Cruise

Written at 710pm, Tuesday, 4 September on Crown Princess at 28°58.85′ N, 72° 8.95′ W

Just came back to the cabin, after having spent some time standing as near to the bow as I could get on the Promenade without getting wet. I only came in because we’re actually going to attempt to make it to our assigned dining room and table tonight, for the first time.

Thunder, lightning, waves breaking against the ship (the report on the in-cabin TV says “moderate” seas, which I can believe)…. so nice for a storm-lover like me.
I just wish I had remembered to bring the video camera with.

Written at 430pm, Tuesday, 4 September on Crown Princess at 28° 9.19′N, 72° 2.34′ W

I’ve been joking to my wife that given the past three encounters with road traffic—on Anguilla, St. Thomas, and Grand Turk—have all been in drive-on-the-left regions, driving home from Union Station on Thursday could be interesting.

Sadly, I didn’t do the best job of photo-documenting items of roadgeek interest. My wife hasn’t quite caught on with my odd fondness for photographing roadsigns and license plates. However, once I get reconnected and caught up with the world, I’ll upload a few more photos.

However, for any roadgeeks who might be interested:

San Juan: U.S./MUTCD standards apply, except word-based signs were in Spanish, rather than English.

Anguilla: Signage and pavement markings were very roughly European standard. Both shoulder and center line striping was white (where it existed), warning signs were white triangles with red borders, and the speed limit signs were white circles with red borders. Speed limits were expressed as just a number with no units; I suspect that they were given in mph. No apparent highway numbering, although I did see a couple of street signs. And, overall, the signs seemed much shorter than you’d expect, at least coming from the States.

St. Thomas: U.S./MUTCD standards apply here, with the exception of the relevant changes necessary to accommodate left-hand drive. USVI highway trailblazers are MUTCD-default black numerals on white circles and ovals:

Grand Turk: Pavement markings also followed European standards. Like Anguilla, there are no highway numbers, but street signs are posted. Road signs were a hodge-podge of European and North American standards. I saw several US-style “SPEED LIMIT 20″ signs (including some “SCHOOL SPEED LIMIT 10″ signs donated by various businesses), as well as some round-with-red speed limit signs showing both mph and km/h limits (e.g. “20 mph / 32 kmh”)

I didn’t get to see petrol prices on San Juan or Anguilla. But, I did see gas priced in the mid-to-upper $3.60’s/gallon on St. Thomas, and our tour guide on Grand Turk said that they were paying around $5.50/gallon.

Written at 430pm, Tuesday, 4 September on Crown Princess at 28° 9.19′N, 72° 2.34′ W

Well, after several days of nice weather, we seem to have finally hit some fun.

I’m writing this from the closed side of Horizon Court, one of the buffets onboard the ship, while my wife is in the spa making herself prettier for formal night tonight, and while I skedaddle to let our room steward do her job.

I’m being treated to a fine view of a storm that we’re going through (and presumably attempting to dodge just a bit, judging by our heading). It’s pouring down rain, there are some impressive clouds in the sky, and the Atlantic looks far more active than it has the rest of this trip (leading me to believe that the sea conditions widget on the shipscan channel on TV is broken, because it was reporting “Smooth: calm/wavelets” when I left the room).

There’s a bit more motion in the ship, and up here on Deck 15 there is an interesting vibration I haven’t encountered previously…but it’s not bad. Kind of fun actually.

When we departed Grand Turk last night, the captain announced via the ship’s P.A. system that there were a few clouds on the satellite and we might have some showers. However, I saw when I was last online at St. Thomas that this patch of weather was being modeled to possible form a tropical depression right about now. For some reason, the ship’s crew doesn’t seem inclined to trouble us with the “t” word.

And, for anyone who was wondering, we weren’t anywhere really near Felix. The shower I wrote about at St. Martin might qualify as being associated with Felix…but otherwise, our only knowledge of that storm was what one might have caught on CNN or BBC.

This formal night is supposed to feature a champagne waterfall in the central atrium. I’ve read that it’s a tradition that’s been maintained even in some very rough seas (of which I don’t think this really qualifies). Still, I’ll be interested to see how it fares if the ship is still swaying.

Leading up to the cruise, I have been joking that, given my wife’s and my luck, we would be impacted by tropical weather. I’m kind of hoping that this storm does actually get a name, so I can claim knowing the jinx we live under, rather than having to write that prediction off as cynicism.

Written at 730am, Tuesday, 4 September on Crown Princess at 25°18.19′N, 71°39.32′ W

With our cabin on the starboard side of Crown Princess, we’re treated to sunrises on our balcony during the trip back to Brooklyn:

Written at 730am, Tuesday, 4 September on Crown Princess at 25°18.19′N, 71°39.32′ W

Margaritaville is a bar/pool/beach club located within the Grand Turk Cruise Center complex, and for most folks is the primary or secondary reason for getting off the ship in Grand Turk (neck and neck with making general use of the beach).

Written at 730am, Tuesday, 4 September on Crown Princess at 25°18.19′N, 71°39.32′ W

Grand Turk was definitely the port call where it was easiest to get good pictures of the ship:

Written at 730am, Tuesday, 4 September on Crown Princess at 25°18.19′N, 71°39.32′ W

The view from the bow as we pulled into Grand Turk:

Written 730pm, Monday, 3 September, on Crown Princess at 21°32.75′ N, 71° 11.73′ W

Longer time readers of my blog may be aware that my wife and I have a certain knack for running into bad luck.

While straightening up our cabin before heading out today, I thumbed through our travel documents, and noticed that even though the information we received from our travel agent, and which showed on princess.com indicated that we had a round-trip bus ride between Hartford and Brooklyn… our actual final papers showed we only had a ride to Brooklyn, but that we were on our own for getting home.

Unsurprisingly, this would not be a happy discovery to make upon arrival. The good folks at Guest Services onboard were willing to look into the matter, when I asked, however.

This was a good thing, since my attempt to call the travel agent from Grand Turk was unsuccessful—couldn’t get a line off the island.

Once onboard, I checked back at the desk, and got confirmation that everything was OK, and we were going to be on a bus back to Hartford, saving me either a satellite call to the travel agent, or cobbling together alternate arrangements while in the middle of the Atlantic.

I’m glad I looked now, rather than Thursday morning. However, I wish I had looked closer before we left home.

Written 7pm, Monday 3 September on Crown Princess at 21° 25.64′N, 71° 8.80′W (pulling away from Grand Turk’s cruise peir)

Wow, what a nice little tourist trap Grand Turk is.

Grand Turk is a nice, mostly undeveloped 7 square mile island populated by about 4500 people, most of whom seem to be employed by the Turks & Caicos government and the cruise terminal.

Beautiful beaches, friendly people…but the services geared towards tourists seem overpriced. The fact that you have to walk through a duty-free store to get off the pier is telling. (Note to folks considering a cruise with Grand Turk as a stop—if you’re shopping, better deals are to be had elsewhere.)

We took a late horse & buggy ride, consisting of a taxi ride from the pier, and then a lap around the town. It was nice—just the two of us, and our guide was very chatty—but admittedly, the town isn’t particularly economically vibrant, and that might be off-putting to some. We probably should have tried for an earlier tour, since Cockburn Town appears to shut down at 4:30.

Most folks seemed to partake of the beach, pool, grills and maragaritas at Margaritaville, adjacent to the pier.

We’re happy to have made the island’s acquaintence, and if we have need of a “get away from it all” locale in the Caribbean, Grand Turk will be on the list (admittedly behind Anguilla)…but if we go cruising again in the Caribbean, we’ll probably not view Grand Turk as a must-do port call.

Written 7am, Monday, 3 September on Crown Princess at 20°52.31′N, 69°36.01′ W

As planned, we went to see Rocky Horror playing on the MUTS (”Movies Under the Stars”) screen last night.

It was only a small group of folks who went up to see the show, and of that group, about half left fairly shortly into the movie (thankfully including one obnoxiously loud teen who started to freak when he saw what was under Frank’s lab coat).

The spacing of the seats (lounge chairs scattered around three decks) would be nice for watching a normal movie, but the layout combined with sounds from the party just aft of us and the lack of a live cast pretty much precluded audience partici….pation.

Or, to phrase it another way, Rocky audience participation is strange when you’re the only one attempting to do it.

I’m glad that our first encounter with the MUTS screen was with a movie my wife and I know so well. It would have been a little bit frustrating attempting to watch a movie we were wanting to see for the first time, given the plexiglass safety barriers obstructing the view, and party noises interfereing with the audio.

Despite that, the experience of sitting outside with a movie playing and a few stars and a moon being visible despite all the light pollution was nice.

It would be cool if, at some point in time, a Rocky live cast got together and did a cruise, along with a critical mass of audience to get participation going.