October 29

Tuesday, October 28

Docked at Grand Turk this morning, cheek by jowl with the Niew Amsterdam, and a long hike to the shore end of the pier. Since we were only here from 7:00 a.m. To 12:00 noon,  I gave it a miss. After breakfast in the cabin, I spent the morning in the shade up on Lido deck crocheting ... well, some of that along with plenty of people watching, just looking at sun sparkles on the water, all with an attention span of ... "Look! Squirrel!" We did get lunch there on deck before the rush of returning passengers. In the afternoon, I did pretty much the same as in the morning except on our own balcony. I think Mark was coing the same in a deck chair on Promenade deck. I do know he complained that, for the first time he hadn't read a whole book today. (Did I ever mention that at least half of one suitcase he brings is all books?) 

The weather was quite warm and humid today, but then that's what we paid the big bucks to come experience. There are quite a few folks aboard who are experiencing sunburn as a result. Later, just before dinner we saw a bright rainbow that only went from one cloud to another. After dinner, Rob reported seeing a ferocious lightning storm off to starboard.

We have such a good table at dinner this cruise! We're just about the last ones out every evening. Tonight we all adjourned to the Wheelhouse bar after dinner to keep the party going. I finally gave up and returned to the cabin leaving the others still sopping up wine and swapping stories.

October 28

Monday, October 28

Up at a reasonable hour this morning, but slow getting out of the cabin because I took time to post yesterday's blog entry and check e-mail. The internet service at sea is always snail-paced. The saving grace is that Mark and I each get a lot of free minutes, and I can use his after I run out of mine.

Today is another gorgeous one to be sailing on the Atlantic! At least it was when I wrote that before lunch. By the time we finished lunch, we were sailing under heavy clouds and occasional rain storms which continued for the test of the day. The ocean, however, remained smooth as glass with the only bits of white water being those caused by the passage of our ship. During the evening there was a small amount of motion as we crossed the Bahamas Trench, but that went away once we got inside the islands. Despite the rain we spent some time out on our balcony as there is enough overhang from the deck above to protect our chairs except in the harder showers.

We had fine time at dinner with one of the couples at our table, Don and Helen from somewhere in Illinois. The other couple, Rob and Leah from London, UK, went to one of the other specialty restaurants for the evening. After dinner Mark and I went up to Skywalker's which is the disco nightclub perched at the top over the stern of the ship reached by a glass-enclosed ramp. They were playing 1970s music, but there were only a couple of songs that I had ever heard before, and all of it had a loud, body-thumping bass disco beat. I was more that happy to leave after an hour.

October 27

Sunday, October 27

Shades of Amtrak, Israel, Delta Air Lines from Barcelona, and even US Airways to Nassau. All have been the scene of damage to whatever walker I was traveling with at the time. Now I can add to the list US Airways from Charlottesville to New York. My new walker on its first trip arrived at LaGuardia minus a screw that holds the right front wheel in position. With the wheel assembly flopping around, the walker was less useful than a 3-legged quadruped. I will say that the US Airways baggage claim agent was as sympathetic and helpful as she could be. Once I got on board the Caribbean Princess, I got the Front Desk folks to send a ship's carpenter who turned up early this morning with his box of miscellaneous nuts and bolts, so my walker is back in business again. 

Our bus from LaGuardia to the dock in Brooklyn had the personality of an Egyptian camel (Frances H will know what that means). She only made very wide turns and complained bitterly every time. Add to that New York/Brooklyn Saturday afternoon traffic and extremely narrow streets with a perfect maze of one way signs, and we had quite a trip with a side trip or two through and around the maze. Fortunately our driver had patience and a sense of humor and must have been a camel driver in a former life.

Mark and I had a lovely long dinner last night at Sabatini's which is the Italian specialty restaurant on board Princess ships. It turns out that if you want a nice, unhurried dinner in any of the specialty restaurants, plan to go the first night as that is the least busy time. As soon as you get to your cabin, phone for a reservation and you can get your choice of times at any of them. Anyway, I had a fabulous Spaghetti Carbonara, and Mark had a veal dish that appeared to  be about half a calf. We had a nice long catch-up-on-news session over dinner.

By the time we finished dinner, the ship was out in the Atlantic, past the heavy traffic shipping lanes and beginning to head south. "Rocked in the cradle of the deep" would have described sleeping last night except for the ship's stabilizers. They did a fine job of cutting the soothing rolling and replacing it with several varieties of jerky motion in an irregular pattern. Ah well, I managed to get a good night's sleep anyway.

Today was wonderfully calm and relaxing. The sea was like glass...not even any white caps or clouds. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon on our large balcony watching, alternately, the ocean and the inside of my eyelids. This evening is a formal night, so we will be meeting our table-mates for the first time in all the personal splendor we can muster which includes Mark's Jerry Garcia wild purple tie.

October 23, 2013

Sorry I never got around to adding photos. I'll get to it eventually.

Meanwhile, in 3 days I'm off again. This time it's a 10 day cruise on the Caribbean Princess from New York to Houston with my friend Mark. Here's the itinerary:

Saturday, October 26.  -   To New York and boarding
Sunday, October 27.  -   At sea
Monday, October 28   -   At sea
Tuesday, October 29.  -   Grand Turk
Wednesday, October 30.  -   At sea
Thursday, October 31   -   Curacao
Friday, November 1.  -   At sea
Saturday, November 2.  -   Grand Cayman
Sunday, November 3.  -   Cozumel
Monday, November 4.  -   At sea
Tuesday, November 5.  -   Houston and home

I like the number of sea days on this one, and since I've been to all of these places, some multiple times, I'm not sure how often I'll even get off at these ports. I do enjoy being on board when most everyone else has gone ashore.