The cruise has started and it has been rather eventful so far. Unfortunately, the first day was rather rough seas and my wife was rather "under the weather" for the first full day at sea. The good news is that she now has her sea legs and is no longer distressed by the moving ship.
Yesterday, we were at Half Moon Cay where we snorkeled, walked to the lagoon on the island (the island is 5 miles long and 2 miles wide at its widest point) and enjoyed pina coladas on the beach.
This is the lifeboat drill before getting underway This is taken from just about where our stateroom is
Here's my wife with Half-Moon Cay in the background This little guy was more curious of us than afraid
Here we are standing in front of the chapel on the island This is looking towards the stern of the ship at a storm
Well, we're up to day five. This morning we docked at Crown Bay in St. Thomas (U.S. Virgin Islands.) The weather is very hot and St. Thomas is swarming with 1) cruise ships--there are five here right now and 2) people trying to sell us stuff. They have a lot of high-end items such as Rolex watches, diamonds, and other jewelry. We did end up buying two liters of Bailey's Irish Cream since the price was too much to pass up. It is supposed to be delivered to the ship so we'll see how good a deal it really was!
Tonight, the staff of the Rotterdam dining room (the fancy one that we eat dinners at) is going to sing, dance and juggle so while we had actually considered eating lighter tonight, we decided that we couldn't miss the show.
The last two nights, we've ended the evening by listening to three musicians from the Ukraine. They are called the Black Pearl Strings and they have a male on the piano, and two females (one on the violin and one on the cello) and they are absolutely excellent. I'm going to bring my camera to dinner tonight to catch the show and will hopefully get a picture of this trio as well.
In the meantime, here are some pictures taken today at St. Thomas:
This is a picture of three of the ships in St. Thomas Harbor (none are ours--we are approximately 4 miles down the road.)
This is St. Thomas as we're heading into the island. Entrance to the harbor. The Ship is the last one seen above.
Boats anchored. We're moored at the landing behind them. Here's the Maasdam at dock in St. Thomas. It's a pretty day.
This is an example of one of the side streets in St. Thomas. It reminded us of New Orleans in architecture and style.
Day 6, Dominica, West Indies. We decided to ditch the ship tours and try to get a local bus to travel the six miles to Laudat so we could take the rain forest tram. The problem was, however, that we discovered that the normal buses (that usually charge about $2 per person) were all now wanting between $15-$25 per person since that's what they could get from the ship's passengers. We walked through Roseau (the town that we docked at) and found a local bus stop but we weren't able to get a bus. After talking with some of the people at the bus stop, we made friends with a couple from Antigua and a lady (Mimi) from Montreal (who was born in Dominica however.) Between the five of us, we were able to convince a local in a minivan to take us to Laudat for 5 EC (about $2 American) apiece. The trip was very interesting as the road was up the side of a mountain and barely wide enough for one-way traffic, let alone the occasional vehicle we would encounter coming the opposite direction. We finally made it to the rain forest tram which is where these pictures were taken.
Can you find the crab in the picture? This is looking out the side of the tram
Here we are in the tram Looking back at a waterfall and other cars on the tram
This is our guide explaining how the plants get nourishment Here we are on a spring bridge (used in Pirates of the Caribbean)
View of the canopy on the way down the mountain My wife and Mimi on the trail back to catch the local bus home.
The local bus ride down the mountain was rather interesting. We found out that there was only one local bus (really a minivan) that covered this particular route. As a result, if the bus didn't pick you up on the way by, you would have to wait for up to an hour-and-a-half to catch it the next time through. What this meant was that we picked up everyone we passed. We eventually had 17 people and luggage that two of them had in this minibus going around treacherous curves on a fairly steep grade. I'm glad the breaks held out! We got back to the ship, none the worse for the wear and happy that we had saved about $70 by mixing it up with the locals.
Day 7, Barbados.
Bridgetown, Capital of Barbados Trafalgar Square
Got in trouble for taking pictures of these shopkeepers. Did the tour of Mt Gay Rum - did some sampling
Bartenders at the Mt Gay Rum rum shop My wife at the rum shop.
Tour guide showed the copper stills that make that famous Mt Gay flavor. Sniffed the difference from raw to 10 yr age rum.
Long walk back to the port. But we made it.
Once again we conquered another cruise port; this time mostly on foot. We did catch a local bus, when we finally found the bus terminal, to make it to the Mt Gay Rum facility. Had a tour and learned about the 300 year old rum factory. Walked off all that cruise ship food we've been eating.
Walked around town and did a little shopping. One thing we are learning is that cruise ports are not good shopping places. They know dumb Americans are coming through and will pay 10 dollars for something they could get at the Dollar Store back home. They won't bargain to anything reasonable, so not too exciting. But we do all the freebies we can - post card from the ship gets you a free color change ring, that sort of thing.
Day 8, St. Kitts.
We no sooner got off the ship when I discovered that we could rent a motor scooter for $45 per day--needless to say, that's exactly what we did. We began by riding around some local residential neighborhoods until we were comfortable with the scooter and driving on the left-hand side of the roadway. We ended up driving around the entire island in approximately 3 hours. Most of the following pictures were taken during this trek.
A crane sitting on the back of a cow--we saw this more than once. This is a golf course near the residential neighborhood.
Just after passing Cayon, we stopped for a coke. This is the coke shop and the scooter.
A graveyard along the road. A view of the beautiful shoreline we were following.
Not so easy rider. A whole lotta cranes with old turret.
Stopping at a bar in town (notice the Christmas tree to the right.) The Circus at Basseterre, St. Kitts.
Spot my wife (i.e. Where's Waldo?) Moonrise over Basseterre, St. Kitts.
What a day! We beat that scooter like a rented mule - and it felt like one too. Gave new meaning to "pain in the butt". But we made it around the whole island - a pretty good accomplishment considering the roads are not marked and twice I had to get off while Kevin pushed - poor thing couldn't handle hills and 2 Americans. The island looked exactly like the Central Coast of California - complete with the clouds around the mountain tops. Waved to a lot of people - till we came to one town that was yelling something at us, we thought we must have hit an unfriendly area (wearing camouflage clothing is illegal on the island) and we rode out of there as fast as we could - until Kevin realized he had his turn signal on -duh. Well, we made it safely back on board, and after applying some Solarcaine, we are enjoying our hard earned rest. -Lis
Day 9 San Juan, Puerto Rico.
We got into the port really early and we were off the ship by about 8:00am. The shops in San Juan, however, don't open until about 10:00am so we began with a walk along the coastal wall of the old part of the city followed by a visit to El Morro, a fortress rising 140 feet above the sea that was built by the Spaniards between 1570 and 1783.
This fountain was on the way to the coastal walk. This was a particularly scenic portion of the walkway.
This is looking at the walled portion of the coastline. My wife at the top of the coastline wall.
Palms--the fort is at the top of the hill. This is one of the remaining cannons at the fort.
Looking over the fortress wall at an old cemetery. A lizard on the wall--they could jump quite far (leaping lizards!)
Looking back from the top of the wall towards the old city. Another view of the walk along the fortress walls--feral cats live here.
My wife on the walk down into the old city (time to shop!) The Massdam leaving San Juan with the fortress in the background.
These are both pictures of the fortress taken from the ship as we left the harbor channel. It was built to protect the harbor.
Our trip to San Juan was quite enjoyable even though it was short since we had to be back at the ship by 12:30pm. We are now back to sea and steaming full-speed to make it back to Norfolk by 8:00am on Wednesday morning. Unfortunately, this part of the Atlantic is rather choppy and combined with the speed, the ship does rock a fair amount. Last night we had the dessert extravaganza after dinner and it was really good (it included a chocolate fountain.)
This is one of the dessert displays We were entertained by the Black Pearl Strings
Here we are with St. Thomas in the background. The Norwegian Spirit was in port with us.
One of the many spectacular sunsets on the cruise. Watching off the stern at sunset.
Looking back at where we've been. Relaxing on deck.
A snack before dinner in the Ocean Bar. An example of one of the great meals.
Relaxing on deck. The last at sea day--heading to Norfolk.
It has been a wonderful cruise and a wonderful adventure. Aside from the couple of rough days at sea, we had a really great time and will miss all the friends we made aboard the ms Maasdam.