Airport Security

One small plus these days is that they are now issuing boarding passes - it seems at random - with "TSA Pre" on them.

If you get that, you go through security without removing anything - shoes, belt, jacket, laptops from case etc.  You still have to put bags and so on on the belt, but it's much quicker ....

We both got that at Fort Lauderdale yesterday but only Elizabeth has it here as we leave Cincinnati.

Our plane seems to be on time - so it's looking good so far today.

Cincinnati!

Here's a room with a view - the morning after the night before!

I've updated the flight tracker details on the blog so they should be true to our rescheduled journey.

The man we spent some hours with yesterday in the first class lounge had numerous business interests (boat builders in Florida, ranch in Montana and he was President of some other firm as well as being the layman in charge of a fire department somewhere in Montana).  Montana, he says, is 500 miles wide and 200 miles high - about the same land as England - but with only 1 million inhabitants and the nearest supermarket is 30 miles away.  He was clearly a died-in-the-wool Republican and related to us the time when he met and spoke with the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in Brussels - he said Breznez was a very well briefed man who was multi-lingual and spoke with him in English - not sure if that meant that the two of them spoke the same language, though - I had to keep asking this American guy to repeat things and then to ask him what he actually meant - for example, a "root beer float" is vanilla ice cream with root beer poured over it!  I told him I had tried root beer only once, had thought it must be an acquired taste and that I thought I might not live long enough to acquire the taste for it!  He said some people do the same with Coke - I checked that he meant Coca-Cola and not 'coke'!

He also boasted that he owned a .38 gun and we discussed our differing attitudes to gun ownership.  He said that the answer to a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun!  I made it clear that guns are very hard to get hold of in the UK and that the weapon of choice is the knife - it involves more personal contact with one's victim!

Just some ….

.... of the lovely staff who have served us so well on these two cruises – Milena from Serbia and Daniel from Argentina in the Wheelhouse Bar and Matteo from Mexico served us occasionally this time and who was also our regular restaurant waiter on our cruise in 2012.

Day 12 - Princess Cays

This is not a fully self-contained island like CocoCay is for Royal Caribbean, but the section at the very foot of the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, joined to the main island by a causeway.  Eleuthera is 110 miles long, but only two miles wide and, at one point, is only 30 feet wide!

Its main claims to fame are that Charles and Diana came here for a holiday in 1982 and it’s apparently where Prince Edward proposed to Sophie Rees-Jones.

We were surprised that, after more than 36 hours of sailing, we didn’t actually arrive there till 9am.  Then it was tendering to the shore which always takes up time.  At the other end of the visit, the last tender back to the ship was at 3.15pm, so those avid water sports fans had to work hard to cram it all in during the relatively short time we were there.

The day proper began in nervous fashion for us – and we believe, most others on the ship.  The toilets started to go out of order mid-evening yesterday and pretty well stayed off.  They finally came back on line – much to everyone’s relief, I’m sure – at about 8.30am.

We had our last balcony breakfast, the sun was up once again as the ship approached the shoreline of Eleuthera.

We had a leisurely move towards getting on one of the tenders as it was clearly very busy with people wanting to get off as soon as they could.  Although we had docked at 9am, nobody got off much before 9.30am.  We waited till 10.50am when we felt that it was all getting a bit more civilised and went to the dining room to get our tickets.  The PA said we had come at the rush hour and that it would take a while to get us away.  We finally got on shore at 11.40am, so it took us 50 minutes from start to finish.  On the way back it was to take us 25 minutes, so overall and hour and a quarter to get off and back on the ship – not good.

Princess Cays was lovely and more organised and developed than on CocoCay.  There were lots of sunbeds and plenty of shady structures to sit/lie under, although we never saw the hammocks.  As before we felt that the shore excursions were expensive, e.g. $35 for 30 minutes in a glass-bottomed kayak for two.  A bungalow for the day (or rather for only a few hours in reality) for four people cost a lot of dollars.

A rare occurrence for us, but we’ve filled in forms to recognise outstanding service on the ship, as some of the staff have been truly lovely – from our cabin steward Marcos from the Philippines to the lovely diminutive Yennie from Peru who is always cheerfully there in the Outrigger Bar at the back of the ship and who remembers what we like to drink to the super Indian lads who served us so well and so cheerfully in AnyTime dining yesterday evening.  An Indian cabin steward from along our corridor whom we spoke to said he always likes it when he gets passengers from “The Mother Country” to look after, as they leave the cabin - and particularly the bathroom - so tidy and suggested to us it was a reflection of the way in which Brits were brought up. Not sure how long that will last now, then!

Day 11 - Sea Day

We decided we would have breakfast in the dining room as this was a sea day.  We weren’t up particularly early but, nevertheless, the dining room was really quiet.  We felt like Lord and Lady Grantham with two waiters standing by us, watching us with their arms behind their backs, waiting to satisfy our every whim!  The minute we put our utensils down or drank a little from our cups, they were there, looking after us.

We gave the weekly pub lunch a miss this time and decided that the restaurant lunch menu wasn’t that exciting either so went up into the cafeteria which had its usual tempting variety of items.

The afternoon was spent starting to pack and reading up some of the things we had promised ourselves we would finally read on this cruise!

This was the second and last formal evening of this cruise.  Adherence to the dress code was, if anything, worse than on the first formal night and about as bad as the only formal night on our first cruise.  Hardly any of the men wore either a dinner suit or a lounge suit as described in the ship’s dress code.  Several were wearing shorts and t-shirts (and many of these were ‘fatties’ who really should have been totally covered up and/or in their cabins!)

I imagine it’s only a matter of time before football shirts/sports vests are worn on a formal evening.  Some men were at least wearing a jacket, but not many were sporting a tie.  Most would not have passed the test for a smart casual evening on Cunard and would probably have found themselves eating in the cafeteria that evening.  All in all, we were fairly seriously overdressed and I began to wonder why I had used up part of my precious luggage weight allowance to bring my dinner suit etc on these cruises!

One highlight of the evening was that the ‘big band’ – such as it is on here – was playing before dinner and we - along with a lot of others – enjoyed some ballroom dancing as part of the evening.

It was all rounded off by the ritual of the Mr and Mrs Game Show in the theatre.  Here they ask for pre-registration and told us they had 28 couples who had pre-registered – who in their right mind would do that, I wondered!

They chose one (Australian) couple who had been married for a couple of months, a couple from North Carolina who’d been married for around 24 years and an older couple who’d been married for over 50 years – also from North Carolina and who happened to be sitting next to us in the theatre when they were called to the stage!  It was the usual hilarious mix of answers to very much the usual questions and we enjoyed it a lot.  The disappointment here is that they don’t then relay it the next day over the cabin TV as they on other cruises.

Day 10 - Cozumel, Mexico

We docked early in Cozumel and had breakfast again on the balcony – all items were correctly delivered this time.

We eventually got off the ship.  Wow was it hot!  We could feel the sun searing into our skin despite having Factor 20 on and we were always keen to get in the shade.  There was yet another duty free shop you had to go through to get on shore and the prices were dearer than at home and there were several ‘samey’ souvenir shops.

Luckily the whole area was really there just for cruise ship passengers, so we didn’t get hassled too much.  We had a beer in a local bar which boasted wifi but, as is so often the case, neither we nor fellow cruisers we spoke to could get into it.  After a quick walk round and a bit of shopping we returned to the ship for a burger/hot dog and fries and then a sit in the shade, reading.

At lunchtime yet another Carnival cruise ship appeared – this time it was the Carnival Ecstasy.  It docked right next to us.  Boarding and leaving our ship was suspended while they tied up alongside.

How many ships does one cruise line need, we wondered.  We’ve seen so many different Carnival ones round and about.  They’re old ships offering a fairly budget experience and this one had fake palm trees in one deck area and was pumping diesel fumes in our direction such that we couldn’t sit out in some parts of the ship.

We left around 5pm and then the highlight of the evening was the Mardi Gras party in the Piazza (atrium).  These things don’t go on that long and the staff here do seem to have trouble stirring up a party atmosphere among the guests.  We also saw our first show on board – just about stayed awake – and it was a very good song and dance show.

We also went – just to watch – a ‘game show’ called “Where in the World?”  The first part was 10 questions long – 2 marks for the building and the place.  We got pretty much all of them – including a wild guess at what turned out to be the Alamo in Texas, but we couldn’t do the USS Arizona memorial in Honolulu.  The most fun happened when they put a photo of Buckingham Palace up on the screen.  Almost no team in the room got it right and the wildly varying answers regarding the building and the country were a damning indictment on the average American’s lack of a sense of elsewhere!

Yesterday also saw us at the top end loyalty event (now that we’re Platinum members!!) hosted by the captain – except that he wasn’t there as he was driving the ship out of Cozumel!  In fact, this will be the longest time we’ve spent on a ship with0out meeting the captain.  We have glimpsed him at the latest welcome party but he hasn’t been visible at any of ‘his’ events.

Some things we’ve noticed on this cruise: the overlarge people seem to have two distinct characteristics when cruising.  First of all, when we get back on board after going ashore, a group of us will get into the lift together.  We usually go back to our room for at least a ‘pit stop’.  The large people seem to press immediately for Deck 15 where the cafeteria is – rather like a smoker who can’t wait to get inside the terminal building after a flight in order to have a fag.  Second, they are quite likely to be found putting food into their mouths as they walk from the servery to their seat in the cafeteria.

Wifi – we found none on either cruise that was both free and accessible.  As for the so-called ‘free’ wifi in bars, we found we invariably couldn’t connect to them and the ‘pay for’ was always limited to one device and unique log-in credentials were given so that access was not transferable.

Excursions – we thought they were generally quite pricey on these cruises.  Quite a number of Americans we met chose to arrange their own – some in advance – rather like we did the first time we went to Antigua.  They seemed to offer better value.  The one exception was the chairlift at Roatán which was cheaper via the ship than on shore.

We’ve also realised that Princess have no formal nights on a 4-night cruise, one on a 5-night cruise and 2 on a 7-night cruise.

We’ve seen some fun T-shirts while we’ve been here – from the unrepeatable such as “I love to f**t” to one with a large arrow pointing to the wearer’s right side with the words “I think he’s gay” in large print.  The best one though by a long chalk is “I don’t need Google.  My wife knows everything.”  We’ve also, after all these years, finally worked out our own system in the cabin to know whose dressing gown hanging up in the bathroom is whose and whose towel is whose when they hang in line – “Lizzie’s Left” – two Ls and “Graeme’s always right”.  Works every time!

Do you like the fake Mayan ruins?!

It takes a Mayan two hours to get 'dressed' for work and an hour to get 'undressed'!

Day 9 – Roatán, Honduras

Mahogany Bay on Roatán, Honduras was a lovely stop.  The bad news about Honduras is that it has the highest homicide rate in the world.  The good news is that Mahogany Bay is effectively a purpose-built cruise stop enclave on what is an island off the Honduran mainland.  Yes, it’s fairly sanitised and artificial, but there are times when that suits quite well.  There is room for two cruise ships to dock and space elsewhere for others.

There’s no free wifi but high speed Internet is offered for $5 an hour or $10 per day.  Compared to cruise ship rates, that’s very good value.  You leave the ship and have to go on to land via a rather nice shop and then you arrive in a paved area full of touristy shops which all seem to sell a variation on the same theme.

There are bars selling 355ml cans of (rather light, weak) beer for $4.75 and there’s food if you want it.  The ship was selling a chairlift ride between the shops and the beach for $10 whereas the price on shore is $14.  Exchange your ship’s tour ticket for a wristband and your $10 lasts all day.  There were queues at times and they do tend to stop the chairlift when people get on and off, so it is slow.  You don’t need it – you can easily walk between the two places.

The beach was lovely but very crowded.  With two ships in port, it was busy but the water was truly lovely – like a slightly cooler than usual bath and there was no ‘Oooh’ moment as you slipped into the water.

Elizabeth had a swim while I minded her things (lockers are available) and then we had a beer each.  After a full morning (we didn’t dock until 10am) we then went back to the ship for lunch.  After that we returned.  This time Graeme had a swim while Elizabeth minded his stuff.

The day did however start where yesterday had finished.  We ordered breakfast in our room and at least three things we had ordered didn’t arrive with the rest of our order.  They soon put that right but it was the first time we can remember that happening on any cruise line.

The evening was a repeat of the Love Boat deck party although it was much quieter than last week (different clientele this week).  We enjoyed watching the dancing and listening to the 70s music and, having seen a few bits of episodes of ‘The Love Boat’, felt a bit more informed.

The not so Xtreme Zipwire experience, according to one of the bar staff!

This must be serious if Graeme is swimming in the sea!