Mansions and Boats

Our flight home was not scheduled to leave until 8:00PM, so we decided that we’d take a tour of Fort Lauderdale after disembarking the ship. This proved to be a beneficial way to use our time before going to the airport. We started with a narrated bus tour. We were impressed with the neighborhoods whose homes had palm-lined streets in the front and boat-filled waterways in the back.

   

We stopped at the Museum of Discovery and Science, where we saw a Gravity Clock, one of only 3 in the world. The clock is in the front courtyard; we didn’t have time to go inside the museum but from the description of its contents, Bill & I agreed that our grandkids would love this place!

Next we boarded a paddlewheel boat for a 90-minute cruise which took us past unbelievably lavish mansions with equally extravagant boats of all types.

     

Below: Senator John Kerry’s sailboat on the left. Judge Judy’s boat on the right.

This boat even carries its own helicopter!

We had a pretty view of downtown Fort Lauderdale with a marina in the foreground.

We thought we’d just be killing time before our late flight, but it turned out that we thoroughly enjoyed our day in Fort Lauderdale. A 45-minute drive took us to the Miami airport for our nonstop flight to San Francisco.

NOTE: We learned something about airline compensation for a delayed flight. Our plane had mechanical difficulties and we were over an hour late in taking off, which meant that BART had stopped service for the night by the time we landed. A fellow passenger told us this had happened to her before, and the airline would pay for us to get home. She, too, had been planning to get home on BART. We went with her to the airline representative at baggage claim where we were given a voucher for Super Shuttle to take us to the Pittsburg/Bay Point BART station parking lot, where Melanie had dropped off our car that day. American Airlines paid $170 for our shuttle. If we hadn’t met that woman, we never would have known that all we had to do was ask!

A dose of Aruba then off to the Sanctuary

We arrive in Aruba at 7AM and when we got off the ship at 9AM it was almost 90 degrees 100% humidity and no breeze.  The below photo shows how hot it was.

                                  

You can hardly see the banana bus because the lens on the camera fogged up before Cindy took the photo!  Needles to say we took a short walk into Oranjestad to visit one of the local main attractions.  It was easy to find because they had plenty of signs leading the way.

                                          

It was open and they were doing a brisk business even on this hot, hot day.  After enjoying the local sights we headed back to the ship for a relaxing afternoon in “The Sanctuary”.

This area at the front of the ship is for adults only. The space is limited so you have to make reservations a day or two before you go.  They charge $10 per person for a half day and $20 per person for a full day. Since Aruba is noted for its cooling afternoon breezes, once we got situated in the Sanctuary it was very comfortable relaxing there the rest of the afternoon. It was also nice that they kept refilling our glasses with cold ice water.  We were in the Sanctuary for the sail away from Aruba and we were able to get some great photos of the island.

The center photo shows the runway at the Oranjestad airport.  As you can see the cruise ship passes right in front of the runway.  Right before we passed the runway planes were landing and they were lower than the height of our ship. No planes could land as we passed but right after we cleared the runway a plane flew by right behind the ship and landed.  I guess the captain has to notify the airport before he leaves the dock so we don’t collide with a plane landing. We have two sea days ahead of us before we get to Ft Lauderdale and disembark for our flight back home.

Antigua – Island of 365 Beaches

This was our second visit to Antigua. The first time, we spent the day on a beach (one of 365, as the Antiguans so proudly proclaim) so this time we decided we wanted to see a little more of the island. We began our trip around the island with a drive through a few of the little villages on our way up to Shirley Heights. One thing we immediately noticed along the way were the trees, telephone poles and fence posts all wrapped in banners displaying the colors of the Antiguan flag. They were everywhere! Our guide explained that the Antiguan independence day had just been celebrated on November 1st.

Black for the soil, Yellow for the sun, Blue for the sea, White for the sand, Red for the blood shed

The Antiguans make good use of a variety of paint colors on the exteriors of their homes.

  

Once we arrived at the Shirley Heights Lookout, we had a bird’s eye view of the coastline.

  

Another stop along our tour was the historic Nelson’s Dockyard National Park, named after the famous British admiral. The government is in the process of restoring the buildings in this former British naval shipyard.

  

  

After all of this sightseeing, climbing in and out of the bus, it felt good to cool off in the water at Dickenson Beach.

  

That makes it 2 down, 363 beaches to go!

Welcome to Sint Thomas (Saint Thomas)

I wonder if there is a book that translates the Queen’s English into American English?  Thank goodness I knew our next island was Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.  At first I thought we were going to an new island not on our itinerary.  Anyway after I figured out the assistant cruise director (from England) and I were talking about the same place I felt a little better.  So we took the lift down to the gangway and left the ship and put our backpack in the boot of the car and left on our excursion.  I love being on holiday with the international crowd.

Our tour consisted of a boat ferry ride to Sint John and then a forced march (hike) that Cindy scheduled.

                            

I left the pier with my island girl on the ‘Island Girl’ and headed to Saint John. As you can see by the photo our ship was not the only one in port. The ship in front of us was the Royal Caribbean Jewel of the Seas (which we were on the last time we came to Saint Thomas).  Behind our ship was the new NCL Epic (bigger than our ship).  At the dock out of sight of our ship was the Royal Caribbean megaship, Allure of the Seas (holds almost 6,000 passengers) Also a Holland America dam ship (Eurodam, Veendam, Oosterdam? I know it ended with dam.)

Over 50% of Saint John is a National Park donated to the US by one of the  Rockefellers.  When you come into the town dock one side of the dock belongs to the National Park Service and the other side is for the town.  The map above of Lind Point Trail is our hike and the young skinny kid is our tour guide, Eric! We started the hike and the temperature was in the 80’s and the humidity was 200% (my kind of weather).  Cindy did point out that the hike was in the shade.  It didn’t make a bit of difference to me as the water ran out of every pour in my body.

                          

Eric pointed out a lot of the flora and fauna while on the hike. The plant on the left is the Medusa air plant.  It grows by latching itself onto a host tree and eventually kills the tree as it covers the whole thing.  They call it the Medusa because it looks like the snakes that are all over Medusa’s head.  The second plant is a type of Agave plant and the large stalk in the middle of the plant is the bloom.  It can get up to 35 feet high. Eric said that many of the locals use the bloom as their Christmas tree, since a Christmas tree sent in from the mainland can cost well over $250.

  

The next stop, Honeymoon Beach, was a nice cool dip in the ocean for one of us as the other thought of being on the Sea Dream Yacht having a cold gin & tonic in the air conditioned bar!

 

Our final stop was at the famous Caneel Bay resort which was built on an old sugar cane plantation and mill.  The rooms start at $400 a night and go up. The photo on the left is their international five star restaurant that is built on the spot where the grinding stone was pulled by donkeys to grind up the sugar cane.  The photo on the right is where the liquid from the sugar cane would collect and be filtered for use.  After our trek we were picked up by an open air truck taxi and taken back to the ferry for our trip back to our ship.  It was a great day but a little on the warm side.

Happy Halloween

Yesterday morning I went downstairs to grab some coffee (and yes, some pastries) while Bill was shaving. As I approached the balcony railing above the piazza (the 3-story lobby area), I could hear excited voices. This is the festive sight that greeted me!

Black and orange balloons, intricately carved pumpkins, delicious looking baked goods and various other Halloween decorations created some excitement for all of the passengers. Bill and I went back down to take some photos; he got some good close-ups.

   

My favorite were these trees which had limbs made from grape stems dipped in dark chocolate. Clever!

Many of the passengers and crew wore costumes to dinner, but we didn’t have our camera with us. Lots of little kids(there are 38 of them between ages 3 & 17 on this cruise) participated in a costume parade after dinner in and around many of the public areas on the ship. They looked like they were having a lot of fun.

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Sunday and a day at sea.  What are we going to do.  Wait a minute, they are going to have football on the big screen out by the pool.  So we can pop out anytime we want and catch up on the games being played.  Best of all they are also going to have the Sunday night game!

                                                   

Oh yea! The Eagles and the Cowboys out under the stars cruising on our favorite cruise line, Princess.  Does it get any better than this for football?

Yes it even felt like football weather, temperature in the high forties, low fifties just perfect but it does get better!

     

       EAGLES 34 cowboys 7.  We were ready for some football!