Cruising The Caribbean - The Holidays At Sea

Spending the holidays on a cruise is not for everyone but we enjoy it once in a while. There was no stress decorating or last minute shopping for things for dinner or to wrap and put under a tree. We do take lights with us though that Bob strings around the mirror in the room and/or the window if we have one. (We bought LEDs so they don't get hot.) And we have a door decoration that we hang on our stateroom door (hung with the sticky putty that doesn't leave a mark).

Our two weeks aboard the Neiuw Amsterdam was spent cruising the Eastern and Western Caribbean. Christmas Eve day we spent enjoying the sunshine and water at HAL's private island, Half Moon Cay. Christmas Day was spent at sea but we enjoyed a special dinner and of course the caroling and activities that surrounded the arrival of Santa.

We didn't quite make it to the midnight service on Christmas Eve. We were really tired and had enjoyed the performances of several choirs made up of crew members and considered that our "midnight" celebration. Christmas morning offered another opportunity for attending church service and we enjoyed it much more being awake.

Several highlights along the way were watching the welcoming committee at Cozumel in their colorful costumes. Later in the evening on the open back deck a mariachi band performed for us.

The sail-in to San Juan, Puerto Rico is always spectacular. The ship sails past the old fort, San Felipe and gives you a fantastic view of the fort as you enter the port of Old San Juan. The ship docks right by the old town and there is a great opportunity to explore the area without having to go too far. We didn't do much exploring this time but did try to see if we could figure out things that may have been damaged by the hurricanes. Where our ship was, everything seemed to be okay but we knew that not that far away many were still suffering the effects of the storm. Hopefully the ships being there were adding some relief to the economy.

In Jamaica Bob had booked us a day pass at a resort not far from where our ship docked in Montego Bay. It was a nice day off the ship and enjoying the small beach area at the resort. It also included a buffet lunch. It wasn't the kind of place I'd want to spend a lot of time but for a day, it was nice.

By the end of the cruise decorations were disappearing, being stored away for another year. The good news was that except for two strings of lights and a small door decoration, we didn't have anything else to pack up.

It was time to move on to Key Largo but it was a bit of a cool reception. The cold front that was freezing out the north and much of the south had arrived. It would be a while before we could shed sweaters and long sleeves.

Cruising The Caribbean - Changing Ships

Cruise lines have started something that has made it very convenient for us with some of our travel arrangements. If you are able to carry off your own luggage you can exit the ship early in the morning. The early morning window of time worked out well for us and we exited the ship right after breakfast. We made the phone call for our parking garage shuttle pick up and hoped that we wouldn't have to wait too long.

To our surprise our ride was there quickly and we were soon on our way to the Miami parking garage to pick up our car. Smoothly and quickly we were on our way. We needed to go to my son's house and get my new contact lens that my eye doctor had sent before continuing on to our next ship and setting sail.

Contacts in hand, hugs from all the grandkids and we were on our way to Fort Lauderdale to board our ship for our next cruise. This one would be a holiday cruise and include Christmas and New Year's. We chose Holland America because it had been our experience that they decorated the ships enough to make it truly feel like the holidays.

We parked at the cruise side of Park N Fly located between the airport and the cruise port and within minutes, we were shuttled to the Nieuw Amsterdam. Embarkation was smooth but I think that was partly due to the fact that we were a little later than usual in arriving. We weren't all that hungry so we
went about booking our specialty restaurants and the spa thermal room for Bob. After a quick light lunch, we sought out our stateroom and found it to be clean and in good order.

The rest of the afternoon we spent looking over the ship and acquainting ourselves with the changes that had been made. The Nieuw Amsterdam had just come out of dry dock a week ago where they had refurbished much of the ship. The smell of new carpeting was strong and as I watched the carpet pil as new carpet does, I was thankful I didn't have to be the one to keep running the vacuum.

Some of the changes looked nice others I thought had taken some of the old world charm away and replaced it with more sleek modern looking furniture and decorations. But the Christmas decorations were throughout the ship and Christmas was only a day away.

Cruising The Caribbean - Norwegian Escape

Over the rest of December, 2017, after our return from the river cruising my husband (the travel agent of the family) had planned two cruises in the Caribbean. The first left from Miami, the Norwegian Escape. This was only our second time to cruise with Norwegian. We had taken a short cruise a couple of years earlier on the Norwegian Sun and enjoyed it so we thought we would give Norwegian another try.

The Escape was newer and larger than the Sun holding over 4200 passengers plus crew. Embarkation was a bit hectic but always expected. There are few times when you board for a cruise that there isn't a wait or crowds or lines. Because we were so close to the holidays, there were more kids than usual which always adds to the energy and noise level but certainly makes the cruise more entertaining. (If you want a cruise with no kids, chose a time that is not near school vacations, that is a longer duration and farther away than the Caribbean or Mexican Riviera.)

What followed our boarding though did not get us off to a good start. As expected, our rooms would not be ready until afternoon. That is normal procedure for most ships. Usually we would head to a place to eat lunch--preferably the hamburger place or a pizza stop on the ship, out of the busy bustling buffet. Before doing that though, we though it would be a good idea to get our reservations in at the specialty restaurants. That's where the chaos began.

Lines were long and crowded into a small space. We managed to finally get a dining package that gave us three specialty restaurants (there were at least eight to choose from) and find reasonable times to schedule our dinners.

Always looking for a bigger TV.

Seeing the chaos at the dinner reservations line, we thought we'd better check out the spa quickly. Bob likes the thermo packages that many ships offer and often there is a limited number. We did the required tour and asked about the package. It was quite pricey and he decided to pass for this one week voyage.

Lunch--finally. But we had to eat in the buffet as we didn't find a quiet place anywhere else. I would soon learn that a quiet place was an oxymoron on this ship.

Ah, but the announcement came that our rooms were ready. Anxious to get rid of the backpacks we were carrying, we headed for our room. I had already given myself a pep talk about the room. After the upgrade to a suite on the riverboat, I knew this was not going to be as luxurious as that. What followed after we opened our stateroom door though was thoroughly not expected.