Sliding down to Fort Lauderdale
The Lost Narratives
01.01.2013 - 04.01.2013
View
2013 Maasdam cruise
& Bermuda
on greatgrandmaR's travel map.
After the cruise I took with my granddaughter in July 2012 to Australia our next cruise was January 2013
n March 2013, I lost all the emails between June 2012 and Feb 2013. That includes the emails about this trip which was a cruise out of Fort Lauderdale from 4 January 2013 to 20 January 2013 and the trip down and back. I have been able to recover from the VT backup files some of the narrative, but I still cannot find the first two days of the trip. So this is a reconstruction from the photos, the tips that Travellerspoint recovered my review of the trip on Cruise Critics, and my memory.
I booked this cruise because there were three places it was visiting which I had not been to before - St. Barths, Grenada and Bonaire. We drove to the cruise because my husband Bob does not like the hassle in the airport. This also meant that I could take as much luggage as I wanted for no extra charge and I could take my scooter in the trunk (broken down to five pieces) which I need because of reduced lung capacity. I have difficulty walking the distances required even on a small cruise ship. My husband did not take the scooter out of the trunk and assemble it until we got to Ft. Lauderdale.
1 January 2013
We left home and were in Morgantown, MD (where the power plant is) by 10.
Governor Nice bridge
On the Governor Nice bridge, we crossed calm Potomac under sullen clouds and started across Virginia.

Potomac River
It got to be about 11:30 and I asked the GPS to show me some restaurants nearby. I picked a non-chain chicken place in Stoney Creek, VA.

Stony Creek water tank with NO TOLL sign
We got off the highway, but the chicken place had turned into a BBQ place and it was closed.
We got back on I-95 and then got off on the exit before Emporia and found a place called Chester Fried Chicken. So we stopped. Definitely NOT a chain. At first glance, a convenience store with a gas station (with very good gas prices).
Windows from parking lot
Bob went to the bathroom and I looked around. There were tables in the back.

Table Inside
Seems to be a local kind of place. There was a counter with fried chicken, fried potatoes, baked beans,

Chester Fried Chicken
and chicken nuggets, and ...What are these?" (pointing) Gizzards. And these? Chicken Livers.

Chicken livers, gizzards and sandwiches
I was so intrigued by the idea of getting chicken livers at a convenience store, that I ordered them without consulting Bob (although I knew he liked them) and the medium box

Medium box of chicken livers
had so many that we didn't order anything else but just got a juice bottle and shared. And at that we couldn't eat them all. Cost $4.50. As I left people were buying and scratching off their lottery tickets. Our children of course thought we were crazy, especially the ones that don't like liver.
We crossed into SC about 1300 and arrived at the first Hampton Inn about 3:30 after 335 miles. The hotel was about 1/3rd of the distance from our house to Ft. Lauderdale. Normally we either stop in Henderson on the way to Summerville, or go along the coast. But this time I wanted to stay close to I-95 so as not to waste time. So we stayed in Lumberton which is a town in Robeson County, on the Lumber River. It was originally a shipping point for lumber used by the Navy, which was sent downriver to Georgetown, South Carolina.
I stay at the Hampton Inns because they have
-Free internet
-Free hot breakfast
They also had a laptop board in each room and I get points when I stay there. They gave us a ground floor room as I requested.

Night stand (water bottle is mine)

Fridge and microwave in room

Desk

Sink area

Bob watching TV reflected in mirror
The Hampton Inn does not usually have a restaurant at dinner, but they usually have a book with a list of restaurants that are nearby.


Advertisements in the Hampton Inn reference book
There is also usually a list of local attractions. In Lumberton, the list includes
-Museum of Native American Resource Center
-Historic Train Depot in Rowland NC
-Carolina Civic Center
-Proctor Law Building (the oldest structure in Lumberton)
-Red Springs Historical Museum in Red Springs
-Robeson Country History Museum
-Lumber River State Park
We went to Outback to eat about 5:30
Out back of the hotel -- the Out Ack Steakhouse
and were told that there would be a 20-30 minute wait although we could see lots of empty tables. I gathered that they were having trouble getting people to work. So we left and went to the Texas Steakhouse.


Texas Steakhouse

Parts of the menu

Two of the rolls (I have eaten the other two)

Bob's chili bowl and salad $7.99

My cheesy chicken breast $8.50

Texas sundae $3.99
Bob couldn't set the clock radio in the room to come on because he couldn't find a radio station. So he set the beeper to go off at seven. I had trouble sleeping because the pillow was too fat. I know there are less plump pillows in the room but I was too tired to get up and look for one.
2 January 2013
We got up and went to breakfast by about 8:30.
Breakfast area
They had cranberry juice cocktail, waffles, hard boiled and scrambled eggs, biscuits and sausage gravy, oatmeal, and the usual cold cereal, muffins, bagels and fruit. I had scrambled eggs, juice and a banana.


My Scrambled eggs and Bob's cereal and juice
Bob had cold cereal, juice and hot chocolate. We were on the road by 8:50.

Leaving the Lumberton Hampton Inn

Outback sign the next morning
We are just driving and not sightseeing. (In terms of how two people that are in their mid 70s do 'driving and not stopping' - we are doing about 320-350 miles a day.) Just straight down I-95 instead of byroads like we usually do. I have the hotels we are stopping at on the GPS and the GPS just has I-95 on it for miles and miles and doesn't talk to us hardly at all. So we are listening to NPR where possible. We crossed into SC (passing South of the Border) before 9:30
We stopped for lunch at 12:15 in Ridgeland SC just before the GA border after 201 miles at a DQ (Dairy Queen aka Grill & Chill)


DQ sign
which was hidden back under the expressway behind a BP station - it was filled with local people- lots of plaid flannel shirts and most of the local law enforcement people seemed to eat there.

Sheriff was eating lunch at DQ
Menu
They took our orders and gave us a table number and someone brought the food to us. Bob had
A chocolate milkshake
(he always gets a chocolate shake if shakes are available) and a cheeseburger and I had a bacon cheeseburger. I had ordered my burger 'solo' which meant without fries, and they gave it to me with fries anyway. I didn't eat but one or two of them
Bacon cheeseburger
Mini blizzard
They showed me the cup size of a mini-blizzard, but when it came the little cup was inside the regular cup.
Two cups
Cost about $9.50. Bob had trouble swallowing so it took him quite a while to eat which meant that I had plenty of time. We were back on the road before 1300.
One of the NPR stations had an anthropologist who spent a lot of time with the tribes in New Guinea with a title something like Guns Germs and Steel. It sounded as if he was saying that we should give children more freedom to make decisions and that the result of this was that the children were more confident and less fearful. He said that the primitive people didn't die of heart disease or diabetes and none of them were obese, but the reason that they didn't have heart diseases was because they died of infections, disease or war before they got to the age to have heart disease.
A lot of the radio discussion was about parenting and the differences between the perceptions of danger and the ideas that were stressful in the modern vs the agrarian society. One thing he particularly mentioned was that modern babies are in cribs where they are horizontal or in backpacks where they can't see where they are going and the primitive societies hold the baby vertical facing forward, and this is better for the baby.
He also mentioned that in the primitive societies children are allowed to make their own decisions. He wanted some porters and one of the 10 year old boys volunteered for that job - didn't ask his parents first, just took the job. He said that he and his wife tried to give their son the same kind of freedom. When their boy was about 6, he decided that he liked snakes and by the time he was 10 he had about 127 different snakes as pets. (I don't see this as particularly unusual or weird - I'm sure if I had wanted to collect snakes, I would have been allowed to)
One caller was a returned vet with a tour in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and they discussed the perception of danger that is formed when one really is in danger.
We passed through Georgia and crossed the Savannah River and were in Florida by 3:15.
Jacksonville bridge
I put the directions to the hotel in the GPS and we were checked into the next Hampton Inn by 3:20 after 333 miles. I picked this hotel because it was about 2/3rds of the way from our home to Ft. Lauderdale and it was cheaper than some of the others in the area. It was also less expensive than the one in Lumberton which had a base price of $105 and this one had a base price of $85).

Elevators
When I got up to the room I found two packages from a previous guest with biscuits from Red Lobster and a piece of cheesecake in a brown paper bag.

Extra food in the bathroom on arrival
I wasn't particularly happy about this 'bounty' as it seemed to indicate that the room hadn't been thoroughly cleaned. We had a refrigerator and microwave in the room.
The gas prices through SC on the big signboards that stick up about a mile into the air had been about $3.08. But the price at the gas station next to the hotel was $3.39. So before dinner, we set off to see if we could find cheaper gas. We drove east and saw a place for $3.35, and then tried the other direction, but we ended up headed for what looked like some kind of abandoned property with No Trespassing signs and we were on the wrong side of the road to trigger the lights to get back to the hotel. So we just gave in and got the expensive gas.
Where we got gas
Bob thinks that the gas mileage was so good yesterday because he hadn't filled the tank all the way up at home, but this time it was still 36 mpg

Bob walking from the parking lot to the hotel
We ate dinner at Ruby Tuesday
Ruby Tuesday
which was next to the hotel (across the parking lot). We do eat at Ruby Tuesday quite often at home (we get coupons), but I like to go to places that we don't have at home when I'm on a trip. But this was convenient.
Inside Ruby Tuesday
Bob just had the salad bar,

Bob's selection from the buffet
and I had
A small steak and zucchini which was listed at less than 600 calories
with spaghetti squash. I substituted mashed potatoes, but didn't eat all of them. They kept promising us biscuits but they didn't come until I had my steak already and Bob doesn't usually eat the bread - I just ate one of them.
Biscuits
Then I persuaded him to have a peanut butter dessert
Peanut butter dream bar from the menu
and we shared, but it was really
TOO MUCH PEANUT BUTTER

Bed and armchair
I put a half full water bottle in the freezer so in the morning I had ice in the bottle. I filled it up the rest of the way with water and now I had cold water to drink.
Desk, microwave and fridge
3 January 2013
Bob went to breakfast without me in the morning and he brought me the cranberry juice cocktail, a banana and a bagel.This morning we didn't get started as early. As I left, I went and told the manager about the leftover food in our room and she said we should have been given another room. But I said, no that I didn't want another room (The one we had was just a short distance from the elevator). So she insisted on giving me the 'Friends and Family' rate which was only $55.00.
We left the hotel about 9:20 and stopped at about 11:30 at Denny's for lunch. Bob picked where we stopped this time. We had gone 133 miles.
Bob walking in to Denny's

Bob's chocolate Milk shake $3.79

Bob's senior cheese sandwich $5.69
He got fries too but didn't eat them.
My cheese quesadilla $2.00
and a fruit side which was apples, bananas and grapes. Total was $14.81.

Bob's fries that came with his sandwich and my fruit
We kept seeing Silver Alert signs all along the highway.

Silver alert sign
Bob said Amber Alert was for kidnapped children and what was a Silver Alert. As a joke, I said it was for kidnapped old people. So I looked it up. I wasn't that far off - it is a lookout for Mentally Challenged people i.e. Alzheimer folks who drive off and may get confused and lost.
We got to Ft. Lauderdale just about 3. Our first excitement came when the GPS routed us via the Florida Turnpike and of course we don't have a Sun Pass. So I looked on the map and figured that we could get off at exit 107 and pay cash for the toll (not all the exits have the ability to pay cash), and it would be only 2 miles over to I-95. So we did that. Then I couldn't figure out whether the GPS knew where we were going - whenever there is an intersection where we can get onto another interstate it tells us which one to take, and it was telling us not to take I-595. So just to be sure I called the hotel and got the information. They said to get off at exit 22 and then a succession of rights and lefts, but we couldn't get the sequence correct and of course ended up in the wrong lane. Bob drove around the hotel twice before he found a place to park. I booked this hotel
Hilton Garden Inn
because it had a cruise package which included free parking for the cruise, and a shuttle to the cruise port and back. The parking is gated and you need to use your key to get in. We checked in after 357 miles. I had made the reservation on the internet with a Far Eastern agency called Agoda and they wanted me to pay in advance (which I did) and use a voucher to check in. I worried about it, but there was no problem checking in with the voucher. I made a reservation on the Port shuttle. We have the 11:45 shuttle. The only other option was 9:00 and Bob thought that was too early.

Coffee area in the hotel (we don't drink coffee)

My scooter next to desk with Bob's hat
After we checked in, we went out to get gas. There weren't any visible gas stations except BJ's and Bob figured that he didn't charge enough gas at BJ's to 'pay for' having the card, and he says their non-member gas is always sky high. We drove over to Route 1 and finally found a gas station - gas was $3.479. This time the gas mileage was 37 mpg.
Where we got gas
We drove back to the hotel and went to Burger King Restaurant #4511 for dinner.

Menu board
Bob insisted on going in and ordering even though we were going to get it "to go" and eat back in the hotel room. I ordered a salad and he had a whopper, fries and a shake. I went back to the car to wait and in trying to put everything where it couldn't be seen by looking in the car while it was parked in the lot and we were away on the cruise, I accidentally leaned on the keys wrong and set the car alarm off.
Then when Bob came back to the car with the food, he couldn't get out of the parking lot to go across to the hotel because cars were stacked up at the light that was just past the exit driveway. When he got to the IN gate, he had to take off his seat belt and open the car door to get the room key to open the gate.
Our order in a bag on the bed
So here we all are in Dania - or maybe Ft. Lauderdale. We have coupons for breakfast.
4 January 2013
In the morning, I wore the camera carrier as I find that later in the day my neck hurts. Just in case, I took a photo of the two vouchers for the shuttle to the port, because we are to give both of them (the trip to the port and the trip back) to the shuttle guy.
Shuttle tickets
Zip check-out
I decided to take the scooter to breakfast because our room is so far from the elevator. It was, of course, a buffet.
Light in the breakfast area

Breakfast buffet
They did bring us cranberry juice and tea. After I parked the scooter, I got some scrambled eggs, one piece of bacon, some applesauce and a mini muffin. Bob got cold cereal, eggs and 2 pieces of bacon. The eggs were cold and they had stuff in them like onion. The bacon was the kind Bob likes - burnt. There was also some fruit, sausage, fried potatoes and what might have been oatmeal, but I didn't investigate.

Our breakfast
The charge for this breakfast was $12.95 each - plus tip. Bob tipped $5.00 .
Breakfast Voucher and Bill
Hampton Inns do a much better breakfast, and there is one that also has a similar cruise package so if you are interested in that, I suggest you go there first. We went back up to the room and I did some clean-up work on the computer. There were so few luggage carts that Bob just made two trips to get the luggage down to the lobby. I went down on the scooter and talked to folks in the lobby while we were waiting.
Shuttle Service board
When we checked in with the shuttle guy, he gave us two stickers to wear, and two more for the shuttle back to the hotel, and also gave us a number to call if there was no shuttle there. At 11:30, the luggage including my assembled scooter were loaded into a trailer and we were on our way to the port by 11:35. We dropped people off at the Zuiderdam first
Arriving Port Everglades
Special Needs at Sea Check-in
and then we were unloaded at the Maasdam. I saw the Special Needs at Sea guy there at the unloading area.
Check-in was pretty quick as there was a special check-in desk for Wheelchair and Special Assistance.
Wheelchair and Special Assistance
We were able to go to our room right away - by 12:30. We talked to our room steward later, he has 31 rooms to do. We have a Lanai room (CA) on the Lower Promenade Deck and I had thought I might be able to get out onto the Promenade Deck from our room with the scooter. But the Lanai door has a lip of about 4" and no ramp so it would be hard to get the scooter over it. The scooter hangs up on all the thresholds out to the deck anyway - the ramps are too steep and I/we have to lift it over. We have two reserved deck chairs outside our room and the two mats for the chairs were in our room. The door is mirrored on the outside.
Selfie close-up
I enjoyed being able to get out on deck quickly, but did not make much use of our reserved deck chairs. Bob didn't care for it and he never used that door. The windows were cleaned each morning about 7:00 so they were always clean.
The bed was made up as a king, and there wasn't enough room for me to get the scooter past it to the other side of the room so we moved one of the night tables over under the desk and shoved the bed over which is enough room for me to come in and park by the bed although I didn't have an easy time getting to the nightstand or out of bed. We ran an extension cord from the desk under the bed to my side of the bed to plug in the power strip (for the scooter and computer). I eventually put the phone on the floor next to the bed as I had other uses for the nightstand.
Our bed in the cabin
By this time I was hungry and I was going to just take my cane to the Lido (there was no Explorer (the list of what happens each day) in the room to see what dining rooms were open). Bob said I needed to take the scooter. We came in at the exit end of the buffet. I was not really interested in standing in a long line to get something to eat when I didn't want any of the stuff at the beginning of the line. The things I wanted had no server to serve them. So I parked the scooter and Bob got us some pasta which was very hard to eat as it was fatter than spaghetti and longer than macaroni.

Hard to Eat Pasta in the Lido
Then I got bread pudding for dessert (and so did Bob).
Bread pudding
Dessert
They had ice cream, but I didn't want to stand in line for that. We were done by 1:30. There was a band at the pool.
Band at the pool
Back to the room, we put away the stuff in our carry-ons. There is a small couch on the same side as the bed,
Couch, little table and chair by the Lanai window
and on the other side is the TV, with the ice bucket under it and the desk.
Reflection in the mirror with the curtains drawn
We've moved the chair from the desk over next to the couch. There are only two drawers in the two nightstands and three more in one of the closets which also has the safe in it. We had a safe which was opened with a number instead of a credit card like last time (this is better because otherwise we have to leave the card in the room so both people can get in the safe - which makes it not as safe). There are two hanging closets and we had plenty of hangers. The steward kept the room clean and the ice bucket filled and made us towel animals, even though he had so many rooms to do. A couple of times he didn't get to us until after we were back for dinner.
Alarm clock by Bob's side of the bed that was never allowed to ring
The bathroom had a tub and I asked for a shower chair so I could sit and use the handheld shower, but they said it would be a safety hazard. I think getting into and out of the tub is the hazard - not sitting on a stool in it. I also had a real hard time getting the shower to give me water that wasn't too hot. The bathroom had shelves where Bob could keep his razor plugged in. He had his pill keeper also on that side. I had mine on the other side, but the soap dish was there, and the pill keeper kept getting wet, so I moved it to the bottom shelf.
It is really nice to have a door that we can just open and it stays open without having to put a chock in it. Bob opens the door and then stands in the hall so that I can get out without running over anyone. The same with the bathroom door. It opens out flat and stays stuck to the wall rather than swinging.
Painting in room
We got all four suitcases before the Drill. Bob looked out the lanai door and said that the only people with life jackets were the crew, so we didn't take ours. I went to the drill on the scooter, going out the door into the hall and then out on deck. I wasn't until we got out on deck that they told us that we didn't need to have our life jackets with us.
Lifeboat Drill Sergeant
They put me on the scooter back against the wall and people were put in front of us so I couldn't see anything except the bottom of our lifeboats.
Looking up from the wall under the lifeboat
Even though I couldn't see, I could definitely hear as the loudspeaker and whistles were earsplitting. After we finished unpacking I went out on deck through our lanai door to take pictures of the sail-away.

Sailing from Port Everglades
Coast Guard running hot
To get back in there is a white plastic card which you have to hold up to the black sensor and when the light is green (and it is very hard to see when it is sunny- sometimes I could hear the click but couldn't see the light), you can quick-quick open the door. It is a VERY heavy door. A weaker woman than I am would not be able to open it.
On the left is the black sensor to press your card on to unlock the door
Deck and our deck chairs outside our room
We went up to dinner about 5:00 as the Anytime Dining starts then. We had Anytime Dining because there was a large Jazz-a-sea group on board and they took all the early dining slots on deck 8 and late dining is too late for us.
Entrance to the main dining room
The Jazz-a-sea people have a big table of ten, but we did get a table for six at the window.
Dinner table

Sunset over Ft. Lauderdale from the dinner table
When we came out about 7, there were long lines waiting. The other two couples, were from Ft. Pierce, and from Missouri. The Missouri people flew in today and almost missed the ship as they got to the dock right about the time we were to sail.
The waiter said that we couldn't order prime rib, as it hadn't been put aboard in time to cook it. So I just had the
Chilled pear, cucumber and Melon Gazpacho
Linguini
Bob had the
Calypso Shrimp Cocktail
which was tiny shrimp with a mustard based sauce. He also had the gazpacho, and then he had maple glazed tuna.
Bob's raw tuna
I was considering having that too, but decided against it. His tuna was almost completely raw. For dessert I had
Lemon Torte
and a scoop of Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (separately). Bob had a pineapple sundae, but it had chocolate sauce on it and not much pineapple.
After dinner we went up to the computer cafe. I hadn't been able to sign on because I was to use the name that I was registered under, but I was registered as RosalieAnn and I had to sign in as just Rosalie. I got signed on to the internet and then couldn't figure out how to sign off. Eventually I thought to look at the directions I picked up at the computer cafe and that told me how to do it.
We had good internet access in the room although occasionally I would lose the connection and then I could not log off. I found through trial and error that I would have to reboot the computer in order to log off.
Came back to the room and Bob thought that the cabin steward had been here, but he had not. He came later
5 January 2013- Sea Day
We got up about 7:30 and went to breakfast in the dining room which started at 8:00. To get to the dining room on 7, we have to go all the way aft on 6 because you can't walk through on 7. On the way we told the steward that we were going to breakfast and asked for wash clothes (which we didn't have). We were opposite one of the laundry rooms, but it was out of service for the entire cruise. I think they were having trouble with their ship laundry as the wash clothes did not seem to be really white in the beginning.
The Explorer did not say which dining room to go to for breakfast so we tried Deck 7 first and then took the elevator up another deck to Deck 8. After we went to the wrong place once, we knew, but it was annoying the first time because with a scooter we couldn't just run up a flight of stairs. We ate with another couple at a table for four - from California. A lot of folks from California on this cruise. Service was pretty slow - took a long time to get waited on. The other couple wanted coffee but the coffee kept getting cold while they waited for service. Once they brought her a clean cup (she didn't want the coffee 'warmed up' with hot in the cold - she wanted fresh coffee). But the second time it happened, we just switched cups with them as we weren't drinking coffee. I had Eggs Florentine
Eggs Florentine
which I love and like better than Eggs Benedict because the ham in that is too salty. Bob had raisin bran and 3 pieces of turkey bacon. And they actually brought him three pieces that he asked for.
Bob's bacon
Since we were on deck 8, we went by the shops and I looked at tanzanite because I want to give my granddaughter a birthstone ring for her 16th birthday - she was born in December. They are having a 40% off sale. They don't have prices on things - you have to get someone to tell you what they are. We didn't get back to the room until almost 10:00
At about 11:00, we roused ourselves to go to Team Trivia. Our team is Linda and Nelson from California, and Evan and Wendy from BC. Since we are from three widely separated areas, we called ourselves Triangulation. The trivia was fun as one or more of us knew a lot of the questions. We didn't know the name for a big group of grasshoppers (a Cloud), but we did guess correctly (at least Wendy guessed) who said the first words in the original Star Wars. We got 14.5 our of 22. There was one group that got 18 right.
We went to lunch right after that and ate with a retired dentist and his wife from NY, and another lady. The waiter took the scooter and went on a drive all around the dining room on rabbit speed, and put a doily on the seat with our table number on it. Bob had a
Banana-orange melange
Tilapia
a which he said he hesitated to get because of the tuna last night, but the tilapia was very good. I had Peach and Ginger soup and
Mac and cheese
I had a butterscotch sundae and Bob has reverted to his usual ice cream with chocolate sauce.
El Salvador (it's out there)
We went back to the room and I asked Bob to open the curtains. I took a photo of El Salvador (I think) that we were passing on the starboard side. Later, some lady tried to get in our lanai door, thinking I guess that it was a regular door to come in. I eventually put a pillow over my head so as not to have to hear the TV and took a nap. We missed doing afternoon tea.
Dining room flower arrangement
Dinner tonight was formal and the dining room wasn't as full as last night. Bob had the shrimp cocktail with the regular kind of cocktail sauce instead of the mustard type sauce that he had yesterday (three large shrimp)
Regular shrimp cocktail
and I had
Mussels
(which I like but Bob doesn't), and then we both had cranberry soup and lobster.
Lobster
I had
Chocolate souffle
and he had his usual. Two of the five other people at the table were Linda and Evan. Another couple was from Ontario, and the other woman was at the other end of the table and I didn't hear much from her - it was pretty noisy.
We have the playoff game on the TV tonight.
6 January 2013 - Sea Day
Today I had
Belgium waffles
Looking down on deck 7 dining room
for breakfast and found them doughy so I think I'll go back to Eggs Florentine. We sat with a lady named Sara who had cruised a lot with her husband, but he died last year so she was going solo. We invited her to the Cruise Critics meeting and she came.
Sign for cruise critics meeting
Refreshments
The meeting was quite interesting. They gave us coffee, tea, water and Bloody Mary's, cookies and pastries. The head cook and the hotel manager and the guy who does the scheduling and the cruise director were there.
Cruise Director and Head Chef
We are not docking at Havensight but at Crown Point (I think it was the former sub base and is quite a taxi ride from town.) They said there were going to be five ships in port tomorrow (there weren't - there were only 3) and three of them were Code Red which meant that there was norovirus on board. So to be sure to wash our hands a lot.
I asked which would be better - shopping in St. Thomas like the shopping guy said to do, or buying things on board, and the answer was that St. Thomas was the most expensive place to buy things in the Caribbean and that there were no bargains there. He said that the shopping guy is paid by the stores so he would naturally say that the stores were better than the ship.
During the meeting they were teaching salsa dancing on the other side of the Crows Nest. Then we had trivia. Our Canadian friends Wendy and Evan joined another team so it was Nelson and Linda and a couple from NY - his name was Paul. This time we got 15 right out of 21. We didn't know how many drops are in a tablespoon, or the name for a bunch of cobras (A Quiver of cobras), and we could only think of 3 Beetles full length movies (Help, Hard Day's Night and Yellow Submarine). The third one that we thought of (Sgt Pepper) was the title of an album and not the movie. One team got 19 right and the next closest was two teams with 16.
Then we had lunch.
Dining room table
Melon Trio
I ordered Manhattan Clam Chowder and it came with clams INSIDE THE SHELLS. I finally picked the shell up and opened it with my fingernail to get the clam out, but I am sure that soup is not meant to be a finger food.

Clam chowder with clams in the shells
Bob thought he had ordered that, but he ordered the banana soup instead. Then we both had fish and chips.
Traditional fish and chipa
Bob didn't eat the fried crust of the fish and I didn't eat the chips. I had a Pavlova for dessert.
Pavolova
There were things from the shops for sale in the atrium
Hats on sale
Atrium sales
Our table mates had gone up for the free foot analysis, so we decided to do that. On the way up to the spa, we heard one of the Jazz-a-Sea bands playing at the pool and I tried to record a movie of it but it didn't turn out very well. Their performances were excellent and we bought some of their CDs. We didn't go to any of the shows, although the sight lines in the main theatre are MUCH better than they were before - you can actually see from all the seats. None of the four Jazzsea bands were scheduled in the main theatre which was a shame as that would have been awesome.
The foot analysis guy said I was putting too much pressure on my big toe and wanted to sell us some shoe inserts. But I am going to return them tomorrow.
Fitness equipment
Then we came down and watched the Raven's game which they won (which I thought they would). We could only see just the start of the Redskins game before dinner.
Sunset
We had dinner with Nelson and Linda again and a couple from Philadelphia. He was gluten intolerant and she determined that the only thing he could have off the menu was chicken. Nelson collects military uniforms and items of that type, so we talked about that some.
Bob had the
Fruit Ceviche
which looked good and I had
Eggplant Caponata
but there was very little eggplant in it and it was supposed to come with toast points, but I didn't get anything that looked like toast.
Then I had a
Great Sound Salad
and we both had the
Grilled Mahi Mahi with Roasted Corn Salsa
which was good. Bob deviated from custom and had key lime pie - I thought I would get mint chocolate chip ice cream, but it was regular chocolate chip and there were very few chips, so I think they just gave me vanilla with some chips on top.
Squid towel animal with note to turn clocks forward
When we got back to the room, the steward had a chance to get in and make the beds and he left us a towel animal and there was a note to turn our clocks forward. We saw the end of the Redskin's game, and got ready to go ashore in St. Thomas tomorrow.
Posted by greatgrandmaR 14:18 Archived in USA Comments (0)