Itinerary:
8/1/21 Board Celebrity Equinox in Ft. Lauderdale
8/2/21 Nassau
8/3/21 At Sea
8/4/21 At Sea
8/5/21 Cozumel, Mexico
8/6/21 Costa Maya, Mexico
8/7/21 At Sea
8/8/21 Ft. Lauderdale
8/9/21 Nassau
8/10/21 At Sea
8/11/21 St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
8/12/21 Phillipsburg, St. Maarten
8/13/21 At Sea
8/14/21 At Sea
8/15/21 Ft. Lauderdale
We are doing a back to back on the Celebrity Equinox….or, at least that is the plan. On Friday, July 30, 2021, at 3:15pm we receive an email that everyone has to get a Covid test before boarding. This is less than 48 hours before we are to board. We check the local testing sites, and the closest place for us to get a test is in Virginia! After 3 calls to Celebrity, the first two being dropped calls after being on hold for many, many minutes….we finally get an answer from someone. Tests will be done at the port. On Saturday, we read about the disaster on the Celebrity Edge, where people were waiting in the sun for 4 or more hours, waiting to test and board. We were very concerned about what a fiasco it was going to be to board the Eclipse on Sunday. At 11:00pm, I get an email to schedule our Covid test for our embarkation on 8/1. We we given the embarkation time of 2:30pm, so we scheduled the test tor 1:00. On Sunday morning, we received an email that vaccinated people didn’t have to test. Whew! So we do not have to test!
August 1, 2021: We arrived at the port about 2:00pm, dropped off our luggage, parked, when through boarding and we were on the ship in about 20 minutes. We have to wear “tracelets” so if someone tests positive for Covid, they can trace people who were in contact with the infected person.
We explored the ship, got our internet set up (which sucks), spoke to shore excursions to try and switch one of our shore excursions, signed up for a wine tasting and sampled a few drinks. Our dining time is 6:00pm, but Dave wanted to be in our room at 6:00pm to watch sail away. So we ordered from room service and watched sail away from our balcony on the back of the ship.
We went to see a Beatles show, which was a lot of fun. It was a one-man show, but he (Pete Baker ?) was very funny and engaged the audience. Then we went to the martini bar, and sampled several martinis/drinks. Dave enjoyed a “butterfinger” cocktail, which is one of his brother, Steve, favorite drink.
They were having a silent disco, which we had never done before. We got headphones with 3 different channels – so 3 different types of music.
We got caught up in the music and got up and danced, just like lots of other people. The only thing was that everyone may have been listening to different channels than us, and if you didn’t have headphones, all you saw were people dancing but could not hear any music. For us, it was a lot of fun. We danced and enjoyed our “channel”. We are thrilled to be back on a cruise ship after 17 months due to Covid, and thoroughly enjoyed Day 1.
August 2, 2021: We are in Nassau today, but have not booked any shore excursions – which is a good thing. Lots of rain, thunder and lightning. We went to breakfast in the restaurant. Even though we had a table for two, there was an older couple next to us. She was playing some kind of music on her phone which was very distracting. I did not recognize the music at all. Actually, when I first heard it, it sounded like little kids singing. After breakfast, we went up to the solarium and relaxed in a big, round sofa (?) chair for two.
Dave napped a bit and I read the Englewood Sun newspaper online. We could look out towards Nassau, and could see Atlantis in the distance. Nassau is building a big dock to be able to deal with the bigger cruise ships, and more of them. We were the only ship in port today.
Shortly before noon, we weren’t hungry, and the weather looked better, but not great. At least it wasn’t raining. We left the ship to walk around. The diamond store were open as well as some of the souvenir shops. I don’t think any of the restaurants were open, and I didn’t see any of the bars open, either. After walking around for about an hour, we got back on the ship and had a light lunch in the buffet, which is served. Really splurging, we had wine with our lunch, and went to the Ocean Cafe bar to visit our favorite bartender, Imade from Bali, and had another glass of wine. Then we went to a music trivia event, and after that, another trivia event. We never do well in trivia, but got about 50% of the answers right.
We were a little confused about dinner, and where we were suppose to eat. Our card indicated anytime dining, but we also had an assigned time and table. When we went to the assigned table line, he sent us to the anytime dining line. When we got to the anytime dining line, they said we were suppose to be in the assigned table line! After a bit of conversation (they were very nice), we told them what we wanted and they fixed us up. We think we are in anytime dining……? After some vodka and escargot, I was happy.😁
We went to the late show which was a production show called Topper”. Beautiful costumes, dancing, acrobatics on a trapeze, and a little bit of a story to follow. Loved the trapeze acts! After “Topper”, we went to a mind reading act in a smaller theatre, which was packed! This presentation was put on by the cruise director, Eddy Jenkins, and the guy who did the Beatles show (Pete). All the mind reading acts seemed amazing and unbelievable! Of course, it was all trickery of which we could figure out most but not all. But a lot of fun. Eddy and Pete, the two guys presenting the show are very, very funny! After all that excitement, it was time for bed.
August 3, 2021: Thunder & lightning again this morning. I think we are going to have a stormy week. But hey! We are on a cruise ship snd who cares about the weather. One change though…we were trying to get on a tour doing tubing on a river, and we’re on a wait list. Based on the weather, we decided to do our original tour which is more of a bus ride (☹️). If we don’t do a ships excursion in Costa Maya, we cannot get off the ship due to Covid-19 restrictions.
This morning we went to the shore excursion discussion and won $10 off on a shore excursion, which we were able to apply to next week since we already have excursions for this week. Just before lunch we went to a music trivia challenge. We did OK, but there were 10 songs and somehow we only heard 9 songs???? This afternoon we went to an iLearn session and learned some interesting things about our iPhones. We went to the “Deal or no Deal” game and won $55 in casino play money. After dinner we went to see comedian Tom Mc Tigue. Dave didn’t think he was very funny, but I enjoyed the show. Afterward we went to an improv comedy show “Cruise line is it anyway” which was hilarious! It is patterned after “Whose line is it anyway”. The cruise director, Eddy, the Beatles guy, Pete, and two entertainers – a woman and man, were the 4 “players”. I was dying from laughter – really, really funny. We went to the casino to “spend” Dave’s $55 from “Deal or no Deal”. You could not just get the cash, you had to play something in the casino. But if you won, you could cash in your winnings. Dave ended up about $43, so we were ahead. We spent $40 to play “Deal or no Deal” and won $43 which more than paid for his cards. By now it is midnight, so we grabbed a last glass of wine and headed to the stateroom for bed. Fortunately we gain an hour tonight – but that means we’ll lose an hour later in the cruise 😫.
August 4, 2021: We got our extra hour of sleep. After breakfast we went to a presentation by the Captain about the building of Celebrity Solstice class ships. The ship we are on, Equinox, is a Solstice class ship. The Captain is a funny guy and gave a good presentation. Then we went to a presentation about Galapagos and Machu Picchu. Celebrity offers (expensive) excursions to Galapagos, which is on my bucket list if I live long enough 😁. Their excursion to Machu Picchu is high end, using the dome train and the Bingham train. We did the less expensive trains when we went…..
So I do have one complaint so far….the temperature on the ship is too cold! Even Dave complains and grabs his jacket. Who would have thought to bring warmer clothes to the Caribbean in August?
In the afternoon, we went to another iLearn class. This one was about the camera, and features we didn’t know we had – well, some we weren’t aware of. We do learn some shortcuts, too.
I am a little frustrated with the internet onboard. The choices are surf or stream. The stream is more expensive and supposedly allows you to stream TV and movies. I thought the surf would allow me to do emails, access web sites, and get my daily challenges in the games I play. Basically the surf option is good for checking emails. I may opt to spend the big bucks for the stream option next week – it’s $140 for the week, which turns out to be $20 a day. The daily rate is really unreasonable…I think it was like $40 for one day.
We’ve been enjoying listening to music with the “Kickstarters” in the Grand Foyer, and visiting our favorite bartender, Imade in the Oceanview Bar. He introduced us to the Mer Soleil Chardonnay. Unfortunately, he must have introduced more people to this wine because we were unable to get it with dinner – they told us they ran out! One person said there are 1400 people onboard, and they must be heavy drinkers. We were trying to find Decoy Cabernet, but several bars were out of it. Finally found it at the third bar we visited.
The evening show was 6 vocalists from the ships entertainment group singing some of their favorites, accompanied by the ships orchestra. Fortunately we recognized a few of the songs!
August 5, 2021: We arrived in Cozumel an hour later than planned. Don’t know why we were late, but there are two Carnival ships in port with us. Funny story… I told Dave the Carnival Vista was in port with us. He comes out and says No, it’s the carnival Breeze. I look out, and sure enough, it says Carnival Breeze. Later in the day, when we were returning from our shore excursion, we see there are two Carnival ships, the Vista and the Breeze….but when the Breeze pulled in, it blocked the Vista from view! So I really did see the Vista initially. I was very relieved I had not completely lost it!
Went to trivia – feel pretty good – we got 11 out of 15!
This afternoon we went on a shore excursion. Since it started at noon, I was distressed that I might miss some food! Lunchtime! So I got my free gelato and ate it on the way to our meetup place and while I was waiting for our bus number to be called. Surprisingly, everything was quite timely and I didn’t even get a chance to finish my Reese’s pieces which were included with my gelato! We had to sign waivers before getting on the bus – not sure why as this was a pretty tame shore excursion. We got on the bus and drove to our first stop which was a chocolate tasting opportunity. Before tasting the chocolate, our guide gave us a talk on the mayan’s and some information on the Maya culture.
While Mexicans apparently celebrate all the holidays, the one that is the most important is the day of the dead, celebrated on November 2. On this day, their ancestors are remembered snd honored. We saw a typical Mayan home, which contained statues for the day of the dead.
Finally we get to the chocolate tasting. Our little taste was gritty, and not great. We were shown how chocolate is made, and also all the things added to the coach beans to make it tasty, like honey and sugar. We were then taken to the showroom, where we could take more chocolate, and of course buy some. There was also a bar where we could purchase a chocolate margarita – which I had to have. It was only $5, and very frozen, which was good because it was so hot outside. Did not have any margarita flavor, but it was a good drink and cold! We were taken upstairs for a tequila tasting. We tasted blanco tequila, another tequila good for mixing, and a coffee liqueur made with tequila. These did not interest us, so we bailed after the tasting. It was interesting to hear how we should be drinking tequila compared to how we actually drink it. Back on the bus, we drove around the south end of the island and went to a bee sanctuary. These bees do not sting, but they do bite! Before we entered the sanctuary, we we part of a Mayan ceremony. We were shown a cenote, which is a sinkhole. These were important to the Mayans and probably their source of drinking water. It was basically a sinkhole filing with a little stream of water. Walking to where the bees were, their homes are in logs. We saw a (very) few bees, some flying around, and a guardian bee who protects their hive.
Stingless bees – but they can bite!
Of course we had the opportunity to purchase honey products, but this did not interest us. We left tips, as we were sympathetic to these people who depend on tourism and were without tourist for many months.
Back on the bus, we drove through downtown Cozumel, but a lot of businesses were closed. Once back on board ship we were a bit hungry, so we went to the mast bar and got a hamburger, and then to to Ocean View bar to see Imade and get some Mer Soleil wine ….we got the wine, but Imade wasn’t there!
We skipped the show this evening, but went to another iLearn class about using the google translate app. It’s interesting because we always pick up a tidbit or two 😁.
August 6, 2021: It’s Dave’s birthday! We have a ship excursion that meets at 8:30, but the restaurants don’t open until 7:30am, go we grab breakfast from the buffet. MOST of the food is served, but not all. Coffee and beverage dispensers are self serve.
Our tour guide is “Yam” and his English is pretty good. We are on a big bus, the guide says 26 people, but it’s hard to spread out – especially when someone sits in the seats directly in front or in back of you. Costa Maya is basically just a cruise dock. The city is Mahahual, and it is a very small town, too. We had to drive 1.5 hours. Our tour is going to Bacalar which has a fort from the 1700’s. It was build by the Mayan for the Spanish. Then we went on pontoon boats for a ride on the 7 color lagoon.
The water is beautiful and changes color based on the sun and depth of the water. After about 30 minutes, we stopped, and were given the opportunity to swim for about 30 minutes. We didn’t because our seats on the pontoon were in the open, hot sun. We had put on sunscreen, and I didn’t want to wash it off for the ride back.
After our 30 minute ride back to the starting point, we were given a buffet lunch. We had chips, tortillas, guacamole, lettuce salad, fried fish, black beans, and a chicken dish. Dave snd I both had beers because it was served in bottles – cautious to not get a drink with ice. The ice cold beer tasted great as it was hot. Then we had our 1.5 hour ride back to the ship. Dave switched to rum and Diet Coke for his afternoon pick me up!
This evening we have reservations for the specialty restaurant, Murano’s, because it was Dave’s birthday! The food was delicious. For an appetizer, Dave had a baked pear in phyllo dough with Roquefort cheese. I had salmon and peekytoe crab on a crust – but I forgot the official name. For dinner, Dave had Dover Sole and I had lobster. The lobster was prepared tableside and the waiter set off the fire alarm 😂. But it was delicious. For desert, we picked a sampler which came in 7 little glasses. Then they brought out a chocolate cake for Dave’s birthday! Needless to say, we were stuffed. We decided to head back to the stateroom to rest our full bellies.
August 7, 2021: This morning we had to go to a meeting regarding our back to back. It is a bit of a procedure due to Covid-19. We had a rapid test, and assuming it comes back negative, we can cruise next week, too. We have to meet tomorrow morning, get off the ship as a group, and go through reboarding procedures to meet CDC requirements. We had our test a couple hours ago and have not heard anything so far, so that’s good news.
We attended several trivia’s, including a Beatles one that we’re sure Wayne would have aced. We did pretty good on that one. We have learned that octopus have 3 hearts by going to trivia!
The entertainment crew put on a show, which our trivia lady said they’d been practicing for weeks! Also listened to music by “Queen”. We stopped by Effy to look at a ring I’ve been admiring 😁, and then to the show. The show was basically two vocalists. Before the show, there was a spoof of the cruise director, Eddie Jenkins, doing a dance audition supposedly in 2007. The premise was that he wanted to be a dancer and this was his last chance. Since he failed at dancing, he became a cruise director.
The cruise director and captain have been the best we have cruised with. The captain is very funny and unfortunately for us, he is leaving for vacation and we’ll have a new captain for our second week.
The show was OK, but not that great. The vocalists, Laura Wright and Jesse ?, were talented, but just not music that we liked. We sat through most of the show, but left a little early. As we were listening to the music in the foyer, we got the dreaded announcement from the captain that one passenger has Covid, and has been isolated. Passengers who were in close contact have been tested and also isolated. No close contacts have tested positive, but were being kept isolated in an abundance of caution.
August 8, 2021: Today is our changeover day. The time has been crazy, our watches say one thing and the ships time says something else. We set our alarm for 6:45 with plans to vacate our stateroom by 8:00. Somehow, our time was off and the alarm went off at 6:45, but it was actually 7:45! So we had to hustle to finishing packing up our last minute stuff, as we are changing staterooms. We made it down to breakfast before 8:30, which is when all the breakfast restaurants close down.
B2B people had to assemble in a lounge on deck 5 by 9:30. They kept us together, and we had to leave the ship, go through facial recognition (!), and then wait until the ship was cleared before we could get back on. We were back onboard by 11:00, but everything is pretty much closed. I want to upgrade my internet package, as I could basically only check email last week. I have discovered that part of that is due to my phone ☹️. But, there are some You Tube guys I like to listen to, and I can’t do that with the basic internet package. It turns out it only cost $98 to upgrade for the week because of my loyalty status. I am discovering part of the problem is my phone though ☹️.
Since this is a turnaround day, it seems like there is not much open in the afternoon. We are in “Aqua Class” which gives us special deals in the spa, but more importantly, we have our own restaurant, Blu.
We toured the spa, and saw the exercise room. At least we can say we visited the exercise room. I got on a rowing machine for about 1 minute 😁. At 4:00, the cruise director had trivia “Eddy’s Tricky Trivia” which he runs simultaneously on Facebook live. So, when you leave the cruise, you can still participate in his trivia events.
We signed up for Tuscan Grill, which is a specialty restaurant. Because we’re back to back cruisers, we got a special first night discount. While it is Italian based, they also have several steaks on their menu. We had a great table, at the window, on the back of the ship. It was a great view. Dave was not happy with the wine selection, but we had a couple of glasses that met his approval. We split some dishes so we could taste more things. We had a bruschetta, he had a Caesar salad and I had a heritage beet salad. We split a carbonara pasta dish, and we both ordered petite filet mignons medium rare. Unfortunately, the steak was more like medium well. Dave passed on dessert, but I had a tiramisu. It was an OK experience, but the best part was our table location and not the food ☹️.
The singer from last week, Laura Wright, is the entertainer tonight. We did not care for her music last week, so we went back to the foyer area and listened to some music, and then did the silent disco thing again. We really enjoy the silent disco.
August 9, 2021: This morning we had our first meal in Blu. It has slightly different options than the main dining room. I had an asparagus frittata, and Dave had an omelet. The real test will be dinner, so we’ll see how that goes this evening.
We are in Nassau today, for a short stop, leaving at 3:00PM. After breakfast, we took a walk in Nassau to the Queens Staircase.
It was carved out of solid limestone rock by 600 slaves between 1793 and 1794 to create an escape route from the fort above and is a major landmark of Nassau. Fortunately, we approached from the top, so we walked down the stairs, not up. There is a fort nearby, but it is closed so we couldn’t visit it.
Back on the ship, in the afternoon, we went to observe the hot glass class. There are several different items you can make, and each has a price attached starting at $75 and going up from there. You need to make an appointment and choose the piece you want to make. The class we attended, the lady chose a pumpkin. To be honest, she did not do much of the work herself, but kind of assists the glass blower. Her item turned out very nice.
We also went to a sales presentation on the Celebrity Edge series of ships. It was a video showing how the ship was made, and giving a preview of all the public areas onboard. For me, it seems too big and too many things to do. I don’t know how you would experience all the different areas.
We ate at Blu, our first evening meal. The food is different than the main dining room, and the menu has fewer choices, including some healthy ones. We were a little unhappy that the sommelier was not attentive, but he was probably pretty busy. We flagged down a Maitre D’ and he got us our wine. The issue was we had been served our entree’s and were sitting there with empty wine glasses.
August 10, 2021: Today is a sea day – so kinda the same thing….attended some trivia, and actually did pretty good, but didn’t win ☹️. We listened to music in the foyer. We like the “Kickstarters” band. We had better luck with dinner in Blu. I think the sommelier knew we were upset from the night before as he was very attentive. After dinner we visited some of the shops and Dave bought me a ring I had been eyeing 👁. The evening shows were cancelled as the entertainer tested positive for Covid. We went to the replacement show. The cruise director discussed pop music and lots of little trivia about pop singers. Pete Baker, also on the activity team and the guy who does the Beatles show, played and sang some of the oldies. It was interesting, especially for a last minute switch.
Then we went to “Cruise Line is it Anyway”, which we attended last week. It is a takeoff of “Whose line is it anyway”. Four members of the crew participate, and it seems very impromptu. I find it hilarious. Dave thinks it is a bit vulgar – and he’s right, but I still find it funny. One disappointment was the room was packed – maybe a seat here it there, but pretty much a full house. No social distancing ☹️.
August 11, 2021: Today we have a port visit to St. Thomas, USVI. Dave and I both had a restless night, and tummy issues. We wake up hoping we don’t have covid ☹️. We take our temps, which are normal. We are suppose to go on a ships excursion today, but decide to skip it in case we continue having issues. We feel OK, thinking it must have been something we ate, but we both had different things for dinner. We had a light breakfast, and things seem to be OK. We went up to the sun deck and found some chairs in the shade, and just relaxed. We had hamburgers & fries for lunch, and everything still seems OK. We decide to get off the ship and walk around a bit.
The iguanas were out walking around, too. They would actually approach people, so obviously people have fed them.
Many places are closed, and of those that are open, some obviously have reduced inventory. The people in these ports have to be hurting – no tourism for 16 months, and only a very few ships are visiting now. In addition, the ships that are sailing have reduced capacity. After getting back to the ship, we went to visit Imade, one of our favorite bartenders. He told us there are about 1100 passengers onboard this week which is less than last week’s 1400. Capacity is 3434.
After spending some time with Imade, we went to trivia – and did more awful than usual – only 4 correct answers out of 15 questions! Everyone found it hard as the winning team only had 8 correct answers. On the positive side, we are learning some useless tidbits 😂.
Dinner at Blu…we have trained our sommelier to find our new favorite wine, Mer Soleil. Our dinner was excellent – a rib eye steak cooked and seasoned perfectly. After dinner, we wondered around as we had seen the show in the theater last week. We went to the jewelry store for their emerald extravaganza. Dave could not keep his credit card put away, so I was able to benefit from his problem 🤪.
August 12, 2021: we ordered breakfast in our room as we have an early (for us) shore excursion this morning. We are docked in Phillipsburg, St. Maarten. Our tour is in a double decker bus, and we had seats up top. We start out from the ship on the Dutch side of the island, and drove to the French side. Our tour guide gave us some interesting tidbits, such as, on the Dutch side, English is the primary language although Dutch and Creole are also spoken. Adopting English as the primary language brought in American investors and tourists, which was a boost to their economy. The language on the French side of the island is….French! The French side is larger than the Dutch side. Legend has it that a Dutchman and Frenchman met at one point and walked opposite directions. When they met again on the other side, that became the border. We drove from the Dutch side to the French side and stopped at a street market in Marigot, which I think is the capitol of the French side. Not everything is open, and I just have no interest in souvenirs ☹️.
Our next stop was Mano Beach, which is where the planes land and take off right over the heads of beach goers. Apparent the big planes come in between 1:30 and 4:30 in the afternoon. We were there about 10:00am, so we did not see any plane activity, but we did see the airport.
We were driven back to the Dutch side of the island to visit Toppers rum distillery and get some free rum tastings.
Some of the rums were very good, but we did not buy any. We did have some rum infused gelato though. Our last stop was an Amsterdam cheese shop where we were given samples of cheese. Dave liked the Gouda and bought some. Then it was back to the ship. One of the people on front of us was carrying a big box from Toppers, so I assume he bought a few bottles of rum! When we went through security, they gave us some static about the cheese we bought, but we showed them it was vacuum packed and they let us through. The island is very pretty, and the water surrounding it gorgeous.
We saw one huge house on the French side – definitely some money. However, as typical of the snobbish French….if you ask them a question in English, they respond in French. As Dave says, if it wasn’t for the US, the French would be speaking German!
Back onboard, we had a light lunch, after the rum, gelato and cheese…. We had a message on our phones that one of our tracelets wasn’t working, so we had to go to guest services to change them out. Then we went to the Relaxation room which is reserved for “Aqua” guests. They have comfortable loungers, water and tea, and a view out the front of the ship. I don’t think it is used much, which makes it even better! Dave snoozed 😴 and I worked on my blog. We could go to an Abba trivia, but since we really don’t know much about Abba, we stay in the relaxation room.
Had a wonderful dinner in Murano – Chateaubriand . Made a $30 donation in the casino ☹️. Listened to our favorite band, the Kickstarters. Then we got a nightcap and headed to our room!
August 13, 2021: We intended to get up early enough to go to Blu (our “exclusive” restaurant for breakfast, but woke up late and had to hit the buffet. We went to trivia, and did pretty good! Didn’t win of course, but when we get over 50%, we feel good. Today and tomorrow are sea days, so we will spend most of our time relaxing, visiting bars for Mer Soleil wine, and trivia. Being in Aqua Class gives us access to a Relaxation Room, which has comfortable lounging chairs and a view over the bow of the ship. We are disappointed with our stateroom in that it is under the treadmills. So at 6:00am, the heathy people onboard start their routines and we can hear the pounding. It wakes us up, but we try not to get out of bed.
We are watching the weather in Englewood, as tropical storm Fred is heading our way.
We have had an issue with our bank/credit card/celebrity. It is difficult to contact the bank and credit card when you are at sea. My wonderful husband bought me some jewelry which put us over our credit card limit, only because of timing. We tried to adjust our credit card payment with the bank, but the bank app wouldn’t let us. More complicated, and a long story. When we thought we had things straightened out, it turned out that Celebrity has put through our jewelry charge twice! We have been assured that the final charge will only go through once… we will see…
Another announcement by the captain that someone onboard has tested positive for Covid, but those in close contact were all tested and came back negative. The ship has a separate location where they isolate people who test positive. I think it is part of learning to deal with this virus.
Tonight is a “chic” night, so I’ll be able to wear my new jewels 😁. It is also lobster night….unfortunately, Dave and I both thought our lobster was rubbery ☹️. Instead of dessert, we had a cheese plate, which was very good. We went to the production show, “Life”and enjoyed it. Then we went to the foyer and listened to a tribute to Queen, sat at the martini bar, and after Queen, listened to a DJ.
August 14, 2021: Got up in time to go to Blu for breakfast, and went back to our room for a bit, waiting for the 10:15 talk by the cruise director, Eddy Jenkins’s. His talk is about 10 things you didn’t know about ship life. While waiting, there was a knock on our door, and Denis from Customer Services, who helped us with our credit card issue sent us a bottle of wine and chocolate dipped strawberries! I feel all the crew has been over the top friendly and helpful. Eddy Jenkins is a great cruise director – probably the best we’ve ever had on a ship. He is very entertaining and naturally funny. After the talk, it was trivia time – we seem to be doing a little better – but of course we never win ☹️. Time to pack ☹️.
We had dinner in Blu – my last chance for escargot. Dave and I both had “Duck confit ravioli” for dinner, and cherries jubilee for dessert…. Our last night splurge. After dinner, we stopped at the jewelry store to pick up my appraisals (😁), and then went to the show in the theater. One of the Celebrity singers, Brianna Faulk, sang Tina Turner songs. She is very talented. We would have enjoyed the show more if we recognized more of the songs, but she ended with a fabulous rendition of “Proud Mary”.
August 15, 2021: Debarkation was uneventful as was our drive home. We do not normally cruise in the Caribbean because most of the port visits are to beaches, and we live in a beach town! This cruise was a great opportunity for us to get away because of the pandemic. It is great that ships are sailing again. We enjoyed being on the cruise ship, and for me, no cooking or cleaning for two weeks, and the bonus due to Dave’s hot credit card 😁. They really try to keep the ship clean, with people wiping things over & over. All the crew wore masks, and I noticed some of the waitstaff wearing double masks. We felt very safe. I think the risk is in the ports. Unvaccinated people were only allowed to do ship excursions. Unfortunately, there are always a few people that think the rules do not apply to them. On our excursion in St. Maarten, we were told masks were required by St. Maarten. Unfortunately, there was one couple that never wore a mask, and apparently no one said anything to them.