Wednesday – (Day 1) Our typical 4am alarm for a 7am flight out, landing in San Juan around 1:30 that afternoon and hanging out at the Marriott Stelaris. Food, service and accommodations were very nice.
Thursday (Day 2) – We were on the sunset deck sipping a cold one around noon. Had some good conversation with a really nice couple (Dan and Betty) from New York. It’s fun to swap stories with fellow cruisers – you learn SO MUCH! LOL
(Dayummmm, this just keeps getting better and better!) Our cabins were ready by 1:30 which was pretty early in comparison to other cruises. We grabbed some lunch at the buffet and headed to our cabin to at least unload our carry on stuff and chill. Remarkably, our luggage was already waiting for us so there was unpacking to be done, not chilling. Muster was at 4:45 and we had dinner reservations at Tuscan for 6:30. Volkan (from last cruise) was recruiting diners at the cruise terminal before even getting on the ship LOL and he remembered us. Pretty cool, huh? Guess we’re just unforgettable (wink).
The food. Ermagerd the food. We started with appetizers (crab cake for Bob and meatballs for me – those meatballs were the size of my fist and there were TWO of them! – I was in deep doo doo from the get go), then soup/salad (Bob got a fagioli he loved and I got the creamy burrata- sigh, so good). We were full before we even got to the entrees. Bob ordered the filet mignon (perfection) and I chose a half order of the lobster rigatoni. Oh! Forgot to mention the bread with yummy olive oil and fresh clipped basil. Hanging head. My stomach is gonna hurt. Ahmet (from Turkey) was our server – he was amazing and wonderful. Great personality and towards the end was joking with us. I love that they can read people and know who they can and can’t have fun with. I asked him what his favorite dessert was … some kind of little donut with pistachio cream filling and vanilla gelato with a cherry sauce. I ate every bite. Every. Bite. Bob ordered a some kind of fig dessert with white chocolate and gelato. After Ahmet left I asked him if he liked figs … “I like Fig Newtons.” I about lost it. Fast forward, he almost licked his dessert bowl so I guess he liked it.
We came back to the cabin, changed and went to the theater for the comedy show – Sam Fedele. He was good. Not OMG fantastic but he made me LOL so I’ll take it. In the meantime we discover the ship has not sailed yet. There is some kind of engineering issue they are working on or something. By the end of the show we had still not sailed. Around 10:30 the captain made an announcement that they were working on a computer issue and he hoped it would not impact our on time arrival in Bonaire Saturday. Hmmmm, sounds like he’s laying the groundwork for that very possibility. This has never happened before. So here I sit at 11:30pm journaling from the balcony, still in port in San Juan.
Somewhere around 11:00 I heard a lady calling out asking if anyone could hear her because she was locked out on her balcony. I heard her several times and assumed she was trying to get the attention of someone in the stateroom. After several more minutes she leaned over the balcony (above us) asking if anyone could hear her. Both she and her husband were locked out. How in the hell that happened I have no clue – neither do they. But they needed someone to call and get a room steward to come unlock the door and let them in! After two calls finally after 11:30 they are now back in their room. Good thing I was out on the balcony journaling huh? So I guess that’s enough excitement for the day. Will see what tomorrow brings!
Friday (Day 3) – Not surprisingly, when we opened the curtains this morning we had the same view as we did when we went to bed. There was no being rocked to sleep last night. The captain made an announcement at 7:30am (which is what woke me up) informing everyone they were still working on the problem and in fact it hadn’t even been identified yet. There was a communication issue between the propeller and the bridge. Before 9am there was another announcement made by the captain saying we were stuck in San Juan for the day and passengers were allowed off the ship to go into the city – back on board by 6pm. Maybe some took advantage of that but by the looks on the ship, most didn’t. We treated it as a sea day hanging out by the pool, reading, eating, napping, etc.
We ate dinner in the cafe since we didn’t see anything on the MDR menu that warranted dressing up for in the main dining room. The stir-fry station was open and we both jumped on that. That’s good stuff. Then we did a few laps around the track, well 11 laps actually which equaled a mile. Working our dinner off … so we could go get some dessert later. Hahahaha. Truth though.
By then it was time to check out the show in the theater. We knew it was one of those broadway shows with singers and dancers, which we typically aren’t too enthusiastic about. So we snuck in and hung out in the back on the balcony just to check it out – that way we could leave and not attract attention if it wasn’t our thing. It wasn’t. And we did leave. The talent is very good. Those kinds of productions just aren’t our thing. However, the comedian from last night, Sam Fedele, had an adult show coming on at 10:30 that we wanted to check out. So, hmmmmmm, what could we do with our time between now and then? Oh yes, we could go hang out at Cafe Al Bacio and get tea and dessert!! They have some of the best desserts on the ship (other than Tuscan and Qsine of course).
Around 8:00 the captain made the announcement that we would be sailing around 8:30. Problem identified and fixed. Woohoo!! Well, 8:30 came and went and we hadn’t left. After 9pm there was yet another announcement explaining that we were third in line to sail which meant we had to wait for the tugs and pilot to be available to leave. Finally around 10pm we left the dock.
About 10:30 we snuck back into the theater to see how this show was going to go. We can do raunchy, but if raunchy is taken too far it isn’t funny to me anymore. We really didn’t know what to expect with this guy. Oh my goodness what a surprise! He was flippin’ awesome! We laughed for an hour. In our opinion he was much funnier than last night. Great show. Great guy. Impressed.
And we’re done. Down for the night.
Saturday – Sea Day. Grabbed some chairs by the pool and planted until a little after lunchtime. By then our asses were screaming. Those chairs are just not comfortable. At all. We relocated to the solarium where the chairs actually have cushions and that helped. For a while. Then the noise got to us so we came back to the room and opened our balcony door to hear the wind and waves. So peaceful. More reading and nap time. We slept so late that going to the main dining room wasn’t even an option so we ended up back at the buffet for dinner, which was fine. We loaded up on salad and got some grilled chicken to go on top. (So we could grab some pizza later on after the show. LOL) Then we did laps up top on the track again to work it off. (Hey, we tried, right?) Rewarded ourselves with a drink from the bar and hung out in the fresh air under the nearly full moon for a while.
About 8:45 we made our way to the theater to check out tonight’s show, called “Uptown.” It was all about Motown. It. Was. Amazing! We loved it. And the theater had standing room only. First time we’ve seen that. Those guys had all these old people up on their feet dancing and clapping by the end of the show. Fun to watch!
Afterward it was pizza time!! LOL Then we came back to the room to get ourselves organized for tomorrow. It’s going to be a long day. We have a tour in Curacao until early afternoon, then two big football games starting at 4:00, then a Super, Wolf, Blood moon with a lunar eclipse starting about the time the second game is over around 10:30. Like I said, full day. Now it’s time to wind down. Crap, just realized it’s almost midnight. Zzzzzzzzzzz
(Note: Because of the delay in leaving San Juan, the itinerary was changed. We would still hit every port but lost our overnight in Aruba. Bummer but could’ve been worse.)
It's a Wonderful Life! 