Travel Blog: Leading the Parade

According to Larry's office site, we will be one of six or eight ships in Ft Lauderdale on Sunday morning. At the moment there are four of them, including us, inhabiting this part of the Bahamas Channel. We are in the lead, followed by Allure of the Seas and one of the NCL ships, while off in the distance in front is another ship too far away to make out which line it is. The bottom line is that there will be something in the neighbourhood of 20,000 people getting off ships, most of whom will be heading to the airport!! Which is why we are flying home on Monday!!! Unfortunately the boys have to be back at school Monday, so the Ortofskys will be among the throngs!!!

Our last post we mentioned that Thursday night was Lobster Night in the Main Dining room and they sure didn't disappoint! Lobster in several forms was had by almost all (Monica had Rock Fish) and it was very tasty indeed.

One of the problems with this itinerary is that they try to cram what really is a 9 or 10 day cruise into 7 days. The result is we arrived in Grand Turk, our last port, at 1:00PM Friday. On the positive side though, everyone slept in Friday morning!!! Except Norm and Barb though. They were awakened at 9:00AM by a phone call from the Head Maitre D'Hotel apologizing for the hidden walnuts in Jason's pancakes on Thursday. He was very apologetic, assured Barb something like that would not happen again and then offered to pay for our dinner at Sabatini's Italian Restaurant last night to make amends. Fortunately Jason suffered no lingering after effects, eating more than his fair share of lobster at dinner Thursday!!

The facility at Grand Turk was built by Carnival Corp a few years ago and is really nothing more than a large beach facility with a Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville Bar at its center. Ships from virtually every cruise line visit here and we have been here twice previously, on Crystal and Silversea. When we arrived, Oceania's Marina, their newest ship, was already there, so the beach was a bit busy. We found a couple of beach chairs under some palm trees and Monica spent a couple of hours snorkelling while I alternately read my book and snoozed. Yes, it is a tough life.

All these fish in water that was no more than 4 or 5 feet deep

Barb had booked the boys on the FlowRider surf simulator for later in the afternoon so at 4:00 we wandered over there and watched them try and kill themselves!! All-in-all a very restful and relaxing last port afternoon.

We enjoyed our last afternoon at sea sitting on our balcony and watching the waves, such as they were, go by. For our last dinner on the ship Saturday evening we are reprising our visit to the Crown Grill, the steakhouse onboard. If the last time is any indication, we will walk in at 6:30 and waddle out sometime around 10:00!!! Tomorrow we will be off the ship by about 9:30 and will be spending Sunday and Monday in Ft. Lauderdale. The Ortofskys will be off the ship early and joining the thundering herd heading for the airport.