Saturday was New Year’s Eve and we opted to retire to the room early. I’ve only ever stayed up twice to ring in the New Year and just don’t get the excitement. My daughter on the other hand enjoyed a drunken night up in West Palm listening to Emo music and dancing the night away. She didn’t appreciate my 8 am call to wake her up and ask for some information. (Yes, I knew she would be passed out and hung over. I’m so mean!)
After we got back to the ship, I worked some more on my tower and George napped and watched a few movies. For dinner we opted for the Lido. God only knows why. It is always the same on any ship I’ve been on. Not worth dinner time, but perfect for lunch. I wasn’t disappointed. It didn’t matter. We thought we’d experiment and we did. We know not to do it again. I guess we prefer to dress for dinner, or eat room service.
Happy New Year Everyone! I hope this year is filled with good health, fortune, and happiness.
On Sunday 1 January, we found ourselves in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. We’ve both been here before so we had no desire to go on any of the tours that were on offer. We walked to the shore and I dropped George at a Hard Rock Café for a milk shake while I wandered the town in search of puzzles. I really didn’t expect to find any and I wasn’t disappointed.
I did find some nifty statues, and a few nice bits of wall art. The chicken was cute too. We returned to the ship in time for lunch and spent the rest of the day watching movies and I worked on my nano block Leaning Tower of Pisa.
This one is not really a puzzle, it is exactly like Lego’s, but on a micro scale. When the Bug was a small thing, we used to put together a lot of these. She loved them. When we embarked on this trip, I decided to take a few puzzles along with me. At first I thought I would take some crystal puzzles, but in the end they are too delicate to assemble and bring back to Italy so they went into the last crate. Instead I brought along 2 of these nano block puzzles. The monkey was a bust. After I spent a day sorting out the pieces, I discovered that 1/2 of them were missing. Right back to Amazon they go.
I had a bit of frustration. I went to the front desk to see why our dinner reservations that I made weeks ago weren’t showing up. Another known problem. I can book all I want in advance, but unless it is done on the ship it won’t work. Fine. I booked 2 dinners as previously planned although on different dates. I also discovered that our excursion for tomorrow was not booked and had to do that again.
Now I was frustrated so I decided to have an early glass of wine. I went across to the Royal Dutch Café for a glass but they didn’t have what I wanted. I told to go downstairs as there was a bigger selection. I did, asked for the wine, and could smell that it had gone bad as soon as he put it in front of me. I asked him when it was opened and was told it was fresh; only opened on Thursday. Right! I told him it was corked and asked for something different. (Policy on this ship is to not open a fresh bottle until the last one is gone-be warned. If you don’t drink what everyone else does, you will get corked wine.) He replied with "It is not. It is a screw top bottle." Sweet thing isn’t he?
On the 2nd of January we landed in Cozumel Mexico. I managed to get George and I on that excursion we wanted to do and this was well worth it. First though, we did’t land in Cozumel until 11:30. Our excursion was for 12:15. We had no problem getting off the ship and finding our guide. We were given the mandatory purple bracelets and were sent to a waiting ferry. The ride to Playa del Carmen. 45 minutes later, we arrived. Then we were loaded onto a van for a 30 minute ride to the Amazing Secret River.
It was an underground cave and river. I wish I could show you photos of it, but sadly, the photos were download only and there seems to be a problem with the website. It goes to one of those 411 pages. I’m guessing I’ll never see my $99 again, or my photos. But let me tell you, it was wonderful. I liked it much more than the Mammoth Cave system. I loved the lack of commercialism and the use of headlamps vs. the use of electric lights.
After we had a taste of a local liquor. I loved it but refrained from making a purchase as we are moving and had to give away all of our alcohol at home. Xtabentun is a lovely anise-honey liquor.
Once we had our taste, we then had a local meal of pulled chicken, pasta, rice, spicy green beans, rice pudding, a salad, and fruit. I opted for the pasta and all too spicy green beans. The rice pudding and watermelon were wonderful. Enough said. It was that typical "dump 3 or 4 bus loads of tourists here and feed them buffet style" food.
We were then were taken back to town for some more shipping. An hour to be exact. Once again I dropped George off for a beer this time and I wandered in search of non-existent puzzles. This is becoming the norm. I hope we have better luck in Europe.
Overall, my experience with our one excursion was mixed. It was a great tour. That is on the tour company. But as far as the ship is concerned, they didn’t give a hoot about whether we got to the tour or for that matter if we were returned to the ship. There was no one from the cruise along with us. (This is a first for me.) We were told when they dumped us in town to shop, that the last ferry left at 6:50 and if we weren’t on it, we would not be getting back to the ship because there was no other way.
George and I had hoped to get a ferry earlier and skip the shopping, but it turns out they don’t run that frequently at all.
We returned to the ship around 8:30 and while George went to the room, I went upstairs, got a glass of wine and a bag of popcorn. That was dinner. We were exhausted from the excursion and just wanted to sleep.
As I write this, it is the 3rd of January. Today is a sea day. Our favorite! We had a nice lie-in and just enjoyed the morning. Around 10 I got up and finished my Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s all boxed now and heading back to Ft. Lauderdale where the kid is storing all of our things until we leave for Italy. Tomorrow she will bring me a sorting case and a few more puzzles to do while we are at sea for the next 10 days.
We had lunch again around noon and I have to say, I was disappointed. The ship is severely understaffed. I waited in line for 1/2 an hour to get a taco. Others said they were waiting over an hour for fries. 1 person per station is simply not enough on a sea day when everyone is stuck on the ship.
After lunch we returned to the room where I took a nap! And George watched more movies. Around 4 pm the ship lurched and the captain came over the tannoy and told us we were indeed turning around to check out a capsized boat. OMG! There was a boat upside down in the water. As it turned out, a cruise ship rescued 13 people from it yesterday. Thank heavens! We turned to go back towards Ft. Lauderdale and return to port when the ship turned again.
This time there was a boat with 2 men in the water. The ship pulled up along side them and the captain once again announced that we were to stay there for 1/2 hour or so until the Coast Guard showed up. About 5 minutes or so later, he came on again and said the Cutter didn’t have the fuel to get to us so we were taking the 2 refugees onboard. Thankfully they were rescued.
And now for fear of being called political, I feel so sorry for these people. Between a terrible economy, the devastation of hurricanes in recent years, and an oppressive government they took their lives in their own hands in hope for a better future. One cannot blame them for wanting what most of us take for granted every day. This really makes me stop and feel grateful for what I have. I have no reason to complain about a lack of service at lunch when I am at least in this comfortable ship sailing along on a holiday.
I’m afraid my posts about the cruise won’t be as exciting or as informative as that which I posted on the Around The World Cruise. We are only here killing time and enjoying a bit of alone time. Our plan is not to do a lot of excursions, but rather to just enjoy the cities that we land in. Although, the last few have just been tourist traps. If you’ve seen one strip town, you’ve seen them all.
On the 4th we will be in Ft. Lauderdale and the most we have planned is to meet our daughter in the morning to get a few puzzles from her and then to just spend the day relaxing some more. I sure can get used to this relaxing thing.
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