Cruising the Caribbean 2024 – Day 5 – Tortola – British Virgin Islands.

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Before I we move on to our first port day, we’d like to share the end of day 4…….It was a black tie evening, so John looked his usual handsome self in his “bib and tucker” DJ or as the Americans say in his tuxedo. I put on my newly discovered ( I can’t remember buying it and I’ve never worn it!!!) black evening dress with a beaded top along with one of my many evening over jacket…..We had decided to go to Capri Dinning room and try to get a table with Ernesto’s serving lady …but alas it was full so they took us down to Santorini Dinning room and guess what? …….we were seated in Ernesto’s area…it couldn’t have worked out better if we planned it. We both started our meal with crab cakes and followed on with roast duck, adding a pecan caramel cheese cake as dessert……it was immaculately cooked and served…now this is the standard of food we expect . If you are wondering why Johns not smiling in all the photos it’s because he is self conscious of his broken front tooth!!!!

Feeling more than satisfied with our supper we waddled along to the theatre. It filled up quickly and it was good to see at least 3 officers ensuring that people didn’t save seats etc. The show was “Spotlight Bar” . It really was of the West End, or perhaps we should say Broadway standard. Both the choreography and the vocals were superb. We delivered a standing ovation before hot footing it along to the Princess Live Lounge. One of our favourite games to watch is the “Yes No” game….it never fails to amuse us. The contestants are asked lots of chit-chat questions and they are out if they say yes or no …if they last 3 minutes they win a bottle of champagne. Two ladies managed it…it never fails to be hysterically funny…we met the nice couple we’d sat next to the previous evening at supper and they decided to play but unfortunately they weren’t called up. After this we stayed where we were and enjoyed the first audition of “The Voice of the Ocean”. 7 contestants sang….the standard was amazing, eventually we voted for a lady who had belted out “ Black Velvet” and our second vote went to another lady whose rendition of “My heart will go on” was better than the original. …….so that was the end of Day 4 …what a great day we had, had at sea.

DAY 5 – Tortola ….I’ve never visited Tortola before and it is 30 some years since John was here last.
We watched from out balcony as we approached and docked. After breakfast we made our way to the gangway and disembarked. We hadn’t really decided what to do, but thought we might hire a taxi to show us the sights of the island. The cruise terminal area is so like most of those found on Caribbean Islands…posh diamond and gold shops and expensive mass produced souvenirs. Having asked a nice local where to find a taxi we made our way as directed. Before getting to the small individual taxis we found open sided taxi buses offering 2 hour island tours for $25 per person….it was a no brainier and we hopped on to the back seat.
it was a really informative tour, with several stops for photos, toilets, shopping etc. we went through the capital, Road Town, then we stopped at various view points on the climb up to Mount Sage National park.

The tour then wound its way back down the mountain to Cane Garden Bay. This looked a beautiful resort town.

We stopped at the only remaining rum distillery on the island, before heading along to the beach area. The beach was lively with sun-loungers, parasols, people swimming and the usual beach sellers. We had 15 minutes here, in which time we managed to buy John the essential t-shirt, just another to add to his massive collection!!, and he paddled in the sea whilst taking a photo.

The tour then ended back at the Cruise ship.

Wandering through the modern terminal area we stopped to buy a Christmas decoration…..for those of you who don’t know us we have Christmas tree decorations from special places we have visited around the world …we are very global at Christmas time.

We are looking forward to another enjoyable evening …more about that tomorrow,

Caribbean Cruise 2024 – Day 3 & 4 – at Sea.

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Our first evening meal went smoothly. We tend to find that the Sail Away supper is always ok but never spectacular and our meal in Amalfi Restaurant proved our philosophy correct….

We participated in a couple of quizzes in the Princess Live Lounge and then headed for bed.
During our supper I said to John that I thought I’d seen Ernesto Constantino, our all time favourite waiter from a previous cruise on a different Princess ship. I messaged him and sure enough he was on The Enchanted Princess.
The following morning we headed for Amalfi Restaurant for breakfast and Ernesto greeted us and sat us at a window seat in his serving area. Having a great waiter makes all the difference to our cruising experience. It was good catching up with him and learning that he will be a granddaddy next year. We had a super breakfast and a good laugh…

The rest of the day we spent sat on deck playing cards….our good friends Geoff & Caz are responsible for introducing us to “Five Crowns” …a rather addictive card game…which for once I can give John some stiff competition!!!!

After taking part in “Famous places and People” Quiz…in which we came second, we changed for supper and went for our 6.30 reservation. ….Let’s put it this way ..we hope things can only get better…..we were quickly shown to a table…40 minutes later a waitress took our order, no introduction or welcome only a faint apology for the delay and a grumble from her that her new assistant didn’t know what he was doing….Order taken …..John broke a tooth on the rock hard bread rolls…. Another 40 minutes passed before the starters arrived by which time we were feeling a bit disgruntled…eventually the main courses followed on….they were so delayed I’d almost forgotten we’d had a starter…We struck up a nice conversation with the couple on the table next to us …it was their first Ocean cruise…we did reassure them that dinning was usually a far, far better experience than what we were having…let’s hope so anyway.
By the time we had eventually got through our elongated dinning experience we had missed the entertainment we had decided to go to. Instead we returned to Princess Live lounge and enjoyed a couple of unusual quiz type music and movie themed games.
Today Monday 18th November…we had a repeat of yesterday… Ernesto treated us to some extra strawberries and blueberries with our breakfast yogurt. We are trying to change our dinning reservations for the second part of the cruise, to fixed time dinning so that we can be in his restaurant and then at least we know we’ll get great service….however dinning reservations didn’t know if that was going to be possible…we’ll have to wait and see.

We did, however, manage to book into The Crown Grill for Supper on our Wedding Anniversary. We also went to the photo gallery because they have kindly gifted us a photo shoot for our anniversary and we booked it in the studio before supper on our special day. The young man was so upbeat and enthusiastic about it that we are really looking forward to it.

More cards on deck…it’s a bright blue sky and none of the grey cloud from yesterday. We decided to skip lunch and instead had a very cheeky gelato ….. it’s formal night tonight , so we need time to get into our “glad rags”…. More about that tomorrow…

In the meantime we say “cheers” to you all and thank you for joining us on our cruise.

Caribbean 2024 Day 1 & 2

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Yesterday we set off from home for a 3 week holiday. It is to celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary. Those of you who know us will remember John proposed to me in the Caribbean.

We flew directly to Miami..good flight…spoilt by the huge queue to get through immigration….just under 2 hrs we made it through…for the first time ever we used Uber for a lift to our hotel in Fort Lauderdale…it was $68 a good price…..how were we to know that there are several Marriott Courtyards of Federation Highway !! Another Uber for $21 got us to the right one. We were exhausted and went straight to bed…..Unfortunately our old red 10 year old cases had expired and we had brand new John Lewis yellow ones….one is already smiling at us!!

We woke up very early 3.00am ….Uk time was 7.00 am body clock all adrift!
After the necessary trip to the bathroom we both managed another long sleep and finally made it down for breakfast at 9.30am…USA time. We used our new skill to call another Uber and for $45 he took us to the port…dropping us at pier 21 to embark on the Enchanted Princess. Wow!!!… to say we were amazed is an understatement…the queue for the terminal went right the way to the end of the pier and back around again. It took us an hour to join the end of the queue and another hour and three quarters to embark on the ship…nearly 3 hours most of it queueing in the hot sun….come on Princess that is not good enough…..they should have allocated embarkation time slots like they used to, so that customs scanning doesn’t get overwhelmed … the actual embarking with Princess staff and getting our medallions was only a matter of minutes.
After dropping our carry-on bags off in our cabin…..an obstructed view balcony especially selected as it looks over the middle of the roof of the lifeboat…so I can’t look down and feel seasick…..there is always method in my madness!!! ….we hotfooted it up on to the sun deck for a Key West Cooler mocktail…”Cheers everyone!” And a light lunch – hummus, pitta bread, olives salad. Followed by fresh melon and pineapple…….lovely….two glasses of water and we are ready to fight the crowds for a slot on top deck to watch the sail away……..The usual array of singing, dancing, shouting, cheering, the “love boat tune” played on the ships horn and the pilot boats guided us out of the port 50 minutes late but yeah!!!! We are on our way.

Deciding we needed a rest we descended to our cabin….and our suitcases were already inside awaiting the unpacking….John kindly helped me and we soon had it all in the draws and wardrobes and the cases stashed neatly under the bed. Our cabin Steward for the next 20 nights came and introduced himself…”Lucky” from the Philippines. I think we are lucky because he instantly said he’d change the bar fridge for Diet Coke and he went and got us a kettle for our early morning coffee….which incidentally I bring with us….he also made certain that our shower has a flexible removal pipe, as I don’t like the fixed ones which don’t allow you to deep clean individual areas!!!!! I was very impressed with him so he will be lucky as I can already feel a big tip going his way..

So far so good….we have booked a table for supper at 6.20 every evening, so hopefully we won’t have to queue…but if we do we do…..

Two sea days now, then an island which is new to me..Tortola….but in the mean time let’s eat, drink and be merry…..

New Forest – Day 7 – October 3rd 2024

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Yesterday we had a train related day. For those of you who don’t really know 2 J’s you might not realise that John is a prolific highly knowledgable, train enthusiast, who has over 26 books published by Amberley Books. The books are on various train lines, areas, locomotives around the country and each contain 180 of Johns own photographs. So!! Just occasionally!!!!!, when we are in the UK having an adventure we have specific train related days and yesterday was one of them.

Today we awoke to blue sky with a few white fluffy clouds…Yes!!!! We had been waiting for a good day so that we could visit Exbury Gardens & Steam Railway. None of us had ever been before …so it was a real excursion….
Exbury Gardens…although personally we think it should be called ‘Exbury Gardens and Arboretum’ is a 200 acre / 81 hectare of informal woodland garden. It is home to a large collection of rhododendrons, azaleas and many, many beautiful flowers, shrubs and amazing trees.

The Gardens are just east of Beaulieu. They are well signposted from the A326 Southampton to Fawley road in the New Forest. Their place in history dates them as Grade II listed gardens. In 1919 Lionel Nathan de Rothschild purchased the estate, and tried to emulate his fathers London Gunnersbury Park , by creating a massive very ambitious garden. The neoclassical mansion, Exbury House was built in 1920. It is seeped in history, having been commandeered by the Admiralty during WWII. It is not open to the public and seems to be having a lot of renovation work going on at the moment.
The gardens are open to the public, costing £13 per person plus £6.50 for the train trip. You can buy the tickets on line but we choose to get them at the ticket office, due to the unpredictable weather at the moment. A delightful lady served us and said it was fine to go out to get dads scooter after we’d been on the train. They also hire mobility scooters for a very reasonable £5 for half a day, £10 for a full day.

We had arrived in good time to get the 11.00am train. Please note…it’s quite a long walk (approx a little over quarter of a mile), from the entrance to the train station. We should have taken the mobility scooter with us, as there was plenty of room on the station, inside a locked fence gate, for pushchairs and scooters. We sat on the plentiful seating and watched them prepare the steam narrow-guage train engine and the diesel shunter.

At 10.50 we were invited to board the train…each compartment had bench seats opposite each other, so Dad and I sat facing forwards and John sat facing backwards…..we were soon on our way….our 20 minute trip was delightful. Not only did we go through beautifully landscaped areas of woodland, small lake and colourful shrubs but there was also many metal woodland animals and other creatures along the side of the tracks.

When we got back and disembarked we watched the engine being turned around on the turntable ready for its next trip.

We quickly went and got Dads mobility scooter from the car and set off to walk the rest of the gardens……it was really beautiful …beautifully laid out….the pictures speak louder than words…


When we got to the Five Arrows Gallery there was an exhibition of colourful Nerines….the gentleman explained all about them to us…he was from Zimbabwe and explained that the indoor Nerines were native to Cape Town in South Africa……We loved the way that they look as if they have glitter on them….in the UK they grow inside and are happiest on a windowsill all winter, flowering and growing leaves, then during the summer they should be kept dry and they are dormant…it was very interesting.

We continued our walk down by the lake before circling around back to the car.

What wonderful gardens…it was a splendid day. We had a late picnic lunch down at Hythe Marina watching the shipping coming and going before traversing the Forest, spotting the ponies on our last afternoon on our way back to the house….tomorrow we go home…a truly lovely last day of our holiday.

New Forest – Day 5 – October 1st 2024

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Yesterday we visited our relations who live in the area and joined them for coffee. It’s hard to say the exact relationship and I fear my sister will correct me because I am bound to be wrong…but I think…my mothers maternal grandmothers sisters child’s, child …I might have missed a generation out but they’ve always been known as Cousin Simon and Sheila to me and Simon is the son of Great Aunty Lily…although I don’t think she was an aunt, I think she was perhaps my grandmothers younger cousin !!!!! Regardless, they’ve always been family and it was lovely catching up with them…thank you for the coffee.
Today we headed off into the forest…a grey day with the sun occasionally breaking through, and thankfully no rain. We went through Sway to Horseshoe Bottom Carpark. Where we sat and enjoyed the views… plenty of horses….. there was also a man wandering about with a takeaway coffee..what a strange thing to do we thought. He kept bending and picking things up from the short grass, occasionally kneeling and once or twice sitting and still picking things up and putting in his pocket…..we watched him for some time. A car pulled up further along from us and a couple of men, father and son age, alighted. We were interested to see that they strapped a two wheeled contraption on to one of their dogs and we soon realised the dog didn’t have the use of its hind legs….. they set off across the grassland for a walk ….they stopped at the other strange man and conversed …out of his pocket came another open coffee cup and he showed the newcomers what he had been collecting… They all moved off and ‘curiosity was killing the cat’ , so I hopped out of the car and went to see what the man had been picking up….tiny mushrooms…I suspect magic mushrooms …my Miss Marple’s sleuthing had it all worked out!!! I was pleased when a New Forest Parks van pulled in and he disappeared..after all he was corrupting this sacred place where nature, heaven and earth are all at peace. We had coffee. Enjoyed watching the ponies and dog walkers traversing this area of outstanding beauty.

We decided to go deeper into the forest and continued on new routes until we crossed under the A31 again and headed towards Bramshaw . This time we didn’t see any pigs. Although we did see a lot of ponies and we went through some great villages with shops, the names of which really appealed to me !!! We stopped for our lunch and watched a pair of Wagtails and some Meadow Pipits playing in the puddles.

Deciding we would head for home we turned down another very narrow lane in the direction of Nomansland…. What a wonderful surprise …firstly a pig with two piglets and then another huge pig…as we went around the blind bend there in the road were about 10 really young pink piglets and their sows foraging in the hedgerow. Beyond them was a herd of donkeys blocking the road……what a lovely sight. As we could go nowhere, due to the road block , we spent several minutes watching and enjoying these animals freely eating and snuffling and grunting…it was superb.

We eventually had to move as the livestock moved onto the verges. Our return continued and we took the beautiful route past the Rhinefield Hotel and back through Brockenhurst….John got his train ‘fix’ as we waited at the level-crossing.

We got back to the house in time to put the supper in the oven. Another really lovely peaceful day, we saw 223 ponies wandering freely and 5 with riders …….Nature at its very finest.