Milestone Celebrations and Other Stuff

 The first segment of this cruise from Bridgetown to Ft. Lauderdale was our 50th Crystal Cruise. It still seems amazing to us to have achieved this level, but it did take 26 years to do it, starting in 2000. As it is a major milestone, it comes with a couple of perks, including dinner with the Captain in his quarters.

Our dinner on November 24th included Captain Birger Vorland on Larry's left, Hotel Director Scott Peterson, and Crystal Future Cruise and Loyalty  Managers Beate Zaderer on my right, and Maria Lopez.

 

The lovely bouquet lasted more than a week 
in our suite.

They do things up right at these celebrations, with individual commemorative programs, the photo and a lovely dinner which included some of Crystal's fine wines. Our butler, Ayhan, happened to be assigned Captain's Quarters as well, so he was in charge of the dinner. Our friend Jiri, the Head Sommelier, presented the wines at the beginning of dinner as he also had to oversee premium wines in the dining room, and each course was delivered in a synchronized service by the six Deck 11 Butlers. Talk about feeling like royalty!

Crystal Society pins are presented to guests achieving loyalty status starting at 5 cruises and working upward in colour and the type or number of stones set into the pin. At 50 cruises, it is a Gold and Two Diamond pin which we will now proudly wear to Crystal Society parties on our future cruises.

We had a fantastic two hour dinner with everyone. We have known Captain Vorland and Scott for a long time. We only met Beate in 2024 but it seems like we've known each other a long time, and we met Maria earlier this year. We talked about all sorts of things - Captain Vorland is a self-professed talker - from previous cruises and memorable events to, of course, pets. Beate's family has a pet cockatoo who she Facetimes with!

It was a lovely celebration but it wasn't over yet. Beate had asked if she could present us at the Crystal Society party later in the cruise. Guests celebrating milestones and those with the highest numbers of cruises are always recognized by the Loyalty Manager at the party, and those achieving round number milestones from 50 up often are presented as well. Beate had only done this in April of 2024 on Symphony for our 45th cruise, but wanted to do it again this time. Another couple celebrating their 90th cruise was also presented.

Another bouquet which is still on our table
almost a week later. They have a great florist here!

That was the end of the milestone celebrations, but there is one perk that keeps on giving. Each guest is allowed one complimentary visit to each of the Osteria d'Ovidio, Umi Uma and the Sushi Bar per cruise. Any additional visits come with a $50 per person charge, just to keep them from being overrun. At the 50 cruise milestone, this charge disappears and you can have unlimited access, space permitting, to these dining venues on all future cruises. You still can only make one reservation online pre-cruise just like everyone else. We'll try that out on this second segment. We've already been to the Osteria once and are going back tonight (Dec 2).

As well as the milestone celebrations, we also celebrated my birthday on board again. It was on U.S. Thanksgiving Day this year, which was also a sea day and the last day of the first segment. Jiri offered a Champagne Lunch and Lecture in the Vintage Room, so that became the celebratory meal. He had also arranged my birthday cake to come with the dessert course. The whole lunch was lovely - we tasted four different champagnes along with the meal and learned a lot about the wine itself.

There were 12 of us at lunch - everyone got a piece
of the cake

A rare 'selfie' - me and Jiri

Barbara and her daughter Jodi from Woodstock. We've
sailed together before on Crystal and Silversea.

There is a jewelry shop on board the Crystal ships called Facets. The main designer they work with is Hubert Gesser from South America. Over the years, we've gotten to know his business manager, Karen, from her stints as a tour escort on shore excursions, as well as Hubert himself. Every couple of months the Facets staff organize a jewelry fashion show to showcase some of the designs and they ask guests to be the models. I had participated in this in September and Gabriel, the retail manager overseeing all of the shops, asked if I'd like to sign up again. There were about 12 of us in the show, and this time I was wearing some rather large opals. Much larger than anything I would ever wear, but it was a fun hour or so.

As we really haven't left the ship much in the past week, I'll post a few photos taken from the ship in these ports, and then get into the good stuff - the Food!

Finally Seeing Tortola

Considering we have stopped at Road Town, Tortola on many cruises over the years, we had never taken an island tour. We had gone to Virgin Gorda a couple of times, and wandered around the port area, but hadn't seen much else. We decided to change that on this trip, and I booked a panoramic drive with a short beach stop. We climbed into our open jitney buses and headed out.

The view of Road Town's cruise pier with us
and Oceania Allura

It was quite the drive, up to 1,400 feet on narrow, twisting roads that weren't always in the best condition, and back down again on the other side of the island. The views, however, were quite gorgeous.

The views from our first stop

Our beach break of about 45 minutes came at Cane Garden Bay. A beach lounger rental was included in the cost of our tour, and the umbrella cost an extra $5 for the two of us. There were already quite a few people there from the local hotels and resorts, and we're sure there were also tour groups from Oceania Allura, who was sharing the pier with us.

Arriving at Cane Garden Bay. You can see why
it is a popular beach spot.

On the beach.

The island in the distance is Jost van Dyke

A last view as we drove away after
our break

Rather than taking the same route back to Road Town, we were driven along the coast for the most part, coming into Road Town from the opposite site from where we left. It was also a very scenic drive.

Coming back down to sea level, you can see how
steep the roads are. It reminded us of the
twisting road on Tenerife a couple of years ago.

It was a nice drive back, as the coast road is in much better condition than the mountain road, and the views of the island and others in both the British and US Virgin Islands were beautiful. It is only a very short distance between Tortola and St. John, which we could see during our drive.

St. John across the water

We had to stop at the Shell Man. Apparently these
folks lost everything in the last hurricanes to hit Tortola,
Irma and Maria, within a couple of weeks of
each other in 2017.

The entrance to the beach area of an exclusive resort.
Sure looks inviting!

The view as we sailed away toward Ft. Lauderdale.

It was a beautiful day and an opportunity to finally see something of the island. We only have one excursion planned for the next leg of the cruise, in Martinique on the last day, so the rest of the blog posts will focus on what we did on board the ship.

I have been working on my travel sketchbook while on the cruise as well as a few other sketches. Here are a couple based on my photos from Tortola:

A History Lesson in Les Saintes, Guadeloupe

This morning we arrived on the island of Les Saintes, Guadeloupe, where it was already sunny and quite hot on our balcony at 7:30. Our shore excursion to Fort Napoleon was in the early afternoon, so we had to make sure we were prepared for the heat and humidity.

Les Saintes is on Terre-de-Haut, one of the smaller islands in the archipelago of Guadeloupe. In 2023 we visited Deshaies on the large island of Basse-Terre. They look surprisingly alike; walking through the town to meet our van transfer was very much like walking through Deshaies, but on a much smaller scale.

We were met at the tender pier by our guide, a former teacher who had studied and taught in England. He was obviously very knowledgeable as he took us through the museum at the fort. Fort Napoleon is on the highest peak of Terre-de-Haut, providing stunning views over the island and its neighbours, including Basse-Terre.

Fort Napoleon also maintains a botanical garden featuring many different species of succulents. The island has no natural water source, so the people and flora have always depended upon rainwater to survive. Now there is an underground pipe from Basse-Terre providing a consistent source of water. The botanical garden is paired with the Jardin Exotique de Monaco, with which they do regular plant exchanges. Not only do they grow protected plants, but the gardens are also home to about 50 large green iguanas, also protected species. We saw one sunning himself on top of one of the outbuildings.

Christopher Columbus was the first European to land on and name the islands of Guadeloupe in 1493 on his second voyage. The Spanish, however, failed to establish a strong settlement and the French took over forcibly, expelling any Spanish settlers left in 1625. Plantation agriculture was carried out under the French West Indies Company until annexation by France in 1674, and there was a booming industry in sugar cane that provided France with consistently huge profits.

The British captured the islands in the Seven Years' War, and in the Treaty of Paris of 1763, France chose to keep Guadeloupe and give up its colonies in Canada to Britain because they were getting so much more economic value from the islands.

The fort was built of wood by the French as Fort Louis between 1777 and 1779. It was renamed after Napoleon III in 1805 and destroyed by the British in 1809. After the Treaty of  Paris of 1814 once again gave Guadeloupe to the French, they began rebuilding with local volcanic stone. This took 24 years between 1816 and 1840. It was a very secure and fully functioning fortification, but was never used in battle.

Christmas decorations are already up
just before Advent starts.

There is a rough path around the fort, where you can see how it would have been a very useful lookout point and defense position.

After our walk around the rampart path to see these gorgeous views, we returned to the main building where we were offered refreshments of some local products - rum punch, fish rolls made with tuna, and finally a cake called Torment d'Amour, or torment of love.

Here in the French West Indies, rum is not made from molasses like it is in the former British colonies like Jamaica, but from sugar cane juice. The juice is distilled right after pressing and comes out as a clear liquid of 70-80% alcohol. The alcohol content is cut by adding spring water in small amounts until the alcohol level is about 50%. In order to make the rum punch, you take a bottle of this rum and add fruit like passionfruit or coconut and spices. Leave it out in the sun for about a week and, voilà, you have rum punch! We tasted a small cup of passionfruit rum punch and it was delicious, but quite potent.

As the main industry on Les Saintes is still fishing, women still prepare easy to pack and eat food for the men. The fish rolls contain whatever fish was abundant in the previous day's catch. In this instance it was tuna, mixed with local herbs and spices and rolled inside of a sheet of dough. It was very tasty.

And finally, the dessert. This is a small cake filled with fruit jam or coconut that the fishermen have traditionally taken with them. In the past when they were out for longer periods in boats that wouldn't hold up well in heavy seas, the men would get these cakes from their wives and eat only small amounts of them each day until they returned. Their wives at home would spend the time worrying, especially when the sailors were gone longer than expected. So the cakes were named 'torments of love' to reflect that worry. Great story and a delicious pastry. Apparently the recipe is available online. I may have to look it up and try it out myself.

After we had our refreshments we walked back down the hill to our transfer van and were driven back to town and the tender pier. As luck had it, a tender was there waiting so we hopped aboard. Here are a few photos of the waterfront from our ride back.

Sunset has been before 6:00 every night, so we've been in port or just leaving as it went down. Here's a photo of the afterglow of sunset with the tiny crescent moon above.

Our next port stop was Plymouth, Montserrat. We did not book a tour, but I had a spa appointment in the afternoon and a special dinner in the evening.

 

Caribbean Foodie Tour #2 - St. Lucia

 Yesterday we ate our way around the island of St. Vincent, today we were driven from Castries to the town of Rodney Bay where our culinary walk took place.

Looking back, it was probably much better that we had to contend with Saturday traffic between the two towns; we were one of three ships in port - P&O Brittania, one of the Aida ships from Germany, and us. Doing anything within Castries would probably have been quite crowded.

The holiday season is here just as it is in the colder climates, although it looks a bit out of place. Here's a photo as we passed one of the larger department stores on our way to Rodney Bay:

Our small group was picked up at the local shopping mall by our guide, Silma. She led us first to a little place just off the main street called Lucian Cuisine. There we were served a 'breakfast' (oh, no, not again!) of salt fish - cod - cooked with onion, garlic and peppers and sandwiched between two small griddle buns. Along with it we had cocoa tea. On the island, cocoa beans are turned into dense sticks of cocoa. Pieces of it are boiled in water until they disintegrate, along with spices like bay leaf, cloves and cinnamon. It comes out really thick but unsweetened, tasting very much like Indian Chai tea.

From there we headed toward a food stand, and on the way Silma gave us a taste of a local treat, sort of a cross between a cookie and a granola bar, called Lababad. It tasted of oats with a zing of ginger, cinnamon and coconut.

At the food stand, a couple of lovely ladies put together a dish for us called Doubles. They have this name because they use two pieces of the tortilla-style base for each one. This is a vegetarian dish made with stewed chickpeas in curry sauce, some hot sauce made from a local version of coriander, shredded cucumber and what looked like cheese, or maybe another veggie. They were a little messy to eat, but quite delicious!

Putting it togther

The finished product. You have to fold one end of the foil up so the sauce doesn't
run out and get all over you. This is NOT the neatest thing to eat. If it doesn't
get on your clothes, it will be all over your chin!

We weren't finished yet! After this we stopped at the Royal Palm Grill and Bar for a local Piton beer for those who wanted one, juice for the rest of us, and something called Provisions. This small bowl came with a small piece of chicken atop some taro root and cooked banana. It was pretty good, too, and not too much. It was actually also lucky that we were there, as we had a brief rain shower while we sat under the corrugated roof.

We still had two more stops to go after this, but they weren't too far apart and close to our pickup point.

Next we visited a lovely private home where we had shared a large plate of tropical fruits. The home belongs to Jasmine, the owner of the food tour company. After we had our fruit course, Jasmine brought us inside the house for a brief look. It is quite beautiful....and available as an AirB'n'B if anyone is interested. It is called Villa Pineapple.

Our fruit plate included guava, canistel (also known as egg fruit
because of the consistency of the golden flesh), golden apple,
passionfruit and tangerine.

The house is just beautiful, both outside...

...and inside!

After leaving Jasmine, we walked only a short distance around the block to our final stop, the Cakes and More Bakery where we tasted coconut turnovers. The small piece each of us got was quite delicious too.

And that was it for our St. Lucia culinary tour. We got back to the ship early enough for me to get the blog up to date and relax a little before our evening events: Captain's Quarters cocktail party before dinner at Beef Bar.

The evening's show is by Salvatore Hasard, who sings in many different voices and plays a number of instruments. That should be very interesting.

We'll be in Les Saintes, Guadeloupe tomorrow, where we will be checking out Fort Napoleon.