The election getaway cruise: Millennium, November 5-12

[Honolulu Blue]

Since I have a whole lot of time before my flight back to the real world, you guys are in for a treat... A trip report of sorts.

 

I'll break this up into several posts.

 

PART 1 - flights, embarkation, first day

 

I checked into my pre flight hotel the day before and shuttled to the airport in the morning. Celebrity chose my flights and they chose United. I got upgraded to business class for my connecting flight to Newark from Detroit. Nice, but less a big deal than you might think. I got an aisle seat, which is never my preference; and the flight was only about two hours.

 

The flight was eventless and I landed in Newark. This was my first time here. Since I had a free lounge pass I used it. It was a decent refuge from the crowds outside. The food options weren't great here. This is one of my extremely rare meal photos:

 

Eventually I got on my flight to "Sunny" San Juan. It was raining there like it had been all day. I still boarded in record time despite that and the fact that my boarding pass was electronic and I had to show it everywhere.

 

I was led my muster station by this lovely lady:

 

This was another hint that perhaps we weren't sailing at capacity.

 

I passed on all offered entertainment and called an early night. We sailed away to St. Thomas.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 2 - St. Thomas

 

We arrived in St. Thomas right at 8 (all our arrivals were at 8 this week and we were on time or early for all of them). We docked at Crown Bay, a dock I hadn't been to before.

 

My previous visits to St. Thomas docked in Havensight, which was a few miles to the east.

 

My planned excursion was canceled the previous night because of that day's heavy rains. So I just went outside, stretched my legs, and did some souvenir shopping.

 

The day progressed. I watched an interesting video on the VOD:

 

You laugh, but it wasn't half bad. It was animated and mostly designed for kids. There were only about 50 legit movies on the VOD. Be sure to remind me to tell you about the other one I watched if I don't get to it.

 

I ordered a room service burger. It was good. I didn't care for all the sauce they put on it. The chocolate cake was really good. It took about half an hour to get to me, which is about average I've found for cruise ships that aren't Princess.

 

We left for St. Kitts. I got some roulette lessons in the casino. Since there was no one else there, Royser the dealer gave me lessons one on one. Some other players stopped by who wanted to play for real. We eventually did. I bought in for $20 and cashed out for $26. Not bad.

 

I bought $220 in slot play and went to the cashier to find out how to use it. I cashed it out for $185. Here's one of my better hits:

 

Speaking of hits, there were a lot of them in the show Boogie Wonderland. I'll cover them in the next post.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 3 - Boogie Wonderland

 

I went to the 7 PM show. I thought it was surprisingly good. Thin plot, but good music excellently performed. Here are some pictures:

 

 

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 4 - St. Kitts

 

We arrived at St. Kitts. I went out to meet my excursion, only to find out that it was canceled. It was decided that all excursions using a catamaran were too risky. Indeed, it was spitting rain off and on. There was nothing better for me to do than explore the Port Zante area. It then started raining again, much harder this time. One of the best discoveries was a free, convenient source of WiFi in the port area. If you can find this coffee shop, you can get some nice speeds. No purchase or login code needed. You're welcome.

 

I did some more exploring and shopping in the port area and headed back to the ship.

 

We had another ship with us, but it was tendering it's passengers in. Looks like a luxury liner. There's a lesson here about money talking, but I'm not sure what it is.

 

I got a call from the MDR. They missed me! Awwww. They wondered if I cared to make any reservations there. Nope. Then they reminded me I could just show up during operating hours.

 

It continued to rain off and on until we left for Antigua.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 5 - COVID and demographic notes 

 

Very little was said or done about our favorite disease. I got free bottles of hand sanitizer in the room. No masks. Fewer than 10% of crew wore masks. Fewer than 2% of passengers I saw wearing theirs. There were mask requirements in some stores I saw, but masks were a rare sight in port by the locals. Some mention of masks in restaurants were made in the newsletters for every port, but I suspect it was enforced loosely if at all. There was no crew suggesting hand washing in the buffet. The sinks got relatively little use compared to my earlier cruises. Crew sometimes dispensed hand sanitizer when entering the buffet and when leaving or returning to the ship. I didn't see any scarlet C's. I don't know where the red zone was. I don't know if there was one. I didn't overhear any conversation about C-19. None of the announcements made any mention of it. I only noticed a normal amount of coughing. In other words, it felt like 2019.

 

I would say about 25% of passengers were from PR. Cruise Director Brittany mentioned that we had passengers from 48 different countries.

 

I never did get an actual count, but it seemed to be far below capacity. The crew didn't seem to have any problems keeping up with us.

[cyntil8ing]

Wash your hands. It’s the right thing to do.

It’s easier when you only have two.

 

Love that song! My family calls it Wash Your Hands or Die. It used to be played at the muster drill.

 

 

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 6 - Antigua

 

This was an important day in the continental United States, but I paid little attention to it.

 

We docked at Antigua and found we had company - the German ship AidaPerla:

 

And the Disney Magic:

 

I didn't have any excursions booked for this port, so I just explored the nearby area. The casino was still there from my visits several years ago:

 

And they seem to have added some more touristy shopping options:

 

The kiddies from Disney (mostly, though we had a few onboard) added some youth and heft to the crowd. 

 

I did a bit of shopping and headed back on board.

 

 

I didn't have any evening plans, but my cabin steward Neves gave me an Effy necklace. No picture; I don't want to spoil the surprise for whomever I give it to. I don't know why I was the lucky one to receive this.

 

My next post is about the offer from Celebrity that I couldn't refuse.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 7 - Almost decent WiFi for an almost decent rate

 

In their newsletter for our day in St. Lucia, Celebrity made an interesting offer - buy 24 hours of premium Internet for $50 (less for those with status; I got 10% off) and get 24 hours free. I didn't prepurchase any Internet because I thought it was overpriced, didn't need it that much, and preferred to hunt around for access if I could find it.

 

At $22.50 a day, I thought this was a decent deal, so I signed up. That was pretty easy to do. While we were docked in St. Lucia, the speeds were kind of OK by cruise ship standards (if you don't count Starlink) - around 2-4 Mbps up and down. But after we left, the download speed remained similar, but uploads crashed to under 1 Mbps. I was always able to stream YouTube videos when I liked, but the quality was up and down. I didn't have any problem with email or Web browsing.

 

This sort of deal might be worth searching for in the future, until the Chief Twit does the full install. YMMV.

 

Back to part 8 and St. Lucia.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 8 - St. Lucia

 

St. Lucia has the most beautiful and lush scenery of any place I've been. This trip just confirmed it. 

 

We got here and I happened to have an excursion to take me out of town and into nature, sort of.

 

The Disney Magic followed us:

 

Despite some on and off showers, this excursion went as planned. And I'm quite glad of it 

 

Our tour guide and driver treated us well. We returned to the port, I did a little looking around, and retreated to my cabin.

 

Before I knew it, we were off to Barbados.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 9 - Barbados 

 

We made it here on time, but I have to say she didn't show her good side on this day. 

 

We had steady rain between 9 and 11, which played havoc with me and my planned excursion. I went into the terminal before the rain started to see some sights and do some shopping. I didn't have my ticket with me. Then I heard and saw the rain. I made the tough decision to head back to the ship while the rain was slackening and bail on the excursion. Of course, once I got to the cabin, the rain then stopped for the rest of the day. Oh well.

 

At this point the app on my phone stopped giving me calendar information. I could not fix it for the rest of this cruise. I had the paper backup and took pictures of them every day, so I was well covered for this eventuality. I continue to advocate for paper newsletters and don't plan to stop any time soon.

 

We left Barbados and then I'll tell you about something that happened that annoyed me more than anything else on this cruise.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 10 - "It was nothing at all"

 

After a somewhat disappointing day in Barbados, I went up to the Oceanview Cafe to eat dinner, as I had for all the previous days.

 

A sign greeted me saying that all the food would be served on the aft end. I was fine with this. It was the second chic night and they might have been expecting fewer people because of it. Or they might have had some staff issues. Or they might have counted heads and figured out they didn't need the forward section to serve the few of us that bothered to come.

 

Anyway, the desserts were supposed to be in the aft section now. I didn't see any desserts. I swept through the open areas twice. No desserts.

 

You're probably saying one or more of three things, and I agree with you on all of them:

 

"You don't need any dessert!" Yeah, but why take them away this one night?

"Ask someone where it is!" Yeah, but why should I have to do that? They're busy enough as it is.

"You can go to the Metropolitan Room or Cafe al Bacio and get a dessert there!" Yeah, but I didn't want to go that far.

 

So, no dessert this evening. It's all my fault. I drank extra fruit juice to compensate.

 

See, I told you it was nothing! 😁

[cyntil8ing]

Did you see/read/hear anything about a Vueve Clicquot Dinner? We board in five weeks, but I think our occupancy may be even lower than yours. There are hundreds of cabins still available. I am saving some OBC to do this, but am afraid there won’t be enough interest for it to run.

 

And I think timing a cruise for Election week was very smart! Years ago, my husband was a candidate in a school board race, and we booked a cruise the weekend after the election. It was great having it to look forward to during those final campaign weeks.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 11 - sea day back to San Juan

 

After the disappointment that was dinner, we continued away from Barbados and toward San Juan. We received the disembarkation instructions.ine was relatively simple - head down to the theater at 7 and they'll guide the self disembarks off when ready. I'll tell you that story in a little bit.

 

The next morning came and I was excited about the Captain's navigation talk. But first I did a little souvenir shopping. I didn't see anything I liked at a price I wanted to pay.

 

Captain Pierre gave a great talk in the theater for the 32 people who showed up. That seemed insane to me. Yes, it's 10 AM, but IT'S THE CAPTAIN! How often do you get to see him speak?

 

The presentation was surprisingly lecture like and even had slides. Here àre some of them:

 

His confession that he was the youngest Captain in the Celebrity fleet surprised me. I could have sworn it was that rock star. Maybe he took that title from her.

 

The one disappointment was that he had to rush off to tell everyone to shut up* and thus had no time for questions. 

 

After I got to the cabin, Neves had what I'm sure he thought was good news - he had a bottle of champagne to give me. As a lifetime tee totaler, I had no use for it, and it would have cost me at least $35 to carry it on - likely more than the contents we're worth. I told him to give it to someone else. Did I notice his eyes were a little bloodshot this morning? Just kidding.

 

The 48 hours of Internet I bought expired, so I turned my attention to the VODs again. I saw something else interesting and free - "The Last Band On Stage". This was the story of the rock band Chicago before, during, and after the pandemic and its resulting lockdowns. I liked it and thought it well worth my time to watch.

 

The weather was beautiful all day, but the sun was setting and I had something else I wanted to do. My next post will be about that something.

 

 

[Honolulu Blue]

27 minutes ago, cyntil8ing said:

Did you see/read/hear anything about a Vueve Clicquot Dinner? We board in five weeks, but I think our occupancy may be even lower than yours. There are hundreds of cabins still available. I am saving some OBC to do this, but am afraid there won’t be enough interest for it to run.

I didn't hear about anything by that name, but we did have a couple of Chef's Tables and some sessions of Le Petit Chef.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 12 - Kristina Wells

 

I decided to spend part of my last evening on the ship with this singer in the main theater. She had performed two shows a few days before with performers from many eras. I didn't attend because I had other things I wanted to do. This one narrowed it down to divas of the 70s - an era of interest to me.

 

I'm glad I stopped by. There were fewer people here than attended Boogie Wonderland several days back. One bonus for her (and me, I suppose) is that most of the entertainers attended this show and sat two rows in front of me.

 

They gave her valuable support and motivated me to dance and sing along more than I would otherwise have done.

 

She put on quite the energetic show. She has a powerful voice and even an enthusiastic kick that she performed a couple of times but I didn't capture (sorry). You'll have to settle for these:

 

That was the last show I saw on this cruise. I'll take the next post to wrap things up.

[Honolulu Blue]

PART 14 - Wrapping things up

 

This brings me back where I started. We arrived in San Juan at 6 AM. Self disembarks were supposed to meet in the theater and go from there. I was the only one that actually went in the theater. The crew member eventually told me they were kicking people off and I left. Imagine my surprise at seeing people already in line by the disembarkation station near the casino. I'm going to assume they're the ones with higher status that wanted to get off early.

 

It wasn't much of an issue. I was still one of the first 30 passengers off the ship. I didn't see a picture scan thing like I had at other ports in the past few years. Instead I waved my passport at the nearest agent and they waved me through. Seriously. Is San Juan always like this?

 

I got in a taxi, got to the airport, made a kajillion posts, and now I'm here. Thank you for following me the whole way through.  I'm free to answer your questions about this cruise.

 

[Honolulu Blue]

I almost forgot... Captain's Club gave me a card and a magnet for my birthday:

[Honolulu Blue]

I'd better explain that asterisk in part 11. When the Captain Pierre told us to "shut up", I meant he led us in a moment of silence at 11 AM on November 11 to celebrate Veterans Day and Remembrance Day. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

[Guest TopoChico]

21 hours ago, Honolulu Blue said:

Looks like it was a wet rainy week but you made the most of it.

[Honolulu Blue]

2 hours ago, TopoChico said:

Looks like it was a wet rainy week but you made the most of it.

Thanks. This was the rainiest cruise I've ever had, but I don't want to give everyone the impression that it rained all the time. It did not. Only embarkation day was an all day soak; the other days had more typical Caribbean showers that lasted a few minutes to a couple of hours and go away.

[Guest TopoChico]

7 hours ago, Honolulu Blue said:

Thanks. This was the rainiest cruise I've ever had, but I don't want to give everyone the impression that it rained all the time. It did not. Only embarkation day was an all day soak; the other days had more typical Caribbean showers that lasted a few minutes to a couple of hours and go away.

Looks like it was a great cruise!

[Honolulu Blue]

2 hours ago, TopoChico said:

Looks like it was a great cruise!

It was! Mine is just one perspective; all the other passengers had their own.

[D. B.]

On 11/12/2022 at 7:21 AM, Honolulu Blue said:

PART 11 - sea day back to San Juan

 

After the disappointment that was dinner, we continued away from Barbados and toward San Juan. We received the disembarkation instructions.ine was relatively simple - head down to the theater at 7 and they'll guide the self disembarks off when ready. I'll tell you that story in a little bit.

 

The next morning came and I was excited about the Captain's navigation talk. But first I did a little souvenir shopping. I didn't see anything I liked at a price I wanted to pay.

 

Captain Pierre gave a great talk in the theater for the 32 people who showed up. That seemed insane to me. Yes, it's 10 AM, but IT'S THE CAPTAIN! How often do you get to see him speak?

 

The presentation was surprisingly lecture like and even had slides. Here àre some of them:

 

His confession that he was the youngest Captain in the Celebrity fleet surprised me. I could have sworn it was that rock star. Maybe he took that title from her.

 

The one disappointment was that he had to rush off to tell everyone to shut up* and thus had no time for questions. 

 

After I got to the cabin, Neves had what I'm sure he thought was good news - he had a bottle of champagne to give me. As a lifetime tee totaler, I had no use for it, and it would have cost me at least $35 to carry it on - likely more than the contents we're worth. I told him to give it to someone else. Did I notice his eyes were a little bloodshot this morning? Just kidding.

 

The 48 hours of Internet I bought expired, so I turned my attention to the VODs again. I saw something else interesting and free - "The Last Band On Stage". This was the story of the rock band Chicago before, during, and after the pandemic and its resulting lockdowns. I liked it and thought it well worth my time to watch.

 

The weather was beautiful all day, but the sun was setting and I had something else I wanted to do. My next post will be about that something.

 

 

 We also do not drink alcohol so when offered  a Bottle of whatever I just request to Trade it for a Lot of the little square Chocolates they have. I take those home and nibble on them between cruises.😉

  If that's not possible I just leave it out by the Elevators for someone to enjoy.