CruzinScotty

Next: Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville

I kept the curtain closed a little more last night and the result was getting to out to the balcony at 6:45 today. More of the morning ritual: I-pod, writing trip report and enjoying the view until DW awoke to enjoy the view with me.

We set plans for breakfast at 8:30 in the Lido. I hoped that our late arrival at Grand Turk, plus people sleeping in from the Mexican Fiesta might yeald a smaller crowd. The wait for the omelet station was 30 seconds – mission accomplished! For my toppings, I chose ham/cheese/mushrooms/onions. They will also cook eggs any way you want them. I added fresh fruit, chocolate milk, guava juice and of course – yep – banana bread.

Marie-Ann, our head waitress at dinner was working the Lido; we had a nice conversation with her. It was nice to see her in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Later, a very nice lady come up to our table to announce that I had a twin. Who knew? LOL She told us that where she lived in Florida, she had a neighbor that looked just like me. They do say everyone in the world has a twin out there – now I know where mine is.

More coincidences: DW recognized the town this woman was from. Remember the picture I posted of DW in the hot tub making new friends – after we had gotten back from HMC? Yep – this woman was married to one of the guys she had been talking too. Neat.

DW and I had a few minutes to wander the ship. We made our way up to the Serenity Deck.

After dinner, a few went to the participation shows in the Venetian. DW and I went to get pick up portraits and view new pics. For some reason, it seemed easier to pick our pictures out of the crowd. We got a few and walked around a bit.

In the casino we ran into Pop and W'ma and decided to get ice cream. Tonight the back Lido closed for a private function. The ice cream station by Guy's was still open, so that's where we sat.

Tonight was the Mexican Fiesta; there had been a Caribbean party a few nights prior. These are fun events that we have attended in the past. This trip, we didn’t get to either one.

We headed to the room to find:

Time for balcony time and lights out. Pretty good – 10:30 – two nights in a row. Plus, the plan is to sleep in a little bit tomorrow.

Next: Grand Turk

I was on the TSS Carnivale in the 1980's .. don't remember the exact year..what a nice memory. I was actually looking for that information yesterday. :D

It was a great ship, wasn't it.

Oops - my drink was the Deal Closer, not Deal Breaker. Oh well, too late to edit. ;)

Dinner was wonderful tonight – too good!

I may or may not have had all or part of the following starters: chilled peach soup, smoked duck, spinach salad, and the shark firework roll. :eek:

I also got a taste of the thai soup. If you like spicy, you’ll like it. One taste worked for me. :p

There used to be a duck entrée; but that has been changed and there is only an appetizer now. It was DS’s favorite last trip, so he just ordered two appetizers tonight.

On to the entrées. I couldn’t decide between the lamb and the seafood Newburg; so why not try both! The entrée sizes have overall been fairly small and not really a problem. It figures that tonight, the serving sizes are the full size ones you would expect in your restaurants back home. LOL The lamb was good, the Newburg was…..different. I’m used to a cream sauce and this was different. I think there was a particular unidentified spice that didn’t blend with my taste buds the way it must for the chef.

Dessert time already? Might as well. I like my sweets and I LOVE my chocolate. So it’s time for Bitter/Blanc Bread Pudding and Warm Chocolate Melting cake.

Bitter/Blanc Bread Pudding – this seems to get either very positive or very negative reviews. I'll give it a tepidly positive rating. LOL The sauce they serve with it was great and was needed because otherwise, it was dry. Though I might have enjoyed it if I hadn’t had such a large meal……

Is this the night of the cappuccino pie? Hmmm, if I don’t find it later in my notes – it is. Several people at the other end of the table had this (whichever night it was); it was quite popular.

So, let's talk about Warm Chocolate Melting Cake – one of my favorite things!

Has anyone noticed that it seems to come out different each night? I’ve come up with my own scale for them. The way I see it: though they are in individual ramekins, they are cooked in mass production. So, it’s still similar to a large cake in the oven.

To me, the comparison is like a steak – well done, rare or medium. The ones on the outer part of the baking tray are “well done” - almost or completely cooked in the middle. The ones baking in very center of the oven are “rare”. While quite delicious, these are a little too gooey, even for this chocoholic. I can only eat ½ of a “rare WCMC”.

I find the ones cooking around the middle of the baking tray the, “medium” ones, to be perfect – just gooey enough in the middle. The only problem is that unlike a steak - you don’t get to order how “done” it will be on any given night. LOL

I had 5 WCMC this trip – one rare, and two each of the medium and well.

What do y’all think about my theory? And, how do you like your WCMC?

Thanks for the nice comments. Guess I should have warned you this might be a long report. ;)

Hint – you can’t do it all, don’t even try. But, do try new things later in the cruise; it helps make your overall cruise experience even more memorable.

I set up a 5PM meet in the Alchemy Bar. DB/SIL were the only ones to join me; but we sure had fun. Here is the menu:

The really cool thing you can’t tell from the picture is that the menu lights up when you open it. I had seen the menu in another trip report. I decided if I only had one drink here, I had to satisfy my chocoholic cravings and try the Deal Breaker. That is fresh shaved chocolate on the top. Heavenly:

My compadres tried the Forty is the new Twenty ( with the lime) and the Peach Cosmopolitan (lemon, of course):

Corina was our mixologist. She was really great; and made it clear for the guys – it’s OK to get all the fancy drinks. Remember, what happens on the Liberty, STAYS on the Liberty. Except for those taking photos. :D

Munchies were brought out. We didn’t touch the olives, but the cubed Swiss and mixed nuts were great. So great that we intended to get to the Sushi Bar, but never did. What a wonderful addition to our cruise experience.

Next – Too many choices for dinner!

Gotta include pics of El Morro from the sea!

Fort San Cristobal on the left, El Morro on the right; Old San Juan inbetween:

Next: Real men CAN drink Frou Frou drinks ;)

Back on the ship, I went up to the Lido Deck aft hot tub. It was nice chatting with people. DW joined me. Then, we had a piece of pizza to hold us until dinner.

We did our usual Deck 10 sail away. We had spent a lot of time watching the planes come in all day long when we were on our balcony. When backing out of the pier, you go right in front of the landing strip.

The sail away from San Juan is also a beautiful one.

On the way back to the ship, we took more pics:

To sum up San Juan for us: low expectations yielded wonderful results!

What better way to cool off than lounging on the Lido with a nice bowl of ice cream. Then, a few of us decided to venture back out to the shopping area.

We back tracked to Plaza de Colon. Remember that map I mentioned? It was a HUGE help. We didn’t take the trolley at all; but the map was very useful. It had the street names; but I never saw any street signs. What I did see was the trolley stop numbers. It helped us figure out where we were and how far we could venture out.

Here’s the street where we did some shopping:

It was getting hot, so we decided to head back to the ship to cool off. We got a few more pics on the way:

As the tour ended. we were dropped off at Plaza de Colon, where the statue of Christopher Columbus is.

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Next in San Juan, we stopped at the Capital building. It was modeled after the US Capital. We realized we could walk inside. WOW!

We saw the "Quarter Lady" here on a different tour. "Hey, Quarter Lady". :p

Inside - look up:

I was on the balcony at 6am today. The starboard side is not the best for watching the arrival in San Juan. But, really – is any arrival view really that bad?

We decided to switch things up for breakfast. My hope with the early arrival time was that the Emile’s would not be too crowded with some people opting to sleep in.

Good guess, the crowd wasn’t bad. Items at the buffet that I consider better than the MDR are the personally made omelettes (fresh and more ingredient options), the guava juice, choosing the type and amount or fresh fruit and the banana bread. The banana bread. Yep – worth saying twice ;)

Our expectations for San Juan were very low. I had researched and knew we didn’t plan on venturing out of Old San Juan. Even with the early start; the heat would be a deterent. Anything we saw would be just fine. I had done lots of research and had printed out the free trolley route with the blue/green/red bus routes.

Hint – go to the Port-of-Call message boards for every port you visit. You will find lots of great info there, like the map mentioned above.

As we were leaving the cruise terminal, they were guys selling 2 hour city tours that included a few stops. Did you say air-conditioned vans? For only 20 bucks? SOLD!

We waited a few minutes for the van to fill up and then off we went. We saw the construction near the pier and were told in 5 years the entire area would be different. There are to be more piers, with lots of shopping and hotels in the area. It should be very nice; but it will take more of the “old” out of “Old San Juan”. ;)

Our tour went to the hotel district with a stop for pictures of the beach and a gift shop to use the restroom. We snagged a few t-shirts here.

DW also liked the license plates here:

Here's the Funnel - before the "Whale Tail" was born:

Do you think my Pop has aged well?

One of the first photos I posted was of the Promenade. Here's it is on the Carnivale:

Don't ya just love the old wooden lounge chairs? Also note - before the day of TV's in the room - there was a "Cinema" on board. And, look how massive the Gift Shop looks like it might have been. NOT.

Charlotte Amalie - St. Thomas: do you think the city has grown much since way back when?

Magen's Bay - do you think the view has changed a lot?

Of note: can you make out the "Fun Ship" logo at the top of my t-shirt? And......what I couldn't find this trip, that I could find in 2008 and in 1978 - a t-shirt with the name of the ship. :D

Thanks for indulging in my memories. ;)

Next: Low expectations = lots of fun!

.....well after the motion sickness the first day of boaring full speed ahead then eating....not a good combo for a first time cruiser! :p

KC Crew #3 - I didn't want to say anything earlier. Maybe with the comparison of sailing on a ship literally 1/4 the size: I barely felt the ship movement at all. ;)

I’m gonna take a little tangent if you’ll indulge me.

Any “Golden Girl” fans out there? In your best “Sophia” voice, say, “Picture it, June 1978”…LOL

Way back when I was a teenager, my parents took me on a 7 night cruise on this mammoth ship called the” Carnivale” from a small cruise ship company called Carnival. It was a mind boggling 25,516 ton behemoth that was a whopping 640 feet long. The ports of call for this trip included St. Thomas, San Juan and St. Martin. This trip and the wonderful memories are why I’ve been promising DW that we would get to the Eastern Caribbean some day. An additional treat is that my Pop is with me as well.

So, lets take a quick down Memory Lane. Look at the Carnivale. It was so big, it took two who pictures to capture 25,000 tons of fun!

With these newfangled cameras, I can get the Liberty in one shot in Grand Turk:

I guess there’s something to be said about camera angle. ;)

After our pizza, I dropped Pop of at his room and went to my own. This is when I realized I had lost the camera. And I knew exactly where. After I took the last picture I posted; I put the camera on the table instead of my pocket. In 10 minutes – it – was – gone.

I made my way to Guest Services. In less than 20 minutes – the camera had been turned in by the busboy. I went back later to give a personal thank you to David from Peru. Way to go – Carnival staff! (I did make a special mention of him in my on-line comments to Carnival.)

After surviving that mishap, it was time for some quiet time and people watching from the balcony.

DW and I decided to forgo dinner in the MDR to watch the sailaway.

The others went to dinner and came back with mixed results. They had a different wait staff, who were efficient, but not as friendly as our normal crew. The Filet got mixed results – from very good to mediocre. At the buffet, DW and I combined to have salad, sushi, lasagna and turkey with all the fixin’s. For dessert, the raspberry torte was a winner.

We met up with the gang to see the show, “Swingin’ with the Big Band”. This show, like EDGE, was a one night show by a performer that moves from ship to ship. Chrisopher Alan Graves was the one man show. This show was OK, but our least favorite of the trip. He did a lot of Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr; which we like. But, the sound system was off. Everything was very loud and muffled; it really took away from the show.

There's new comedians on board, why no comedy tonight? LOL Time for the balcony and to bed at the somewhat normal time of 10:30.

Next: A Blast from the past.

MissJamis3 - THANKS so much for posting new pics of Hot/Cool!

Your pictures look better than I remembered. I'm glad I got the "sleeker" and the room feeling darker part right . ;)

It's time to cool down with a nice banana daquiri.

We stopped by Drake’s Seat on the way down the north side of the mountain. We didn’t stop but were told this was Sapphire Beach:

We made our way by Red Hook, where you catch the ferry over to St. John.The van brought us back directly to the ship. Pop and I decided we needed a light lunch, so we headed up for some pizza and a piece of pineapple upside down cake. Yummo on both counts. Isn’t this a great view for lunch:

Next – I lose the camera!

Everyone knows this view of Magen’s Bay taken from Mountain Top:

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Mountain Top has been a St. Thomas landmark for many years. They had a fire a few years back and had to rebuild quickly. Yep – it’s now a warehouse.

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I wish they had rebuilt with a little more personality. But, it is what it is and the view is worth it. Plus, with the size of all these mega-ships that come into port; I guess they did need to enlarge things a bit.

We headed to the taxi area and requested a private air-conditioned van for six. It cost us $20 per person for a 2 hour tour. Not bad. They have open air vans, but we wanted the AC and a smaller vehicle so we had our own personal tour.

Hint: If you’re doing your own tour and looking for a taxi in Havensight– walk straight up the main street in the shopping area – at the end are the taxis. (We started heading back to the ship to ask at the information booth. Turns out if we had just turned around where we were shopping, we were 40 feet away. LOL)

We saw part of the city of Charlotte Amalie, then headed up the mountain. Henry was our driver and tour guide, he did a nice job.

The famous 99 steps as seen from the van:

We start heading up the mountains:

Next stop: Mountain Top

See the Ferris Wheel at the top of Paradise Point?

People started getting off at 10:15. We decided to let the crowds go first. At 11:00, debarking was a breeze. We did a little shopping in Havensight.

DW just loved the license plates:

Havensight is quite convenient for those that don’t want to venture far from the ship.

Next - Some of us decide to do an island tour.