Day 17 - Fri 12/21/18 - Almost Half Moon Cay

We woke up to a little rocking motion of the ship. As soon as Angela turned on the bow camera, I could see significant wave action and the bow flag was stretched out tight. The Oosterdam was directly ahead of us. After showering I went out on deck 11 and could see large waves breaking against Half Moon Cay. The Oosterdam rotated into the wind as we approached, and we, too, did the same. Then I saw the Oosterdam slowly head off; shortly thereafter we did the same and the Captain came on announcing we would be unable to land. In his later Ask The Captain session he further clarified how hard it was for him to decide to cancel the port call. He also noted that the supply vessel was also unable to land. So we ended up having a slow sea cruise today on our way to Nassau, our next port of call.

We've been on other cruises which have missed ports and the Cruise Director and his staff have to scramble to add additional onboard programming. Personally, I decided to use my 5 Star Free Spa Day benefit and visited the thermal bed twice and the hydro pool once.

A speaker scheduled to lecture on the next segment, Major John Simak gave a weak presentation on Caribbean heroes. Lance gave an encore presentation on Ship Signs and a Port Talk on Nassau and the Atlys group performed ballet pieces on the Lincoln Center Stage. A real treat was a second performance by Doug Funk and his improv mptu style using guests from the audience. It was really funny. All in all it was a relaxing day.

We also picked up our collage picture that we had printed on aluminum. It is really pretty.

We're looking forward to visiting Nassau tomorrow and it's our first ever visit. Stay tuned.

We woke up to a little rocking motion of the ship. As soon as Angela turned on the bow camera, I could see significant wave action and the bow flag was stretched out tight. The Oosterdam was directly ahead of us. After showering I went out on deck 11 and could see large waves breaking against Half Moon Cay. The Oosterdam rotated into the wind as we approached, and we, too, did the same. Then I saw the Oosterdam slowly head off; shortly thereafter we did the same and the Captain came on announcing we would be unable to land. In his later Ask The Captain session he further clarified how hard it was for him to decide to cancel the port call. He also noted that the supply vessel was also unable to land. So we ended up having a slow sea cruise today on our way to Nassau, our next port of call.

We've been on other cruises which have missed ports and the Cruise Director and his staff have to scramble to add additional onboard programming. Personally, I decided to use my 5 Star Free Spa Day benefit and visited the thermal bed twice and the hydro pool once.

A speaker scheduled to lecture on the next segment, Major John Simak gave a weak presentation on Caribbean heroes. Lance gave an encore presentation on Ship Signs and a Port Talk on Nassau and the Atlys group performed ballet pieces on the Lincoln Center Stage. A real treat was a second performance by Doug Funk and his improv mptu style using guests from the audience. It was really funny. All in all it was a relaxing day.

We also picked up our collage picture that we had printed on aluminum. It is really pretty.

We're looking forward to visiting Nassau tomorrow and it's our first ever visit. Stay tuned.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 1 - Wed 12/05/18 - Boarding the Nieuw Statendam

Boarding day was finally here. I slept most of the night with the exception of 1-3am. We started our day by walking up to the market to do a little shopping before returning to our B&B to enjoy a leisurely breakfast with some other passengers who are sailing on the ship. We checked out of the B&B and walked 10 minutes to the port shuttle pickup point. After a brief wait, a shuttle bus came and soon we were transported to the cruise terminal to begin the boarding process. At the terminal we made our way upstairs for our first time checking in as 5 star Mariners. We were initially given a boarding group number 15, but that was taken away by the check in person. We didn't have to get new photos taken, and we were escorted over to the VIP lounge where we met up with Sherita who we had traveled with before on the Zaandam. She was keen on being the first one on the ship, and when the boarding door opened we were off like a shot and she got to be #1 paying pa
Read more

Day 2 - Thu 12/06/18 - At Sea to Cartegena

Jet lag continues to be an issue for me and I was wide awake at 3am. The ship has been amazingly smooth and quiet even in this 10th floor forward SPA cabin.   Breakfast in the LIDO was quite nice. The lines were short and I got my eggs cooked to order (over broken). On this ship the accompanying mushrooms and English Bacon are at another station so I'll need to readjust my routine. Our Cruise Critic gathering at 10am was well attended by around 100 people out of 200 who signed up. It was a good chance to put screennames and faces together. Our first lecture was delayed by 1/2 hour due to technical difficulties hooking up the presenter's MAC. Eventually a PC was used to save the day. I'm sure the technical staff will get this sorted out. The first speaker was a radio host who spoke about the various people he had interviewed. Jet lag got in the way of enjoying this lecture. After a very nice sushi lunch in the LIDO, Orlando Ashford, President of HAL spoke on the cha
Read more

Day 18 - Sat 12/22/18 - Nassau, Bahamas

Image
Overnight it was a bit windy. At 11pm the ship was rocking and when we woke up, the ship was circling off the entrance to the Nassau harbor. While we were the first ship to arrive, the pilot wasn't willing to come out at the scheduled time. Once he was on board we proceeded into the harbor, rotated 180° counterclockwise and backed into our berth just after 8:30am. We were shortly followed by the Disney Wonder and then the Carnival Victory, and RCCL Enchantment of the Seas. Later in the day, the RCCL Mariner of the Seas joined the lineup. We planned a self guided walking tour for the day starting with a walk to the Queens Staircase and Fort Fincastle. The fort is also marked by a large water tower. We approached the fort using Prison Drive and missed the staircase. However we used it to go down. We then walked through the main part of town using Bay Street and out to Fort Charlotte and Fort Stanley. It about 3 miles between Fort Fincastle and Fort Charlotte
Read more