Day 8 - Sea Day

The seas remain calm as we head towards Port Canaveral at just under 20 knots.

The skies are partly cloudy and temperatures reach a high of 75 today. There is an occasional shower that drives everyone inside.

Especially on sea days there are often many games to entertain the guests. Jenga blocks is one of the more enertaining.  Using blocks of 2X4 requires that the shortest players be lifted by parents or others. In a challenge of passengrs vs. Officers, the officers won every time.

Several days ago we watched the rehersals for the tree lighting ceremony. It was perfomed tonight in a very packed Piazza.

Prime rib for dinner. One of the better meals, but service was worse than usual, but we do make it to the 9:30 farewell show.

Bags were packed this afternoon and placed in the hallway before turning in for the night.

Just before departure we get notice from the front desk that they want me to make final payment arrangements.

Quickly cleared up, but just another example of poor operation of the Sky Princess. They somehow screwed up my account.

I'm finishing this as we wait to disembark in Port Canaveral.  In conclusion: the worst ship I remember being on.

Day 7 Grand Turk

We arrive on schedule about 10 AM. the weather remains perfect, high 70's, sunny, with a slight breeze. We have booked a short tour of the island on an open air trolley. We depart the ship early for our tour and explore the shops a little.  There is a Margaritaville here with a large pool. The port district is very clean and appears to have been rebuilt after the devastating hurricanes of 7 or 8 years ago that destroyed most of the islands infrastructure.

Right beside the pier are beautiful pristine sandy public beaches. The water is crystal clear, possibly the clearest in the Caribbean. A few hundred feet from shore the water depth goes abruptly to over 7000 feet. Don't expect too retrieve anything you drop.

Some of our group has chartered a private snorkel trip, others enjoy the beach, we enjoy our tour. Many say this was the best stop of the cruise.

While waiting for our tour there is some unexpected excitement. Several dozen officers and staff, including the captain pass by at a brisk pace towards the beach. The first rumor is that someone jumped from the ship. Moments later it is reported that someone has been caught shoplifting. Two simultaneous incidents?

Ultimately we learn that someone jumped from the pier. Whether guest or crew is unknown. They swam to the beach. The clear violation? They crossed over the yellow line on the pier edge and by jumping in the water avoided  a security check going ashore. Shop lifting? don't know if that is true or not. Possibly authorities caught up with the swimmer in a shop.

Our tour was good. At our obligatory shopping stop some locally made coconut ice cream was delicious. The snorkelers and swimmers also had a great time. With only 1 ship, there were no crowds to fight.

There are many wild donkeys on the island. They enjoy running in front of vehicles and begging for food. They looked pretty well fed.

Dinner this evening is beef wellington. Despite being 10 or 15 minutes late to the dining room, our ser.vice was the best it has been all week.  

Most of the group goes to the production show after dinner. I catch half a set of the jazz band and call it a night.

Tonight and all day tomorrow we will be at sea on course to return to Port Canaveral on Monday.

Speaking of Port Canaveral, it was just reported that Port Canaveral is officially the busiest port in the World. Surpassing both Miami and Port Everglades, cities that previously held the honor.

Day 6 - San Juan

The weather remains perfect, temps in the high 70's with a nice breeze and sunny skies. We elect to stay on the ship today and enjoy the lack of crowds and lines.

As an extra bonus we enjoy several rehersals of the tree lighting ceremony which will be held later in the week. Princess has a new 30 foot tree with programmable lighting that is synchronized to the show. The cruise director for the next cruise will be hosting it as our current cruise director will be leaving the ship when we do.

After all the work to retrieve her dive book, the operator cancelled the dive trip due to rough seas at the dive site. Note that rough seas for a 21 foot dive boat are calm seas for a cruise ship.

Some of the group enjoy a walking tour of the fort. Others enjoy lunch at the oldest restaurant in San Juan, others enjoy the beverages of the local breweries. I enjoy the peace and quiet of the ship

The Silver Ray is docked near by. One of the smaller luxury cruise ships launched in 2024, she carries just over 700 passengers, 10 % of the number of passengers on the largest cruise ships. Not surprising, the fare per person per day is much much higher.

As we leave port the view of the fort is stunning. Seas are slight and the skies clear. Our next port is Grand Turk.

Day 5 St Marten

Today is another busy port. Again we have 5 very large ships in port. We arrive on schedule. We have two "tourist" goals for the day. First is to vist our friend Nick that owns a local restaurant and bar on the beach, probably for lunch.

Second Lynn is shopping for a new watch. She lost her's a number on months ago and has decided on exactly what she wants to replace it.  Research done before leaving home, it is now just a matter of finding a good price.

The ship docks on time. Some of the group has a kayak trip scheduled. Others plan a day at the beach.  We hit every jewely store we see on the way to the Lazy Lizzard. Nick is expecting us and has a table waiting. Good for him, this is a very busy day with so many ships in port.

As we get settled in we note that 80 percent of his guests are returning regulars like us. What better could be said about an establishment. The wings are good. The others arrive. Most of them settle in under the shade on the beach. Some to swim in the warm water, others to just soak in the sun.

After lunch and a few beverages we head back towards the ship. As I often find, the first store we checked wound up being the best choice for Lynn's watch purchase. She easily saved 40% compared to making the same purchase at home.

Usually I will go to a specialty restaurant once or twice to use on board credit. Another failure with Princess. No one has been able to make any reservatons for months. Thanks to including specialty restaurants with Premier class bookings, all sold out for months. I guess you can also interpret that as a statement on regular dining in the MDR.

I settle for second best and and order tenderloin and Lynn orders lobster in the MDR for an extra charge. Onboard credit is lost if not spent.

Several in our group have scuba diving scheduled for tomorrow. Unfortunately Adrienne forgot her dive book, leaving it at home locked in the safe.  For those of you that are not certified divers, the logbook is more important than a passport. On the same level as an airline pilots flight book, or a sea captains seamans log. Without it you can't work.

But all is  not lost. She sends a message to a friend with all the information to turn off the alarm system, get into the house and open the safe so he can send an electronic copy. It works, and she has the documentation to allow her to dive.

After the show I catch a little of the jazz band. Uncrowded, best seating on the ship, and Ok sound.  Unfortunately they don't play until 10 PM and later.

Next stop is San Juan.

St Thomas - day 4

Yesterday we made plans with Brian, Lynn's brother, on where we would meet him. Not an easy task as there are 5 cruise ships in port plus a US aircraft carrier with 4500 sailors on R&R. The ports are busy, the roads more so. As we approach we learn that Princess has encountered another itinerary change. There are 2 ports in St Thomas.  We are now assinged to the other one. After a few text messages a new meeting place is established. Actually to our benefit as we now are at least 30 minutes closer to where Brian and Noel are staying.

The ship is cleared and we are off for the day. The Marriot time share is very nice, but we are unable to get lunch there today. We drive to the nearby Westin resort. The main dining area only has seating in full sun. We decline and instead go to a restaurant near the beach. We were told they serve Hamburgs, just what we were looking for. Parking is scarce and the roads very rough and narrow. Forget the fact that they drive on the left side here. We are taken to the beach location in a golf cart.

Looking at the menu, everything is seafood. Neither Brian nor I can eat it.  We explain to our waitress the we were told they served burgers, chicken etc here. She talked to the chef. Of course he would fix us whatever we wanted.

Lunch was good and we had a nice view of the anchored G W Ford, aircraft carrier. Our nice visit must conclude. We are back to the ship in plenty of time to clean up for dinner.

Yes dinner. As I mentioned earlier there are 21 in our group, including our travel agent. An obscure fact that no one would pass on to us was the fact that when you book as a group with Princess the only dining option you have in 7:30 fixed dining time. No other option is allowed. I say allowed because until a few weeks before sailing Princess wouldn't share that detail with anyone, instead a day or two after someone would make a different dining reservation it would just get cancelled. It was only after many phone calls by the TA did someone at Princess share this little detail. Is it a big deal no, but the way it wasn't handled was very poor.

Service in the dining room is as you would expect with a table of 10 and 11 which includes 4 children. Even made more difficult as half of us switch tables each night to mix up the company. The staff manages to get us served in time to make the  show each night. So far they have been good.

The weather remains excellent. Tonight we head to St. Marten.

2 Sea Days

The seas remain slight, the skies mostly sunny. We are finally underway. Fortunately we have 2 days to make up for the late departure. That will not be a problem, we are cruising at 20  knots, well below our top speed.

We learn more about the delays on boarding day. The ship having spent the summer in Europe had to undergo an extensive Coast Guard inspection, the ship passed without a single citation.

Every crew member had to have a face to face interview with US CBP agents. Passports, visas and seamans logs had to be checked. A time consuming process.

Both of these steps have to be completed before passengers or provision loading can commence.

Having just completed a 16 day crossing, more than the usual amount of provisions had to be loaded. Usually the ship loads 300,000 pounds of provisions. Sunday they loaded 430,000 pounds plus dozens of pallets of Christmas decorations. Just to make it more difficult, some pallets with assembled and decorated trees would not fit through the loading door and had to be taken apart and handled as tree parts instead of trees. The description was "all the parts were just thrown in the hold"

The biggest culprit to slow loading - the fact that luggage was supposed to be presorted on shore so that each cart load would go to a specific area of the ship. Somehow the message was lost and luggage was not sorted causing a big delay when each cart of luggage had to be sorted on the ship. 

As we move south easterly through the Caribbean we can see several other cruise ships headed in the same direction. During the night there was a rocket launch, the recovered booster sits on itś recovery barge, headed back to Canaveral for another launch.

The weather is excellent, typical caribbean weather with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the 70's. The pool is crowded as expected. Some passengers should know better, but get too much sun anyway.

The ship is clean and in good repair. The shower arrangement is one of the better ones I have encountered, but the bathroom overall one of the smallest. The balcony is also one of the smallest. No chocolates on your pillow and so far no towel animals. But they did have a towel folding demonstration by several of the crew members. One cabin steward was the best I have ever seen. He was able to incorporate detail unequaled by his peers. Maybe his 24 years of experience was a factor.

The seas have remained under 2 meters so far. You can feel no motion to the ship.

Our first port of call will be St Thomas. We make plans to meet up with Lynn's brother from Wisconsin that is here for a week.

Nov 30 Sky Princess

From the start this was going to be a cruise like no other. I will be with 21 family members and friends for a 8 day cruise on the Sky Princess. Since booking the itinerary of this cruise has totally changed at least twice. Originally scheduled for the Western Caribbean, we are now headed to the eastern Caribbean. A month or so ago they changed the ports of call, and most recently, just within the past few weeks they have changed port times. 

Needless to say this has caused chaos for those that had made plans at any of the ports. fortunately for me I did not get caught up with any scheduling issues like some of my fellow passengers.

A couple of days before sailing I get a notice from Princess that boarding will not start until 1 PM because of additional clearance and inpections required because the Sky Princess was coming from a foreign country. At least they told us ahead of time. OK for me as I just stayed home untl after 11, in fact I didn't even start packing my suitcase until Sunday morning. The drive to off site parking was uneventful. The lot was very busy with 5 ships leaving Port Canaveral today. Our luggage is loaded and we are off to the terminal.

The line for security is long, winding back and forth outside the building, across the street, and up and down the sidewalk. Even though it is long, it does move, slowly. There is equipment for about 5 lines through security, only two are functional, probably another result of the ineffectiveness of our federal government. Once past security, it takes a few minutes to get checked in and to have ship security check our photos. It is basically just a walk onto the ship once past security in the terminal. All in all from parking the car to entering our cabin was just over 2 hours.

In addition to the dozens and dozens of pallets of provisions, there are another 2 dozen loaded with christmas trees and other holiday decorations. Our scheduled departure time comes and goes. The captain tells us we will be leaving about an hour late. It actually is closer to 3 hours late.  Loading the ship was the issue, again a process primarily controlled by the host port not the cruise ship.

No changing clothes for dinner tonight. No one has luggage yet. How bad can I be?   Everyone understands, we are all in the same boat, literally.

Our group has 2 large tables in the dining room. Service is slow, but that is to be expected on the first night. We finish in time for the 9:30 show. A juggler, Charles Peachock, from Orlando. Very talented, an excellent show.

We will spend the next 2 days at sea with our first port of call St. Thomas, that is unless Princess changes it again.