Last Day photos
Today is Sunday, 2/6/2005
There was an abbreviated double-sided, one sheet news letter and a double-sided, one sheet letter with our "Bon Voyage Information" last night. This morning there is only a breakfast buffet in The Grand Dining Room at 7am and we are to have vacated our staterooms by 8am and everyone is to be off the ship by 9am. The buffet is well-stocked, but the waitstaff in the tables is off. We are seated at a table for 6 and only 2 of us have water and coffee, 2 have coffee and we have nothing. There are no salt and pepper shakers on the table. It is organized chaos. Everyone at the table manages to get something to eat and drink and back to vacate our rooms within the hour alloted us.
We are out by 8am and take our carryons out in the atrium and sit with another couple working on the jigsaw puzzle. We have not seen them working on it before but she is upset that it will be left incomplete and wonders if the next cruise will complete it. Debbie says again that it will never be complete by the time we leave and she thinks that it will be replaced with a fresh puzzle for the next group this afternoon. The woman looks stunned and I think maybe Debbie is not such a terrible obsessive/compulsive after all. She has accepted from day one that this puzzle will not be done, ever.
We were in the last group to be disembarked about quarter to 9AM. We walked right off the ship, through customs, and to the taxi line. Negotiated a $10 round trip to drop our baggage at Barrachina and back to the ferry pier. (Barrachina is a restaraunt/jewelry store that the Puerto Rican Tourism Co. and RSSC recommended when asked what we should do with our luggage since there is no where to store it at the piers. They do not charge for this service, but accept tips. The guy that took our bags at Barrachina said the "standard tip" is $5, which was what we had planned to give him anyway. They have a big interior room just off the patio dining area devoted to storing baggage. They gave us a slip with a bag count on it when we checked the bags in and he double checked that we were taking that number out when we checked the bags out.) The taxi driver was not too happy because he was hoping to fill his van and go to the airport, but he took us and even carried Debbie's bag and got Barrachina to open up a few minutes early to accept our bags so he could get back in the taxi line at the ship. (That may have been a lost cause for him because there were probably fewer than 50 people left on the ship when we left it based on the line of luggage remaining in the terminal.) We took the public ferry from Pier 2 in Old San Juan (it is the short one) and bought round trip tickets (which was 4 identical tickets at $.50 each). From Old San Juan you have to specify to Catano, not Hato Rey. From Catano back, the ferries only go to Old San Juan. When you arrive in Catano, walk out the front door under the covered walkway to the sidewalk, it looks like buses and taxis should stop right there but we were assured by the locals that they don't for the Bacardi tours. So, when you reach the street, turn right and walk one block to the green building, you can't miss it, you can see it from the ferry terminal. It appears to be a parking garage with lots of benches out front, we were there early Sunday morning in the rain, and there were only a few men milling about at the car entrance to the garage, they approached us and asked us if we wanted to go to the Bacardi Tour. We said yes and the price for the 2 of us in the van was $3 per person. (We were the only 2 passengers on the ferry going over!) The van picked up one more person on the way to Bacardi, got us there before 10AM and dropped us outside the gate (the guard refused his request to open it to even let us walk on over to the visitor's center.) After about 5-10 minutes, the guard yelled at us to come on through, opened the gate and pointed us in the right direction to walk. We arrived at the visitor's pavilion and gift shop right at 10AM. (Why did we not just take the ship's transfer tour to the airport? We don't like crowds. Our flight was after 5pm and we wanted our leisure for the day.) We got our 2 free drink tickets and waited with a mojito. They filled the first tram over with people from RSSC Diamond. We waited for things to quiet down and then rode over. You get a radio handset and watch a video and look at a reproduction of the Cuban site and listen to snippets about them, then more individual a/v stations, then the little barrels of smelling stations, then the bar demonstration (in a reproduction of a 1930's art deco bar from Cuba), then a big noisy room with videos and music with drawers to pull out but all the contents were on loan at the time so no idea what was supposed to be there. This is where you can send the free video emails (go behind the wall of Bacardi bottles and you will see the hallway with about4 terminals there), then the bathrooms and handset return, out the door to the trams. You will be driven by the factory and different parts of production may be pointed out then back to the bat wing pavilion and gift shop. It is mostly self-guided and self-paced, except that if you have come on a guided tour from a ship the Bacardi guides will keep you together by herding you from one room to another by closing and opening doors to keep you together and on the same tram, so if you go alone, you want to keep that in mind and not join a tram with a tour group on it if possible. We waited for the second tram which was still RSSC passengers, because large buses were just then arriving from other ships. Our observation was that the ship's tour groups did not have time to enjoy their free drinks and were rushed in the gift shop to exit and did not have time to enjoy or even have their 2nd free drinks after the tour was over. There was no hard sell to buy and as this was our last day, we had plenty of time to price liquor in PR and through the islands, it was most expensive at the Bacardi gift shop (we saw the same bottle for $7.95 in St. Thomas at Havensight and $9.95 at Bacardi). It was not a "distillery tour" as it is advertised by Bacardi. We thought it was a good way to spend a few hours early on a rainy Sunday morning. When we were ready to go, we walked over to the visitor's parking lot where there were several taxis waiting and we asked to be taken back to the ferry terminal (again we got an unhappy cabbie as he pressed to take us to our hotel instead) for $3 per person he drove us back and dropped us off at the green building one block from the ferry terminal.
When we came back on the ferry near Noon, it was very crowded with a big press of people lined up at the gate to board. There were still enough seats for everyone. In Old San Juan, we walked up Tanca St. uphill to Sol and ate lunch at El Jibarito, again. We really liked it the first and time and figured, why mess with success. The lunches there were $2-3 more on Sunday than they were on Weds., probably because there were several ships coming in that day, vs. Weds. There were a lot of local business people in there on Weds. and a lot of tourists on Sunday, anyway the food was the same and good and still not expensive, just a heads up that the price did increase. Then we walked over to Barrachina and picked up our luggage and a taxi to the airport, got there the recommended 3hours early and went through security in about 15 minutes. (There were looong lines at American even for the self-check-in kiosks, we had traveled with one carry on bag each for our short cruise and printed our boarding passes from the ship's internet facility.) We found the gate with the first flight to our connecting city and asked if since we were here early we could take it rather than wait (we were traveling on frequent flyer award tickets) they boarded us on the earlier flight in group 4 and we were on our way home by 4pm. After a long 5 hour flight to Dallas, we saw the end of the Super Bowl and boarded a final flight to RDU and got back on time just after 1AM. Took a short cab ride to the office parking and drove our car home, showered and in bed by 2. Back to work in a few hours. I asked Debbie if she was happy to be in our own bed and she said, yeah if this boat would just quit rocking. That is so weird, I feel like the floor is still making that strange Diamond motion too. It passed for me by Tuesday morning, but Debbie says she still feels it. She is still taking Bonine and wearing her bands intermittently throughout each day.
The End.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
St. Thomas evening
St. Thomas evening
Today is Saturday, 2/5/2005
We have dinner in The Grand Dining Room again. I forgot to photograph half the courses and couldn't tell you now what they were. I will say that during the evenings, the white wine that was being poured, in no particular order, was Sancerre, French Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, either Pouilly-Fuisse or Fume, can't remember now. This is what comes of doing this from random slips of paper and not keeping a diary on the laptop. Oh, well, suffice it to say that we liked all the white wines and as usual for us did not drink any of the reds. Also, while Debbie has a limited number of foods she finds acceptable, it looks like she ate a month's worth of filet mignon in 3 nights. She was happy to find that a peppercorn sauce was offered with her steak each time, but sour cream, chives, etc. for her potato offered only 1 out of 3 times. She still came home a pound lighter than when she left. I did not weigh before or after, too much information and all.
We start to watch the movie on TV, "Windtalkers" which we have not seen before but, I fell asleep and Debbie said it was a war movie, she did not like and she went to sleep too. We are almost all packed up and we have an early morning tomorrow.
Some cruises end with a feeling of, your time is up and you need to get out of here and some don't. We have seen both kinds and it seems to vary not only by line but by ship and even from one sailing to the next on the same ship. This was a get off, your time is up cruise end.
Today is Saturday, 2/5/2005
We have dinner in The Grand Dining Room again. I forgot to photograph half the courses and couldn't tell you now what they were. I will say that during the evenings, the white wine that was being poured, in no particular order, was Sancerre, French Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, either Pouilly-Fuisse or Fume, can't remember now. This is what comes of doing this from random slips of paper and not keeping a diary on the laptop. Oh, well, suffice it to say that we liked all the white wines and as usual for us did not drink any of the reds. Also, while Debbie has a limited number of foods she finds acceptable, it looks like she ate a month's worth of filet mignon in 3 nights. She was happy to find that a peppercorn sauce was offered with her steak each time, but sour cream, chives, etc. for her potato offered only 1 out of 3 times. She still came home a pound lighter than when she left. I did not weigh before or after, too much information and all.
We start to watch the movie on TV, "Windtalkers" which we have not seen before but, I fell asleep and Debbie said it was a war movie, she did not like and she went to sleep too. We are almost all packed up and we have an early morning tomorrow.
Some cruises end with a feeling of, your time is up and you need to get out of here and some don't. We have seen both kinds and it seems to vary not only by line but by ship and even from one sailing to the next on the same ship. This was a get off, your time is up cruise end.
St. Thomas afternoon
St. Thomas afternoon
Today is Saturday, 2/5/2005
Arrived back at Diamond and ready for some lunch. The Grill is a Mexican Buffet today. We went up and nothing really looked good to either of us. We will finally have lunch in the Grand Dining Room. We get a table by the big windows and can watch small sightseeing boats come and go from the dock.
After lunch we stroll around the Havensight Mall and up and down the dock. I checked cameras here too, same stuff with higher prices than St. Maarten. The cab drivers have both said that there are 5 ships in town today and that Charlotte Amalie is a zoo. We decide that we definitely do not need to partake of that. We go in and work on the jigsaw puzzle some more, and do some packing. Debbie wants to go to the Chocoholic Tea this afternoon and we have signed up for and received our invitation to the Galley Tour. The tour is at 4pm and the Chocoholic Tea is from 4-5pm.
We are met outside The Grand Dining Room by Executive Chef Rolando Cornejo with champagne and started the Galley Tour just off The Grand Dining Room on Deck 8. This is the prep kitchen and where they prepare room service meals. Then we go down one level to the pastry kitchen and refrigerators. He only unlooks the vegetable refrigeration room for us to look in. Debbie sees the first raspberries of the cruise in the dessert area of the pastry kitchen. We then we go down one more level to the working kitchen. They are preparing the dinner for the crew. They tell us that they are making chicken and rice for the Filipinos and roast beef for the Europeans. Rolando tells us the food service and food and beverage servers personnel are all Filipino. He is asked about the menus and is a little vague but appears to be saying that he gets menus from corporate, and he orders provisions from the master on the ship and the orders are done locally. He is asked how often he repeats menus, to our shock he replies every 14 days. He is asked if this is true and longer cruises and replies, yes. Debbie is incredulous. She jumps in and asks him specifically about the World Cruise, if we sail for 122 nights, we will repeat the menus every 14 days, he is firm in replying yes, the menus will always repeat every 14 days. We are both stunned. We cruised for 45-days on Orient Lines' old Crown Odyssey and never once repeated a menu, though we did repeat about 6 different dishes for a couple of times, we never repeated an entire menu. We did not think OrientLines were really a class act compared to RSSC, but if Rolando is correct, we will have to reevaluate our opinions of both lines. He was firm in his reply. He opened a door to release us and we found ourselves by the gangway entrance on Deck 6. It is a 3-story kitchen.
We are off to the Chocoholic Tea. We enjoyed the grape and banana skewers dipped in chocolate the best.
We go back to the room and pick out final outfits so we can continue with the packing. We shower and watch the sailaway from our balcony and are ready for dinner.
Today is Saturday, 2/5/2005
Arrived back at Diamond and ready for some lunch. The Grill is a Mexican Buffet today. We went up and nothing really looked good to either of us. We will finally have lunch in the Grand Dining Room. We get a table by the big windows and can watch small sightseeing boats come and go from the dock.
After lunch we stroll around the Havensight Mall and up and down the dock. I checked cameras here too, same stuff with higher prices than St. Maarten. The cab drivers have both said that there are 5 ships in town today and that Charlotte Amalie is a zoo. We decide that we definitely do not need to partake of that. We go in and work on the jigsaw puzzle some more, and do some packing. Debbie wants to go to the Chocoholic Tea this afternoon and we have signed up for and received our invitation to the Galley Tour. The tour is at 4pm and the Chocoholic Tea is from 4-5pm.
We are met outside The Grand Dining Room by Executive Chef Rolando Cornejo with champagne and started the Galley Tour just off The Grand Dining Room on Deck 8. This is the prep kitchen and where they prepare room service meals. Then we go down one level to the pastry kitchen and refrigerators. He only unlooks the vegetable refrigeration room for us to look in. Debbie sees the first raspberries of the cruise in the dessert area of the pastry kitchen. We then we go down one more level to the working kitchen. They are preparing the dinner for the crew. They tell us that they are making chicken and rice for the Filipinos and roast beef for the Europeans. Rolando tells us the food service and food and beverage servers personnel are all Filipino. He is asked about the menus and is a little vague but appears to be saying that he gets menus from corporate, and he orders provisions from the master on the ship and the orders are done locally. He is asked how often he repeats menus, to our shock he replies every 14 days. He is asked if this is true and longer cruises and replies, yes. Debbie is incredulous. She jumps in and asks him specifically about the World Cruise, if we sail for 122 nights, we will repeat the menus every 14 days, he is firm in replying yes, the menus will always repeat every 14 days. We are both stunned. We cruised for 45-days on Orient Lines' old Crown Odyssey and never once repeated a menu, though we did repeat about 6 different dishes for a couple of times, we never repeated an entire menu. We did not think OrientLines were really a class act compared to RSSC, but if Rolando is correct, we will have to reevaluate our opinions of both lines. He was firm in his reply. He opened a door to release us and we found ourselves by the gangway entrance on Deck 6. It is a 3-story kitchen.
We are off to the Chocoholic Tea. We enjoyed the grape and banana skewers dipped in chocolate the best.
We go back to the room and pick out final outfits so we can continue with the packing. We shower and watch the sailaway from our balcony and are ready for dinner.
St. Thomas morning
St. Thomas morning
Today is Saturday, 2/5/2005
I was up at my ordinary pre-dawn hour, but with no treadmill, no laptop and not wanting to inhale the ship's exhaust on the track, I am out of luck for my usual activities.
I am back to the room to get Debbie out of bed and in the shower before room service breakfast is to be delivered. We have arrived and docked early and we both slept soundly, so if there was anything going on last night we could not report on it.
Room service is on time and Debbie is fed and dressed by the time they call us to the Constellation Center to collect our passports and clear Immigrations individually. The Center is right off the atrium outside our cabin door and we are the first ones there.
We go back to the cabin and watch the dock area wake up and plan our day. This is the only place where Debbie has something big she would like to do. Sea Trekkin' at Coral World. We both love aquariums/marine parks so this should be fun. I am not too sure about the helmut diving, but the one time Debbie ever took a vacation without me, she went to Bermuda and came back with nothing but a t-shirt for me, a tan and one Polaroid of her holding a big fish on the bottom of the ocean with a big smile on her face and a big helmut on her head! (You have to know Debbie to know how out of character all of this was, flying alone, riding in a small boat, and getting in the ocean! She is terrified of fish, when she showed me that Polaroid, I asked where is the guy holding the gun to your head to force you to do that, she smiled and said, just out of camera range. What the....? She never went on vacation without me again, anyway.) So, if she could do helmut diving, so can I. We get our suits on under our clothes and head out. We get another shared cab/van here and off we go. We arrive at Coral World after an exhilarating van ride, up, down, sideways, hairpin turns, ruts, pot holes, flooded streets, I am not sure we will ever get where she expects to go, but she is following along on her map and shows me the route as the we change route #s and she cranks up her Relief Band. We pay admission to Coral World and not Sea Trekkin' because she says they are not answering the phone. We go out to the undersea observatory and go down to view all the views and come back up and still no one is there for the Sea Trekkin'. We start to walk back to the front gate and we meet a woman on the bridge and ask her, she says Sea Trekkin' is cancelled due to rough water. Phew, I am relieved because I thought the fish were swimming backwards through those undersea windows, until Debbie pointed out they were being swept forward and back past the window by the water! I was worried, but they are don't so I don't have to either. Debbie seems disappointed. But, she rapidly checks her Coral World handout and tells me we are in time to see the feeding at the Caribbean Reef Encounter and leads the way. It is very interesting, not too busy and we get to speak with a couple of the aquarists.We go check out the ray pool, sea turtle pool, then go to the shark feeding. It is too hot, full sun and too many little kids, we leave pretty quickly and head for the Marine Gardens. It is a pair of buildings filled with small display aquarium tanks, we see sea horses, jawfish that dig holes with their shovel jaws to attract a mate, anemones, eels, and one room of fluorescent sea life blacklit. We really like it. The next 2 feedings were cancelled because of the rough water. So, we finished up the park, put our stuff in a locker here and walked over to the beach for a while. I went in and Debbie did not, it was really rough. We sat on the beach while I sundried and then went back over and I showered off and changed and we caught a cab back to the pier.
Again, it was a shared van. There were already 6 people in there, 4 going to the cruise ship docks and 2 going to the Ritz Carlton. So, this meant for the same low $7 per head price we got a circle tour of the entire eastern end of the island. It was another exhilarating ride but we were prepared this time.
Today is Saturday, 2/5/2005
I was up at my ordinary pre-dawn hour, but with no treadmill, no laptop and not wanting to inhale the ship's exhaust on the track, I am out of luck for my usual activities.
I am back to the room to get Debbie out of bed and in the shower before room service breakfast is to be delivered. We have arrived and docked early and we both slept soundly, so if there was anything going on last night we could not report on it.
Room service is on time and Debbie is fed and dressed by the time they call us to the Constellation Center to collect our passports and clear Immigrations individually. The Center is right off the atrium outside our cabin door and we are the first ones there.
We go back to the cabin and watch the dock area wake up and plan our day. This is the only place where Debbie has something big she would like to do. Sea Trekkin' at Coral World. We both love aquariums/marine parks so this should be fun. I am not too sure about the helmut diving, but the one time Debbie ever took a vacation without me, she went to Bermuda and came back with nothing but a t-shirt for me, a tan and one Polaroid of her holding a big fish on the bottom of the ocean with a big smile on her face and a big helmut on her head! (You have to know Debbie to know how out of character all of this was, flying alone, riding in a small boat, and getting in the ocean! She is terrified of fish, when she showed me that Polaroid, I asked where is the guy holding the gun to your head to force you to do that, she smiled and said, just out of camera range. What the....? She never went on vacation without me again, anyway.) So, if she could do helmut diving, so can I. We get our suits on under our clothes and head out. We get another shared cab/van here and off we go. We arrive at Coral World after an exhilarating van ride, up, down, sideways, hairpin turns, ruts, pot holes, flooded streets, I am not sure we will ever get where she expects to go, but she is following along on her map and shows me the route as the we change route #s and she cranks up her Relief Band. We pay admission to Coral World and not Sea Trekkin' because she says they are not answering the phone. We go out to the undersea observatory and go down to view all the views and come back up and still no one is there for the Sea Trekkin'. We start to walk back to the front gate and we meet a woman on the bridge and ask her, she says Sea Trekkin' is cancelled due to rough water. Phew, I am relieved because I thought the fish were swimming backwards through those undersea windows, until Debbie pointed out they were being swept forward and back past the window by the water! I was worried, but they are don't so I don't have to either. Debbie seems disappointed. But, she rapidly checks her Coral World handout and tells me we are in time to see the feeding at the Caribbean Reef Encounter and leads the way. It is very interesting, not too busy and we get to speak with a couple of the aquarists.We go check out the ray pool, sea turtle pool, then go to the shark feeding. It is too hot, full sun and too many little kids, we leave pretty quickly and head for the Marine Gardens. It is a pair of buildings filled with small display aquarium tanks, we see sea horses, jawfish that dig holes with their shovel jaws to attract a mate, anemones, eels, and one room of fluorescent sea life blacklit. We really like it. The next 2 feedings were cancelled because of the rough water. So, we finished up the park, put our stuff in a locker here and walked over to the beach for a while. I went in and Debbie did not, it was really rough. We sat on the beach while I sundried and then went back over and I showered off and changed and we caught a cab back to the pier.
Again, it was a shared van. There were already 6 people in there, 4 going to the cruise ship docks and 2 going to the Ritz Carlton. So, this meant for the same low $7 per head price we got a circle tour of the entire eastern end of the island. It was another exhilarating ride but we were prepared this time.
St. Maarten evening
Today is Friday, 2/4/2005
We return to the cabin to deposit our T-shirts, there is still a line to get into the Windows Lounge, so we go back to The Grand Dining Room and just wait in line there. We suffer smoke inhalation for the first time. The wait is mercifully brief. We are seating in the main part of the dining room for the first time for dinner tonight. It is a little noisier here, or maybe because there are so many more people dining in The Grand Dining Room tonight for the Captain's Welcome Dinner. They are serving caviar and lobster tonight and there are several large tables with staff and officers at them tonight. We cannot judge the noise level because we have not seen this many people in the dining room before tonight and it is our first dinner in the main room.
I forgot to photograph dessert, but Debbie had a decaf cappucino (she saw it on the menu for the first time tonight, she has not been fond of the regular coffee) and creme brulee, I had a trio of ice creams. She did not care for the creme brulee or she is just getting too queasy. I finished it off for her. She commented that it was all about the brulee, I did not understand, and she pointed out that it was the thinnest layer of creme she had ever seen in a creme brulee, so the focus was on the brulee. I didn't notice, but yep, she's right, only about a 1/4 inch of custard.
Tomorrow is an early morning for St. Thomas and we are both hoping for a good night's sleep. We filled out a room service order for our wake up call. Tonight's movie is "Vanity Fair" and I fall asleep pretty quickly, Debbie stays up past 11:30 to see the whole thing. I am getting back to my normal sleep pattern of early to bed and very early to rise.
St. Maarten afternoon
St. Maarten sunset
Today is Friday, 2/4/2005
When we get back, it is almost noon and our cabin has still not been made up. We drop our purchases and go work on the jigsaw puzzle until lunch time. Today is an Asian buffet at The Grill and that is where we head. I forgot my camera again, so no pictures. I don't really remember what we had.
We went back down to the cabin and it is made up by one. We brushed our teeth again, slathered on sunscreen and changed into bathing suits and went up to the pool with a book for Debbie and napping for me. There were fewer than a dozen people around the pool while we were there for about 1 1/2 hours. We were there from about 1:30PM to 3PM. After about an hour we were both hot and parched. We had both seen 2 different people get up and go to the Splash Bar and request a drink and take it back to their chaise. Debbie asked me if I would like a drink, she would go get it. I told her I felt like something really cold and she said she was going to ask for a banana milkshake and asked me if I would like a virgin Pina Colada. I would not and I do not want a milkshake. I tell her to order me a virgin peach daiquiri. There have 4 employees at the bar during this hour and none have come out and asked if anyone at the pool would like a drink. This does not seem right, but we have seen 2 other people go up and take drinks back to their chairs, so what do we know. Debbie goes up and sits down and waits. Eventually, some one walks by from the bridge area and tells the 4 they have a customer waiting. A young man comes over behind the bar and asks her what she wants. She points to me and tells him, my husband and I are sitting over there and I would like a banana milkshake and he would like....He interrupts her and says I can't do that, I don't have any bananas. She is speechless. She tells me that she just stared like a dog at the giant bunch of bananas 6 feet from him. He finally follows her gaze and laughs, oh I guess there are bananas. She continues, that her husband would like a virgin peach daiquiri. He tells her no he can't do that because like he was telling her, he has no fruit. She tells him and we have established that you do in fact have fruit. He offers to make a frozen virgin Pina Colada for me, her head almost explodes, but she will not argue for a daiquiri for me. She tells me she has had enough, between the Eggs Benedict, waiting outside to get the room made up, now this, I can't do anymore today, I won't. Drink it or don't. She sits and waits for the drinks and brings them back over to our chaises, the young man doesn't not offer to deliver them to us. When he picked up the big jug of Pina Colada mix, she says the the jug immediately behind it was clearly strawberry daiquiri mix and she would be willing to bet that one of the other 4 jugs in the well was peach daiquiri mix and I am welcome to go over and pick my own battle. But, she is right, I will not go and engage in a confrontation for a beverage on vacation. We drink our drinks, people go, new people come, the 4 bar employees stay in the shade behind the bar talking and laughing among themselves. As we start to pack it in at 3PM, a young woman comes out from behind the bar and makes the round of the chaises offering drinks or refills, but we have had enough sun and we decline.
Debbie is in for a shower and a nap, she is exhausted from last night. I decide that I can't take anymore sun on our balcony and I have napped enough by the pool and I shower and go work on the jigsaw puzzle inside. There is an Italian Ice Cream Social at 4pm. I go alone, then wake Debbie around 5:30pm to see us leave the dock.
We work on the jigsaw puzzle together some and then go to our balcony to watch Diamond prepare to leave. There is a problem, a couple are not on board. At last, they arrive, but now there is another problem, the winch/or winch motor that raises the gangway will not work. With the ship bobbing up and down, the gangway has been screeching on the concrete dock all day. It is right under our balcony. Debbie did not nap well because of the screeching through the closed door and drapes. Now there are a man and a woman down there in a golf cart to see us off and the man is cursing a blue streak and yelling that we need to get off his GD dock and how p**d off about the holes we have dug in his dock. Well. We were to have sailed at 6 and it is at least 6:30 before they get the gangway raised. The next day in St. Thomas we saw them using a hoist to raise a new motor out of Diamond's dingy, so guess they had to replace the winch motor for the gangway. We went up top to get a closer look at the winch situation, but did not see what magic they worked to finally winch the gangway up. While we were up there we wandered on up to the bridge to see us sailaway, but it got really windy so we didn't stay long. Tonight is the captain's reception and we go down, but there is a big line and we decide not to stand in it because the ship is starting to move around alot and Debbie is afraid to push the limits too far. We head back downstairs and see the shop open for the first time. We go in and each get a "Diamond 05" T-shirt. I guess these will soon be valuable collector's items.
Today is Friday, 2/4/2005
When we get back, it is almost noon and our cabin has still not been made up. We drop our purchases and go work on the jigsaw puzzle until lunch time. Today is an Asian buffet at The Grill and that is where we head. I forgot my camera again, so no pictures. I don't really remember what we had.
We went back down to the cabin and it is made up by one. We brushed our teeth again, slathered on sunscreen and changed into bathing suits and went up to the pool with a book for Debbie and napping for me. There were fewer than a dozen people around the pool while we were there for about 1 1/2 hours. We were there from about 1:30PM to 3PM. After about an hour we were both hot and parched. We had both seen 2 different people get up and go to the Splash Bar and request a drink and take it back to their chaise. Debbie asked me if I would like a drink, she would go get it. I told her I felt like something really cold and she said she was going to ask for a banana milkshake and asked me if I would like a virgin Pina Colada. I would not and I do not want a milkshake. I tell her to order me a virgin peach daiquiri. There have 4 employees at the bar during this hour and none have come out and asked if anyone at the pool would like a drink. This does not seem right, but we have seen 2 other people go up and take drinks back to their chairs, so what do we know. Debbie goes up and sits down and waits. Eventually, some one walks by from the bridge area and tells the 4 they have a customer waiting. A young man comes over behind the bar and asks her what she wants. She points to me and tells him, my husband and I are sitting over there and I would like a banana milkshake and he would like....He interrupts her and says I can't do that, I don't have any bananas. She is speechless. She tells me that she just stared like a dog at the giant bunch of bananas 6 feet from him. He finally follows her gaze and laughs, oh I guess there are bananas. She continues, that her husband would like a virgin peach daiquiri. He tells her no he can't do that because like he was telling her, he has no fruit. She tells him and we have established that you do in fact have fruit. He offers to make a frozen virgin Pina Colada for me, her head almost explodes, but she will not argue for a daiquiri for me. She tells me she has had enough, between the Eggs Benedict, waiting outside to get the room made up, now this, I can't do anymore today, I won't. Drink it or don't. She sits and waits for the drinks and brings them back over to our chaises, the young man doesn't not offer to deliver them to us. When he picked up the big jug of Pina Colada mix, she says the the jug immediately behind it was clearly strawberry daiquiri mix and she would be willing to bet that one of the other 4 jugs in the well was peach daiquiri mix and I am welcome to go over and pick my own battle. But, she is right, I will not go and engage in a confrontation for a beverage on vacation. We drink our drinks, people go, new people come, the 4 bar employees stay in the shade behind the bar talking and laughing among themselves. As we start to pack it in at 3PM, a young woman comes out from behind the bar and makes the round of the chaises offering drinks or refills, but we have had enough sun and we decline.
Debbie is in for a shower and a nap, she is exhausted from last night. I decide that I can't take anymore sun on our balcony and I have napped enough by the pool and I shower and go work on the jigsaw puzzle inside. There is an Italian Ice Cream Social at 4pm. I go alone, then wake Debbie around 5:30pm to see us leave the dock.
We work on the jigsaw puzzle together some and then go to our balcony to watch Diamond prepare to leave. There is a problem, a couple are not on board. At last, they arrive, but now there is another problem, the winch/or winch motor that raises the gangway will not work. With the ship bobbing up and down, the gangway has been screeching on the concrete dock all day. It is right under our balcony. Debbie did not nap well because of the screeching through the closed door and drapes. Now there are a man and a woman down there in a golf cart to see us off and the man is cursing a blue streak and yelling that we need to get off his GD dock and how p**d off about the holes we have dug in his dock. Well. We were to have sailed at 6 and it is at least 6:30 before they get the gangway raised. The next day in St. Thomas we saw them using a hoist to raise a new motor out of Diamond's dingy, so guess they had to replace the winch motor for the gangway. We went up top to get a closer look at the winch situation, but did not see what magic they worked to finally winch the gangway up. While we were up there we wandered on up to the bridge to see us sailaway, but it got really windy so we didn't stay long. Tonight is the captain's reception and we go down, but there is a big line and we decide not to stand in it because the ship is starting to move around alot and Debbie is afraid to push the limits too far. We head back downstairs and see the shop open for the first time. We go in and each get a "Diamond 05" T-shirt. I guess these will soon be valuable collector's items.
St. Maarten morning
Morning Photos
Today is Friday, 2/4/2005
So, we walk through the shops at the dock area. This is a very clean and pleasant shopping area, they have a steel band playing right at the entrance to the pier. It is a very festive and welcoming environment they have built here. Every thing looks brand new, clean and shiny; maybe it is brand new.
I do not find a camera that I want to buy. I am shopping for a new one for the world cruise. I want more than 4x optical zoom and I also want it smaller and lighter than the Olympus I am using now. This may be a hard combination to find, but I have months, so I can keep looking.
That done we get in a cab line. We get jammed full-in, 14 to a van, for a $3/pp, 3 minute ride to the absolute closest point on Front St. to the docks. When we were approached by the people making cab assignments, Debbie told them we wanted to go to the museum and each of the 3 people involved, said yes, Front St. OK. We can walk, it is just the principle of the thing. But, everyone is grumbling, they got dumped where they did not ask to go. Now we know how it works from the docks, but there did not appear to be any other option than walking because the water taxis are not running today.
We find a T-shirt shop fairly quickly and I get 2 for me and 1 for the guy who drove us to the airport and Debbie finds one with a map of the Caribbean on it. 4 for $14, good deal, we got all the right sizes and all are 100% cotton. Debbie is looking for something for birthday presents for the 2 boys who are growing up next door to us. She finds some beach towel/beach bag things in the openair market and we think they will be good for them, we know they visit their grandfather at the beach. We look and look for the museum, we have the address from 2 sources and it is shown in the same spot on 2 different maps, but we do not find it where it should be, nor do we stumble on it anywhere else! Mystery. Two days, two museums not seen. We do walk over to the beach and it looks very nice but I am not willing to go to the ship and back to here to enjoy it. We agree we will spend some time at the ship's pool this afternoon. We walk around a bit more, walk through a casino and decide that we have seen enough. It is very sunny and hot and crowded here today. We take a cab alone back to the ship for the same price as the ride over.
Today is Friday, 2/4/2005
So, we walk through the shops at the dock area. This is a very clean and pleasant shopping area, they have a steel band playing right at the entrance to the pier. It is a very festive and welcoming environment they have built here. Every thing looks brand new, clean and shiny; maybe it is brand new.
I do not find a camera that I want to buy. I am shopping for a new one for the world cruise. I want more than 4x optical zoom and I also want it smaller and lighter than the Olympus I am using now. This may be a hard combination to find, but I have months, so I can keep looking.
That done we get in a cab line. We get jammed full-in, 14 to a van, for a $3/pp, 3 minute ride to the absolute closest point on Front St. to the docks. When we were approached by the people making cab assignments, Debbie told them we wanted to go to the museum and each of the 3 people involved, said yes, Front St. OK. We can walk, it is just the principle of the thing. But, everyone is grumbling, they got dumped where they did not ask to go. Now we know how it works from the docks, but there did not appear to be any other option than walking because the water taxis are not running today.
We find a T-shirt shop fairly quickly and I get 2 for me and 1 for the guy who drove us to the airport and Debbie finds one with a map of the Caribbean on it. 4 for $14, good deal, we got all the right sizes and all are 100% cotton. Debbie is looking for something for birthday presents for the 2 boys who are growing up next door to us. She finds some beach towel/beach bag things in the openair market and we think they will be good for them, we know they visit their grandfather at the beach. We look and look for the museum, we have the address from 2 sources and it is shown in the same spot on 2 different maps, but we do not find it where it should be, nor do we stumble on it anywhere else! Mystery. Two days, two museums not seen. We do walk over to the beach and it looks very nice but I am not willing to go to the ship and back to here to enjoy it. We agree we will spend some time at the ship's pool this afternoon. We walk around a bit more, walk through a casino and decide that we have seen enough. It is very sunny and hot and crowded here today. We take a cab alone back to the ship for the same price as the ride over.
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