Day 8 - Panama Canal Two Ways

The highlight of this cruise for many passengers, including Norm and Barb, is the partial transit of the Panama Canal. Having already done this four times ourselves, we could probably give the lecturer a hand on the bridge…


The Captain promised us sunshine and somewhat cooler temperatures in the Canal than yesterday in Cartagena. After the promised early start - we were up at 6:15 - we headed into the first chamber of the Gatun Lock. Of course, since we don’t have a covered balcony on this cruise, what happened? The Captain lied!!! It started to drizzle, of course! Then it started to rain, making it impossible to stay outside to watch. Fortunately, it didn’t last long and by the time we were set to be raised to the first level, it had pretty much ended, but it was extremely humid. Fortunately, the Captain is a better boat driver than he is a weatherman!! Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of the ship to see the line crew at work; that had to wait until a little later.

Once through the lock, we anchored in Gatun Lake and the tenders were dropped to take those participating on shore excursions into the Colon Yacht Club. Well, that’s something of a misnomer, since there were no yachts to be seen, and there wasn’t much of a yacht club building - in fact there wasn’t any building there at all. It was more or less a dock with an awning and a walkway, and a parking lot for the tour buses. So calling it a “Yacht Club” might have been a stretch, but who would want to visit the Gatun Parking Lot??

We actually had a bus ride of over an hour to get to Gamboa, where we boarded the tour ‘ferry’, a three-deck tour boat that held about 300 people, for the balance of the transit. This bus ride avoided the tour boat having to cross Gatun Lake; instead we boarded just where the Chagres River meets the canal. The importance of the river is that it and its many tributaries combine as the main source of water for the canal and it was from this river that the initial flooding was done to create Gatun Lake.

Once on board, we set out and our guide explained that we were the “lead” boat in the “southbound convoy” and would be sharing our lockage with the ship that was behind us - an NYK car carrier that looked like a floating apartment building with no windows. When full, it could carry as many as 3,000 vehicles. This became the highlight of the day for all of us, even those of us who have transited the canal before. It is a completely different experience to be sitting at the front of a 1,000 foot long, 109 foot wide lock, watching a 900 foot long, 106 foot wide ship come in behind you. Most of us were just hoping that its brakes worked and it would be able to stop in time, with help from the 8 mules guiding it, before it turned our boat, and us, into driftwood!. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of the perspective we had on that ship…

The entire trip went from the docks at Gamboa, through the Gaillard Cut, the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks, under the Bridge of the Americas and out into the Pacific, thus completing our fifth, and Norm and Barb’s first, transit of the Panama Canal.

Shortly after we got underway the bar opened, giving Norm an opportunity to compare Panama’s beer to Colombia’s beer (same beer, different can) and the staff served a very nice buffet, complete with water (YES!) and soft drinks. Since it had been AT LEAST four hours since most of the people onboard had eaten, there was a mad rush for the food. Fortunately none of the boat staff were injured in the ensuing stampede! You would think these people had never seen food before!

Overall, it was a great day and a very interesting new perspective on the canal. From that angle, it really looked like the Trent-Severn canal system locks on steroids, and it was really neat to be up close and personal with lock walls and gates that are almost 100 years old.

One of the other highlights was seeing some of the work that has already started on the new locks at each end of the canal. These are set to open on the centennial of the canal, in August of 2014 and will be able to take post-Panamax ships, meaning anything that is currently afloat or on the drawing boards that can’t go through the current canal system. The locks will be 80 feet deep, 1400 feet long and at least 200 feet wide…Personally, we can’t think of anything that could be that big and still float! Well, we guess there IS Oasis of the Seas, but…….

And for a bit of a ‘blast from the past’, the featured entertainer this evening was Adrian Zmed. Anyone remember ‘T.J. Hooker’, the cop show that starred William Shatner? Well, Adrian was the rookie partner with all the hair (no, not Heather Locklear, the other one). He has done quite a bit of performing in Broadway musicals (especially ‘Grease’) and put on a really good show. He performs both here and on Island Princess.

Day 7: One Short Day in the Emerald City!

…with abject apologies to the composer and lyricist of ‘Wicked’…


Cartagena - the one place on this cruise that none of has been before. Not for lack of trying, though. The last time we had it on an itinerary in 2006, Crystal’s insurance company decided it was too dangerous to stop here so Curacao was substituted . The government and policing situation has improved markedly since then, especially in the tourist cities, so nowadays there’s no such problem.

Our walking tour really didn’t take us around too much of the old city area, but we did visit the walls, and a handicrafts/jewelry/ticky-tacky souvenir market, and then a church and a museum, and a jewelry store…do you see a pattern developing here? The only funny thing was that none of the major jewelry stores in the Caribbean - Diamonds International, Effy and the others - and most notably Colombian Emeralds International itself, were nowhere to be found. And for the length of time we had to stop, it would have been a real rush if anyone was looking for emeralds, so none of us even bothered.

The original fort built by the Spaniards in the 1500s

The old city is really quite beautiful and would be an even nicer walk around if there was a little more time and a lot less humidity (the natives, though, have not been complaining since there’s been more rain than usual in the area since November and they were happy for the break). The architecture, Spanish colonial, is very pretty. Many of the buildings are painted, some have ornate balconies and many of these are covered with beautiful flowering bougainvillea bushes.

The Cathedral

And just so everyone knows our streak is still intact - there's scaffolding on the altar of the cathedral!!!

Although we didn’t do any shopping, Norm decided to try a local Colombian beer. He decided it tasted quite ‘light’, sort of along the lines of Budweiser, we guess, but pronounced it ‘Okay’.  We can now say we have been to Colombia. Oh, and we did buy a pound of “Colombia’s Finest”. Coffee! We bought coffee!

Off to the Panama Canal tomorrow. It will be an early start as our transit through the Gatun Locks is scheduled to start around 7:00. Tour time is still up in the air depending on when we get to the Colon Yacht Club.



Days 3 - 6 My How Time Flies……….

…when you’re having fun!!!


We arrived at Coral Princess without incident and in time for lunch on Friday afternoon. All Larry’s hard work paid off as he was presented his shiny, black Elite Boarding Card, while Monica had to make due with her “Newbie” Blue Card. What’s the difference? In Princess’ loyalty program, the Elite Level is for those guests who have completed at least 15 cruises (or sailed 150 days) with Princess. In other words, the most loyal clientele, or people they really want to keep coming back! Princess’ agent education programme rewards those who complete the entire 20+ courses with Elite membership and all the benefits that come with it. Our experience in the first few days is that the staff do take notice of the Black Card, as one of the ladies in Larry’s office said they would!

Back to Friday…….. We arrived at the ship about 1:30 and were quickly through check in and onboard. The ship is 91,000 GRT and carries about 2000 passengers. It’s not the biggest ship we have been on, but it’s close. After lunch we spent the next two hours exploring, getting our bearings and, most importantly, sampling as many of the bars as we could! The ship is well laid out and has a really “comfortable” feel to it; something like what you would expect from an “old school” country club. Lots of comfortable chairs, leather and dark wood paneling. It’s very much like we suspect the original passenger liners would have been set up. Our Mini-Suite on Deck 9 is not overly large, actually it’s a bit smaller than we had anticipated, but it is comfortable. Of course we were not terribly impressed with the twin beds we found on arrival, but our cabin steward quickly fixed that. The only real drawback to the cabin is that Princess puts these suites on a lower deck with the “standard” balconies on the decks above, meaning the balcony has no overhead cover, making it useless in the rain and very hot in the sun. Not to mention everyone above is looking down into our balcony. No fooling around on the balcony this trip!!!

The sitting area in our mini-suite

Since our first cruise in 1988, we had always been among the youngest on any ship we have sailed. Of course the reality is we haven’t been able to say that for several years. Until now that is! While we are not the youngest by any stretch (even allowing for the half-dozen children onboard), we are certainly not the oldest. By several DECADES! Given the type of cruise, ten days to the Panama Canal in early January, we expected an older crowd, but we don’t think there are ANY walkers left in the Continental US. They are ALL on this ship! Along with several dozen wheelchairs and more electric scooters than we have been able to count! The average age of the total passenger load, children included, has to be close to “Deceased”! And that 91,000 GRT we mentioned previously? That is the combined weight of the passengers! Larry and Norm look like under-weight and under-fed orphans next to some of the people on this ship. And the less said about the 300 pound “gentleman” sunning himself by the pool in a Speedo, the better for all concerned. Larry’s eyes are still not fully recovered from stumbling on this guy at the pool yesterday!

It is now Monday and we have settled in to a nice little routine with Norm and Barb. We spent most of the first two sea days at the Spa Pool, one of the two main pools and the one that is covered. The first two days were windy, cool and periodically damp, so “cover’ was important. Here is the Lotus pool area, quite nice, and even better as we saw that Toronto had 15 cm of snow and a temp of -13C!

The food - of importance second only to the bar, of course - has been as well-prepared and presented as we had heard, but the selection in the main dining room is not quite as varied as we had hoped. Nonetheless, everything has been quite tasty, and all of the staff (especially in the bars) so far has been very friendly and helpful - pretty much to the same standard that we’ve come to know on Crystal.

Last night we had dinner at Sabatini’s, Princess’ alternative Italian dining room. The dinner is quite an experience, as they give you a menu that lists antipasti, pizzas, soup, pastas, main courses and desserts - and the ONLY things you actually pick are the main and dessert. The servers bring out platters of the other items and give you as much of any of them (or all of them) as you want. Needless to say, PACING is the order of the day here, and doing laps around the deck the day of the meal AND the next day is a requirement to work it all off. Here’s a picture of our main courses, including Norm’s dinner, which we have dubbed the ‘Lobsterfish’ since he ordered sea bass with a side of lobster tail…



No, this wasn't a drink - it was Larry's dessert - complete with a chocolate roll that looked like a straw!

 Of course, we’ve found the bars - even Crooner’s, the martini bar that has on its menu an entire page of chocolate martinis. Barb thinks she has died and gone to choco-heaven!!! Here’s a look at a couple of them, along with a few other pictures we thought you might find interesting:



Norm waiting for his drink to be shaken and poured.  Martini and a floor-show, anyone?



Today’s first stop was Aruba, where there was enough time to either 1) take a short island tour, or 2) shop. We needed to look for a couple of things, so we opted for choice #2 - and hardly bought anything. So we spent another relaxing afternoon by the pool, and walked another few laps of the Promenade Deck…

Not to be outdone by either of his kids, here's Norm with his lunch of Fish 'n' Chips and Guiness...Of course, he had his at a much more reasonable time, unlike Mitchell who ordered it at 8:00 in the morning (see earlier blog posts for more details).  Traditional English Pub Fare lunch was on the specialty menu for today, and of course we couldn't pass that up!
More tomorrow after Cartagena - one place we’ve never been before.

Day 1 and 2 - Pre-Cruise Hotel, anyone?

Firstly, our requisite Thomas photo. Because the suitcases were out for a couple of days before we left, he had a chance to sit in each one as it was being packed, but those pictures are becoming commonplace. So we’ll stick in one of him relaxing in front of the fireplace on the mat that Mom made him for Christmas…

This cruise will be Norm and Barb’s first time to many of these ports and also their first experience with the Panama Canal. Our ports include Cartagena (Colombia), Limon (Costa Rica), Aruba, Ocho Rios (Jamaica) and a stop in Gatun Lake (the Canal) to pick up our tour boat for an excursion through the rest of the canal. So, with that intro done, on to the trip -

You know how cruise lines usually offer pre- and post-cruise hotel packages to extend your vacation? Well, we decided to make our own package…

We left home on Wednesday afternoon to drive to Buffalo. Fortunately the snow that fell Tuesday night had pretty much been cleared up from the roads until we reached Hwy 405 to take us to the border, and the flurries started to fall a bit while we stopped at the duty-free, but otherwise the journey was uneventful and took us less time than expected.

Hotel night No. 1 was at the Millenium, the main features of which were: 1) its location across the parking lot from the Walden Galleria Mall, and 2) being able to leave the car in their parking lot for a nominal charge. Our first official meal of the trip was at the Cheesecake Factory - and anyone who knows Barb or the boys will know that the first stop on our way home will be to pick up a cheesecake for Jason and Mitchell (oops, was that supposed to be a secret??).

Thursday morning brought an early wakeup and a very frosty 6:00AM shuttle ride to the airport. After a standard, uneventful flight to Ft. Lauderdale On SouthWest we arrived at the Hard Rock Hotel at about 12:30, checked in and wandered around for a bit. What a difference from the Millenium!



The pool area.  There's also a sand beach and beach volleyball net.


The hotel is near the Florida Turnpike, so it is a fair distance from the beach, but it has a lovely pool area and a huge restaurant/club campus. You could stay here for a week and never eat dinner at the same place twice. All of the restaurants are quite large, but since we were here on a Thursday, there was no crowd to speak of. We had lunch at the Bluepoint Seafood Restaurant, and, except for two ladies at the next table, were the only ones there.

We met Annette and Abe and some friends for dinner and had a fabulous Italian meal at Martorano’s, a Philadelphia-Italian restautant. Every meal was big enough to share and our waiters had a great time dividing everything up between the eight of us so anyone who wanted a taste of another dish could get some.

One of the waiters went to a lot of trouble to try to split the desserts - 1 piece of cheesecake, 2 cannolis and a serving of Tiramisu - into 8 pieces. It wasn’t the neatest job, but everybody got a share and we all had fun watching.

We’ll be heading for the port to board Coral Princess in the early afternoon. Larry spent much of last Sunday afternoon and Monday working to get Commodore status in Princess’ sales education program. This is supposed to come with a lot of shipboard perks. Follow along and we’ll let you know what they are…

Lazy Days!

After all the excitement of the weekend, Sunday in St Kitts was a pretty lazy day! We were the only ship in town, and with only 490 onboard, it was pretty quiet. We got off and did a short stroll around the “historic (read - shopping) district” but most shops were closed. One of the store clerks told us they are normally closed on Sunday as it is not normally a “ship day”. Well, judging by what we saw, they might as well have stayed closed because we don’t think they covered their costs!!! The remainder of the day was spent reading/snoozing around the pool, followed by dinner in The Dining Room. As luck would have it, we were once again seated with the mother/daughter we had been seated with on the first night. The daughter is also a travel agent and her Mom travels with her a lot, so the conversation was lively and interesting. As a bonus, the service was MUCH improved from our first two nights’ experience there!


Monday dawned bright and sunny (yet again) in Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands, the one place on this cruise we actually booked a shore excursion. The only thing to see on this island is “The Baths”, a volcanic rock formation/beach area about a ten minute ride from the tender pier. Monica was here with Bruce when we last cruised together in 2005 and thought it would be a nice beach opportunity. As you can see from the pictures, it is a very nice area and yes, that IS Larry in the water!!!! After a very lazy afternoon (see a pattern here?) we had dinner in the Italian Restaurant with Rosanna Da Ria, the Future Cruise Consultant onboard. We’re really not sure why we were invited to dine with her, beyond the fact we know her from Crystal, but it was a very pleasant evening of great food and conversation.

Sunset over Tortola - the colours lasted about 20 minutes after the sun went down

Tuesday, horror of horrors (!), dawned cloudy, with a hint of rain in the air! BUT, it was still very warm, so no harm done! We spent the day reading, knitting (Monica) and attending a cooking demo and Larry the Lecturer’s third lecture, Pirates & Buccaneers. Fortunately the skies cleared as the afternoon went on as last night was the “dining highlight” of the cruise, the Poolside BBQ. Silversea does this once every cruise and they truly do it right. They asked everyone to vacate the pool area by 4:00 and then turned the entire pool deck area into an “al fresco” restaurant. As you can see, the variety of food was excellent and it tasted as good as it looks!

Yes, that is a whole suckling pig... and it tasted great!



How's this for a paella pan?



Today is “packing day”, as we leave the ship tomorrow in Ft Lauderdale. The day dawned kind of grey and threatening, but the skies have cleared and as we type this, there is not a cloud in the sky, the wind is calm and the seas are flat. A perfect day! Silversea’s Food and Wine gurus, David Bilsland who is their culinary trainer and Lyn Farmer, a very well-known writer and lecturer on wines, led a cooking challenge where the chefs for the various dining venues on board did an ‘Iron Chef’ style cookoff, complete with surprise ingredients and guests to judge the final products.

 Too bad we’ve been stuck inside packing for part of the day, but it has to be done!

This afternoon marked the last of the guest lectures on board - Larry Klausner did his final talk on writing books or screenplays, and how to get into commercials.  As usual it was very interesting and gave those of us aspiring writers a lot of tips.  After the lecture, Larry, his wife Mary and both of us dropped by The Bar for a drink.  It was fortunate that Monica packed the current version of a project she's been working on because Larry gave it a quick look over and gave her some more tips on what needed to be changed, and how it would be dealt with by producers or directors.  Here's a photo of Larry, Monica and Mary at The Bar:



Tonight we dined in the Asian restaurant, completing our sampling of each and every place to eat onboard. We are staying at Pier 66 in Ft Lauderdale tomorrow and will be meeting Susan for a tour of the boat she is babysitting, followed by dinner. We fly home Friday and after 10 days of sunny and warm, we are NOT looking forward to the cold and snow. But, such is life!

One of the courses in our tasting menu at Seishin

The Dawn of a NEW Era!! (or, Monica Finally Retires!)

Not surprisingly, the Captain was correct and Friday found us anchored off St Bart’s. Since we had been there several times and seen and done all there was to see and do, our day had a rather lazy start. Until we decided to check e-mail………….


On opening Monica’s e-mail, the first thing we found was one from the accountant telling us that Paul and his accountant were disputing some issues. To us, it looked like there “was trouble ahead”. Something we really thought had been put behind us last Friday! While responding to that e-mail, one arrived from the lawyer; “Paul wants to close today. Please call me ASAP!” Okay, so now we are totally confused by these apparently contradictory e-mails, but we had brought a cell phone with us ”just in case”. Problem is that apparently St Bart’s is the only island in the Caribbean with a cell system that is incompatible with most of North America! No signal! Guess we have to go ashore. Unfortunately St Bart’s is a “tender” port (no dock), so “ashore” is a 20 minute boat ride away! After finally getting into town and searching high and low for a phone, we made the call and were advised that all was well and the closing of the deal was set for that afternoon. After a brief stroll around town, we headed back to the ship and spent a rather relaxing afternoon by the pool with our new friends Larry and Mary. All the while wondering what was happening back home!

Our dinner reservation at Stars, the jazz supper club, was at 9:15, so after a very late lunch we headed back to the cabin, opened up e-mail and found “Promark - Closed” in the subject line of the e-mail from our lawyer. We think the huge sighs of relief actually generated a wind warning in the harbour at St Bart’s!!!!!!!!! Needless to say, the celebration of Monica’s birthday started right there and then!!!!!!!!

We returned to our cabin after dinner to find Evelyn, our Butler, had decorated it with balloons, a birthday cake and cards from herself and the Captain wishing Monica a Happy Birthday. Seems like everyone wanted to start the celebration early!

Saturday morning in St John’s, Antigua. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONICA!!!!!!!!!

Monica’s day started with a bang! (No, not that! Get your minds out of the gutter!) When we first met Hyperion Knight (at dinner on Monday) and he found out Monica played, he offered to give her a private lesson. When we bumped into him at dinner Friday evening he reminded her of his promise, so Monica’s birthday started with a private lesson from an international concert pianist! On a baby grand piano, no less! How does one top that?? One doesn’t, so the rest of the day was spent lazing about the ship and spending two hours in the whirlpool chatting with Larry the Lecturer and solving all the problems of the cruise industry in particular (he used to be a Cruise Director) and the world in general.

Monica’s birthday dinner was in the French restaurant, where they serve a different themed “Table D’Hotel” meal every evening, that is, a complete six-course meal, from appetizers to dessert, with no ordering required. Monica decided to pass on the six matching wines!!!! The tables were situated fairly close together and we were beside an older couple from the Ft Lauderdale area. You can’t help but chat in that situation and it came out that the husband was a real “(well-done) meat and potatoes” man who was not a fan of anything exotic. The theme for dinner was “The Best of Burgundy” and included veal tartar, which is minced raw veal, escargot in mushroom caps and VERY rare filet. The conversation went something like this:

(The veal)

What is this?
It’s veal.
But what is it?
Just eat it dear.
Why was it served cold?
It was raw, dear.
(Silence)

(The escargot)

What is this?
It’s mushrooms.
Yes, but what’s in the mushrooms?
Butter. Just eat it dear.
What did I just eat?
Snails, dear.
(Silence)

(With the VERY RARE beef)

What is this, ham????????


Actually he was pretty good-natured about it all and we had a very pleasant evening. By the way, he DID eat everything on each of his various plates, including dessert.  Here's what that looked like:

We finished dinner just in time to get to the theatre for Hyperion’s second and last show, which was great - and even better since Monica could see how he incorporates the tips he gave her in his playing. We ended up with two of his CDs, both autographed.

All in all, a pleasant day made better by the Birthday e-mails from home - even the ones that included the pictures of the snow in Burlington and descriptions of the weather up north. Huntsville even made ‘The Canadian’, the shipboard news sheet, talking about the amount of snow and the dangerous driving conditions. Amazing how much warmer the weather felt knowing it was cold and windy back home!!!

The Freedom 51 Tour!

Although this cruise was booked long ago, with the Promark deal (finally) getting done last Friday, what better way to describe the first cruise of Monica’s “retirement”!


Things did not get off to a flying start for us. Air Canada couldn’t find our reservation in their system!!!! After a couple of phone calls and a bit of computer black magic, we did finally get checked in and at 10:05 we were comfortably seated on the plane. Which is when the problems started! Flight time was 10:35 and at 11:00, as we were still sitting at the gate, the pilot finally told us we were waiting for the last wheelchairs to be loaded. This actually wasn’t much of a surprise, as we were the youngest people on the plane. By at least two or three decades!!!!! Finally we pushed back. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. After almost 20 minutes, the pilot announced we had “computer problems” and would have to return to the gate. The problem was fixed fairly quickly, but by then the pilot was out of flying hours for the day and had to be replaced. So we waited. And waited. And waited some more! Our 10:35 flight finally left the ground at 12:45! Fortunately the ship’s sailing was also delayed (see a pattern here?) by the various inspections a ship has to go through on its first US port stop, so no harm done in the end.

This is our first sailing with Silversea and it is different. First off, the ship, at 36,000GRT, is smaller that anything we have sailed on since our third cruise on RCI 15 years ago. It is also laid out in a rather unusual way, with all of the cabins in the front half of the ship and all of the facilities (Dining Room, bars, show lounge) in the back half of the ship. We have gotten “lost” a couple of times, but we are learning. Our cabin is bigger than we are used to on Crystal, but it is long and narrow, meaning we occasionally get in each other’s way. Again, we are learning.



Silver Spirit at Grand Turk

 One thing that is definitely different is the “make up” of the passengers. The luxury lines, almost by definition, attract an older crowd and we are used to being among the “younger set”, but this one is a little more extreme. It used to be said of Holland America that their passengers were ‘the newly wed and nearly dead”, well this may not be Holland, but we certainly have a very large contingent of the “nearly dead”!!! The ship carries 540 guest and we are close to, if not, full. Of those, we would guess about 400 would be in the 75+ range, with the rest spread out across the spectrum all the way down to the ONE child we have seen at the pool. We’re inclined think Silversea should rename this ship “God’s Waiting Room”!!!


The biggest difference so far has been the food and the service in the main dining room. First, it is open seating, meaning no set time, table or dining companions. The portions are on the “trendy small size”, meaning you almost have to order two of everything, and the selection is much more limited than we are used to, which strikes us as unusual for a luxury line. What has really struck us, though, is the really, really poor service! We had a three and a half hour meal on Monday, and it wasn’t by choice! Fortunately we had a great table, with one of the lecturers and his wife and the concert pianist, Hyperion Knight. Conversation was lively and a lot of fun. Good thing, given how long we were there. We would like to report things were better the second night, but our Moms taught us to never tell a lie! Larry had an opportunity this morning to talk to the Hotel Manager (who’s door is always open) about our impressions. He was very thankful for the feedback, so we shall see what happens.

The first formal night - and Larry's chocolate dessert, complete with Chocolate 'Mouse'!

The cruise itself has been pleasant so far. The weather has been a mix of sun, clouds and showers with enough sun that we are both just a bit sunburned. Yesterday was our first port stop, in Grand Turk. Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 and her 3000 guests were also there, making it a very busy day! As we had been there before, and there isn’t a lot there, we spent most of the day at the pool on the ship. (Hence the sunburn!).

On the Panorama Lounge deck - lots of space and some really big lounges!

One of the things we like to do onboard is “people watch” and the age demographic has made for some interesting observations. For instance, the main bar, which is called, oddly enough, “The Bar”, is closest to the main Dining Room and as a result is packed with “seniors” every night until the Dining Room opens at 7:00 at which point it quite literally empties. At one of the lectures on Tuesday an older gentleman “whispered” to his wife “my new hearing aids work really well”. We know this because he “whispered” it loud enough, twice, for everyone in the theatre to hear it! Which brings us to yesterday on the dock at Grand Turk. Every ship has a “bull nose”, the rounded snout at the front which is there to lessen water resistance and smooth out the ride. As we were walking back to the ship a gentleman going the other way, in answer to his wife’s question we assume, announced in a loud, very authoritative voice, “That’s the ice breaker!”.

The 'ice breaker' with the Queen Mary 2 in the background

Last night we had a very nice dinner at Hot Rocks, one of five reservations-required restaurants onboard. This is something new on a ship (although we have experienced it in the Stone Grill Restaurant in Toronto) in that it is located outside, on the Sun Deck above the pool, and you “cook your own entrée”. You order from a selection of meat and fish and it is brought to you raw, on a slab of lava rock heated to 1800F that you cook it on!!! It’s actually a lot of fun and as you can see from the pictures, you don’t go hungry! This is one of the most popular restaurants on the ship and we may try it again if we can get a reservation.

Dinner at 'Hot Rocks'

Today we are at sea on our way to we know not where. The itinerary says Antigua, one of the lecturers said Antigua, but at his Noon update, the Captain said St Barts. Since he is “driving the bus” as it were, we have to assume the Captain is right. Guess we’ll find out when we get there in the morning!