20241228 Saturday, December 28, 2024 At Sea

20241228 Saturday, December 28, 2024 At Sea

Even though this was a sea day, it is always a surprise when we awaken and pull back the black out drapes on the balcony to be blinded by the light.  The seas were churning with white caps and the skies were grey but it wasn’t raining.  We had just enough time to grab a quick breakfast in the buffet before the 10am trivia quiz.  

We managed to be in a 3 way tie for winning the morning trivia, but got our usual second place after the tie breaker, which was how high is the Taj Mahal.  FYI it is 240’.  The kids enjoyed free time on the pool deck and fitness center.  We got started on packing up our formal wear and excursion gear, as well as some of our extra clothes. 

There was a 2:15PM Destination trivia put on by the future cruises staff to highlight the diversity of destinations that you can reach on Princess.  They gave away prizes at random towards the end if you said the correct answer loud enough for the host to hear.  We got an Effy gift bag with a bunch of the freebie jewel bracelets that they frequently give away as door prizes to lure customers in the door.  Janet gave these away to little girls that she encountered.  

It is hard to believe that we haven’t hit afternoon tea until today but it has been a busy and eventful cruise.  So we did manage to indulge in scones with strawberry jam and cream, as well as finger sandwiches and cakes.  

Our afternoon trivia got us another second place finish behind a woman playing all by herself who had won at least one other trivia all by herself.  

Dinner in the dining room featured an Austrian braised beef dish, seafood stew, and Mahi Mahi.  

The Princess Theater featured a Production Show called Rock Opera.  This was a high energy show featuring several songs from The Greatest Show on Earth, and classic rock with a rock version of Carmina Burana.  They had a guest male singer to take on Freddy Mercury’s vocal range in The Show Must Go On and Aerosmith’s Dream On.  The singers and dancers pulled off another great show.  

Ben made his soup run before joining John and Price in one of the hot tubs they had discovered near the fitness center that was unoccupied.  

Tomorrow is our last sea day.  We’ll have to have our suitcases out at dinner time for pick up.  This cruise is quickly coming to a close.

20241227 Friday, December 27, 2024. St Thomas American Virgin Islands

20241227 Friday, December 27, 2024. St Thomas American Virgin Islands

The Norwegian Breakaway and Holland America Eurodam were already tied up at the dock in St Thomas when our ship arrived and backed into its spot at the end of the cruise ship dock.  One nice thing about this itinerary is that we were able to get cellular phone service at Puerto Rico and also St Thomas since both are considered domestic US service for most American cellular phone plans.  

The American Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917 by the US because of concerns of the threats of German U-Boats on American shipping through the Panama Canal.  St. John and St. Croix complete the American Virgin Islands.  

The cruise ship dock is adjacent to a large shopping area.  There is a gondola ride that goes to the top of a nearby mountain within a short walk from the cruise pier.  There is a nice waterfront esplanade in front of the old town center which is about 2 miles from the end of the cruise pier, but you have to negotiate traffic and narrow side walks for about 1 mile before getting to the esplanade.  

Oddly enough, although this is an American territory, and motor vehicles have their steering wheels on the left side, they drive on the left side of the street here, like in a British colonial possession.  

We had an early breakfast in the buffet and then sent John and Price off on their introduction to SCUBA excursion.  They had a fun and exciting experience. After their 30-40 minute SCUBA experience, they also got to do snorkeling and free diving.  They did get to see some interesting fish and a ship wreck.  

Ben and Janet walked into the old town and saw Fort Christian, which was actually more of a prison than an important military installation on St Thomas.  It was tiny compared to the fortresses of San Juan Puerto Rico, but being painted brick red, it is a nice landmark.  

Charlotte Amalie is the capital of the American Virgin islands and hosts the local legislature in a waterfront building.  The old town forms a charming shopping district with lots of restaurants and shops.  

American Virgin Island Legislature

One curious thing about the fancy esplanade in front of Charlotte Amalie are the number of wrecked sail boats resting against the esplanade.  We counted at least 4 partially sunken or laying on their side sailboats on the esplanade or shore in front of the town.  There are apparently left over from Hurricanes where the owners simply abandon the boats after getting their insurance checks. 

 

The ship brought aboard a woman and her collection of parrots for an enrichment program in the Piazza.  She had trained crested cockatoo, two macaws, and a pair of cockatiels.  She gave an educational program on what it takes to raise parrots as pets and had many stories of her experiences with these birds.  It sounded a bit like Netflix could do a show on her, but it was an interesting presentation. 

Ben and Janet got together with Katherine for the 4PM trivia, and as has been our usual style, we came in second place.  

John and Price went back ashore after returning from their SCUBA excursion and explored the Pirate Museum, which they thought was most notable for all the artifacts from the piracy era.  They did make it back on the ship before she shoved off.  

Dinner in the Capri dining room featured oxtail soup, beef Wellington and rack of lamb, all of which were delicious.

After dinner we did a Queen trivia which combined name that tune, what’s the next lyric, and Queen general trivia.  We did well, but came in second again.  

We dropped in on the last part of a new magician Nelson Lugo in the Vista Lounge. He did a combination of sleight of hand and mentalist tricks.  The more intimate setting of the Vista Lounge seemed to work well.  There was nothing new or astounding but it was a perfectly average solo magic performance.  

From there, we hiked all the way to the opposite end of the ship for the last Princess Theater performance which was saxophonist Tommy Proulx, who put on a good show, but we were tired and ready for bed.  

That is after a brief stop at the International Cafe where we had a bowl of delicious creamy potato soup while watching people doing country western line dancing in the Piazza.  

The sad reality of receiving luggage tags and disembarkation instructions arrived this afternoon.  Tomorrow is the first of two sea days before we disembark in Fort Lauderdale.  We’ll start packing away our formal clothes as soon as we get them back from the laundry, as well as our excursion clothing and gear.

20241226 Thursday, December 26, 2024. St Kitts Carnival and Beaches

20241226 Thursday, December 26, 2024. St Kitts Carnival and Beaches

Ben was awakened by a rhythmic drumming and scraping sound so he went to the balcony to see if the ship was crashing into the dock.  The ship was backing into the slip, but the cacophony was coming from shore.  It sounded as if everyone in the town with a sound system had it pointing at the ship and were simultaneously playing a dozen unrelated club band rave songs.  It was truly an awful racket, drowning out all the normal noises of huge cruise ships.  

Simultaneously, we also saw another Princess cruise ship heading into the adjacent slip just minutes behind us.  It was our old friend, the Island Princess.  We had spent 60 days on her going around South America.  She tied up across the pier from us.  The Viking Sea, which had been tied up across from us in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was on the next pier over along with Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas.  

John contacted his college roommate Dan and learned that the cacophony was actually St. Kitts celebration of Carnival.  There were 6 parades occurring in Basseterre, the capital city of St. Kitt and Nevis.  After a quick breakfast, we headed ashore to meet Dan and his wife Kayla, who is a St. Kitts Native.  There is a large shopping district at the cruise ship port which Kayla said is where people do most of their shopping, but when cruise ships are in town, it gets incredibly busy.  There are the usual Diamonds International and other tourist stores as well as a large variety of restaurants, gift shops, bars and a local crafts market.  

One thing that was very noticeable was the taxi drivers were extremely aggressive and seemed to come at us from every possible direction, even with Dan and Kayla fending them off for us.  Some of them followed us hundreds of feet as we tried to get out of their primary kill zone to where we could exchange pleasantries and properly greet each other.  

We could not avoid the Carnival parades which had pretty much consumed the main streets and squares of Basseterre.  The music was so loud it shook your guts and rattled your brain.  The streets were filthy with trash, and the crowds were half rowdy and half in a semi zombie state.  Kayla explained that the parade had started at 4am, and that these people were partying full throttle since then.  What was most visually striking was the number of full bootied women clad in fishnet stockings or pantyhose barely covered by thong styled swim tops.  Many wore cowboy hats and had bandanas tied to a thigh, and a lot of people had been splashed with paint at some point.  

The parade and dancing was pretty loosely organized and seemed pretty chaotic.  It was quite unlike the very glitzy and tightly choreographed Samba Parade at the center of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival celebrations.  We frequently caught a whiff of marijuana in the crowds.  It was extremely intense and too much for us to really appreciate.  We eventually circled around to the taxi station where Dan, Kayla, John and Price would depart to go to a nearby beach  and do some sightseeing.   

Ben and Janet explored some of the town including its independence park and Catholic Church before heading back to the ship. 

They ended up having to work their way through the Carnival parade again to get back to the ship. 

Dan and Kayla did provide narration for their scenic trip to Cockleshell Bay Beach where the kids could all relax on beach chairs, and saw lots of giant conch shells and lobsters while swimming.  John and Price clocked over 2km in swimming for their day’s workout.  They also had lunch on the beach and a relaxing island afternoon.  

Meanwhile, Ben and Janet did enjoy the ship’s creature comforts with much less crowding since most people were gone on shore excursions.  

Ben and Janet did an afternoon trivia with Katherine from Montreal, coming in second place again. 

The kids made it back to the ship after their beach excursion.  We had dinner at O’Malley’s Pub, which is a casual dining venue that has a cover charge that is included in the plus package.  The sushi meal we had earlier was a similar set up. Since our package included two of these casual dining venues, we wanted to make sure to take advantage of them.  

O'Malley's Irish Pub casual dining venue

Irish Whiskey infused brownie

Apple Irish soda bread cake

The pub food was good, and better than the usual free Princess Pub Lunch that used to be featured on most itineraries.  They featured a Guiness Killarney stew, Mussels, and chicken wings.  They also had Irish themed desserts with a whiskey infused dark chocolate brownie, Bailey’s cheesecake and Guiness chocolate cream cake.  This was also the only ship’s venue where you could get Guiness stout and several Irish themed cocktails. 

After dinner, Price was played out and headed up to bed early.  The rest of us went to the Princess Theater where Nina Skyy did a Whitney Houston tribute. 

Janet said she enjoyed the show while Ben and John both spent a significant part of the show resting their eyes.  Price had chosen wisely to rest his eyes in the comfort of his bed.  After the show Janet retired directly to bed while Ben and John hit the Gelato stand before turning in.  

Tomorrow is our last port of call, St. Thomas in the American Virgin Islands.  John and Price will have to get up very early for their introduction to scuba excursion. The ship arrives at 7:15am and leaves at 4:30pm.  Ben and Janet will explore the town on their own since they didn’t get to do that during their last visit to St. Thomas.  They had done the same introduction to scuba, but Janet managed to rupture her ear drum on that excursion, so no more scuba for us old folk.