LIVE from Eurodam Dec '15-Caribbean Collector Cruise

[cruz chic]

Thx for the update. I think Jamaica is scary for most peeps. I thought Falmouth was an improvement. That said, it's a cruise built port so if you don't enjoy that type of thing you won't like it.

[InTheWASide]

Thank you for all of your updates! Do you know if the Signature Suites have also been renovated?

 

They did all the Sig/Nep suites during this same drydock, so yes

[Copper10-8]

.................

 

 

And this is the driver making his OWN lane in the middle trying to get us back to the ship as fast as he could. My eyes were closed for most of the trip back. ha!

 

[ATTACH]371820[/ATTACH]

 

...........................

Good old Japanese Hino mini-buses, the fav on many Carib Islands

[sue117]

Day 4, Grand Cayman

I LOVE sleeping in until I wake up. :) This morning Hubby got up around 630 and went to work out again. I got up and showered (withOUT setting off the fire alarm this time, thank goodness, although I still think they need to put fans in the bathrooms to help dissipate the steam) and we hung out until it was time for breakfast. Weate breakfast (with CRISPY bacon) and waited until our time to head to the lounge to meet our excursion.

There were 4 ships in the harbor today, all tendering in. The shops were pretty busy for sure!

We got on our tender without any issues (And I STILL can’t imagine getting on one of these in an emergency…hot, crowded and crazy scary).

We took a bus ride to the northern part of the island and got on our boat to take us out to Stingray City, a sandbar about 6-7 miles out. It took about 30 minutes to get there and it was a pretty choppy ride out because the wind was very strong.

When we got there we saw 9 or more boats already there. Crazy crowded! Our captain found a spot on the outskirts and anchored us in. There were stingrays swimming all around us. I guess they burrow into the sand usually, but because all the boats were there, they know to expect food. Now, these are “wild” stingrays…there’s no pen or anything, but there they were, swimming around us. And all I could think of was poor Steve Irwin and how he got stabbed by one of their tails!

But the water was VERY warm (warmer than the White River yesterday when we were rafting). The water is only like 4 feet deep too. BUT…I said earlier that it was windy…it was. Very much so and the waves were BIG. It was wild. There are rays swimming around, the water crashing over your head, I was hoping I didn’t step on a stingray and then one of our guides was holding one of the rays and they were taking pictures to sell later. He held that thing for at least an hour. These animals must REALLY want the food the boats give them! I’m still not convinced it’s safe, but we got our pictures taken and it was really need to see them swimming all around! I do have to admit. Totally worth the money we paid for the excursion, even with the weather and the crowds. A good way to spend Christmas Eve.

 

Then we went back to the harbor and back to the bus and back to the shopping area near the tender dock. We walked around a bit, but since we have no desire to buy any jewelry or watches it was a quick shopping trip.

We headed back to the tender and back to the ship. Unlike yesterday, we decided to go up to the Lido to get some food, even though it was 3pm.

Dinner was very nice tonight, our poor server Edy, Since I am picky I have all sorts of directions for him, but he takes it with a smile and I try not to be TOO obnoxious. I got a snowtini at dinner (one of the drink specials) and it was lovely.

Something weird happened after we went to bed, something that we had never experienced on any of our cruises. Around midnight the captain’s voice came on over the speaker IN the room, saying there was a fire in one of the incinerators and he was very sorry, but he was going to be blasting the fire signal, but that no one was in any danger and it was protocol. So not long after there were 6 (or so) long blasts on the obnoxiously loud whistle in our stateroom. Then a bit later he came back on the speaker and said the fire crews were on “scene” and that the fire was just smoldering and all was well with the fire. He said there were cameras in the bridge and in the engine room and they were keeping an eye on it and putting water on the cardboard in the incinerator and it would be fine. He apologized again and signed off.

I’m sure some will be irritated that they were woken up, but I’d MUCH rather he let us know what was going on than not. It would suck more to wake up to the emergency blasts and him telling us to get to the lifeboat decks and us have no idea what was going on. Ok, that’s extreme, but true.

I fell right back asleep, but of course dreamed of cameras in the room and people watching. HA.

 

(pictures are NOT gonna load today, but I'll get them up, you HAVE to see those stingrays!):)

[cruz chic]

Merry Christmas. Thx for the update.

[sue117]

me kissing a Stingray! :)

 

 

The crowd at the sand bar!

 

Stingray!

 

Hubby swimming with stingray (you can see the depth of the water and how these things were just wandering around the people standing around. Crazy!)

[sue117]

As promised, we walked around last night after dinner to scope things out.

 

The bar right outside deck 3 from the dining room (SORRY! Don't know the name of it!!) has a piano and usually some sort of musical entertainment (singer, last night was a violinist) and chairs lined up to listen). The pic isn't very good, sorry!

 

We walked to the Gallery Bar (the one off of the casino, and this sign was there...so no smoking indoors anywhere)

 

Here is a pic of the drink menu in the gallery bar...I'll check tomorrow night to see if it's the same, guessing it is. They have "special "drinks every night (last night at dinner I had a snowtini and today that is the holiday drink of the day as well). But I"m not sure the individual bars have special drinks just for that bar. They might, but since I don't hang out there, I"m just not sure. Sorry!

 

And last, here is where the "one" piano is in the Casino bar (along the side of the casino instead of behind it), and 2 would definitely fit. I asked one of the servers and she said she thought there would be 2...but she could've just been humoring me...you know? Saying what she thought I wanted to hear. But there is definitely room for another one there so they can have dualing pianos.

[dreamerp]

Enjoying your updates. Was the Internet upgraded ? Can you stream movies or is it more suited for email.

[sue117]

Definitely not suitable for movies! Still slow. But there are lots of movies on the Tvs now!

[blueboro]

So, if I read correctly, they now do NOT allow smoking in the casino? If so, that is great news!

[sue117]

So, if I read correctly, they now do NOT allow smoking in the casino? If so, that is great news!

 

Correct. No smoking indoors anywhere on the ship. You can smoke on the back deck of the Lido and on your balcony.

(And of course we are next to a smoker this time...I wouldn't care so much except that it's a CIGAR. GROSS!!! At least a cigarette would be over faster. Every time he comes out onto his balcony I have to come inside. Hopefully he's only on for a week! lol

[sue117]

Day 5, At Sea.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! It sure doesn’t feel like Christmas, but then again, that’s what I hear from friends and family back home as well because it’s been so warm this winter.

I saw a lovely picture of my brother and his family in front of their tree on facebook and posted a holiday note for all my readers on MY facebook page. The internet was very slow this morning, probably because we’re at sea and maybe because lots of people are online (including the crew?) wishing their families back home a Merry Christmas.

Last night there were two midnight masses (Catholic and interdenominational) and I heard they were both quite lovely. The crew also had a Christmas show at 11pm where they sung traditional Christmas songs as well. Again, the crew works very hard and I am so appreciative of them. Without them, the whole cruise experience would be awful.

Hubby’s alarm woke us up this morning…ALARM…what’s up with THAT? On Christmas Day? He had plans to work out, but decided not to. I set off the fire alarm AGAIN this morning. Darn it. But no phone call from the bridge today…I guess they just figured it was the lady who likes to take hot, long showers….but I WAS somewhat expecting the crew of firefighters to badge in the room sine they had the fire last night. lol

Breakfast was good and the ship seemed very quiet at 8am this morning. Guess people were opening presents or sleeping still. Lol

I got a white hot chocolate from the explorations café in the crows nest after breakfast…yum! Then we came back to the room and opened a few presents we had brought with us. (new Hawaiian shirts for hubby with WW 2 planes and ships on them), a DVD or two and a mobile charging device for our electronics).

I sat around today a lot and read. Hubby went to some Windows 10 things, he also did the 5K “walk for the cause” around the ship as well. Then he went and worked out. He was WAY busier than I was today.

I went to the captains talk. It was interesting, but it totally sounded like he has answered the questions 1.4 million times already. Lol. Apparently he is getting off the ship on Sunday and another captain will be taking over and his 2 months vacation will start. Good for him.

Christmas Dinner for us tonight was in the Pinnacle Grill. Living in Texas, we love a good steak and tonight was no disappointment. There was no crème brule, which was sad for hubby. He got it on our last cruise and LOVED the 3 flavor tray that came out. He settled for the lemon tart brule thing. He said it was good, but not as good as the regular stuff he had before.

There was live music all over the ship, but we headed back to our room to relax and wind down from a VERY busy day (ha! That was sarcasm!! Lol).

[sue117]

Day 6, Key West.

 

I have to admit the customs stuff is somewhat confusing on paper, but it turned out to be no big deal. We headed down when we docked, around 720am and were in the first 50 or so people. We went right in and out, and had time for breakfast before we headed out for our excursion.

We were on a sail and snorkel trip…along with 70 others of our friends and neighbors. Lol. Sensing a theme? It was crowded, but still enjoyable. We couldn’t go to the reef, which was disappointing, but whatever. We got there and it was partly cloudy…and the “little reef” that we went to was…um…..not exciting at all. I saw one fish. If you wanted to see the coral you had to dive down about 8 feet. So basically we bobbed up and down in the water for about 40 minutes. Lol

The thing I was AMAZED at was how many people on this tour had NEVER BEEN SWIMMING BEFORE! Seriously. I couldn’t believe it. The water was choppy and they decided THIS was when they wanted to get into the water for the first time? Sigh. There were a LOT of people hanging onto the rope that held us to the anchor. They did amazingly well for their first time, but still.

Not completely sure the tour was worth it, but what else were we gonna do? Lol. We got back to the ship around 1230 and headed up for a quick shower to wash off the salt and to put our stuff down. We grabbed a quick lunch in the Lido and headed out to wander around. We walked the mile to the southernmost point of the continental US, along with 1.2 million of our friends and neighbors. Lol. It was very crowded down there, but we were NOT gonna wait in line to take a pic next to that buoy thing. So we snuck in the side. Didn’t get ALL the words in, but whatever. We were there (And it counted for the geocache).

We saw Hemingway’s house (and it didn’t exactly inspire me to start writing my next book on the ship, but whatevs. Lol). We went shopping in the tourist district and actually bought more than we have anywhere else so far. Go figure. We got back on the ship around 330 I’d say and hung out and watched the late people seeming to not be in any hurry to get on the ship even though they were 10 minutes later. Sigh. People.

Dinner was a “eat off the kids menu” for me, but that was okay. Our dining room steward seemed distracted, but we didn’t hold it against him. It’s a tough time of year to be away from your family for sure (even if they don’t celebrate Christmas!)

Tonight’s show was the “Dancing with the Stars” and 6 of the passengers were going to dance with one of the Eurodam dancers…but yeah, we didn’t go. (no surprise there! Lol). Mr. Stoker read up in the Crow’s Nest and I hung out in the room with a good book.

 

[sue117]

 

This was the captains talk with the captain John Scott and the cruise director Simon.

 

 

The view of key west from the ship(the first time we've been docked on the same side as the pier.

 

I'm not sure I have any more pics that would be interesting to you guys. Lots of me and hubby but that's boring for you. Lol

Is here anything you want to see? I don't usually take pics of my food, but I could if you wanted to see the kids meals. Ha!! :)

[cruz chic]

Thx for the updates.

[Lizzie68]

Thanks for your reports Sue, I'm enjoying following along. Too bad about the cigar smoker, though. I was surprised to hear about the casino being totally non-smoking now. I wonder if this is on all the HAL ships.

[Copper10-8]

 

This was the captains talk with the captain John Scott and the cruise director Simon.

 

[............................................:)

 

Captain Scott appears to be expecting high tide ;)

 

Keep up the great work Sue

[sue117]

lol about the captain's pants.

 

I haven't written up yesterday's notes yet, but I will. But one thing that REALLY stood out was with Captain John Smith, we stood out on the deck during the life boat drill waiting for every last person to get there...about 30 minutes, before he started his spiel.

 

Yesterday, the new captain started his spiel about 10 minutes in...before all the attendance had been taken. After he was done the poor workers were all like "If you haven't checked in, come see me before you leave". I've never done a drill where the captain started before everyone got there.

 

I guess that means no one had better be late getting back to the ship....he won't wait! lol

Don't get me wrong, I was glad because it was hot on the deck, but still. :)

[OVgirl]

Thanks for you review. Just one question, who is the new captain?

[InTheWASide]

Here's a couple pictures that HAL sent to TA's showing off SOME of the changes

[sue117]

Day 7, Ft Lauderdale

We got into Ft Lauderdale early this morning (yes, we were still sleeping). We had an excursion to the Everglades planned, so we got up and ate breakfast earlier than usual, then headed off the ship around 750amish. It was nice to NOT be leaving for good, have to say. :)

We got through customs with no issues and headed out to our bus. We left right on time. Our guide was from Boston, so it was funny listening to her talk about the Everglades with her northern accent.

We got to the place as one of the first buses and headed right out to the airboat. It was overcast, and not terribly warm (but by no means cold either! Short sleeves was still quite nice). We saw one gator who wasn’t very corporative, and we went to a second spot where there was another gator who was happy to hang out at the surface for us to take pics of.

Then we headed in….uh…what? Yup. 30 minutes on the air boat. I don’t know what I was expecting, wait, yes I do…more than 30 minutes and 2 short stops…but we didn’t pay a whole lot, so it’s all good. The place is a “rescue”, so they had lots of other reptiles and animals that people got as pets then realized they couldn’t care for…panthers, gators, lizards, pythons, a skunk named Flower, a hawk with only half a wing, huge tortoises, leopards, fennec fox, etc. They took donations for their rescue center.

I got bitten by an ant while I was sitting on a bench (which comes into play later).

We headed back to the bus after a few hours and dropped off some people at the airport and then back to the ship.

It was probably around 1 when we got back, and the line was LONG for security and check in. We got to bypass the long security line (and I heard someone ask “Why are they special”. Hee hee). And we went right back onto the ship. Nice.

We went up to the Lido and ate a nice lunch. Overall it was a good day, nothing to write home about and I probably wouldn’t do that excursion again, but it was nice to get off the ship and have a few hours pass by.

As I said before we did the life boat drill thing, but it was quick compared to last week. The employees hadn’t even finished taking roll when the captain started talking. After he was done the poor employees were trying to get the late comers to go over to them so they could be marked off. Last week the captain said several times over the loudspeaker that he wouldn’t start until it was silent. Lol

Dinner was lovely, we have the same table and the same tablemates (and stewards) that we had last week, so we settled in nicely and had some good conversation.

[sue117]

I'll scope out who the captain is and get back with you. I can't put my hands on it at the moment. :)

 

Day 8, At Sea

Wow was _I_ lazy today…watched 2 movies on the TV (the New Annie, which was awful in my opinion…there is only ONE Miss Hannigan and it’s Carol Burnett! Lol) and followed that by the new Cinderella (And ANY Cinderella is ok in my book…I’m a romance author after all! Ha!). It was a dress up night, and we went in and had another lovely dinner.

So I mentioned I got bitten by an ant yesterday…well my skin is very reactive and today my ankle was swollen and hot and painful. Grrrrrr. I soaked it then put ice on it and it seemed to help, but hopefully after a good night’s sleep it’ll be better! Darn bugs!

Seriously, I did butkus today. So I’ll keep this wrap up short. :) But I’m on vacation, I’m allowed to lay around and be lazy…right?

[sue117]

Day 9, Grand Turk

We arrived around 8 and we had breakfast about then as well. A Regent ship was docked RIGHT next to us and made the Eurodam look HUGE! Lol. We got off around 930 and walked around the shops a bit. The area was built just for cruise ships. It’s very clean, no riff-raff, and well maintained. We met our excursion people and off we went on an “open air” bus. My favorite ride so far!

Before this island, Grand Cayman was my favorite, but Grand Turk took over! This island is beautiful! There are some places we passed on our way to the kayak place that were obviously poor, but the island is lovely. It’s 7 miles long and 1 mile wide. There are donkeys and horses wandering free all over the island. Our guide told us that sometimes when the kids are bored they will try to catch a donkey and ride it. I bet that is hysterical to watch!

Anyway, we arrived at the kayak place and with short instructions we were on our way. There were about 20 in our group, which wasn’t too many at all. We kayaked around, picked up a jellyfish hiding in the sea grass, then headed to a beach where they had a kayak filled with water and sea animals. We got to hold a sea cucumber, sponge, conch, and many others. The guide even demonstrated how to break open a conch shell and eat it. Hubby tried it, but I don’t eat seafood. He said it tasted a bit sweet. We then got back into the kayaks and went a bit into the opener ocean (don’t get worried, it wasn’t REALLY the open ocean), just enough to be in a few small waves. Then we headed back.

This was our favorite excursion so far. We kayaked for about 2 hours, walked around a bit, could take shells home if we wanted, the guide was funny and knowledgeable, we got some sun, got away from the hoards of people for a bit…all in all well worth the money spent.

Back to the shops built around the ship. There is a beach there AND a pool built around Margaritaville. It seemed very safe…but also very confined. If you want to experience the island and see a bit more, it’s always good to drive around. There was a couple in front of us waiting for an elevator who said they got a taxi (for $8) to a smaller beach they’d read about online ($10 to rent a chair) and it was almost deserted. Their pics were beautiful. The taxi guy also gave them a tour around the island. I would say it’s much safer to do that here than on some of the other islands for sure.

I’m thinking Grand Turk would be a great place to get a vacation house so I can write…now to convince hubby! Lol

We got back and showered and ate some lunch (the salads in the Lido are awesome. They now use bowls instead of plates and you can get a nice large salad which is very fulfilling. I still haven’t tried the NY pizza place and I want to do that at some point for sure).

Hubby went to work out and I camped in the room, waiting to see if I could see some whales (as the captain said we might) as we went around the north side of Grand Turk. No luck on the whales (darn it!). We went down to dinner and there were only 8 people in our area of the dining room, needless to say, service was VERY fast! Lol. Our table mates decided the day before to do the Lido for dinner, 2 tables around us that were together were eating at the Pinnacle…so it was a scarce night in our area.

We were so fast at dinner our room hadn’t been made up for nighttime yet (and we HAD to find out what the towel animal of the day would be! Lol) so we wandered around, ending up in the Neptune Lounge. We turned in our baggage forms and I did some work online for a bit. Then I went down to the room and hubby went to the back deck of the Lido to read for a while.

All in all it was a good day.

 

I'm gonna have to do pics when I get home, internet just isn't fast enough to do them here! Sorry!

[cruz chic]

Thanks for the update. Enjoy your day today.

[sue117]

Day 11, St Martin

It was an early day for us. I had to be down at the Casino Bar at 8:15, so we got up, showered and headed down to breakfast. (Yummy as usual).

I met Mark the Marketing officer in the casino bar and the other 6 people who were going to do the tour. Last week there were 16, this week only 7 of us. I told Mark that I had an excursion I had to meet at 8:50, which is a huge bummer because I missed most of today’s tour. :( I get why they do it while the ship is in port, but if I had know before 10pm what TIME it was today, I MIGHT have been able to get on a later excursion. But 30 minutes before I’m supposed to meet doesn’t give me time to change it. *shrug*. I missed the engine room (I think), but I DID get to go up to the bridge and check it out. The captain took a picture with us and I hung out and took some pics for half an hour before I had to run.

I met hubby at the gangway with all our stuff and we headed off. Today we did the “America’s Cup” sailing race. There were about 50 of us, but we split up into 3 boats. We were on the “Stars and Stripes”. Each person decided if they wanted to actively help or just hang out. Then we were “trained” on what we each were doing, and we headed out. We had about 45 minutes of aggressive sailing in the waters near the ships. It was a lot of fun (AND our boat won!). All-in-all it was a great excursion, although we didn’t see much of the island.

There were 6 ships in port today, so it was hopping. The shopping was pretty high pressure, and I have no idea if the beach was “free” or not since so many people were “selling” seats and umbrellas. There wasn’t really anything we wanted to buy (i.e. lots of jewelry and junk like usual), and we headed back to the ship.

We ate lunch, and hung out on the veranda until we left around 3. We pushed off right on time and headed out. St Martin is a big island compared to some that we’ve been to (NOT PR. Lol). We enjoyed sailing by it on our way north.

Tonight was another gala night and we headed up to the dining room. It was semi-empty, but there were a few more people in our area tonight. Surf and Turf for dinner, of course, and good conversation. There were parties all over the ship tonight, the shows were all an hour earlier and there was a lot of live music. The “main” party was at the Lido pool. We had hats and noise makers in our cabin waiting for us after dinner.

And the best part? Clocks went back an hour tonight, so we got to sleep an extra hour! :)