Tag: cruise

Caribbean Cruise 2024 – Day 13- Princess Cays -Bahamas

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You might well ask what happened to Day 9, 10, 11 & 12…..Well!!!! ….Day 9 we were in St Thomas, it was crazy hot making you feel as if you’re skin was being dried to your bones or in my case I felt as if I was “deep fat frying”🤣🤣. We had been going to walk to the gondola and go up to the view point. It was sooooo hot we decided to just walk to an atm and get some money. We had spent quite a bit of cash because all our tours had been paid to local drivers in cash. The atm at St Thomas is in Mall 6&7 of the port shops, inside a nail bar… having both drawn enough cash to see us through the rest of our holiday we headed back to the air conditioning of our cabin…only as we went back through port security did we spy an atm machine at the security point 🤣🤣…

Day 10 we headed to one of my favourite islands Grand Turk. I love the wild donkeys….they’ve learnt to drink water out of your bottle and not spill a drop. I also like the fact that they provide free sunloungers and parasols to encourage tourists to come off the ship on to the island. However it was not to be this time. The sky was gray and it was raining on and off, we were definitely “rocking and rolling” . The captain and the port authorities decided it was not safe to try to dock so on we went.

Day 11 was at Sea – we played cards, took part in some quizzes, ate a nice meal and woke up on Day 12 in Fort Lauderdale. It was turn around day for us and disembarkation and embarkation for others. We complied with the bureaucracy of walking off the ship showing our passports to immigration and walking back on again…this process took 2 hours…we soon back at ‘our’ table playing cards and directing newbies towards the buffet…. I am beginning to wonder if all Americans have a phobia of starving to death so they have to carry food with them at all times, and don’t like to be more than a few strides away from their next meal…..this is the first caribbean cruise we’ve noticed this total obsession with food…..I think I am loosing weight just watching them eat 🤣🤣😢

Day 13 we woke up to blue sky and high temperatures…yeah!! After breakfast with Ernesto we went to the priority tender seating area…not quite certain which part of it is priority as we waited quite a while….seems a bit like their complimentary photo session…..no different from anyone else !!!!! Eventually we tendered to Princess Cays……I love this place….blue sea, sun-loungers…and not least of all this is where John proposed to me, in the sea some 11 years ago….We swam, sunbathed…..my mother would have been proud of me because it was so hot on the sun-lounger I put the waist of my shorts around my head to protect my ears, neck and top of my arm….it was a typical ‘Mum’ thing to do…John said at least it wasn’t my knickers !!!! After a second swim, we headed back to the tenders and back to the ship. 3 hours is about as long as we could stand the heat and most of that time we were in the water cooling off….but it was still long enough for me to do a good impersonation of a lobster…do so hope that when we get home to England I won’t be mistaken as Rudolph 🤣🤣 Great day…thanks Princess Cays you never fail to deliver a happy time.

Caribbean Cruise 2024 – Day 6 – St Kitts & Nevis

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We both woke up early and watched from our bed, whilst drinking coffee, as we pulled alongside the pier in St Kitts…….what a decedent life style we live 🤣.
It was a grey day with the cloud hanging very low on Mount Liamuiga, there was no view across to Nevis. The extraordinary sight of a bright rainbow coming out of the bottom of the rain cloud into the sea put a smile on our faces.
Breakfast this morning consisted of yogurt and fresh berries, John followed this with a full English cooked meal, whilst I had smoked salmon with cream cheese on a toasted bagel. After breakfast we returned to the cabin and people watched ….it was windy and wet. We decided to wait a bit before going ashore and I took the chance to have an after breakfast nap……after all I’ve been up early every day 🤣🤣. I was finally ready to disembark at about mid-day. By now the sun was shinning and we walked the several thousand steps to the cruise terminal entrance. Once again we had not booked anything…we have been here 5 times before. Last time we went to Nevis by speed boat and explored the island with a Princess excursion. Prior to this we have always taken the train through the old sugar cane plantations. Princess had offered us this trip at a discounted price of $145 per person …the 3/4 hours would have cost us $290 ……it seems that the Americans and Canadians don’t think this is a lot but to us British that is a shed load of money….So we wandered down the quay and caught sight of local a tours lady…She offered us a 2.5/3 hour island tour for $25 per person …Yes Please !!! We had to wait 10 minutes so she could coerce another 3 people into doing the tour…..Castella went and got her air conditioned mini bus and off we went.

A quick drive around Basseterre, the capital, showed us a variety of sights ranging from schools and universities to churches of all denominations. We headed along the coast road passing Bloody Point, where the French and English had combined forces and massacred over 2000 Caribs. From here we went to the Old Road Rum area.


Continuing on passed one of the oldest churches and Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park.
Eventually the coast road got to where the Atlantic and Caribbean Seas meet. We stopped at a view point to take photos.


Our journey took us a little way inland and we enjoyed the beautiful street art prior to stopping at the Lava Rock.

We walked out to the viewing platform and enjoyed the spectacular jet black rock formations. These are formed by lava, from the volcano. As an aside, it’s probably important to explain that all the natural sand on St Kitts is black volcanic sand. One or two of the upmarket resorts do have yellow sand which is imported. There were a few souvenir stalls at the Black Lava Beach and I purchased a nice little leather purse for my forex and a hand painted Christmas decoration.

Our final stop was a view point over Frigate Bay, this offers splendid views of both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

It was a superb tour with lots of information and we saw a great deal of the island which we had never seen before. Back in the cruise terminal we stopped to buy…..yes you guessed, John a t-shirt…..they had 2 for $10, as we like a bargain it would have seemed rude to buy one so we ended up with two!!!

Back on board we changed out of our hot and sweaty clothes, the humidity had been very high, and we headed to the buffet for a light lunch and a few games of cards.
Tonight is the second evening of “The Voice of the Ocean”, auditions, which we are looking forward to hearing….don’t worry Dad I am not singing…..for those of you who don’t know me well I have a voice like a howling dog !!!! More about our evening tomorrow…Thank you for travelling along with us and thanks to those of you who have left such encouraging comments, we are glad you are enjoying our trip.

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.

Alaska – Juneau – BEEN THERE GOT THE T-SHIRT

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Been there got the t-shirt

The delightful town of Juneau is the official capital of the USA State of Alaska. It is situated on the Gastineau Channel …an area Cruisers call the inside passage. It is both a coastal and a mountain town which is rich in both culture and wildlife.

It was named in 1881, after gold prospector Joe Juneau and it became the designated  capital of Alaska in 1906. It covers an area of 3,255sq miles, of which only 14sq miles are inhabited by approx 32,400 people.

One of Juneaus unique features is that you can not drive to it. The rugged mountain ranges surrounding Juneau make it impossible to access by road. People either fly in, arrive by ferry or like many visitors arrive by cruise ship. 

We have been fortunate to visit Juneau on many different occasions. This has meant we have visited most of its attractions :- 

The beautiful Mendenhall Glacier is only 12 miles from the centre of Juneau and is a very popular attraction. Visitors  enjoy a variety of activities here including hiking, wildlife viewing, and exploring the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. On one occasion when we visited the UK BBC had just finished filming bears during the salmon spawning season from the raised wooden walkway along the river at the foot of the glacier. Lots of people choose to glacier walk here. We, however, like walking the wooden platforms looking for bears. We’ve been lucky a couple of times and even luckier to see a porcupine rattle past us. 

Mendenhall Glacier
Close up of Mendenhall Glacier

The Mount Roberts Tramway is another visitor attraction. Although there is usually a long queue it moves quickly and it never seems crowded at the top . The tramway is a quick and scenic ride to the top of Mount Roberts, from here you can enjoy panoramic views of Juneau and the surrounding area.

The Salmon Hatchery is extremely interesting. You learn all about Alaska’s important salmon industry, the 5 different types of Salmon and you get to see salmon up close.

Our favourite activity which we do every time is Juneau is Whale Watching. Juneau is a great place to spot humpback whales and killer whales (orcas), especially between April and November. We take a tour boat out in Auke Bay. The company we always use guarantee that we will see whales or they will give you your money back. We’ve never had to have  a refund because we have always seen whales…..splendid sightings…

Breaching Humpback Whale
Whale Fluke
Orca whale (often referred to as the Killer whale ) .