The Cruise II

San Juan

Arrived at 5pm - on time despite re-routing via Freeport Bahamas, we’d been to San Juan before but not during the evening, which is why we booked a San Juan Night Life tour, it turned out to be a serious damp squib. It was scheduled as 2 hrs long and we were picked up at 6pm. We had a drive past a gas station where we were advised that gas was 47 cents a litre . . . and then we stopped at the new Convention Centre just up the road from the gas station. It was closed, but we learned from our specialist local guide, who doubled as the bus driver, that it was fully booked for weddings for five years – very helpful, big deal, thanks.

Then we were treated to a whiz round the town in their rush hour traffic, past the historic fort and to another stop at the Town Hall which evidently had nice ornate high ceilings - but was also closed it was past 6pm and all the civil servants had gone home nevertheless we stopped for a 15 minute photo opportunity . . . this would have been pretty crap even if they were open but closed ??? and I was struggling to get my head around where this fitted into the Night Life tour and thought we’d got on the wrong tour bus.

It was now getting dark so we must be coming up to the good bits soon and just before 7pm we arrived in the town centre, now we got on the bus just after 6pm at the port, had a 10 and a 15 minute photo stop and its now 6.50pm – we’d only been moving for a little over 20 minutes !! The driver advised us the shops were ‘up there and down here’, and told us too be sure to be back in an hour for the ride back to the ship (and so he could collect his tips as we got off). I asked him where the Night Life was and he said ‘up there and down here with the shops’. That was it.

San Juan is much like any other Caribbean Island flogging T-shirts, key rings and associated tosh to the tourists – same crap different island, and shopping was the last thing we were thinking of doing after 48 hours on the ship. Singularly unimpressed, we found a bar on our own; the Independence of the Seas was in port as well as our ship and a few of the European crewmembers were this bar so I guess we’d found the only bar in San Juan worth visiting – and we found it without the help of our specialist local guide - I’m not convinced there is any other night life in San Juan anyway.

We were back in the town square just before 8pm but the bus had gone without us, it was no big deal really, you could see the ship from the town square and we knew we could walk it easy and as the ship didn’t set sail until midnight - we went back to the bar.

I’ve already drafted my letter to Carnival . . . .

St Thomas

The next day we stopped at St Thomas, we’re not into culture and stuff and this place prides itself with selling diamonds at knock down prices – oh yeah . . . we’ve always avoided that sort of stuff and without being too unkind, as nice as it is - same tosh different island.

St Maartin

Next day at St Maartin, last time we were there we were rained off the beach just after we’d paid $10 to rent a sunbed for the day, not this time though went back to the same spot and had a very pleasant day on the beach and a pizza and beer lunch watching one of those Reggie bands.

That was that, it was back on the ship, two days at sea and back to Miami. Theresa topped up the tan and I tried to amuse myself by finding the most absurd signs on the ship that stated the obvious, I particularly smiled every time I came across the fluorescent yellow 8” x 10” sign that advised ‘CAUTION - do not to stand in way of sliding door’, I thought that was great, but then this ship is full of Americans; the instructions on how to open an individual box of Special K breakfast cereal made me smile too.

The mix of passengers on this ship was much the same as the last ship but a few more got tarted up for the formal Captains evenings. I was in the minority in my tux a few of our colonial cousins wore military dress uniform and others in a normal lounge suit and the occasional tie – the others just washed out their T shirts for the occasion.

Our dining table partners were a nice couple our age from North Carolina, they knew straight away that we were English, most Americans accuse us of being Australian, summink to do wiv the accent I fink, they only know what they see on the telly and if you don't talk like wot Prince Charles, The Queen, Helen Mirren or a BBC newsreader does, you can't possibly be English. I suspect our friends from North Carolina had seen EastEnders on a DVD so they got it right first time.

On Friday afternoon we joined 350 other passengers on a sponsored ‘Walk a mile round the decks’ event for the Susan G.Komen race for the cure charity, a US charity affiliated to the global breast cancer research movement that Carnival Cruise lines are supporting under the banner ‘On Deck for the Cure’. The ‘non competitive’ 1 mile walk tht was led by the Captain of the ship and several passengers who are survivors of this illness.

Earlier that day one of the passengers had won $500 on the onboard horseracing event and as well as doing the walk, he donated the $500 to the fund, the walkers were cheered on by a a crowd from the ships crew and a shedload of passengers who were dragged from their sunbeds to support of the walkers. It was a great event that brought a bit of lump to your throat really, it was a real good afternoon which raised over $4000 for the fund. (Www.Komen.org).

Saturday morning we disembarked (got off) the ship so efficiently it was unbelievable, we picked up the car drove north on Interstate 95 and by 10.30am we were checking into the Hilton Fort Lauderdale for our last four days of this jolly . . . . .