Day #4…Tuesday, February 3, 2015

St. John’s, Antigua

Antigua and its sister island, Barbuda, are located in the center of the Leeward Islands, in the Eastern Caribbean Sea.   Antigua, the largest of the Leeward Islands, is 14 miles long and 11 miles wide with a total area of 108 miles.  The climate averages 75-85° year-round and only averages 45 inches of rainfall annually.  The currency is the Eastern Caribbean Dollar (XCD) but the U.S. dollar is accepted throughout the island.  English is the primary language for the population of 85,000 people.  The island has 365 beaches, miles of fruit groves and beautiful azure waters.

Our Princess ship, the Ruby Princess, docked at the port of St. John’s, Antigua’s capital city.  We ate a light breakfast and headed to the pier to meet our excursion group heading to the Shirley Beach for a day in the sun.  Northwest trade winds kept the temperature comfortable with low humidity.

Dennis was disappointed that the water was too sandy and stirred up to snorkel today.  After spending 3.5 hours at the beach and sampling a taste of jerk fish with rice and beans, we headed back to St. John’s to stroll through the streets of shops.  Several local cafés offered a place for us to use free Wi-Fi but we experienced only limited reception and will try again tomorrow to have better internet signals at our next port of call.

After dinner this evening, we were again disappointed that the theater was full twenty (20) minutes before show time and we missed the 8 P.M. performance of the magician and comedian, Jeff Peterson.  He has a later show tonight but since we are getting up early to enjoy the port of call of St. Lucia at 8 A.M. tomorrow, we retired to our cabin and will not be staying up to be entertained by Jeff Peterson at his late show performance. 

Day #3…Monday, February 2, 2015

Sea Day Heading to Antigua and Barbuda

We awoke early and readied ourselves for a busy day at sea.  We have several lectures that we want to attend today.   “Hutch” is the port talk presenter and has an excellent knowledge base for providing us with updated information.

Our first port talk covered the Caribbean island of Barbados.  We than attended a port talk for Trinidad and Grenada.  Tomorrow we will be arriving in Antigua, our first port of call for five consecutive port days.   We have scheduled a beach break excursion with our friends, Bill and Stella, for tomorrow’s main activity.

Later in the afternoon, we relaxed in the sun at the Terrace Pool on Deck 14.  That area of the ship is more secluded and private and offers an atmosphere conducive to reading and napping.

Tonight was the first formal night and of course, Dennis and I do not enjoy very many of these evenings.  Bill brought his tuxedo for this trip and was ready for a very sophisticated evening.  After dinner Bill and Stella, Ann and Ruben and Dennis and I attended the Princess dancers Broadway Showtime performance.  Then we headed to the Explorer’s Lounge to listen to the Irish comedian, George Casey.  All seats were taken for his show but we decided to stand and listen because he is so talented.  We both agree that he is one of the best comedians we have ever seen or heard.  Evidently, the rest of the passengers felt the same way, since all seats were taken long before curtain time.

We retired before midnight, as we will be getting up early to spend the day in Antigua.

Day #2…Sunday, February 1, 2015

Sea Day…Heading to Antigua and Barbuda

We had a light breakfast delivered to our cabin this morning and planned our day’s activities.  The weather is cloudy and 77° F and does not appear to be a great day to try to get some sun.

Cruise Critic members assembled at 10:30 A.M. in the Skywalker’s Lounge to have a meet-and-greet meeting.  We were introduced to two couples from Ohio. Frank and Judy are from Dayton and Richard and Marilyn are from Marion, Ohio.  They will be accompanying us on two of the private tours that Dennis and I have decided to join.  More than 100 members participated in today’s meeting and several members were organizing bridge games, mahjong and trivia competitions.

We donned our swimsuits and ate lunch by the deck pool but cloudy weather and slight drizzle kept us from getting any tan today.  We attended a port talk on Antigua and Barbuda and then spent the afternoon reading and working on this blog.  We inadvertently missed the port talk on St. Lucia so we will have to watch the televised version in our cabin at a later time.

Tonight we move our clocks forward one hour so we will have one less hour of sleep.  It is also Super Bowl Sunday and the game will be televised here as well.  We will be able to keep abreast of the game and especially the commercials.  We are not rooting for a specific team, so may the best team win!

Bobbie Brooks Wilson, son of the late Jackie Wilson, entertained us tonight in the Princess Theater.  He was a very talented singer and entertainer.  Then we headed to the Explorer Lounge to watch the remainder of the Super Bowl game.  What a finish! 

Dennis placed a bet on the game scores, but was not lucky enough to win.  We set our clocks forward one hour and headed to our cabin to get a restful night of sleep.  We will be “rocked” to sleep again tonight as the ship has more movement than any of our previous cruises.  We are surprised since this ship is about five (5) times bigger than the Pacific Princess and continues to be considerably rockier.  With over 3,000 passengers, we expected the stabilization to be better than most.  We have had no problems with motion sickness but our friend, Stella, struggled at dinner with feelings of seasickness.

Embarkation…South America

Ruby Princess Cruise Ship

Day #1…Saturday, January 31, 2015

Today is the day we will meet our ship and join our friends from Canada on our next bucket trip adventure.  We awakened early, had a light breakfast at the hotel and finished packing.  We added our last minute items into our suitcases to ready ourselves for the hotel shuttle bus that would be transporting us to Port Everglades to meet our ship.

Bonnie has improved her packing efforts and three larger suitcases and a carry-on are the extent of our luggage pieces.  The shuttle loaded four couples from the hotel that are traveling on the same ship.  We talked to one couple from Perth, Australia, who were very, very tired from the long journey they experienced to the Fort Lauderdale area.

Two hours after shuttle pick-up, we arrived at the Pier and were checked into our cabin.  Unfortunately, the shuttle bus ran into traffic delays, congestion and road construction.  The drive should have taken fifteen minutes but took over an hour to get to the pier.  Then we waited another hour in the Princess Cruise Line check-in area until their desk personnel opened for business (an hour later than scheduled). We arrived in our cabin (C422-port side) and we are quite pleased with the premium balcony size.  The cabin itself is comparable to our world cruise cabin and will be quite comfortable for the next seven (7) weeks.

We found a small café on the ship and had a light lunch and then proceeded to unpack our suitcases and organize our belongings so we spend little wasted time finding articles we have misplaced.  A knock at the door interrupted our process, but we were not upset.  Our friends, Bill and Stella, had also arrived and had checked into their cabin (C401) near us and on the starboard side of the ship.  Having large balconies on both sides (port and starboard) will allow us to go back and forth to see the port sites from the best viewpoint.

The four of us stayed on our balcony for the ship sail off, finished unpacking and readied ourselves for joining them at dinner at our assigned early seating dining time and table.   Since we requested dinner seating for six people, we will be meeting another couple joining the four of us at dinner most evenings.

Pleasantly, Bill and Stella and Dennis and I were introduced to Ruben and Ann from New Mexico.  Ruben is retired from the U.S. Navy and so Dennis and he have some stories to share.  It will be nice to get to know them as the days pass by.

The evening theater showcased a welcome by the ship directors’ staff members.  An Irish comedian, George Casey, provided an enjoyable show of laughs galore.  We then visited the international café and had a late-night drink and retired for the night to get some rest and prepare for our next two days at sea,

Pre-Embarkation…Before the Journey Starts

Friday, January 30, 2015

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale in the early afternoon and stayed at the Spring Hill Suites in Dania Beach, Florida.  This was a great location for restaurants within walking distance and shops for buying the items that we needed and had not packed before boarding tomorrow.  The hotel also provides a free shuttle bus to take us to Port Everglades and our ship and provides a great breakfast buffet was included in our one-night stay.  The pool was warm and refreshing and we spent the afternoon enjoying the 77° Fahrenheit afternoon and early evening temperatures.

In the evening we walked to the shopping center across the road from our hotel and stocked up on toiletries, wine and munchies that we would take along on the cruise.  With a K-Mart so close by, we had no difficulty in carrying our extra “goods” back to the hotel.  We ate a light supper at Chipotle and walked back to our hotel and called our friends, Bill and Stella, who will be meeting us tomorrow at the pier.  We met them on our world cruise and they were our tablemates for the whole trip.  Since they are from Ottawa, Canada, they had a much longer journey with several plane changes before arriving in Fort Lauderdale.  We are getting anxious to see them at the pier tomorrow.