were many areas where landslides had occurred, many of them right next to the road.

There were several areas where work crews were rebuilding the roads from the storm’s damage.

We had about a 10 minute walk out to the falls on a trail through the rain forest. When we got to the falls, there was a nice observation platform for taking pictures of the two waterfalls here.

The guides explained that there were pools for swimming at the base of the falls before the tropical storm, but that the excessive rain from the tropical storm had cause a lot of the areas at the base of the falls to be washed out, and now the pools were filled with massive boulders, and were no longer accessible for swimming.

It was hard to image the power of the water, the boulders were huge, and it had to have taken a lot of water to move them around.

The falls were still beautiful, even without the swimming experience.

We drove back down the winding roads and re-entered the Botanical Gardens, this time for some more detailed viewing of some of the horticulture. There was a bamboo cave, made out of bamboo plants that have been trimmed to make sort of an enclosed area, with four entrances around the perimeter.

We also saw a large tree that had fallen on a school bus during Hurricane David in the 1970’s. The tree was still growing, but the crushed bus underneath the fallen portion of the tree was crushed, but still visible.

The last stop was at an area called Morne Bruce, which had been some type of military fort many years ago, probably in the late 1700’s. The remains of the fort were not the attraction, it was the panoramic views of the city below, along with the views of the ship at the pier.

We headed back to the port and unloaded. It was about 3:30 PM, and we were tired from the days activities. The tour had been really nice, even with the effects of the tropical storm, which luckily, had only been a rain event, there had been no damaging winds.

We stopped off in the terminal to look at some of the local handcrafted items being sold. We purchased a couple of items, a handmade basket, and a hand painted Christmas ornament.

We got back onto the ship, dropped off our gear in the room, and headed to the buffet for some lunch.

We spent some time out on the pool deck until the ship departed at 6:00 PM. The sun was setting, but there was a large thunderstorm forming over the island’s mountains. The reflected sunset colors against the thunderstorm clouds was beautiful, there were hues of pink, orange and purple.

We headed back to the room to finish watching the ship’s departure from our balcony, there was a lot of lightening in the storm, and we did not want to be out on the open decks.

We got cleaned up and headed to the buffet for dinner. We were quite tired from the all day tour. After dinner, we did not stay out long since we have to be up early for our stop tomorrow in Grenada. The ship docks at 7:00 AM, and is only in port until 2:00 PM, so we need to get an early start.

The port stop for today in the city of St. Georges in Grenada. We are just doing some sights on our own today, using the public bus for transportation. We got up about 5:45 AM (ouch!) so that we could get ready and have our breakfast in the buffet before our scheduled arrival time of 7:00 AM.

We awoke to see some showers and rain over the island as the ship made the approach. The forecast had been for cloudy skies, with a good chance of rain.

We got our breakfast in the buffet, and headed back to the room to gather up our gear, as well as some water and our rain jackets, just in case. The skies over the island’s mountains still looked like rain.

We were able to get off the ship as soon as it was cleared, about 7:10 AM. We headed to the bus terminal which we could see from our balcony on the ship, it was only abut four blocks from the pier. The buses were really vans, holding about 12 persons. Getting out of the terminal was the hardest part, it was a maze of stores that had not yet opened. We finally asked where the exit was and once out of the building, headed to the bus station. We needed the “Route 3” bus, but the signage was not very clear. We could see the Route 2 bus stops, but had to ask a driver about the #3 bus. It just happened that the driver we asked was the route we needed, we knew we were close since we saw the “#2” stops nearby in the terminal.

The bus was partially full when we got on, but the driver waited until it was full, and I mean really full. We felt like sardines packed in a can. We were the only “tourists” on the bus, all of the other passengers were locals, both young and old, the children were heading to school. It took about 10 minutes before we were able to leave, and with the rain earlier in the morning, it was hot and humid in the bus. Once we were moving, the air through the windows felt great.

We made a couple of other stops as we headed up the mountain to our destination, Fort Frederick, which had been built in the early 1700’s by the English, and then taken over by the French. The bus driver stopped at the entrance to the fort, and we gout out. It had only been about a 15 minute ride through some traffic to arrive at the fort.

We were greeted by the local guide/ticket sales person, Alice in Wonderland. She had been mentioned in research we did online about visiting the fort. She was very nice and friendly, and pointed out where we needed to be to get the bus for the return trip into town, once we finished exploring the fort.

There were already a couple of the ship’s tours at the fort, but they only stayed about ten minutes each. We walked around the grounds and read some of the history. The main attraction here is the spectacular views of the city below, including the ship at the pier.

It was still pretty cloudy, so the photo opportunity was not a good as it would have been on a sunny day. The views of the mountains on the back side of the fort were nice, the clouds were hanging over the mountain tops, hiding them in the cloud.

After about 35 minutes, we headed to the designated bus stop and waited for the next #3 bus. We saw a couple of buses pass heading up and away from the city, the same route we had taken to get here. They were all clearly marked with a large blue “3” on the front windshield, we had not seen that on the original bus we had taken to get here. At least we would be able to identify our bus when it approached.

After about ten minutes, the bus came around the corner and we flagged it down. Unfortunately, the driver just waved, we surmised his bus was full, and there was no room for us to get on. We waited another 15 minutes, and along came another bus, but once again, the driver just waved, and we could see the bus was full. It was only about 9:00 AM, so everyone was still commuting to work.

We walked back up to the fort and asked Alice about the buses. She just indicated we needed to keep waiting and eventually, a bus would come by that was not full, and would stop to pick us up. At about 9:15 AM, another bus approached, and we flagged it down, and he was not full, so we boarded and paid out $2 fare, $1 per person.

The bus headed back into the terminal at St. Georges, and we got out and walked back to the area near the pier. There was another fort near the pier called Fort Georges, and we climbed up quite a lot of steps to get there. This was the main entrance, and we needed to purchase entry tickets for $2 per person, the same as the cost at Fort Frederick.

We went into the fort and it was a collection of some usable buildings and a lot of damaged buildings. I think this fort had been bombed in the Grenada conflict in 1992. There were still some nice views of the port and surrounding areas, but the fort itself was not very pretty.

We headed back toward town and up a hill to visit the Catholic Church. Along the way, we passed by two other churches, one an Anglican, and one was another protestant church. They were both damaged, as well as the Parliament Building that was near the Catholic Church. We were not sure if this was also from the conflict, and they had been damaged by bombings or something else, like a storm. However, the damage was not recent, they were quite overgrown.

We then walked back to the terminal and looked in some of the stores that were now open. It was nice to be in some air condition, we were quite sweaty from the walking we had done up to Fort Georges and the church.

After some shopping, we headed back to the ship, it was only 10:45 AM, but it seemed like we had been gone a lot longer than just over 3-1/2 hours.

We decided to go ahead and do some laundry while most of the passengers were still in St. Georges. This will provide us with enough clean clothes to get us through the duration of the trip. The laundromat on the ship was not busy, so we were able to get a machine right away, and put in our load to wash. We returned a little later and put the clothes in the dryer, and headed to the international cafe for a snack.

We got some small sandwiches and a bowl of curried shrimp and took them back to the room so we could enjoy them on our balcony, along with some wine. We finished the snack and went back to the laundromat to retrieve our mostly dried clothes. We had planned on string up our clothes line on the balcony to completely dry may shirts sine I do not like to dry them all the way in the dryer.

With the shirts hanging out to dry, we headed up to the pool deck to spend some time in the sunshine. The skies were not entirely clear. especially over the island, but it was sunny enough to enjoy time outside. Had it been nicer, we would have take the water taxi to a nearby beach called Grand Anse, but at the time we made the call to do laundry, it was just not beach weather. We did see a lot of people returning form there on the water taxis, but we were glad we had gotten the last load of laundry for this trip done.

We left a little later than the designated time, there were some passengers that just did not heed the “all aboard by 1:30 PM” instructions, they were lingering in the terminal stores. I guess since it was such a short stay people wanted to push the limits.

Our next stop tomorrow in Bonaire, and we do not get there until 12:00 noon, so we must have quite a distance to travel to get there since we left here earlier today than normal for a port stop.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in the sun before heading back to the room to get ready for dinner. We are going to another specialty restaurant tonight called Sabatini’s so we can dine with one of the waiters that work there that we had met on a previous cruise in 2011, Georgina.

The dinner was really nice and the food was excellent. We had our last bottle of wine with dinner that we had purchased in Vines from the previous cruise, and enjoyed spending time with Georgina, our waiter we had on the Sapphire Princess in 2011. We also met some other couples at the two nearby tables who were nice to talk with.

At anther table close by were two couples we had met on the Dominica Tour, they had ridden in our same tour van, so we talked with them a few minutes before we left to go back to the room. We changed into some more comfortable clothes and headed to the Princess Theater to watch the 10:15 PM illusionist show that we had missed on the first cruise. Even this late show was packed, and we had to stand in the back. The first part of the show was not very good, so we did not stay, we were tired from all of the hill and step climbing we had done today, and did not want to stand for the entire show.

We just headed back to the room and called it a night.

We will try and post some pictures in the next day or two, internet service on the ship has had issues, and is not always available.

The port stop for today is the city of Kralendijk in Bonaire. We are not scheduled to arrive until 12:00 noon due to the distance we had to travel from Grenada. The “all aboard” time is 6:30 PM, so the stop is not very long.

It was nice to sleep in a little after having gotten up quite early for yesterday’s stop in Grenada. The winds were blowing a little harder this morning when we did get up and look outside. However, it was nice and sunny, no rain in sight.

After eating breakfast in the buffet, we headed back to the room to gather up our snorkel gear to be ready to go ashore as soon as we got clearance. We are doing a tour today with a group called Compass. It is a mall group tour on a sailboat, sailing to a snorkel spot and back. With the additional wind, the sailing should be great, but it might impact the visibility of the water for the snorkeling.

Since we ate a late breakfast, we opted to skip eating lunch right before we got off for the tour. As we approached Kralendijk, we passed some large white piles of salt on the southern end of the island of Bonaire, which is known for its salt production.

We were able to get off of the ship at a little past 12:00 noon, and headed to the small areas of tents set up for the tour groups. The pier was really short, so it was about the shortest walk to get off of a ship we have ever had. We met up with the Compass Tour representative, Whim, who is from the Netherlands, as are many of the people on Bonaire.

Since we were not scheduled to leave until 12:30 PM to head to the sailboat, Whim told us to visit some of the vendors in the nearby marketplace while he was waiting to gather up the remaining people in our tour.

We walked a couple of blocks to the marketplace and looked at some of the items for sale by the local vendors. At 12:30 PM, we walked back to the our group area, and met up with the remainder of our group of 14. Apparently one couple, who were friends with another couple on the tour, had cancelled due to illness, so our tour guide, Whim, was trying to find a last minute replacement from the passengers on the ship who were passing by the tour tents. Finally, at 12:45 PM, a replacement couple joined the tour.  Then, we all walked to a waiting bus for a short five minute ride to the sailboat, which was at a dock in an all inclusive resort.

We all boarded the sailboat, which was about 40 feet long, and had plenty of room for the group. There were two other assistants for the tour, one of which was all ready on board when we arrived. We waited about ten minutes for the other tour guide to arrive and we headed out of the small marina at the resort.

The wind was still blowing quite hard, so the sailing was going to be good. It was interesting because the main sail was smaller than normal for the boat, it did not go all the way to the top of the mast. I suppose that it is enough sail for a slow and comfortable ride, but the boat would have really moved along today if the sail had been full size.

We sailed along the waterfront for about an hour before we tied up to a mooring buoy at the snorkel location. I had thought we were going over to a small island across the bay from Bonaire called Klein Bonaire, but we did not. Klein Bonaire was supposed to be the area with the best snorkeling. I am not sure if we were supposed to go there, or, because of the winds, the tour guide opted to go to another location, which was more protected from the wind.

In any case, the snorkeling was pretty good for a windy day, the visibility was good, but not excellent. We were able to see a lot of different fish, and several sea turtles, and a small octopus. We snorkeled for a little over an hour, and then got back on board the Compass sailboat for the sail back to the marina. The wind was even stronger for the return sail, so it made for a good sailing experience.

They served us some small sandwiches consisting of brie and tomatoes, as well as some fresh made tuna fish sandwiches. They also served beer, sodas and some rum punch. We tried the beer first, once again, as we had seen on a lot of the islands, the beers were in really small bottles, maybe .3 liters, I forgot to look. After the beer, we switched to the rum punch, it was much better.

We arrived back at the marina about 4:30 PM, and said goodbye to our hosts. We boarded a small bus for the return to the port. We shopped a little more at the marketplace, we had seen a couple of items from earlier that we wanted to purchase.

Then we headed back to the ship to get a late snack from the International Cafe, just a couple of small sandwiches to tide us over until we went to dinner later in the evening. We ate the sandwiches on the balcony and had some refreshments while we waited for the ship to leave at 6:30 PM. Apparently, there was one couple missing, so we were late leaving. The ship sent a security person out to the port entrance, and in a short while, we saw a taxi speed up the port and let off the two missing passengers, who were running the short distance to the security gate at the dock.

Everyone looking out from their balconies mockingly cheered and clapped as the late passengers were walking to the ship escorted by the ship’s security person. Sometimes it is hard to understand how over 3,500 people can make it back to the ship on time, and two can’t.

We finally left the pier at about 7:15 PM, heading for Aruba. We showered and got ready for dinner in the buffet. It was an Italian theme in the buffet, and the food was quite good. Once again, we were too tired to go to the dining room, and nothing on the menu had appealed to us enough for the longer duration dinner.

We did not stay out long since we need to get up tomorrow at 6:00 AM for the stop in Aruba. The ship is scheduled to arrive at 7:00 AM, and we are taking a city bus to a beach on the northern end of the island for some snorkeling. We want to give ourselves enough time with the uncertainty of the bus departure schedule, but knowing that they leave on or near the hour, only one per hour.

We set our wake up call for 6:00 AM this morning so that we could get an early start for our self conducted adventure on Aruba. The ship was docking in the city of Orangestad. The plan for the day is to take a City bus to a beach on the northern end of the island called Arashi Beach.

We had read form some online posts that the snorkeling here was really good, and that the bus dropped you off right in the parking lot for the beach. We were planning to get off of the ship soon after our 7:00 AM arrival, but we just took a little longer than planned to get ready, go to breakfast, and gather up all of our gear.

Information we had from online posts indicated that the bus station was really close to the port. We could actually see some buses lined up in a parking area from an outside deck on the ship that we visited after eating breakfast at the buffet.  However, it did not really look like a “station”, just an open lot, so we were not sure if this was the station or not.  Some of the lot was partially obscured by buildings, making it difficult to be sure it was the station, but it was in the general location shown on a map we had of the town.

We had heard that Arashi Beach was pretty remote, and there were not a lot of facilities there, so we were a little concerned about leaving any valuables on the beach while we were snorkeling. We took our waterproof pouches for our money, ID and credit card, and only took the snorkel gear bag and small underwater camera. Normally, Stephanie also takes a backpack for other camera gear, but we opted to be on the conservative side and minimize what we would be leaving on the beach while we were snorkeling.

With everything finally packed we were off of the ship at about 7:30 AM and headed into town to where we thought the bus station was located. It was only about a two block walk, and we arrived in the area we had seen from the ship, which was indeed the station. There was no terminal, just a small ticket booth and some marked lanes for the various bus route pick up locations, with signs showing the bus route timetables and route designations.

We purchased two “return” tickets, normally what we would describe as a round trip ticket. The tickets were plastic cards that were loaded with the fare amount and read by an automated machine on the bus when you got on. The fare for the two tickets was $8.00. We went over to the lane designated for the 10A Bus Route, and waited about 15 minutes for the bus to arrive at the 8:15 AM scheduled time.

There were several other cruise passengers getting on this bus with snorkel gear. The 10A bus stops at several beaches on the way to northern end of the island, and also passes by the area of Aruba where many of the major hotels are located.

By the time we left, the bus was pretty full. It was about a 30 minute ride to the Arashi Beach, which was the final stop on the route, and we were the only two cruise passengers left on the bus when we got there, along with one other local person. The information I had gotten off of the internet was obviously old, the beach had many thatched roof stands built to provide shade, and was a lot more developed that we had read. There were quite a few people already at the beach there when we arrived. Unfortunately, with the wind today, the water did not look clear, and the area we read about for snorkeling was quite a distance from the beach, it was a designated boat mooring buoy, much farther out than we were comfortable going, especially with the wind that was blowing.

There was a large lighthouse on a hill on the very northern tip of the island that we could see from the parking lot for the Arashi Beach, so we opted to walk to that instead of snorkeling. It was not far away, but we found out that the road to get there went a fairly long way around, actually past the lighthouse and then back around to the back side. It took us about 25 minutes to walk to the lighthouse, and several tour buses past us as we walked on the road.

The lighthouse was not in operation and did not appear to be open to climb up into, but the views of the area from the top of the hill were quite nice. The northern shore of Aruba we could see from the top of the hill was more rugged than the protected beach areas, it was the prevailing wind side of the island and we could see waves crashing into the shore form the high winds.

On the walk there, we had also seen a building up by the lighthouse that had a stairway going down to the bottom of the hill, but we had never seen any trail or road going to the building or the stairs.

Once we got to the lighthouse, we found out that the building had once been the lighthouse keeper’s residence, but had been converted into a restaurant. Stephanie needed to use their restroom, so we went inside.

The entire area on this part of Aruba is mostly sort of a desert, with tall cacti and some of the thorny bushes we had seen on Antigua.

We asked people at the restaurant if there was a short cut through the natural vegetation to get back to the Arashi Beach, and found out that there was.  One of the persons who worked there walked from the Arashi Beach bus stop to the restaurant everyday. We actually found out that he had been the other person who had gotten off the bus with us, and he also recognized us from the bus. He gave us some directions of how to get through a fence, around some of the bushy areas, and through to the road, through another open section of fence.

Apparently the property for the short cut was owned by a golf course resort, and we could see part of the course from the restaurant. After using the restroom, which cost $1, we headed down the steps and out into the “desert”. The instructions were quite precise, “go left through the opening in the fence, go to the clearing, follow this trail to the two cacti, go right, follow another trail to that clearing and find the opening in the fence to get back out to the main road”, or something like that.

It was actually pretty easy, we made it without any issues, and it only took about 5 minutes instead of the 25 minutes it had taken to get there.

The man at the restaurant also suggested another beach for snorkeling, which was only a short walk from the Arashi Beach, but more protected from the wind. We got to that beach, and there were quite a few people already snorkeling there, so we gout out our snorkel gear and headed into the water.

The visibility was pretty good, and the number of fish we saw was amazing. We also saw many of the large starfish on some areas of the bottom that were sandy. We saw a moray eel and even a small flounder, which was much lighter in color than any I had ever seen, it was almost white with purple rings, and blended into the sand quite well.

We snorkeled for about an hour, and headed back to shore. Several boats full of people on snorkel tours began to show up, so we did not want to be out there with that many people. Had the conditions been better, as in less windy, we would have ventured farther out away from the shore into deeper and clearer water, but there was quite a chop on the water so we had stayed closer in.

After we finished snorkeling, we packed up our gear, and headed to the bus stop to catch the bus back to Orangestad.

The bus was scheduled to be here about five minutes before each hour, and it arrived right on time. We were waiting with another couple from the ship who had initially paid a taxi $30 to get to this beach this morning, but were now opting to ride back on the bus. The bus system, buses and schedule were much better than we had experienced on any of the previous islands on this trip.

We rode back into Orangestad, to the same bus station we had left from this morning, and walked back to the ship to drop off our snorkel gear and get some lunch. It was about 12:30 PM, and we had enjoyed the morning.

After lunch, we headed back into town to look at some of the shops. There were local vendors set up in small shacks along the waterfront, and then regular souvenir shops, and other typical port shops in the buildings across the street.

We headed back to the ship and spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing on our balcony, enjoying some refreshments, and watching the people walk back to the ship. It is amazing how out of shape some people are, severely overweight, and it was painful to see them hobble along in the heat walking back to the ship.

Everyone made it back on time today, and we left on time at about 4:30 PM. It had been a nice day in Aruba, and we definitely would enjoy visiting here again. Next time, we would consider renting a jeep and exploring more of the island. At least the driving is normal, on the left, not like many of the other islands we visited that were influenced by the British, where the driving is on the right. Although we could have done more today since the buses had been much more efficient than others we had taken on the trip, we had done a lot and were tired at the end of the day.

We got ready for dinner and finally made it to one of the special evening receptions for Elite members of the Captain’s Circle Club, held between 5:00 and 7:00 PM everyday. It featured boiled shrimp, which was good. We took some of our own wine, but found out that they have some drink specials for reduced pricing at the reception.  We have tried to go to this special reception on other cruises, but it is earlier in the day than we normally are able or want to get ready.

Afterward, we headed to the Vines wine bar and used a free coupon we had gotten on the last cruise from our travel agent that was for a free small bottle (350ml) of wine.  The coupon was supposed to be used with a specialty dinner, but our favorite bartender there, Russell, got it for us anyway. It was just large enough for a couple of glasses, but it was good.

We headed to the buffet for dinner, which was really good. We were too tired for the dining room tonight, and had it was the same menu they used for one of the nights from the first cruise when we had gone to the dining room.

We headed back to the room after dinner to get another glass of our own wine. We turned on the TV and started watching the President’s Cup Golf Tournament, and it was not long before we both started napping. It had been a full day, and we were tired, so we just stayed in the rest of the night.

We have two sea days left before we get back to Ft. Lauderdale on Sunday morning. Hopefully, we will have some time to add pictures to both the posts and the photo albums. It has been a hard trip to keep up with the blog with all of the consecutive port days.

Today is a welcome sea day, we are pretty tired after having had five consecutive port days. Of course, we slept in since we did not have to meet any schedule.

Once we were awake, we got ready and headed to breakfast in the buffet, which is always crowded on sea days. Everyone just lingers around, drinking coffee, playing cards, and other non-eating activities, so table space is at a premium.

After breakfast, we visited a few of the stores to kill some time so that our room steward could clean the room. We actually purchased come cologne and perfume from the store on board, the prices were less than we had priced at home, and we get a ten percent discount for being Elite in the Captain’s Circle.

We also filled out our future cruise deposit form so that we can get a reduced deposit of $100 on any future cruise that we book withing two years, and also get some amount of on board credit, depending on the room type. If we don’t use it within two years, it is fully refundable, so it is a great deal all around.

We returned to the room to apply sunscreen before heading out to the pool deck for some sun. It is quite breezy this morning, and the seas were a little higher than yesterday, so the ship has a little movement, but the breeze was welcome in the hot sun.

We went to lunch in the buffet and then headed back out to the pool deck. The weather forecast had been for the wind to diminish, and later in the afternoon, it completely died, making it very hot outside in the sun.

We headed back to the cabin to make some refreshments, and decided to get a head start on our packing effort so we do not have to spend as much time packing tomorrow. We packed all of our dirty clothes, and then most of the remaining clean clothes since we only need clothes for tomorrow and the next day, our travel home day.

We tried to sit out on the balcony, but since we are facing the west, directly into the sun, it was quite hot.

Tonight is the last formal night, and we have the Captain’s Circle Party at 6:15 PM, so we have to get ready a little earlier tonight than we normally would, especially since it take more time to get into the formal outfits, well at least for me with all of the studs, cuffs, bow tie, etc for my tuxedo.

We headed to the Captain’s Circle Party and it was already quite crowded when we got there at 6:15 PM. We had a couple of free glasses of wine, but the service was much worse than on the first cruise, we never were served any appetizers. We though it was also more crowded than on the first cruise. We had to sit on the side of the Vista Lounge, more to the front, and it seemed the servers were always out of refreshments by the time they got to where we were sitting.

After the Captain’s Circle party ended at 6:45 PM, we headed to the Princess Theater to watch a piano/comedy show by an entertainer named John Breeser. He had played piano with many famous people, and was quite good, and blended in some funny stories and jokes throughout the show.

After the show, we headed over to the Vines wine bar to get our last bottle of wine, a Jekel Riesling, to take to the dining room for dinner. Tonight is Lobster night, so the Riesling was a perfect wine for that meal. We were able to get a decent seat in the dining room, and the service was better than we had on lobster night on the last cruise. However, it was still pretty slow, and both our assistant waiter, and the one for the station next to us seemed lost. Again, it seemed like the waiter was a lot busier than the assistant, slowing down the service.

The meal was good, Stephanie had a Snapper dish, and I had the lobster and prawns. Unfortunately, there was some type of sauce on the lobster instead of drawn butter, so it was not a good as it had been in the past. Maybe the lobster had no taste, so they had to add a sauce to make up for the lack of flavor.

After dinner, we decided to attend another show, this time by an entertainer we had seen on previous cruises, Steve Morris. Steve is a great guitar player, and had played with many bands in the past, including the Beach Boys. He is also very funny. Unfortunately, we arrived just about ten minutes before the show started, and there were no seats in the Vista Lounge, so we had to stand in the back. The show was really funny.

We had intended to stay out longer tonight, but I was starting to sweat in my tux, it seemed it was hot everywhere we went, maybe due to the crowds. We intended to go back to the room to change, and head out to the big “balloon drop” at 11:30 PM, but we just ended up staying in. It was already about 11:00 PM, and we were tired. I think we are just a little tired of being away from home, and sleeping on a different bed, but we can tell our general enthusiasm in much less than it had been on the first cruise. It is just a completely different crowd, many of the people in the dining room were not dressed in any formal clothes, many of the men were only wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt, with no jacket. It was a much more formal crowd on the first cruise, and a much more fun crowd.

Tomorrow is another sea day, but we have to pack and get ready to go home. We are scheduled for a “walk off” time of 6:15 AM on Sunday, so we can’t play too hard tomorrow, knowing we have to get up at about 5:00 AM to be ready to get off the ship at 6:15 AM and head tot he airport to get our rental car for the drive home.

Today is the last day of our cruise, actually two cruises. Of course, we took advantage of another sea day and slept in, trying to catch up on our sleep, and maybe get ahead before we have to get up at 5:00 AM tomorrow for Disembarkation.

It was another sunny morning when we finally got going at about 8:30 AM. I was actually up earlier trying to catch up on the blog posts and photo albums. Unfortunately, we were not able to add photos to the post write-ups, it just takes too much time to reduce the photo size, and upload them to the server to post into the blogs. The photos are usually the same as the larger ones in the photo albums, but they have captions and go with the write-ups. This is the first time we just did not have the time, or possibly the dedication to get it done. It always seemed like we were playing catch up.

Of course, it was breakfast in the buffet again today, and then we wondered around the ship while the room was being cleaned. We went to the lowest deck, Deck 7, and then to the stern of the ship just to watch the ocean pass by behind the ship. It is a calm and hot day, and with the breeze going in the same direction as the ship, causing it to be very still out on deck.

We put on our sunscreen and went back up to the pool deck to sit in the sun. It was painfully hot, and we had to go sit in the pool a few times to cool off.

After lunch in the buffet, we went back to the room to make some refreshments to take out to the pool. We also took some water to quench out thirst and to hydrate, we were soaked in sweat from the heat, and no breeze.

There was another “flare” show at the Seaview Bar, and we went to watch our bartender friends perform for the last time. We were able to get a couple of free drinks made during the show just like last time, they took care of us again in the beverage department.

We went back up and sat in our chairs on the pool deck and watched a movie on the large outdoor screen. When the movie was over, it was time for us to go back to the room, shower and get ready for Catholic Mass at 5:15 PM. We had talked with the Deacon about adding an intercessory prayer during the prayers of the faithful portion of the mass for all of the persons in South Carolina impacted by the flooding. We wrote up our own request, it was a joint effort,  we both took turns with editing until we got something we both liked. The reading of the request for prayer during Mass was very moving, the Deacon mentioned that we were from South Carolina as a lead in before he read the prayer. Mass was nice, the priest was very funny, but in a sincere manner.

After Mass, we went back to the room to finish our packing that we had started last night. It seemed like we should have a lot of extra room in our suitcases, we had consumed a lot of the bulk we had brought on, but somehow, the space seems to disappear somewhere along the way. With 95% of the packing complete, except for the clothes we were wearing tonight, we headed to dinner in the buffet.  It was good, there was some fried shrimp, and other items that we had not eaten so far on the cruise.

After dinner, we went down to the Vines Wine Bar to say goodbye to the bartenders there. There was an Oktoberfest party getting started, but we opted to head back to the room to watch some college football before retiring for the evening. With a 5:00 AM wake up call tomorrow, we wanted to get a good night’s sleep, especially with the long drive home tomorrow.

We hope everyone (or anyone) enjoyed reading along. We will update the post once we get home and process more photos to add to the write-ups.