St Thomas

It is true that the ship is in St Thomas, but we treated it like a sea day and did not go into town.  I played bridge in the morning while Mary did some shopping in the dock area.  I tried my hand at croquet in the afternoon, winning a cruise card carrier.
After swimming in the adults-only pool, we a nice dinner. This evening we watched The Martian on Movies Under the Stars which was very cool.  It was my 3rd time to see it, but it does not get old. 

Here's a picture of the harbor area as we sailed out of St Thomas.  

We received our disembarkation paperwork tonight when we returned from seeing the movie (BOO!) but we had been expecting it.  Two full days to go - a sea day tomorrow and Princess Cay (a private island beach in the Bahamas) the next day, then heading back into the cold in Thursday.  The forecast for Dearborn that day is a high of 33.   BRRRRR!!  

Bill's Gift

When we bought Mary's alexandrite pendent, the salesman said to me "I've got  a gift for you.".  I forgot to post the picture yesterday so here it is!  

Enjoy!

St Kitts

Last evening we went to quite a concert by Beatle Mania. They started off like a typical Beatle band, but they really know how to put on a show, with excellent use of audience participation!  Part way through they had the audience clapping along and singing the songs, then they asked everyone to stand up and played "Twist and Shout" with most people dancing by their seats; the atmosphere was contagious!  

We had an afternoon excursion today so we took the opportunity to go into town for some shopping in the morning.  One of Mary's favorite jewelry stores (which we thought only had a store in St Maarten) now has stores in St Kitts and St Thomas.  So we visited it, found a stone and setting we liked and Mary now has an alexandrite pendant to go with her earrings and ring.

After lunch we headed to our train ride excursion which we enjoyed quite a bit. We circled the entire island, a little by bus but mostly by train. They served Pina Coladas (and we kept count this time!) while we rode through the vacant sugar fields and past several villages enjoying the island scenery.

After we returned from our excursion, I took this picture of the former and current Royal Princess ships docked side by side! We took the former Royal Princess on a 14 day Alaska voyage back in 2010 and loved being on that ship. We were sad to hear that Princess sold it to P&O later that year, but very happy to see it again today.

Tonight we went to the production show Sweet Soul Music, which was filled with Motown tunes.  After that, Beatle Mania performed in the atrium to a packed audience as you can see.  It was another great show and had a crowded dance floor later in the show. 

Barbados

We took a morning excursion to see Harrison's Cave which proved to be quite interesting.  Our tour consisted of a 1 mile underground ride in a tram with a driver and narrator. We rode on a paved pathway, which was much more pleasant that the explorers who opened it up to tourism that had to crawl over 1800' through mud to reach the main chamber.  I found it intriguing that the current tunnels have hundreds of small stalactites growing from the ceiling - and dripping water on the tram riders.  

On our way back, the driver took us through a very exclusive part of the island.  Think 5 star hotels and five 9 hole golf courses. We would emerge from a rather poor area, and right across the street were million dollar homes. Many of the poor people live in houses that are quite small and, since most do not own their land, the houses were able to be disassembled and moved to a new location.  These islanders are trendsetters for the current "tiny house" trend in the USA!

After doing some shopping in the cruise terminal we returned to the ship for a quiet afternoon.  We're planning to try out the on-board pizzeria for dinner tonight before going to a stargazing event (where they turn out the lights on the top deck of the ship) then to the Beatlemania show. 

Off to St Kitts tomorrow for our 4th island in 4 days. 

St Lucia

Today we visited another new-to-us island, namely St Lucia.  We had an afternoon excursion so I played bridge in the morning while Mary did some shopping on shore.
Princess has a daily show about events on board the ship, called the Wake Show.  Yesterday I entered the daily Wake Show quiz and I won! This was a very nice prize with several color changing items from Del Sol plus a rum cake and a set of earrings from Diamonds International. I debated getting my ears pierced but in the end decided to give the earrings to Mary.

This afternoon we took a boat ride to see the Pitons. These majestic twin mountains rise about 2500' from the ocean.  The one on the right is actually the taller peak, but it does not look like it since it is 5 miles father away from the boat.  The boat ride was very enjoyable and smooth.  They served a very good rum punch on board. I had a few - I kinda lost count after a while.

Tonight's production show was the songs of Bert Bacharach.  It was amazing how many he wrote.  Both Mary and I knew the words to every one of them.  They have a very talented group of both musicians and singers on board.

On to Barbados, our southernmost island, tomorrow!

Antigua

We had a very pleasant day in Antigua, doing a shore excursion in the morning and taking a swim and getting some sun in the afternoon.

Here are two pictures of Antigua. As you can see we had a beautiful sunny day.  Yes it does look very dry.  As our guide explained, Christopher Columbus sailed past the island and saw all the dry vegetation and named it "not water" or which when translated from Spanish comes out anti-gua.  We saw quite a bit of cactus as we drove around.  The place actually has lots of water but it is underground.

The second picture is of English Bay which is famous for Sailing Week. This is where one of the top 5 regattas in the world is held each March.  If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can clearly see all the very expensive yachts in the harbor. 

After a nice lunch I participated in a golf putting contest and won a prize. Later I used my experience from playing corn-hole at Katie's to win a prize in a bean bag toss. 

No production show this evening, but we did see the lighted fountain show they put on each evening on the top deck.  Here are a couple of picture of this show. I also recorded a video, but it would take up too much internet time to upload now. I will post it as a new blog entry after we get back home.

Second Sea Day

Today Mary attended a chocolate cooking demonstration while I did a few sports things.  Tonight is a formal night, and another benefit of being Elite is free canapés delivered to our room on formal nights.

This afternoon we enjoyed seeing Mama Mia on our TV.  After seeing it on Movies Under the Stars (a large screen on the top deck of the ship) on previous cruises, it was nice to see that Princess has not neglected one of  Mary's all time favorite movies as it is one of the choices listed in the in-room tv programming.

This evening's production show was very good and quite entertaining.  With the LED background screen, no set changes are needed as the background changes instantaneously with each dance.  Here you can see the closing scene from tonight's show. 

Tomorrow is out first port, Antigua.  We are taking an island tour excursion, so more pictures then! 

First Sea Day

Last night we went to the Welcome show which was quite a production.  The ship has a huge LED screen behind the entire stage that can display a wide variety of graphics. 

We explored the ship a bit this morning after breakfast, finding the sports deck and walking track.  It's on Deck 18 and, with the ship going over 20 mph, it sure made for a windy walk! Mary and I both got some sun today and enjoyed relaxing and taking it easy.  Mary went to the shopping show (but did not win anything) and I played bridge for a couple of hours in the morning while doing some golf putting, basketball shooting and Wii Cycling in the afternoon.

This evening we both enjoyed Surf 'n Turf for dinner.Gotta love these cruise ship meals!

After dinner we walked around the stores for a while, enjoyed hearing this string quartet playing in the Piazza, then came back to our cabin where we plan to watch a movie on our TV. The ship has a wide selection of on-demand movies to pick from.

Another sea day tomorrow then off to Antigua! 

The Royal Princess

WOW - what a ship!  Very modern and impressive - quite the upgrade from earlier class ships!!  It looks very high tech with electronic display boards and lots of wood trim and elegant designs.

The pool desk is impressive.  In the center of the picture you can see where the fountain shows are held.  I lost count of the number of food stations in the expanded Horizon Buffet! We enjoyed our lunch, eating at the back desk with a super view of Fort Lauderdale.

Next up is Muster Drill at 3:30 and Sail Away at 5:00. 

It Pays to be Elite...

We took the early shuttle from our hotel to the ship, thinking we would be near the front of the line to enter the cruise terminal - NOT!  We arrived at 10:45 and had over 100 people in front of us in the Preferred Boarding line! But by 11:30, they let the Preferred passengers enter the cruise terminal where we quickly registered and were escorted to the Elite lounge with pastries and refreshments, while the non-Elite waited in rows of chairs.  After a fairly short wait we boarded the ship and headed to our cabin. 

We sure felt special!!

Cruise Travel Day

It's been quite the day with all going quite well until we landed in Fort Lauderdale - more on that later.
All went well with airport check-in, boarding, and our flight.  But upon landing I turned my phone back on and had a surprising text from Delta that one of our bags had not made our plane! Our first time in dozens of flights that we had a baggage problem. Thanks to the Delta's live baggage tracking app I was able to determine it was on the next flight from Detroit and would arrive 2 hours later. Upon picking up the one bag we found it was mine, and Mary's was delayed. I wish it had been mine but it was not.
I filed a claim with Delta and they agreed to deliver our missing bag to our hotel. After much second-guessing whether we should have waited at the airport for 2 hours to get it instead of having it delivered, it arrived at 8:30!  So now Mary can relax as we get ready to head to the Royal Princess tomorrow.  And now we can add "missing baggage" as a reason to fly into the cruise port a day early.
Oh by the way, when we landed it was 75 degrees and clear skies... sunshine and palm trees are a definite pick me up!