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: