The Cruise to Aruba - Home Again

Thursday is a great day at sea. The faint, white smoke from the funnels drifts slowly upward as it dissipates in the amazingly clear blue sky, staying almost directly over the ship. We are making 11 knots with a trailing wind and a following sea, the sun is shining and Mother Nature is at peace with the marketing arm of Princess Cruises. Everything is as advertised.

 A really nice way to wrap up a cruise. We do all the touristy things we think will interest us, from touring the galley (at least the tour is still free, but they are hawking a $29 Chef's cook book. Yes, I bought one) and attending free health maintenance seminars. We tour the ship to see if we've missed any decks or crannies that are unique, and we head back to the library to check out one last book. Or was that Friday? No, it had to be Thursday because we turned the books back in on Friday. That's what's great about cruising when all goes well: you lose track of time and that is the whole idea. 

Thursday is the Captain's Cocktail Party, followed by the last of the two formal dinners. Lobster tonight! Must be Thursday! We take in the show in the ship's theater, “What a Swell Party,” a tribute to Cole Porter, but the strain of constantly being on is showing on the the dancers and performers. The show is a canned, prerecorded production but it is still a pleasure to watch the entertainers do their best, even when the cruise is about to wrap up. They do two shows a night so it isn't a cakewalk by any means. 

Friday is another laid-back, enjoy-the-cruise day. Weather is perfect and we head for the theater at 10:30 am for a Chef's culinary demonstration, followed by the Galley tour. OK, so the galley tour was on Friday! Award winning Executive Chef Giuseppe de Gennaro and his comedic side kick, Maitre d' Nicola Furlan, put on a memorable demonstration of cooking pasta, including the over-the-shoulder pasta fling to see if it sticks on the wall. If it does, it is ready! It did, to the delight of the audience. 

Some last minute shopping from the ship's stores, and spending an hour or so standing on deck seven forward watching the flying fish as they skip away from the ships' bow wave and one last lunch in the buffet. Tonight the luggage is picked up from outside your stateroom for transfer to the dock as soon as we land. Everything you have left goes in your carry-one luggage or bags. The last call for placing your luggage in the hall way is 11:00 pm, so we have plenty of time to change after we eat and lay out the clothes for the trip home.

We eat dinner one last time, and once again we get to hear Buster Poindexter.

One of the few traditions that seems to be carried on every Caribbean cruise regardless of ship or cruise line is the dessert on the night of the final dinner, and how it is served. Our German friends were somewhat startled when the lights in the glamorous dining went down after dinner and “Hot, Hot, Hot” began to play on the dining room speakers. The conga line of servers and waiters still wind their way around the darkened dining room carrying Baked Alaska on their heads, singing and generally having a good time as they have done on every cruise we have sailed on. The lights finally came back up and everyone took photos of their by-now-famous desert. I have never seen so many different sizes and types of digital cameras! They came out of nowhere. I think were pulled out of thin air. Everybody seemed to have at least one!  

 As our waitress held out the Baked Alaska we were to be served so we could photograph it, I realized the rum flambe on top has been replaced with an LED candle. Ahh, progress! Actually, safety is the reason for the change and it doesn't affect most the people who could care less anyway. Just another point of nostalgia for us old cruisers who still remember the good old days.

As we finally say goodnight and turn in, we reflect on what has been a pretty good cruise, especially considering the rough weather of the second and third days. Tomorrow we will be back in Port Everglades to disembark.

Will we be back? Oh, I'm sure we will, we just don't know when or which cruise ports we want to visit. Only one thing is absolutely certain: It won't be on the Oasis of the Seas. Having two thousand passengers on a ship is more than enough for me.

George

Reflections: The S/S Norway, our favorite ship

The Cruise to Aruba - The Freewinds

While we were wandering around Oranjestad looking for a drugstore, another ship docked near the M/S Crown Princess. She immediately caught my eye as we walked back toward the cruise terminal. She looked vaguely familiar. She's now named the M/S Freewinds but she was obviously from a long-ago past generation of cruise ships. As I looked at her twin funnels, I realized she was one of the originals. I wondered what she was called back then.

I watched Kloster's original M/S Sunward and Admiral's M/S Emerald Seas and several others years ago when they sailed out of Miami back in the 70's, one of the benefits of working in downtown Miami for years. They sailed from the modern terminals that were built on Dodge Island to accommodate the new cruise ships, directly across Government Cut from Watson Island where the Goodyear blimp base and the adjacent Chalk's seaplane terminal were located. 

A Chalks seaplane takes off in Government cut alongside the M/S Starward, the late 70's

Norwegian Cruise Line's M/S Sunward 1969

I looked at those ships in awe, thinking perhaps when we retired, we too, would cruise the Caribbean. We made sure we took all our northern, out-of-town visitors to Watson Island on Saturdays to watch the cruise ships. They were impressive then, even more so now. The comparison between the old and the new cruisers is simply astonishing. The M/S Freewinds looks like a toy, barely noticeable in the shadow of the towering M/S Crown Princess.

The M/S Crown Princess towers over the M/S Freewinds at dock in Aruba

I researched the M/S Freewinds when I got back to the Internet and found she is indeed one of the original basin-cruisers out of Miami, but she's not one I'm familiar with. She's the former M/S Bohème which sailed out of Miami for Commodore Cruise lines back in the late '60's. She was famous for starting the seven day Caribbean cruises and the first cruise ship to regularly visit St. Thomas. Today, she is more infamous than famous, as she is now owned by an arm of the Church of Scientology and has been the subject of several scandals, including kidnapping and forced servitude for crew members. 

While the M/S Emerald Seas and the beautiful S/S Norway, the former S/S France, were cut apart for scrap on the beaches in Alang, and the original M/S Sunward has cruised into historical oblivion, at least the M/S Freewinds still looks the role of a cruiser from days gone by. 

[My blog about our odd relationship with the SS Norway is at 
http://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2012/03/ss-norway.html]

Time to head for Miami:

All photos by George Mindling, © 2015, 2017 all rights reserved 

The Cruise to Aruba - Oranjestad, Aruba

The approach to Oranjestad, Aruba

We slept with the balcony door open and the air conditioning off. Really nice to wake up to nothing but cool, ocean air. I dressed and headed up top to watch the sunrise and the approach to Aruba, and was fortunate to catch one of those golden sunrises you see in travel brochures just as we approached the city of Oranjestad, Aruba.

The narrowness of the channel is obvious:  The Crown Princess is berthed at Aruba.

I was dumbfounded by the narrowness of the channel as we approached the dock and the angle of the approach to it. This pilot was going to earn his money or we were going to look like the Costa Concordia. The Paardenbaai Channel is only 270 meters wide, about 885 feet. In other words, the ship couldn't possibly turn around in the channel because the Crown Princess, at 953 feet, is considerably longer the channel is wide! And the channel has a bend in the middle to boot! Fascinated, I watched as the Crown Princess confidently sailed right up to the wharf where the ship's thrusters took over and pushed us up gently against the bumpers. If you weren't watching, you would have no idea we had arrived and docked. By 7:57am, we were secured at Cruise Terminal “C” in Oranjestad.

The welcome terminal in Oranjestad, Aruba

 

As soon as the announcement was made about disembarking, we went to breakfast. We used the forward gang-plank after eating at the open buffet, and after checking out of the ship with our room cards, walked to the welcome center that everyone passes through to access the buses and taxis waiting to hustle people anywhere they want to go. The sign hanging over the exit to the buses says, “Welcome to Aruba, One Happy Island.” I thought to myself, “We'll soon see!”

As best we can tell, the sign was right. Again, the people we met were warm, friendly and easy going. Not everyone we met in town spoke English, but there was no problem as someone spoke the language or its close approximation in just about every store we stopped. Doesn't matter, smiles and a little courtesy do wonders here. Our first serious stop was the Kong Hing Supermercado grocery store to pick up water and munchies to sustain us as we wandered around side streets and local shops before heading back to the main vendor areas along the waterfront. After fantasy stops at Diesel and other European outlets, and one pharmacy, we slowly headed back toward the port.

There are lots of typical bars that appeal to the carefully maintained image of Caribbean abandon and lack of sobriety that appeals to the sunshine and alcohol deprived vacationers from up north. These places must look better in the dark. We stopped at one for about three minutes before moving on to one that was closer to the water and further from the greasy kitchen odors. Pigeons wandered around the floor of the restaurant we finally selected and yellow finches freely flew through the outside seating area, landing to serenade patrons from the power lines strung for the lights. The Heineken beer I had was three dollars cheaper than the Budweiser I had on the ship back on day one.

 There is one side trip here I would like to do, so perhaps someday we'll return just to take the submarine trip, if nothing else. Atlantis submarines offers underwater tours in a real, Coast Guard approved submarine just off shore from Oranjestad. Kind of a real glass bottomed boat tour, well, glass sided boat tour anyway. We saw the submarine as it was being towed into position to accept guests and it appeared to be a well done operation. Just something to think about for next time.

Next: Docked next to the Freewinds 

The Cruise to Aruba - Day Two

From part 3 - http://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2012/03/cruise-to-aruba-day-one.html

It's really aggravating for a writer not to have anything to write with. It's far worse than having a blank piece of paper and nothing to write. Writer's block passes, and unfortunately for me, so does the thought I often want to capture. I'm out of paper, scribbling this in the margins of the ship's newsletter before I wander off and forget to capture the moment.

We are currently southbound out of the Princess Cays at 21 knots in fair seas. It is 5:30 pm in the afternoon, about an hour to sunset, and we have the Atlantic Ocean to ourselves. There is a huge rain storm off on the far horizon, otherwise the weather is beautiful. Sitting outside on the balcony is a pleasure we always enjoy. There is nothing else like it. We are perhaps 150 feet above the bow spray, maybe higher. The sea is Navy Blue, the dark, pure blue that only is found in the deep ocean. Low hanging clouds begin to pass by us, almost as close above us as the water is below us. And I don't have anything to write with.

Ah, the concierge! Are they on deck seven? Or six? The sweet British girl at the desk took pity on me and handed me all the blank white paper from her printer in-tray. I will forever be indebted to the pretty girl who probably thought I was a great novelist or reporter in dire straits. Well, maybe not, but at least she smiled like she understood. I got back to the room in time to change for dinner. It will be dark by the time we pass the coast of Cuba, but I'll be back, watching, trying to remember what I wanted to write about.

Nothing like Gale Force 8 winds to get your attention, even at 1:45am in the morning. I knew they were Gale Force 8 winds because the ship's television said so. I turned on the Bridge report which gives constant updates about the ship when the blowing winds and ocean spray forced us to close our balcony door. The blowing sheets of water surprised me, we were on the 15^th deck! I thought the old girl had shuddered and protested as much as she could Saturday evening coming across the Gulf Stream, but I was wrong. Sleep was out of the question as we jerked back and forth constantly. The television showed winds across the bow at 43.1 knots, around 50 mph, with seas listed as seven feet. Ship's speed displayed as 22.8 knots. We were rockin' and rollin' out here in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Actually, we were literally around the corner from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, some 100 or so miles away as we are just east of Navassa Island.  We were in the Windward Passage and I really don''t have any argument with the name of the place.  My wife was uncomfortable, but not physically ill. I'm sure many of the over 3000 passengers, and perhaps many of the 1,200 crew members were far worse than just uncomfortable.

By 4:20am, the winds had increased to Gale Force 9 and the outside wind noise was seriously intruding on the happy, steel drum cruise music piped through the television. Oddly enough, I was hungry.

We covered the 253 miles from Princess cays in 12 hours and 20 minutes. The wind hadn't abated in the slightest, and laying in bed was by far the easiest way to cope with the constant, erratic motion of the humble Crown Princess.  Humble may not be the correct word here.  She's chugging along at a solid 22 knots so we will arrive in Willemstad by 1:00 pm tomorrow afternoon come Hell or high water.  So to speak.  Shuddering and shaking perhaps, but she is unslowed by the elements.  The schedule will be kept.

The gap between our joy of cruising and our cost of cruising is closing more rapidly than we expected. We already dropped any plans for an Alaska cruise after seeing friend's photos of several different Alaskan cruises, most of the ports of call, and simply comparing costs. Not really our cup of tea. We now have serious reservations about our planned Panama canal trip early next year as well.

Perhaps we need to just bring more money and pay for the privilege of being separated from the mass of passengers, but then, the costs skyrocket. When I say the cost of cruising, I don't mean just the monetary expenditures of the cruise itself.  Getting on the boat is already an expensive outlay.  We fortunately do not have to fly or pay airfare to get to a cruise port.  We are conveniently located between Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, and Miami, three of the busiest cruise ports in the U.S. and can drive to any of them if we choose. We prefer the bus, where charges are just less than two hundred dollars for the both of us to Miami and back.  And of course there's the extra four hundred dollars to kennel the dogs for just a week. It does add up.

To make matters worse, it is à la carte once you board the cruise ship and ship's prices have pretty much gone bonkers.  Once on-board, you are a captive audience!  At six dollars a Budweiser, don't expect any breaks on-board. They don't do anything for the passengers except the basic dining and an ice cream on the pool deck. If you want sprinkles on your ice cream, have your room key ready, the sprinkles are extra.

The basic dining is still exceptional, but we wonder how much longer it will last. Higher caliber restaurants are already available above and beyond the common dining rooms, as outstanding as they are, specifically appealing to the cruisers who prefer not to mingle even with the common diners. Those dining rooms carry a $25 surcharge per person per meal. 

The shows are still free, but I wouldn't be surprised to be asked to show my room card sometime in the future. They probably haven't thought of it yet. So, to be jammed in with thousands of people has to have its rewards and those rewards are fewer and fewer than before.  We are reconsidering how we will spend our vacation money.  Basically, we do not care for big boat cruising.  I guarantee you I will never sail on the Oasis of the Seas or any ship that carries 5000 passengers.

We head back to our balcony as soon as the seas and winds subside, separated from the rest of the ship. Peace and serenity once again settle over as we sit on our small, semi-enclosed balcony. We watch as white caps rip off the top of the huge waves and roll away from us instead of hitting us broadside. The wind has subsided to 30 knots and is now off our port stern. We pass Haiti on our port side, the mountains visible through the distant haze. I can only understand portions of the captain's message over the PA system, the garbled voice says the water depth in the channel is 1600 feet. We now turn more southeasterly and head into deep blue waters of the Caribbean, our final heading to Willemstad.

The old girl has settled down. Once again I fall for the charms of cruising, paradoxically in love with the incredible beauty found only at sea. The huge, slowly rolling waves firmly rise up and dominate my senses as nothing else, and gently, slowly, the massive mountains of water disappear into the long trough of spray-strewn, almost placid swells. Technically, these are swells I suppose, but I still like the wave definition. These waves are massive world-travelers. They are the dominators of the ocean. How far have they traveled, where will they eventually crash ashore? Are they from the coast of Africa? Will they crash in front of tourists in Cancun, or slam ashore in unseen by anyone but seagulls and pelicans? The period has increased to twelve seconds, double that of yesterday's waves. The period is the time between crests, and the time accentuates the massive size of each wave. The ship's log finally shows seas as “Rough,” twelve feet or so. They look higher to me, but then I'm not driving. The Crown Princess is in her element here. And if I want to see more of it, I have no choice but to go cruising.

Most of my fellow passengers don't have a clue. They are all over the pool decks, eating, sun-bathing, and generally taking a break from the cold, northern winter. They are enjoying their vacations exactly as advertised. My wife and I are enjoying the cruise as well, just in our own way. The open sea, glistening silver under the sun, deep blue otherwise is simply beautiful.

Pool is closed...

As we sail further and further south, the size of the waves increases and soon the sea is a mass of twenty foot behemoths tipped with white spray that cause our Captain to throttle back somewhat to minimize the astonishing resistance they present. They try to impede our our voyage, to prevent the incursion into their world.  The shuddering is back, but this time it is Mother Ocean causing the protest. The shuddering and and slamming is not as consistent as the night before, but when it comes, it is far more severe. Our huge vessel cedes to the power of the Ocean only slightly, probably to keep everyone in the hot-tubs from banging their knees. Actually, all swimming pools and hot tubs are closed. The water sloshing out of the main pool reaches the overhead of the sun deck just above it. I have it on video tape. We press on toward our shopping rendezvous in Willemstad. We are now just under a day away. 

We awake Tuesday morning to milder seas. The period is down to six seconds and the Bridge report say we now have rough seas. What were they yesterday, I wonder? We opened the balcony door and wiped the salt spray off the deck chairs while the Captain announced we were some thirty miles from Willemstad. He said the sea and wind had subsided and the remainder of the approach would be smooth. He also commented we were some thirty minutes behind schedule, even though we had been running at close to full speed for the entire 44 hours. My wife joked our clothes had done more dancing in the closet than we had on the dance floor.

We ate breakfast in the dining room for the first time, far more civilized than acting like foragers who hadn't yet discovered fire.

Next: Willemstad and Curacao

The Cruise to Aruba - Day One

From Part 2 - http://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2012/03/cruise-to-aruba-boarding.html

We joined the ranks of the forgetful fifties and the stress free sixties on our first day at sea: we had to go to the concierge to retrieve names and dates of our last Princess cruise. Not only couldn't we remember the name of the ship, we couldn't agree when we took our last cruise with Princess Cruises. We were directed by the apologetic concierge to go up a deck, find the Wheel House Bar, then locate the Princess Club director, a young officer who looked at me in disbelief when I explained my dilemma. I thought to myself, “Just wait, you'll understand soon enough.”  His computer system has a different data base from the ship's main system, and he soon had the data at his finger tips.

Not only did we get the date wrong - it was 2004 - but we weren't even close with the name of the ship. It was the Star Princess, and we had cruised to San Juan, St. Thomas once again, and finally visited Tortola.  We remembered the ports but not the ship. So much for my razor sharp memory. 

Day One - At the Princess Cay in Lucaya

Quite a lot about cruising has changed in eight short years. If you forget to return a ship's library book, for example, the charge today is $55. Who knows what it will be in another eight years. 

Also gone is the ship's drugstore. Gone with it is the cheap liquor that you could buy there and take to your room. On our 1992 S.S. Norway cruise, I bought a 1.75 liter bottle of Drambuie for me and a 1.75 liter bottle of Amaretto for my wife, for less than either bottle alone would have cost me stateside. We proceeded to finish off both bottles before the end of the seven day cruise and managed to run up a three hundred dollar bar bill to boot. We missed St. Johns that trip. They swear the boat stopped there but you couldn't prove it by us.  Those days are over, in more ways than one. First my body couldn't take it, and secondly, neither could my wallet. A built-in safety net I suppose.

We spent our first, almost summer like day anchored off the private island called the Princess Cays. Private is the operative word here. If you don't mind being shuttled to and from the island in small tenders along with 3000 other passengers, well, maybe you can call it private. We stayed on board as we did on the last three cruises and enjoyed having the ship to ourselves. We found this time we were not alone as many of the “veteran” cruisers also elected to remain on board and enjoy the peace and quiet. Many of the first timers, and those who don't normally have access to beaches, enjoyed the day swimming and eating barbecue, hot dogs and hamburgers, enjoying a sandy beach party. 

By noon, we were sitting peacefully on our balcony, hundreds of feet above the beautiful clear blue water off Eluthera, reading and writing in the warm sunshine. We watched the constant flow of shuttles to and from the beach with detached interest. Still worth the price of cruising, all the changes not withstanding.

While sitting on the aforementioned balcony, sipping the red wine we brought aboard ourselves and snacking on the five or six delicious cheeses we carried back from the lunch buffet, we were distracted by sporadic hammering and an occasional burst from a power tool from somewhere below us. The noise was from a work crew, strapped to the ship in safety harnesses, working on a lifeboat some six or seven stories below us.

The cruise industry has always taken great care of the safety equipment, but since the incredibly stupid tragedy of the Costa Concordia, I'm sure efforts to prevent any future tragedies have intensified. It was bad enough to happen to the Italian ship, but if that happened to a U.S. Cruise company, or one that departed from a U.S. Port, it would cripple the industry faster than rising fuel prices.

You are allowed to bring one bottle of wine per person on board when you initially embark, but the “Corkage Fee” is a stunning $18. So, either bring your own corkscrew, or do as we have learned and simply pack a wine box, carefully wrapped in leak-proof plastic so as not to spoil your vacation in case of dropped luggage. Easy to open, and easy to lock back up in the suitcase away from the maid when you are out of the room. The wine box actually exceeds the one bottle limit but no one checks the volume. Anything to help alleviate the pain.

We always book as high as we can afford, and as far forward as possible. We have heard arguments from people who prefer to stay as close to the center of the ship as possible to minimize the effect of ship rolling, but with the modern stabilizers and computer control, we have found engine vibration to be a bigger pain in the enjoyment than the ship's motion. The higher, the quieter, and for more reasons than just being as far from the power plants as possible.

One of the reasons we like being as high as possible is because of a guy we will always call “Pickle Dick.” Luckily for us, Pickle Dick's cabin was below us when we met him on the last cruise. He loved to stand on his balcony and harass a young, newly-wed couple obviously trying to enjoy a romantic honeymoon. They were unfortunately just below him, and even worse, their balcony protruded further out than those above them. When ever the love birds would set up an intimate dinner with flowers and wine, Pickle Dick would show up, usually stark-ass naked, and start a loud, obnoxious scene, pretending to be a “friendly neighbor.” We never saw the young couple after Pickle Dick's second obnoxious intrusion, but that didn't stop our tattooed, long-haired ambassador of southern hospitality from standing on his tip-toes, peering over the rail trying to see where they were.

So, if you have a balcony stateroom and decide to enjoy your beautiful, unobstructed view of the ocean, remember to look up before standing out there bare-ass.







Next: Day Two at Sea 

M/S Crown Princess to Aruba 2012 - Part 1

The old lady is still fun to sail. Showing her age with an occasional loose carpet strip, a few unobtrusive paint blisters, and generally in need of a carpet deep cleaning, the M/S Crown Princess still showed her stuff as she shuddered and twitched her way out of the Bar Cut Channel in Ft. Lauderdale into heavy seas and near gale-force winds. She's a seasoned veteran at six years old, and not to destined to be at the top of the Princess list much longer.

She will be surpassed by the new M/S Royal Princess in June, 2013, which will carry 3,600 passengers, 500 more than were on-board as we cast off from Pier Two at 4:00pm on a recent Saturday afternoon. If you think 3,600 passengers is impressive, remember Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas already carries 5000 passengers spread between 18 decks. That behemoth was berthed near us at Ft Lauderdale, also prepping for a seven day excursion into the Caribbean. “Massive” was the only word I could think of as I looked at the Oasis from the fantail pool deck of the M/S Crown Princess. 

Astonishing to think they unload 5000 people, beginning at 7:00 am, clean the ship, load a new group of 5000 glassy-eyed vacationers, refuel, restock and stand ready to cast off by 4:30 pm. All in a day's work! I was already impressed with Princess's streamlined boarding processes which got 3224 of us on-board with as little stress and trepidation I have ever encountered boarding a cruise ship. This was our fifth cruise, and by far the one of the easiest to board. I found out later the Crown Princess also takes on over two hundred tons of food and supplies every Saturday during that same, short window of time. Amazing, simply amazing. 

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. The trip to Ft. Lauderdale from Port Charlotte on Florida's west coast had it's own moments, including when the bus driver's head slowly slumped to his right shoulder while we were doing 65 miles an hour on a long, straight, boring section of I-75 in the middle of the Everglades known as Alligator Alley. My wife and I were luckily sitting in the seats directly behind him, and I leaned over and gently tapped his shoulder until his head snapped up in surprise. He gave me a glance that showed more fear than gratefulness, but I wasn't about to condemn him. I simply smiled and pretended to be looking for alligators along side the adjacent canal and the event was never mentioned. He made a point to shake my hand when we got off the bus.

Next: Cast off - Underway on the Princess