Friday, December 31, 2021; New Years Ever at the Everglades

It has been a long time since we spent a night at a Best Western.  That takes us back to our kids’ swim meet days.  The breakfasts usually included scrambled eggs, sausage and DIY waffles, as well as a variety of baked goods, yogurt and cereals.  This Best Western had hard boiled eggs, sausage links, and a single waffle maker machine if you were patient enough to wait in line but the pandemic measures have made things much more awkward.  The dining room area is closed and the breakfast is supposed to be grab and go.  However, there are no grab and go bags, and the breakfast area hasn’t been set up very well for one directional flow, so everyone was a bit confused about etiquette.  It ended up working out to eat out in the swimming pool courtyard area, and the little birds that frequent the bushes around the pool are very appreciative of the crumbs.  It’s a good thing these are little sparrows and not crows or sea gulls.  We were disappointed that the Courtyard Marriott Fort Lauderdale Airport and Cruise Port hotel had no included breakfast.  The Embassy suites we had stayed at prior to our circumnavigation of South America offered a very fancy and extensive buffet. 

Getting to the Everglades was easy from this Florida City location since the park entrance is just a 20-30 minute drive.  We stopped at the Visitor Center and then went to the Royal Palm site where we had to cover the car with tarps to keep the buzzards from damaging the windshield wipers.  For some reason, there are flocks of black buzzards that hang around this parking lot who like to descend on cars and rip off the windshield wipers.  We saw them trying to tear up a rubber speed bump that had been installed near the entry to the parking lot.  At least with tarps over the car, it stays a little cooler, and is less likely to have its windows smashed in by smash and grab meth addicts prowing parking lots.  It was perfect conditions for visiting the park with a light breeze and blue skies punctuated by puffy clouds. The temperature is in the mid to upper 70’s.  The Floridians are complaining that they are experiencing a heat wave because temperatures this week have been in the 80’s, when it usually is in the upper 60’s-70’s, particularly at night.  

The waters in the Everglades are amazingly clear, and the wildlife did live up to its billing.  We saw alligators, anhinga birds, buzzards, turtles and lots of fish from the board walks.  We even saw a large turtle catch a fish and drag it to the depths of a pond.  There is a second loop trail called the Gumbo Limbo tree trail which takes you through a pretty lush mixed tropical and subtropical forest environment unique to southern Florida.  

We then made a beeline to the Flamingo site which is at the end of the main park road, on the southern tip of Florida.  The Bay of Florida is a huge shallow bay that extends from the southern tip of Florida out towards the Florida Keys, which lie out of visual range below the horizon to the south.  The drive is a little monotonous because the topography is really flat.  We joke that the highest elevation in the entire national park site is only 4 feet above sea level.  But we have learned that very slight differences in elevation make all the difference between Everglades (shallow grassy plains with slowly flowing fresh water), and hammocks (areas that rise slightly above the water so pines and mahogany trees can grow, and ironically, the tallest structures you see, which are the Cyprus groves, are the deepest parts of the Everglades.  Rotting leaves create acid conditions which dissolve the underlying limestone, allowing roots to penetrate deeper.  

Decaying leaves from mahogony groves also run off the hummocks and dissolve the limestone surrouding them creating natural deeper moats around them, and the constant slow flow of the fresh water trails the slightly acidic run off on the southern ends of the hummocks, shaping them like tear drops or tadpoles with long tails that point towards the ocean to the south.  

We didn’t see flamingos at the Flamingo site, but did spot a rather large crocodile, an osprey, and a hawk, as well as bubbles from a probable manatee in the murky waters of the marina.

We did a couple other short walks as we worked our way back out of the park.  Our last stop was to see an old Nike missile site, but the ranger was locking up the gate just as we arrived.  We had missed the guided tour, but she was kind enough to stick around and explain some of the history to us.  The Nike missiles were part of the Cold War defense missile network around the US, but because of the Russian missiles based in Cuba, these Nike batteries were the only ones configured with both conventional and nuclear warheads, and the only ones that could pre-emptively stop missiles and bombs from Cuba before they could target larger US cities.  These batteries remained manned and ready for action all the way until 1979, long after most other Nike batteries were deactivated and disassembled.  She also explained that some of the land around the old Nike site had been reclaimed from agricultural use by scraping off the topsoils that had been brought in as fill.  It was hoped this would restore the Everglades that had originally been in these areas.  However, even after scraping off the topsoils to expose the underlying limestone, during the dry seasons these areas remain dry except for a few areas where sink holes have developed, exposing small cenotes like what we had seen in the Yucatán.  Some of these were along the road to the Nike sites.  We were able to spot these because they often contain cat tails, which are invasive to the area.  We thought these were some of the most peculiar sites within the park that nobody knows about besides the rangers.  

We were hoping to sample some alligator meat at the gator grill situated between Florida City and the Everglades national park, but the pandemic and New Years Eve appear to have conspired to keep the small diner closed.  We ended up stoping at a very interesting and curious combination of farmers market, fruit stand, petting zoo and county fair grounds called “Robert is Here”.   They have the most amazing variety of exotic fruits that you can imagine as well as ice creams and smoothies made with these exotic fruits.  We sampled milk shakes made with sapodilla- a fruit that tastes like a pear with hints of brown sugar, and black sapote- a fruit that tastes like chocolate with a hint of banana.  Around back is an odd collection of animals including the usual barnyard calf, goats, sheep, pigs and chickens with tortoises, an ostrich and other exotic birds.  There is also a delicious smelling BBQ pit and impressive collection of antique tractors.  

We the tried to have new years’ eve dinner at a nearby restaurant called Chefs on the Run, which is famous for Cuban cuisine, but it had closed either for the New Years’ holiday or perhaps covid staffing.  We heard on the news that South Florida had reached a new all time record for daily Covid cases.  We are literally at ground zero.  Fortunately, our Covid tests came back negative for all of us.  They seem to be able to do PCR tests much more efficiently in Florida than in Washington state, where PCR tests take 5-7 days at public and commercial testing sites.  

There is a fast food place right next to the Best Western Gateway Inn called Pollo Tropicana.  You could envision this to be a Cuban version of Pollo Hermanos from Breaking Bad fame.  It was open, so we ordered a family meal with a whole chicken, Cuban styled BBQ pork and sides including fried plantains, fried yucca, and coquito cheese cake.  The good news is the meal was cheap- less than $50, and the pork was fantastic, The not so good was the chicken was a little dry, but flavorful.  We managed to get through the beers that had stocked our minibar fridge, which Ciara had packed up and dutifully brought with her off ship because neither she nor Tom had managed to drink it during the cruise.  It was actually quite pleasant eating pool side at the hotel.  

We had hoped to celebrate New Years by jumping into the pool as the kids had celebrated New Years in the Galapagos by jumping off the Catamaran into the ocean at midnight, but the hotel closed the pool and pool area at 10pm.  So we watched Harry Potter and then New Years’ fireworks shows on the TV while eating snacks we picked up at the Costco.  Tomorrow, we check out of this hotel and head back north after a paddling experience at Biscayne Bay in the morning.

Thursday, December 30, 2021; Biscayne National Park and Free Covid testing

 Thursday, December 30, 2021; Biscayne National Park

We checked ourselves out of the Airport/Cruise Port Courtyard Marriott in Fort Lauderdale and headed south.  We stopped and had breakfast at Jack’s Hollywood Diner, just a little south of Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor.  This was a very unremarkable diner, but they did have generous portions.  The Totem Diner in Everett is the standard bearer for us.  Jack’s got Ciara’s eggs over medium rather than scrambled, and she got white toast instead of wheat.  I was not impressed that their “skillet” was served on a melamine dish shaped like a skillet instead of on cast iron, and the cheese that was sprinkled on the top was not completely melted.  But we had hearty breakfasts that got us through the day.  

Our next stop was Costco in Kendall, which appears to be the southernmost Costco in the continental US.  The lines at the gas station were insane.  But at $2.94/gal, it was a lot cheaper than most of the gas stations around.  Many are selling regular unleaded for $3.64 per gallon.  

We arrived at our new hotel, the Best Western Gateway to the Everglades in Homestead.  It’s actually a very old two story hotel that wraps around a swimming pool.  The doors all open onto walkways around the pool rather than interior hallways.  It has remodeled a few times in its history, but the fixtures all work, and the AC runs.  Physically, it is a bit run down, but there is a lot around it, including a liquor store, Tropical Pollo franchise, and just about any other business within a walking radius.  It also is situated at the crossroads between Biscayne National Park and Everglades National Park.  Our rooms were not ready, but they allowed us to unload our suitcases from the mini-van into a storage room filled with what had been dining room chairs.  Covid has turned their usual breakfast buffets into grab and go bag breakfasts.  

Since Janet and I have never been to Biscayne National Park, we decided to check that out.  Biscayne National Park is 95% water, primarily accessible by boats, so there isn’t a lot that you can see on foot.  The Visitor center was open and staffed by very friendly and helpful rangers and volunteers.  There were two volunteers situated out front who were displaying vests with hundreds of national park patches, like boy or Girl Scouts showing off their merit badges.  I recently learned theses guys could be called scutelliphiles- collectors of patches or badges.  A ranger did a program where she had young volunteers fish some water samples out of the ranger’s marina.  We then went into the lab where a bunch of microscopes were set up. The microscopes were set up with LCD screens instead of the the usual eye pieces, which are often awkward to look through.  We got to hunt for, and eventually identified several different species of plankton.  

Ben and Price strolled around the Ranger’s marina which had 3 center console boats tied up in it to investigate what was churning up the water in several places.  It turns out these were several schools of sea trout, each containing 15-20 members measuring about 10-14” in length.  These would circle rapidly and then descend like a water funnel, and then come surging up to the surface.  This must be some sort of feeding strategy.  They have some boat tours, but they were all booked up through the holiday weekend.  However, Janet did manage to get us signed up for a introduction to paddling seminar for New Years’ Day at 10am.  

We headed back to the hotel and initially considered relaxing pool side, but Price and Ciara had both received electronic Covid contact notifications on their iPhones.  They must have been exposed on their Southwest Airlines flight to Florida since none of the rest of us received similar notifications.  Although it seems highly unlikely they would be positive at this point since we just finished an 8 day cruise, and nobody was symptomatic, Ciara wanted to get tested before her return flight.  So we located a free testing site in Homestead.  When we arrived at the site, there was a huge automotive cue of hundreds of cars.  It took us an hour and 20 minutes to work our way through the cue, but we did get swabbed and should get PCR results in 1-2 days.  

We had dinner at Mario’s Cuban Cuisine Family Restaurant, which was just a short drive from the hotel.  We had some great Cuban food with Sangria served by nice staff, although they spoke mostly Spanish with only a little bit of English.  John seemed to be able to manage prettty well even though his high school language French courses have been supplemented with time in Europe and exposure to a lot of Spanish in his Jersey City neighborhood.  We’d give it a thumbs up.

After dinner, we sat pool side where it was very pleasant, that is until a group of people upwind lit up cigars.  What a disgusting smell and habit.  

Wednesday, December 29, 2021- Disembarkation Fort Lauderdale

Wednesday, December 29, 2021; Disembarkation Fort Lauderdale

We had breakfast together in the Concerto Dining room where we discussed the day’s plans.  It turns out that the Zhang’s family flights go out in the evening, so they  needed advice on how to manage having a whole day before their flights went out.  I had suggested they book disembarkation tours which would take store their luggage and take them on tours around southern Florida, but those tours were all closed out the night before.  Ben called Enterprise, and asked if they had a 15 seat van we could rent instead of the minivan, but they said they had no vehicles that weren’t reserved long ago.  Tom was able to get a hold of a compact SUV at Fox Rentals out of the airport, so he could get his family to our hotel to stash their luggage, and then we could tour around Fort Lauderdale together.  So Tom and Ben took an Uber to the car rental agencies and picked up everyone and took them to the hotel where we stored all the luggage.

We drove to the Las Olas shopping district and river walk with perfect weather for a walk.  It was a very pleasant and interesting walk.  We even got to see quite a few iguanas sunning themselves.  

Ciara discovered a very colorful and interesting Cuban restaurant 925 Nuevos Cubanos where we had some amazing sandwiches, which ended up also being dinner because they were so large we could only eat half for lunch.  

We then drove down the Fort Lauderdale beach front and then stopped at Dania Beach where we dipped out feet in the Atlantic.  

The Zhangs were able to gather up their luggage and make their flights without problems, which was a real relief because over the weekend thousands of flights we canceled due to Covid infections causing staffing shortages throughout the airline industry.

Since we’ll be exploring the Everglades and Florida Keys, and we have found this hotel to be poorly situated, we’ll move to a hotel in Homestead.  

We made a run to Jaxson’s Ice Cream Parlor in Fort Lauderdale for dessert and found it to be a rather unique institution with quite a line out front.  The ice cream proved worth the wait.

We watched “Don’t Look Up” on Netflix together.  It was both funny and ironically sad because it was perhaps a little too close to the realities of Trumpism, Covid Pandemic denialism, and global warming denialism.  

Tuesday, December 28, 2021; At Sea- Final Day of the Cruise

 Tuesday, December 28, 2021; At Sea

Sadly, we have arrived at the last day of our Caribbean Christmas cruise.  After having a sit down breakfast, we began the task of transferring everything back into our suitcases.  Janet and Ben joined the Internationals for morning trivia, but lost by 2 points today.  I guess the rest of the Internationals will need to find a replacement for Ben for their next go-around in the Caribbean.  The next leg of the Regal Princess’s cruise will take her to St Kitt among other islands.  

We met with John and Price for a sit down lunch and then we did the afternoon Vines Wine tasting program.  We learned that blending a Chilean Carmenere with an Argentinian Malbec produced a more balanced and appealing wine than either in it’s pure state.  Ben wished he had know that a couple nights ago when he had a glass of the Carmenere and didn’t particularly care for it while Janet had the Malbec.  Next time.  

We have been very fortunate in being able to complete our itinerary without interruptions or canceled ports of call due to Covid, but there may have been some Covid cases on board.  There have been no announcements, but this afternoon, as Ben was wheeling one of our suitcases into the hallway, a procession of crew in hazmat gear (head to toe Tyvek suits with goggles, respirators, gloves) pushed a dolly with suitcases wrapped in plastic down the hallway with a person following spraying disinfectant as the convoy made it’s way to the service corridor elevator.  

Overall, the impacts of the Pandemic on our cruise experience are certainly noticeable.  The most significant impact has been on the experience in the buffet where selecting what you want to eat and then having to flag down a galley staffer to plate it and hand it to you takes so much more time, and plates, that choosing sit down dining for most meals seems more hassle free, especially since there are no silverware stations so you have to sit and wait for someone to come around and hand you utensils.  The other very noticeable aspect of the buffet experience is 2/3 of the buffet area has been closed off for most of the cruise so it feels like the selection has been reduced.  You used to be able to snag cookies in the bakery/desserts cafe just about any time, but now you have to order the cookies to be delivered via room service.  There has been much more emphasis on room service- with no extra charges for delivery and a wider selection of food service and beverage items available.  It is also pretty easy to order things through the Medallion app when the network and app aren’t being buggy.  Connections do seem more reliable when you’re sitting in your cabin than in some places like around the pool deck where connections are particularly problematic.  

This cruise has 1900 passengers on board.  The Regal Princess is ramping up capacity as the Captain said after we disembark, the next 8 day cruise will carry 2100 passengers, and that the following one will carry 2400 passengers.  The ship normally can carry about 3600 passengers.  When we did the Baltic with a full passenger manifest, there were some issues with crowding at the theater and other venues.  This cruise, we never really had to “fight” for good seating at any shows or find a spot for our trivia team to sit together, so that has been a positive benefit at least early in the pandemic cruising era.  

This was our first experience in a mini-suite.  The kids would have been quite comfortable with John, Price and Ciara all sharing a single mini-suite as the couch area is just as large as the regular bed area, and has a real couch sleeper sofa that is comfortable to sit 3 across and even nap on.  There is a second TV so viewing from either the bed or couch is equally comfortable.  The full sized bath tub/shower is quite a nice addition.  The bathroom feels like a normal apartment bathroom, and not a RV bathroom.  But the balconies on the Regal Princess are just a bit too small, even with the divider open between two adjacent balconies because they are just barely deep enough to set up a lounge chair on.  You have to shimmy sideways to get between the chair and railings.  We miss the much larger balconies on the Coral and Caribbean Princess deluxe balconies, which are probably 3 times as deep.  Since Ciara’s boyfriend Tom and his family were with us, the mini suites were superfluous- we would have been just fine with two regular balconies plus the inside stateroom that Ciara and Tom were booked in.  But it was nice to give the mini-suite a go for this holiday.  

The Princess Plus package included crew incentive gratuity, unlimited single device internet, and premium beverage package which included espresso drinks, cocktails, wines, and liquors.  Tom’s family did not book with the Princess Plus package because they didn’t think they needed or wanted the beverage package, but Tom ended up needing full time internet access for his work.  We could have easily managed without it, but it was much more convenient with the unlimited internet because the metered plan required logging on and off every single time you needed to access the internet.  Our Elite status gives us metered internet access for free, as well as a free mini bar set up, but throwing in the crew appreciation gratuities seems to make the Plus package hard to pass up.  It also contributed to more of a party mood to have free and liberal access to any beverages any time.  It was also a good way to be able to sample many of the different spirits and liquors they have in their stock, including many whiskeys, bourbons, vodkas and gins.  It was quite the challenge to try to sample each of their signature coctails at least once during the voyage.

The final dinner featured Surf and Turf with prawns and steak, as well as many other options including bacon wrapped meat loaf and veal.  Meal service in the dining room by Ryan and Ramir was courteous, friendly and accommodating throughout the voyage.  We will miss being pampered like that at meals.  

The final Princess Theater showtime featured vocalist Josh Figueroa Jr, who had made it into the top 17 in The Voice.  He did a Motown and Gospel show which was energetic and entertaining, even without dancers or backing singers.  The Princess orchestra was up to their usual high level of excellence and professionalism.

We would up our night with the last Triva of the cruise: Famous Faces.  With the kids, we ended up in a 3 way tie, which we won in the tie breaker due to son John’s recognition of Brendan Fraser’s obstructed image.  We got a bundle with 2 each string bags, water bottles, notebooks, wine stoppers and coasters.  We gifted a water bottle to a couple who has played basket ball with Tom and Sam all cruise long, and a water bottle for our room steward, along with the Champagne we won in the very first Trivia.  It was nice to bookend our Trivia wins with the first and last trivia games during the cruise.

Our clock fall back an hour tonight.  We disembark in the morning.  Most of our suitcases were gathered up while we had our dinner.  Ben and John will Uber to an Enterprise car rental in Hollywood, a neighborhood 8 miles from the cruise port, to pick up a mini-van which we will use over the remaining vacation to tour southern Florida with the kids. 

Monday, December 27, 2021; At Sea

 Monday, December 27, 2021; At Sea

John got up with Ben and Janet to do a sit down breakfast, then Ben and Janet joined up with the Internationals for trivia.  Peggy was attending a meeting for cruisers who are continuing onto the next cruise on the same ship. Apparently many people have stayed on the ship from prior cruises including Phyllis and Lindsay who say that the ship has to disembark all continuing passengers for Covid testing before being allowed to reboard and continue on the ship.  We managed a win for the first time in a while, which was gratifying, even if the Regal Princess Coasters we got as prizes are not needed.  We’ll probably give them to John for his apartment.  We only missed one question, which nobody got right.  Did you know that E. C. Segar, who created the Popeye series had created another Popeye character 10 years earlier?  Olive Oyl starred in her own comic Thimble Theatre 10 years before her sailor boyfriend Popeye arrived on the scene and stole the show.  

The kids and Zhangs spent much of the day on the pool deck and sports deck taking advantage of beautiful sunny skies and 80 degree weather with a pleasant breeze from the ship’s progress.  We saw another pod of porpoises from our balcony and fortunately all of our kids were on the balcony at that moment so everyone got a chance to see them this time.  Back at home on Whidbey Island, it was 22˚F, with an overnight low of 10˚F and high of 25˚F.  It was also blizzard conditions with snow and 30 mph winds.  Fortunately the 10 day forecast shows it will warm back above freezing on January 2 when the kids have to fly home.  

We gathered up John and Price and had afternoon tea.  This time, there was clotted cream to go with the scones.  After tea, we had some time to relax and then get changed into formal clothing for the last formal night.  We took some pictures with a tripod to use for next year’s season’s greetings letter, and then down to dinner.  This was lobster night, but they also had beef Wellington.  So, of course, that meant surf and turf again.  The lobster was well prepared but seasoned with a little too much salt.  The beef Wellington was excellent.  And there was a Chocolate Journey Pistachio dome dessert.   

The Showtime was a production Motown Tribute called Sweet Soul Music, featuring songs from the Motown Era.  The singers and dancers put on an energetic and entertaining show, although the cut down troupe size was evident when one of the dancers had to try to fill in for one of the male dancers had to fill in a vocal role and wasn’t quite up to the task.  We have been on many cruises where the normal compliment is two each male and female vocal leads and at least 4 pairs of dancers.  The sets were also static aside from the video back drop, so there was no moving stage sections or set changes during any of the shows.  They probably don’t have enough production staff to run those features, but at least we got a show.  It may be a while before the ships get back to full production values.  But we’re happy that they are still solvent after nearly 2 years without revenue.  

The kids watched the Yes/No gameshow, but didn’t get up on the stage.  We finished our night with a Queen Music Trivia.  Price has a surprisingly broad knowledge of the songs of Queen despite being a couple generations past when Queen was a big hit.  We managed to score just one point below the winners, of which there were 3 teams tied.  Each got a bottle of champagne for their efforts.  

Tomorrow is another day at sea, and our last day of the cruise.  We will have to set aside part of the day or evening to start repacking our things into suitcases.  This is always the saddest part of a cruise.  

Sunday, December 26, 2021; Bonaire

 Sunday, December 26, 2021; Bonaire

We awoke with the ship already tied up to the dock since Curaçao and Bonaire are very close to each other.  Klein Bonaire is a small uninhabited island known for its coral reefs was visible just outside our starboard side balcony.  For each of our ABC Islands port calls the ship has tied up on the Port side.  The views of the towns has generally been more interesting, so in future Caribbean cruises, we should consider port side cabins. It has been convenient having all 4 staterooms close by but it’s a bit of a puzzle that we are in a mini-suite with a door connecting it to the next mini-suite, so it would have been possible to have John and Price’s staterooms connected to us.  But there are entire blocks of balconies unoccupied on our deck.  Perhaps they had some blocked for Covid, but it still seems we should have been able to get adjacent staterooms if someone had actually looked at what staterooms were occupied vs empty.  

We had booked a catamaran snorkeling excursion together with our kids, Ciara’s boyfriend Tom, and his brother Sam.  Tom and Sam’s parents aren’t good swimmers, so they passed on snorkeling, opting to walk around the town instead in the morning.  The weather forecast was for 60% chance of rain.  There were some clouds looking like they wanted to rain, but we were fortunate that we had overcast sky with broken clouds that shaded us from the full rays of the sun on the open decks of the catamaran and no rain.  

Disembarkation was marked by a mandatory inspection of vaccination cards by port officials which sent many passengers scurrying back to their staterooms at the last minute. They did accept the electronic vaccination cards issued for our Apple Wallets, but New Jersey, where John lives, has yet to participate in State Health Department electronic reporting standards, so he had to present his paper cards. 

We were taken by a power catamaran water taxi from the cruise port to a small marina just a mile or so away where we transferred onto the sailing catamaran for our excursion.  While they used auxiliary power for docking maneuvers, we did go under sail for the several mile trip up the coast to the National Marine park diving and snorkeling site.  They tied up to a fixed mooring buoy that looked like it was in about 30-50’ of depth.

We had packed our own masks and snorkels, concerned about the safety of using shared breathing apparatus in the Covid era, but were expecting the vendor to provide fins.  They only provided masks, snorkels and no fins.  They also advised us not to touch anything, remove any specimens and warned us that there are stinging corals (fire corals).  Perhaps there was more potential for people to stand on corals if they had fins, but it did make swimming more work without fins.  They offered soft drinks and water for the outbound trip, and the same plus rum punch and beers for the return trip.  Ciara and Tom managed to get through 8 rum punches on the trip back.  After returning to the ship, Ciara realized that she had left her rash guard tied to a safety rail on the sailboat, so maybe that was a little too much rum punch.  But after informing the shore excursions staff, the rash guard was successfully returned to her later in the afternoon.  

After lunch at Alfredo’s, Ben and Janet did a self guided walking tour of Kralendijk, which turned out to be just 2 miles.  There were several historic buildings with classic Dutch Architecture, a couple of ancient English cannons, and a rather impressive bronze statue of Simon Bolivar, but the tour route included a couple of streets with no sidewalks and the drivers on Bonaire did not seem too concerned for pedestrians, and there seemed to be a lot of traffic for such a small island.  

Tom’s family took a van cab to Donkey Beach several miles from the cruise port where his parents got their first experiences with snorkeling, besides a brief trial in the ship’s pools earlier in the cruise.  The kids reported that the snorkeling was similar to what we had seen where the sailboat excursion had taken us, albeit closer to shore.  The kids concluded that it was decent snorkeling with a variety of fish and live corals, but we had been forever ruined for snorkeling to see sea life by our extensive and unbeatable experiences in the Galapagos.  I guess that’s why they have the reputation they do.  We might have to so the Great Barrier Reef in Australia or the Red Sea to find a place to match or exceed the Galapagos for snorkeling.  

Janet and Ben got back to the ship in time for afternoon trivia.  They played with members of the Internationals who had remained on the ship including Lindsay, Phyllis, Peggy, and Ken.  John was around but arrived after Janet and I had shown up, so he volunteered to join another group for the game.  We ended up losing by one point- a consistent pattern.  

We managed to get everyone back to the dinner table to recount the day.  I don’t think anyone has ended up with a disappointing meal so far in the dining room.  Tonight featured grilled Rockfish, Scallops and Prawns, Veal, chicken and New York strip steak.  Ben treated himself to a surf and turf by combining the scallops, prawns and steak.  

The Showtime featured a combo of the juggler and male vocalist.  Ben succumbed to post prandial somnolence and perhaps one too many coctails with a nap.  We did rally the crew for a Movie Themes trivia, which the kids were able to pitch in with.  We lost by 1/2 point, but would have won if I hadn’t changed one answer from an original impulse.  I should really know better than to second guess myself in Trivia since first impulses are usually more reliable.  I had changed the Exorcist to The Omen, when it was the Exorcist in the end.  This quiz include a Name the Composer section- a first in our experience.  Of course, everyone knows what John Williams looks like, but all the others were balding skinny middle age to senior men.  Fortunately, our son John really pulled through on these and got 2 of 3 right- Hans Zimmer and Danny Zimmer.  And Janet picked the best selling movie song of all time with Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you”, over Grease, Dirty Dancing and Saturday Night Fever.  

Tomorrow is our second formal night, so one last chance to get family portraits dressed up.  We’re pretty happy that we managed to successfully complete our itinerary when 3 other cruise ships were turned away in the last week with covid outbreaks.  The covid measures on Princess were a little more restrictive than others (masks required indoors except when actively eating or drinking- sip and cover in theaters, etc) but they may have kept us safer and therefore able to complete our cruise.  The latest concern is return trips at the end of the cruise.  Over 2000 flights were canceled on Christmas Eve, stranding travelers all over the US due to staffing shortages.  We hope January 2 doesn’t end up the same way.  

Saturday, December 25, 2021; Christmas Day in Curaçao

 Saturday, December 25, 2021; Christmas Day in Curaçao

The ship arrived pretty much on time in Curaçao, but it seemed to take a long time for the ship to receive clearance to disembark passengers.  We had signed up for an all day island bus tour broken up into a morning and afternoon sessions.  We were supposed to meet at the bus dockside at 8:50am, but they didn’t open the gangway until 9:00.  Earlier in the week, two cruise ships (Odyssey of the Seas and Carnival Freedom) were both denied docking due to Covid outbreaks on board.  It came as a great relief when they finally announced opening of the gangways because that meant that we didn’t have any known Covid cases on our ship as of that moment.  

Even they don’t involve that much physical activity, these cruise ship bus tours can tend to be fatiguing and hot.  I was a little surprised that our tour bus was full with 34 passengers. They had the first 3 rows blocked off as part of Covid procedures to keep us socially distanced from the driver and guide.  This meant that every seat behind that was full with 2 passengers, even if they were from different groups.  The bus was otherwise unremarkable.  It had working AC and the windows were clean.  Our guide was from the Netherlands, but had lived in Curaçao for the last 30 years.  She spoke with a bit of an accent but was pretty easily understandable. The driver also spoke English well.

The morning tour took us around the north end of the island where we first stopped to see the Kenepa Plantation house on the Island, but since the outbreak of the pandemic, it has been closed to visitors.  It’s importance is also related to Black slave named Tula, who had learned to read and write on his own.  He had read that black slaves had been freed on neighboring Haiti- a French possession at the time.  While Curaçao was under the rule of the Netherlands at the time, the Netherlands were occupied by the French at that time as well.  He lead a revolution which eventually lead to the abolishment of slavery on Curaçao, but not until long after he had been killed for his cause. 

 

From there we drove to Playa Kenepa, which is a beautiful sandy beach where some of the snorkeling excursion go.  People jump from a cliff along the souther edge of the beach, and sometimes you can see green turtles in the water because local fishermen toss their fish entrails and bones into the water.  Apparently juvenile turtles feed on this, despite their otherwise being considered vegans.  We saw neither cliff jumpers or green turtles but got to stroll around, take pictures and dip a toe in the water, but not go for a swim. Our stop there was just 15-20 minutes.  

We then drove to a small national park (Shete Boka) which was on the windward side of the Island with a very rocky shore and narrow inlet with a small cave where you could peer out through the opening as the sea rushed into the cave and surged under a viewing platform.  The rocks were limestone, and there were small lizards darting about on the rocks.  There are cacti and succulents growing in depressions of the rocks.  In some ways, it reminded us of the Galapagos, although the geology is of entirely different origin (coral reefs vs volcanic).  While tectonic activity has thrust the islands of the Caribbean up above the surface from their origins deep below, this was the result of plates buckling and riding over each other rather than from magma eruptions.  The cave was quite tiny so only 5 or 6 people could go down onto the viewing platform and it was very slippery, wet and dark, but a very cool thing to see.  

Our next stop was the Konoko house, or Kas Di Pali Maishi.  This is a tiny cabin which was a typical residence for a freed slave.  They were typically granted tiny plots of land to live on and no other government assistance, so they had to be resourceful to live.  This is a living museum with guides who demonstrated many aspects of the tough lives the freed former slaves lived.  One of the interesting items was that local cacti were often planted in rows to form fences to keep goats and other animals out of garden areas.  They were also planted to form structures like walls for an outhouse or laundry drying rack.  They also had a stone oven for baking and a pit for making charcoal, which was most commonly used for cooking until the Royal Dutch Shell company brought oil refining and products such as kerosine to the island.  The presentations were a highlight of the day.

We then drove past a salt marsh where flamingos are sometimes found.  Oddly enough, the locals have erected a WILLIWOOD sign on a nearby hill looking like their local tribute to the famous sign overlooking HOLLYWOOD.  We were fortunate to be able to spot some flamingos napping with their heads tucked and standing on one let out in the middle of the marsh.  

The bus returned us to the ship for a lunch break.  Janet, Ben, John and Price had Italian food at Alfredo’s Pizzeria in the atrium while Ciara and Tom’s family ran up to the Horizon Court buffet.  We then reboarded the bus and headed off to see the Hato Cave in the southern half of the island.  This is a limestone cave with stalagmites, stalagtites, iguanas and bats.  It was strange that it was very warm and humid inside the cave when most other limestone caves we have seen tend to be cool like a wine cellar.  They said that because this cave was lifted so far above sea level, the limestone heats up and retains the heat.  It appears to be a highly developed cave with concrete steps, walkways, lighting and railings, but also appears to be a good example of a poorly preserved limestone cave because it didn’t fall under government preservation until very recently.  Most of the formations are dull or outright filthy with soot and algae, and there has been a lot of damage to the formations over the years.  But it was what it was, and unique at least to Curaçao.  Perhaps the most interesting feature was the number and size of the highly poisonous Manzanilla trees which can cause severe blistering like poison ivory, or death if the fruits are ingested.  The guide said the Spaniards introduced these trees to trick invaders into poisoning themselves for defensive purposes, but kept them because of their rapid growth and shade.  Just don’t stand under them in the rain, or you may end up with a severe case of dermatitis.  

The weather forecast had called for a 60% chance of rain during the day.  Fortunately this had held off during most of our tour, but as we headed into Williamstad, the only city on the island to tour it’s waterfront and historic neighborhoods, the skies opened up and drenched the island.  Instead of doing a walking tour through some of the historic districts, we ended up just doing a driving tour.  There are lots of very interesting looking neighborhoods, and the main harbor has a unique floating bridge that opens by pivoting from one end using a motor and propeller to swing the bridge to one side along the bank to open large enough for vessel traffic to get around.  We had wished we could have gotten out of the bus to take some pictures of this part of town, but time was short and there was no parking suitable for our bus to allow such a stop.  We saw enough of Williamstad to want to do a future walking tour of the harbor and downtown areas the next time we are in Curaçao.  

We got back aboard and got cleaned up for dinner in the dining room.  They had turkey, ham, beef tenderloins and tiger prawns on the Christmas Day menu which were all delicious.  The Showtime program was a special Christmas production with the band, singers and dancers. It appears that the dance troupe has been cut from the usual 6 dancers to only 4 for this cruise, but they had 5 vocal leads, and did quite a few popular holiday song and dance numbers. 

There was a I’ll Take Trivia for 100 gameshow, but since we had last played it, they had substituted bizarre question categories (TV Families, Is it Legal, You Think You’re a Loser, Dynamic Duos and Dumb Crooks) and ignored the value categories, assigning each question either one or 2 points.  For Dynamic Duos, you had to give the character and actor names of duos from several movies, and we were surprised at how hard it was to come up with character names in such popular movies as Dumb and Dumber and Lethal Weapon.  Did you know that in Nebraska, you can be put in jail if your child burps out loud during a church service?  Or did you realize that it is not illegal to drive at night blindfolded in Arkansas?  Needless to say, we didn’t win that one.  There was a more conventional Beatles trivia, but this one had questions where you had to identify the name of the album and year released from album cover art.  There was one Beatles savant in the back of the room all by himself who scored a perfect score to win that.  

Tomorrow is Bonaire, where we have a catamaran snorkel sailing excursion.  It is also our last port of call before we return to Fort Lauderdale, so it’s a bit sad to realize our Christmas Cruise is about to wrap up soon.  

Friday, December 24, 2021; Christmas Eve in Aruba

 Friday, December 24, 2021; Christmas Eve in Aruba

The ship arrived in Aruba pretty much right at 8AM, but it took a bit of time for disembarkation to begin.  We escorted the kids and Zhang family through the cruise port to the collection point for ABC Tours for their UTV tour.  Janet and I walked to Hotel row and to Eagle beach.  The beaches surely do have beautiful white sand, and there are burrows where crabs live.  The crabs are very shy and hard to spot or photograph.  There are also elegant eroded conch shells washed up along with bits of coral.  We strolled along the beach for a bit.  It was in the low 80’s with 70% humidity when we started.  We returned to the ship in time for the 10AM trivia, which was pretty sparsely attended with about 6 teams.  We teamed up with Lindsey, Phyllis, Ken & John from the Internationals, but lost by the tie breaker.  However, to be fair, they were given credit for saying a Papillon is a dog, when the answer was butterfly because there is a breed of dog called a Papillon.  Papillon is French for butterfly and the question was what kind of animal is a Papillon could be technically correct, but not the answer they were looking for.  We had missed the question how many megabytes are in a gigabyte. We had answered 1000, but the answer they were looking for was 1024.  But they did not specify whether they were seeking the binary or decimal definition because both answers are technically correct, but they were seeking the 1024 binary definition.  They had guessed closer on the tie breaker which was how many miles long is the coast of Portugual.  We guessed 600 miles while they guessed 500 miles.  The answer was 497 miles or 800Km, so they were pretty much dead on.  

The kids and Zhang family had a fun time on UTV’s exploring the Natural Pool, gold refining ruins, and Alta Vista Church.  However, since we last did the UTV excursion, Aruba had closed the National Park to UTV’s.  Oddly enough, they allow 4x4 trucks, so everyone had to pile out of the UTV’s and into the back of a truck to drive down to the Natural Pool.  They did a little off road driving, but most of it was on paved and gravel roads.  But they had fun.  Janet and Ben spent the day pool side on the ship where it was easy to get into the pool and find lounge chairs in the shade since most of the passengers were ashore.  

We did the afternoon trivia with just John and Lindsay of the Internationals.  That game we lost fair and square by one point.  Did you know that Charles Ross and Epicure are varieties of apples?  We certainly don’t have those varieties in Washington.  Another question asked the name of the Viking Center in York.  It’s Jorvik, if you were wondering.  

After everyone got back from the UTV excursion, and had gotten showered up, we got together in Sabbatinni’s Italian specialty restaurant to use our remaining specialty dining vouchers.  This dinner took a little less time, but still took 2 hours.  But the food was good, and we really didn’t need to be anywhere in a hurry.  With the drinks package, there was plenty of spirits and wine to keep us occupied between courses.  

The Princess Theater Showtime featured Jason Garfield, a humorous juggler who did an entertaining and funny show.  We wound up the night with a 10pm West End to Broadway musicals trivia.  This was not our strong suit, so we got soundly beat by two teams of musicals savants who only missed one question.  The tie breaker was how many seats are in Her Majesty’s theater in London.  We guessed 1200, even though we weren’t in the running.  They had guessed 650 and 800. 

We did exchange some minor gifts so as not to leave Santa out of a job on his one big night.  

Tomorrow, we arrive in Curaçao where we have an all day excursion booked.  Still no ominous overhead announcements by the captain, so we continue to keep our fingers crossed,. The Princess Productions singers and dancers apparently have a Christmas Day special show for us tomorrow, so we’ll see what that ends up being.  

Of note, is we have heard from friends that the temperatures are plummeting back home and a white Christmas is predicted.  The area will have crazy record low temperatures for a week with lows in the mid teens.  That’s nearly unheard of.  It’s a good thing we winterized things before we left just in case of cold weather.  

Thursday, December 23, 2021- At Sea

 Thursday, December 23, 2021

At Sea; We managed to get our family and Tom up for a 9am breakfast.  The weather has improved with temperatures in the 80’s and partly cloudy skies for most of the day.  At one point during the day, Janet and I were having lunch on our balcony when we spotted a pod of porpoises jumping out of the water within several hundred yards of the ship.  They were headed towards the ship, but we passed in front of them before our paths intersected.  There is also a fair amount of floating rafts of vegetation with the water looking more green than the more usual Caribbean blue.  We were passing Haiti in the morning on our way south to Aruba.

The kids participated in a Gingerbread house competition in the morning.  The ship had purchased a pile of Gingerbread house kits from Target stores as they Target bags were evident.  The kids had fun and got sticky with frosting.  There were a few very creative teams that had created ship-like gingerbread houses with the Princess Cruises logo.  Surprisingly, the winning teams got $100 on board ship credit and a bag of the usual Princess loot.  

Ben’s morning trivia team “The Internationals” tied for first, but lost the tie breaker.  Ben walked in on the last 2 questions, correcting the team on the number of animals in the Chinese Zodiac.  The tie breaker was how many weeks did Roger Federer hold the top title for the Association of Tennis Professionals.  Answer 237 consecutive weeks and 310 total.  They had missed “Sekt” on a German wine bottle means “Sparkling”. 

The kids were busy on their own, exercising, spending time in the pools, the ship’s casino, and even in an art auction.  There was a contest to guess the weight of a sculpture.  Price missed by just 0.1kg.

We attended an afternoon “Guess the Destination” game where pictures of 6 destinations were put up and if you correctly identified 3, you got 3 raffle tickets.  The prizes were again surprisingly $100 on board spending credit for 3 drawing winners.  Unfortunately, none of us ended up with a winning ticket.

We used half of our specialty dining certificate to have dinner at the Crown Grill.  The food was excellent, but it took 3 hours to get through the dinner.  We missed the 7PM Logos Trivia, which we stood a pretty good chance of winning on.  We stepped into the end of the vocalist’s performance in the Princess Theatre- a Tom Jones styled vocal program, and decided we didn’t need to watch the later show.  We finished our night with a Holiday Trivia Quiz. The winning team managed to beat us by a single point.  

We arrive in Aruba at 8am tomorrow.  We have the kids booked on a UTV excursion, which we have done twice in Aruba before and found to be a lot of fun.  We will relax and maybe walk around town.  We heard in the news that the Royal Caribbean Odessey of the Sea cruise ship was turned away from Aruba and Curaçao.  They will have to loiter at Royal Caribbean’s private cay or at sea until it returns to Fort Lauderdale on December 26 because 55 covid cases broke out, despite the ship being 95% vaccinated.  Our ship has a total passenger capacity of around 3600, but I ran into the captain who said we had 1900 passengers on board, so we are at restricted capacity.  The Odessey of the Sea had over 5100 passengers and crew on board, so it had a 1.1% infection rate.  There were no reports of serious or critical illness.  Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas had returned to Miami last week with 48 positive crew and passengers. Since there haven’t been an overhead announcement so far, we’re hoping our ship is still Covid free.  We’ll have to keep our fingers crossed. There has been no mandatory arbitrary screening testing on this ship, so testing will only be done if someone presents with Covid-like symptoms.