New York City

Our cruise ended at a dock in Brooklyn, New York. One advantage of this location is that we sailed past the Statue of Liberty! Mary snapped this photo from our balcony well before sunrise as we entered the New York harbor.

After breakfast she took this nice photo of the Manhattan skyline, featuring the new World Trade Center building that reached 1776' at the top of its mast.  Lastly, as we approached Detroit Metro airport we overflew it and she took this photo of the airport.

So now we are home and getting back into our normal routine... until our next adventure. 

Cruise Endings

It starts when you notice the pill bottles starting to get a bit empty.  Next you get a note from the ship about disembarkation instructions (when and where to meet to get off the ship).  But it really hits home that the cruise is over when the protective mat shows up on your bed so you have a place to put your suitcases when packing.  That happened today.  So now we're spending the afternoon making sure all our stuff fits in our luggage.  We always leave some room when packing before the trip but we always come back with more than we left with, in this case a new sweater for me and embroidered sweatshirt for Mary along with a few souvenirs. 

We enjoyed a British Pub Lunch today, fish and chips for both of us, followed by a Princess special dessert buffet when the pastry team shows off their masterpieces. Here are two of them. It was hard to decide what to select.  I had hazelnut cake ands tiramisu while Mary had pavlova.  YUM!

And what more fitting picture can there be to end a cruise than this one:

Halifax and Peggy's Cove

This afternoon we took an interesting bus ride to Peggy's Cove which, unfortunately, was experiencing a lot of fog as you can see in these pictures.  It is a quant fishing village, but has the most photographed lighthouse in Canada as well as this famous fishing village scene.  Our tour guide was excellent and told lots of stories about Halifax and its history, including how it housed 12,000 stranded passengers when US airspace was closed after the event os 9/11/2001. 

It was kind of sad to realize this was our last sail-away, as New York City awaits after one more day at sea.  But all good things need to end and this has been one very good vacation. 

HMCS Sackville

While walking around the Halifax waterfront this morning we came across the Canadian Corvette Sackville.  This class of ship is the same size as PC 462 that my father served on in the Pacific  in WWII.  What a thrill it was to come across this ship!!   It was exciting to board her and take pictures.  I can't wait to show them to my dad next weekend.  

These ships are anti-submarine escorts which the Canadians used to escort convoys from Halifax to Iceland, where the British took over for the run to England.  My dad's ship did convoy escort duty in the Pacific and was involved in the battles of Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. 

Welcome to Halifax!

After 6 days and 2 hours at sea, we finally arrived at a port - Halifax, Nova Scotia. We were quite surprised to be greeted by a bagpiper and drummer!  They played 4 numbers while the ship was docking.  We docked after dark so we are not getting off the ship tonight, but waiting until morning to enter Canada. 

Mary and I enjoyed seeing Mama Mia this morning on the big "Movies Under the Stars" screen on the ship's open deck; the sunshine felt good and we enjoyed the movie even after seeing it many times. In the afternoon I played bridge while Mary enjoyed the sunshine on our balcony. We had a late afternoon snack so we could watch the ship enter Halifax Harbor, and then had a later supper.

Tomorrow we walk around Halifax in the morning then take a tour to Peggy's Cove in the afternoon. 

Finally some Sunshine!

We continue to enjoy relaxing on board and have settled into a regular sea day routine.  It warmed up today into the 60's and was sunny, so some people were actually out on deck (or balconies) enjoying the sunshine.  It was nice to see people in lounge chairs by the pool, and quite a change from the cold temperatures we've had before today; rumors say it might reach 70 tomorrow!  

Our main activities today were a lecture about Halifax in the morning, playing bridge in the afternoon, and enjoying an excellent lobster and prawns dinner with Floating Islands for dessert, followed by the last production show this evening, Caribbean Caliente.  Also, being a clear, sunny day this was our first chance to get good sunset pictures. Too many clouds before this or the timing did not work with our other activities.  

Halifax Tomorrow!  

Membership has it's privileges...

Mary and I are taking advantage of our new Elite member benefits on this cruise. Besides carrying the prestigious black card around and in addition to each of us receiving some free internet minutes, we have enjoyed the following:

• On both formal nights we've ordered deluxe canapes in our cabin. Salmon, caviar, etc. 
• We enjoyed a 10% discount on several on-board purchases
• We had a bag of laundry done for us at no charge
• Special priority line at Guest Services
• Today we're having afternoon tea delivered to our room.  I did not realize how much food was involved so we ate some, but are saving the cookies for tonight. 
• Free minibar in our room (not that we drink any hard liquor) but the two bottle of beer have been enjoyed
• "No Wait" tender service - Instead of having to get a tender ticket and queue up for an available tender, just go to the departure location and get on the next tender.

Membership does have it's privileges...  8-)