Hey, Captain, Can You Find a Smoother Ocean???

As we mentioned earlier, this trip was always going to be light on excursions, a sort of “been there, seen that” trip as we have been to almost all of these ports at least once, or twice, or more, on previous cruises. So why, you ask, did we book it? Vista is a new ship, having only gone into service in August, and since we had not been on an Oceania cruise since 2017, Larry wanted to see what had changed with Oceania since then. Add in sunshine, warmer temperatures than at home in November, plus Monica’s birthday, and here we are!

 The only “new” port stop on this trip was the first one at Great Stirrup’s Cay in the Bahamas, NCL/Oceania’s “private island”, which is only about 1 KM west of Royal Caribbean’s Coco Cay. 

This is a day at the beach with excursions heavily weighted toward things like zip lining - RCI claims its is the longest in the Caribbean - jet skis and the like. For our day there were ten zip lining excursions and six jet ski excursions scheduled at different times through the day. Now, given that even with about a dozen children onboard, the average age of the guests is probably somewhere over 80 years, we were not entirely sure where all the participants were going to come from, but there they were on the schedule.

The zip-lining tower behind the lagoon and
hundreds of beach chairs!

In the end we never found out as, after bobbing around for an hour, the Cruise Director announced that it was too rough to run the tenders, so we were leaving for San Juan. Apparently the company that runs the tenders to the island told the Captain that the afternoon forecast was for heavier waves, so while they could get everyone ashore in the morning, getting them back onboard might be a problem.

 After bobbing around for another hour while they retrieved the staff who had gone ashore on the first tender, we set sail for San Juan. The Captain had announced we would sail west and then make a left turn at ???????? (he has a bit of an accent, and we were out on the balcony) and sail south to the Bahama Channel. Turned out that ???????? was Nassau as we discovered 90 minutes later when the ship quickly slowed down, and much to our surprise we were looking at the Paradise Island hotel complex! After a couple of hours of bobbing around, while slowly steaming in circles, we once again sailed off into the setting sun. We found out later they had to do a medical evacuation.

 

An unscheduled view of Nassau's harbour. It was
quite windy and stayed that way.

After about 48 hours of very bumpy sailing in very choppy seas, which even had us feeling a bit queasy, we sailed into San Juan harbour under sunny skies. This is one of the more impressive ports in the Caribbean as the harbour entrance is guarded by the massive, and very impressive looking, Fortress El Moro, with its batteries of old cannons pointing out over the ramparts. Of course, we were not the only ship in town, with Carnival Celebration and the newish Sky Princess and their combined 8,000+ passengers already docked. All you really need to know about the Celebration is that it has two enormous waterslides and a functioning rollercoaster on its top deck!!

 

Given that this was our third visit to San Juan in the last twelve months, last March on Silver Moon, and last November on Regent Splendor, we did not having anything planned, but after two days of bumping up and down, we did want to get off and stretch our legs. That, and a visit to the Walgreens pharmacy across the street from our pier for a couple of small purchases. In March we had done a “foodie” walking tour through the Old Town and the plan was to retrace part of that to El Convento Hotel for lunch, but a very late breakfast, and a reservation in Ember at 7:00 PM for dinner, changed that plan. Instead we visited the cathedral, one of the oldest and most impressive in the Caribbean, and then just followed our noses through the Old Town and back to the ship, breaking the 10,000 step mark along the way!

Old San Juan. The red gate on the lower left used to
be the only entrance to the town. The yellow building
is the Hotel El Convento and the Catholic
Cathedral is also on top of the hill.

 

Christmas decorations are starting to go up...

...even inside the El Convento

The main altar of the Cathedral

We retraced some of our previous tour and found the Plaza de Palomas, or Plaza of the Pigeons, which is a small park with a childrens' play area. You are allowed to feed the pigeons in part of the park, so there are literally hundreds all around. These 'pigeonholes' may have been put there on purpose...

Someone had also put some handcrafted decor
on the trees for colour

The city wall seems to be everywhere. This
is in a small park near the waterfront

The next few islands became “in-port” sea days. St Bart’s was a tender stop (again), and while they could operate the tenders, we found out later that they had to keep moving the tender pier from one side to the other as the winds were variable. By the time they got all the tours off it was after Noon, and given it was a very long tender ride for not very much to do on shore, we decided to take a pass. Never mind that by 2:00 when they finally opened up the tenders to anyone not on a tour, we started getting rain showers about every 20 minutes, it really wasn't even worth trying to get ashore.

What is there to look at but one private yacht
after another?

The view from the ship toward Gustavia

Next up, Dominica, which has maybe three things worth seeing that we had already seen before (see a pattern developing here?), So after a short walk up and down Front Street, we spent most of the afternoon on our terrace, away from the very crowded pool area. 

 

The local tour transport - each one painted differently

One of the more colourful buildings in town

 The furthest point south on this trip was our stop at Bridgetown, Barbados. There a number of places to visit on the island, and we have seen them all, some twice! The harbour is enormous, we were one of five ships in port, and were docked the furthest out from the terminal building. We think the bow of the ship might have actually been outside the harbour wall! We discovered the other four ships were on turn arounds, disembarking one load of guests and embarking, and re-provisioning, for the next cruise.

From the sublime (tiny Emerald Azuura, capacity about 150) to the
ridiculous (huge P&O Cruises Avira, capacity about 5,200)

Knowing how chaotic the terminal area would be, and that getting a taxi into town would probably not be easy……………

As the sun was going down

We left our berth behind sister ship
Oceania Insignia right around sunset

 

Next stop Grenada, where we thought we might walk up to Fort George, which overlooks the town, and take some pictures. After a hard climb up a VERY steep and uneven staircase, we discovered it was closed for renovations until 2024!!!

St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, an imposing
feature of the St. George's skyline

Just in case we didn't know where we were again,
beside Celebrity Silhouette

Again, we sailed away right after sunset

After these rather restful ports, we had an all-day tour in Castries, St. Lucia on Monday.

Aboard Oceania Vista, So Far

It is always interesting to board a new ship and see how the lines do things differently. In this case, it is also a newly launched ship, as Vista has only been in service for a couple of months. In fact, all the stops on our itinerary will be maiden calls.

We had last been on an Oceania ship in 2017 when we spent 10 days on Riviera on the north coast of the Mediterranean, so, other than our memories of the specialty restaurants, the rest of the experience would be quite new. Vista has a passenger capacity of 1,200 people and is full for U.S. Thanksgiving. That's already about 500 more people than we've had on a ship any time in the past 2 years.

Fortunately our suite, a large aft corner Oceania Suite, was ready when we arrived at the port, and with priority boarding we were through check-in in less than 10 minutes. We dropped off our hand luggage and took a good look around our home for the next 12 days:

The aft-facing part of the verandah

and the section around the side

The shower stall with its own window - and
yes, there is a blind!

Bedroom

The dining and bar area (with Media Room behind the bar!)

and the lounge area. The chair on the left is at the desk.

The inside of this suite is a little smaller than the equivalent ones in other parts of the ship as they don't have the large outside space, but it is still plenty large enough for our needs. We didn't plan to do much touring on this trip, so having the private space is nice.

We've seen and been to most of the lounges and 'eating establishments' by this point in the cruise - now on day 7 - and have been impressed with the decor and the service in all of them. The food has also been consistently excellent, which we'll cover in another post.

Red Ginger, where we ate on the first night.
Very delicious Asian, Thai and Indonesian options

The entrance of Red Ginger

Ember, the American style restaurant

Martini's bar and lounge that turns into
the piano bar at night

The Grand Lounge, a lounge area outside of the
main dining room

Horizons, the lounge with the views overlooking 
the bow. They also serve afternoon tea here, and there
is a small stage and dance floor for the live music.

Aquamar Kitchen, where healthier options,
as well as non-alcoholic wine, beer and cocktails, are
served every day

Barista's, the coffee bar with its own
bakery there in the back. Haven't had
anything there yet, but it looks soooo good!

The Pool Deck - except that it is almost impossible
to get a seat in the shade, unless you drop a pair of shoes
or a bag at 7:00 a.m.!

The Grand Dining Room. We've only
eaten there once so far.

 Toscana, the Italian restaurant

We'll be adding more photos in another post from around the ship. On Black Friday they started putting Christmas decorations up everywhere except in the staterooms,. Not overstated, but still festive, and deserving of a picture or two.

As mentioned, we haven't spent too much time off the ship yet, as we only have two excursions booked, and they are late in the cruise. The next post will cover our ports so far, the logistics of which reminded us that, even if it is a beautiful new ship, it is still in the mass market category and things are done a little differently than we're used to.

Miami, Two Years Later

 The last time we were in Miami was exactly two years ago, in November, 2021, to take our, as it turned out, final cruise on the 'old' Crystal. This time, at least, we managed to avoid the heavy rain that we had in 2021. A large storm had just gone through South Florida the day before we arrived.

Cloud cover over the lake as we took off

We arrived in Miami in the evening and had no trouble getting a taxi from the airport to our hotel, the downtown Hyatt Regency. We had had a meal on the plane, so we didn't need anything for dinner. We'd already found a potential restaurant for breakfast the next day, and were looking forward to trying it out.

Saturday morning was more cloudy than sunny and a little cool, but that was no issue. Our plan after breakfast was to walk around the area a bit and then do a little shopping at the local CVS drug store for a few items we can't get at home.

Fiore Caffe, also known online as Chicken and the Egg, is an all-day brunch restaurant which is, unfortunately for those who like to eat outside, right next to the entry/exit for a parking garage.  That doesn't seem to matter much, though, as it was quite full when we arrived at around 9:30

Silk flowers are the name of the game decor-wise here, as you can see from the photo. The ceiling over the tables is covered with them, and there are even garlands hanging on the outside of the windows. They do have real palm bushes along the roadside to screen off the tables there. As much of the crockery as they could find also has floral themes. This is one of those places that you can't miss if you walk by.

On to breakfast. We opted for some more traditional items ourselves, but I couldn't help myself from taking photos of some of the less-healthy menu options at a nearby table:

Oreo Cookie Pancakes with a side of 'Tater Tots

Chicken and Waffles

The Oreo Cookie Pancakes were so huge, and, I'm sure, filling, that the rather large gentleman who ordered them only managed to eat half!

Larry had a Bacon, Egg, Lettuce and Tomato (B.E.L.T.) Sandwich and I opted for Avocado Toast. Both were quite delicious and not overly filling.

Our first destination after breakfast was Bayside Park, where we went to buy, of all things, hats! We had been so busy in the past week that we had forgotten to pack them. That being done, we wandered through the area and found a couple of small corners that weren't there before.

A small pond, complete with a pair of birds, and 
a bridge at the far end

After a brief reconnaissance stop at the Intercontinental Hotel, where we will be staying for a night in February, we took one of the paths along the edge of the Miami River which serve as jogging and dog-walking areas for the condo residents. We've never seen so many dogs in a couple of hours' walk than we did today.

As we kept walking, we found a very low (no boat traffic) bridge that led us to Brickell Key. This island may have been there before, but now it is one condo building after another. The bridge, more like a causeway, is the only way on and off the island.


This area actually has some archaeological significance. Signs on the path indicate that there had been a settlement of natives known as the Tequesta, the remains of which were found when an old apartment building was being demolished to build luxury condos in the late 1990s. It is a perfect circle with holes in the bedrock that indicate a permanent structure had been built there. Since it was dated at 1,700 to 2,000 years old, it is apparently the oldest evidence of such structure in the Eastern U.S. The actual Miami Circle, as it is called, is now a park area.

There is quite a bit of artwork along these
pathways. This is the Centinielo del Rio,
or the Sentinel of the River.

By the time we finished our walk and shopping and got back to the hotel to prepare for our dinner at Truluck's, our Fitbits told us we had walked over 15,000 steps!

Dinner was, as usual, a delicious meal. I started off with a Burrata and Tomato Salad, and Larry had some East Coast Oysters. One of the sauces for the oysters was a Mignonette, which is usually red wine and shallots. Their spin on it tasted really nice and was made from sparkling wine, shallots, fresh ginger, and lime juice.

Of course, we had to have Stone Crab Claws, since we can't get them anywhere else. The menu has some really appetizing options, but with our limited chance on the stone crab, we couldn't pass it up. We each had a platter of 6 medium sized claws, that came with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus on the side.

And, of course, Key Lime Pie for dessert! They serve the large slice along with a knife, a cake server and 2 plates so you can cut it up however you want. It's delicious, but probably replaced all the calories we walked off during the day!

On the way back to the hotel, we passed the courtyard in front of a local office building that already had the Christmas lights on the palm trees and a huge wreath above the entrance. I think we took a photo of this in 2021 as well.

After an enjoyable day, we went back to the hotel, looking forward to our transfer to Oceania Vista.