Yachts of the Rich (and purposely not-so-Famous)

The Post Cruise Depression is nearly gone and the reality of home cooking, home cleaning, home laundry and the dreaded home bills-to-be-paid is nearly complete.  I wanted to come back here to the travel blog and add a little information on something we encountered in Nassau while visiting.

This is the motor yacht Swan, previously named Lyana, that was at dock with us in Nassau.  We were on the sea side of our pier, and there was another cruise ship across from us, so we did not see her until we ventured off the ship, down the pier and around the corner.  For comparison, this is 60 meters long while the Ruby Princess is 290 meters long.  Pretty impressive, huh?  The Swan has four decks, a very impressive interior, boasting modern French decor, a spiral staircase, a top deck jacuzzi, indoor and outdoor dining tables for 12, an onboard 24 foot motor launch to get you from the boat to the shore, plus onboard skidoos and underwater seabobs. 

See here ( http://www.superyachttimes.com/editorial/0/article/id/9008 ) 

This ship is available for charter at the (ahem) reasonable price of  £360,000 per week. That is $562,536 at today's exchange rate.  Yes, per WEEK.

So, reeling from all that dazzle and shiny, glossy blue (not a fingerprint visible anywhere and we watched a crew member board but only after removing his deck shoes before setting foot on the boat) we headed on down the pier, around the next corner and saw THIS:

This is the 133 meter Al Mirqab, over twice as long and high as the Swan. It is owned by the former Prime Minister and current Foreign Minister of Qatar.  It is not available for charter but it cost around $250 million to build in 2008 back when the economy was so bad.  It has TWO onboard motor boats (see pictures in link, especially the side shots that show the 'garage doors' that swing up and hide the motorboats.  And check out that side deck in the above picture that swings down and provides loungers, an umbrella and stairs down to the water, not to mention the rear deck play area.  Oh, let's don't forget the helicopter, also carried indoors in a garage, the indoor swimming pool and the full time staff of 55.  The 12 guest rooms each have their own private bathroom, the interior spiral staircase wall is made of hand cut crystal and the chandelier was created by Dale Chihuly (see this summer's post from Seattle).

Here are a few more pictures in this link

http://www.superyachts.com/motor-yacht-2102/al-mirqab-photos.htm

All this sort of makes me want to haul out the canoe so I can cruise down the Rio Grande. ☺️

Finally! Pictures!!

Yes, this means we made it home and the laundry and chores are waiting until tomorrow. In the meantime a few pictures...

Tom in the balcony room on the Ruby Princess

First lunch in the dining room

Ship decorated for Christmas

Our transport in St.Maarten

 Tootling down the road

Tom at Orient Beach

The chocolate making workshop

Grinding away..

Chocolate Martinis

Our Beachside resort location

Tom at the Tropicante

Tom in the mini suite.

Tom watching the football game.

Ship version of big s Rene TV for football game.

That's Cuba

Last Sea Day

We have completed the worst day of every cruise - the last day at sea.  The day itself was lovely and lazy.  Beautiful blue skies, about 74 degrees.  We again cruised along the coast of Cuba, and heard today of the changes in diplomatic relations with Cuba.  The island looked the same as it did on the way down, and the skyline of Havana was still there in the same place as before.

Today was filled with a couple of movies, lunch on the balcony, breakfast and dinner in the dining room, a snazzy production show and a winning round of slot pull with the other members of the online Roll Call.  Thanks to a pull by Nancy, we all slightly more than doubled our money!  Then it was time to pack our bags and set the alarm for 5:45 am. We have an early flight out of Fort Lauderdale and will be back in Albuquerque by mid-afternoon, so good night and I will post the trip pictures soon.

Mahahual

Mahahual is a sleepy little beach town at the port of Costa Maya, Mexico.  Close to the border of Belize, it has wonderful reef diving, beautiful Caribbean blue waters, great seafood, margaritas and beer.  We spent the day on the beach here at Tropicante, both of us got beach massages along with our food and drink.  And now we are back onboard and wondering if we have to wind back up for the evening or if we want to just stay relaxed and keep it low key.  Tomorrow is a sea day, so we haven't yet decided.....

Chocolate and Drinks

We both had terrific adventures in Cozumel today: Cheryl made her own chocolate, actually ground the cinnamon and roasted cacao beans and added sugar, cinnamon and vanilla and put it in a mold.  She also learned all about how the cacao pods are grown, fermented, roasted and processed from ancient Mayan times to today.  Then the class tried wine and chocolate pairings; 7 small glasses with white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, chili chocolate, hazelnut chocolate, prickly pear chocolate and coffee bean chocolate.  THEN the class had chicken taquitos with mole sauce.  Mmmmm!

Tom went snorkeling on a catamaran, saw many interesting fish in the light blue waters.  After this they went to a beach break with unlimited beer and margaritas.  We know he had fun because when they got back he found he had left his new polo shirt somewhere back on the beach!  Or it may just have been an excuse to purchase two more cheap ball caps and another Hawaiian shirt once back in port.

As always, pictures to follow later when we have better internet connection.

Off the Coast of Cuba

I can see it from my deck....long, mountainous island.  We are heading to Cozumel, Mexico for our first port stop on this cruise tomorrow and are near the northwest tip of Cuba.  Today was a sea day; we are cruising southwest from Florida and are currently in the Gulf of Mexico with very slight seas, moderate breeze, water temperature 80.6, air temperature 74.8. I hear it snowed at home last night.

This morning was a trivia game, a lesson on origami boxes, an attempt at playing the steel drums (more practice needed Wednesday), a fish-n-chips pub lunch and a get together with the online group from Cruise Critic.  Tom is up on deck getting ready to watch the Broncos game by satellite. I will join him after posting this.   Tonight's activity list is football at 4, dinner at 7:30, Majority Rules gameshow at 8:15, Marriage Match game show at 9:00 and the illusionist/magician at 10:15.  Then we get to set our clocks back an hour for an extra bit of sleep before we arrive in Cozumel at 7am.

A couple of pictures....I hope

Well, most of the pictures are going to have to wait for our return, but on this cruise I was able to keep my mouth shut for a whole month (shocking!, I know!!) and keep secret from Tom that we were upgraded to a minisuite.  Tom is now lounging in the extra living space and exclaiming over a bathtub in the bathroom instead of just a shower and nearly giggling at the surprise.

Saturday

Greetings from Nassau, Bahamas

Well, actually I am posting this the following morning, on Saturday as we wait to disembark the Ruby (boo-hoo) and cross over to the Caribbean Princess (woo-hoo!)

Disembarkation is always a sad day when everyone leaves, but this trip it is much less hectic as half the passengers are staying onboard for the second week.  So not quite the mad rush for the elevators or chairs in the waiting lounges.  We have our table with our carryon luggage where we will 'get' to wait for about two hours until the last disembarkation group.  Then we will cross over to the CB where we will likely be arriving too early, and we will get to wait in chairs in the terminal for another hour or so, but we should be back onboard and settled by noonish.  

As for Nassau, we did not venture far afield on that port stop.  There have been a few robbery incidents of tourists recently, the State Dept. issued a warning to tourists, as did the ship, so we just meandered the local streets by the port, fought off the taxi drivers, checked out the straw market and came back onboard.  That's about it for this post....next report will come from the CB!

Back to Basics

Had a short but thorough post covering our Day in St. Thomas (Wednesday) all ready to go yesterday (it was a picture of the beach at Magen's Bay where we spent our day) and I figured since we had cell phone service we could at least use that to upload the blog entry.  I should have known better, too many bits and bytes of data over whatever they use for cell phones on that island.  So until we return to better service, as in maybe when we get home, pictures will have to wait or come only occasionally.

We had not been to Magen's Bay since our first cruise in 1982, so it was fun to return.  Spent the day floating on the water or relaxing on the sand.  Getting there and back involves the open air jitney taxis which hold 25 people (best to sit in the middle so you cannot see what is going to hit you coming the other way) and climbing up and over the twisty winding mountain road to get to the other side.  Free adventure all the way.

Today, Thursday, is our second sea day.  Which means we will just be relaxing on ship for the most part.  One thing we might do is play Trivia.  Cheryl is on a team that has decided to aim for second place since Every Single trivia game thus far has been won by the team formed by a woman who has been on over 100 cruises and knows the answer to practically every single trivia question.  Last night she got a perfect score.  The prizes are trivial, too; key chains, pens, deck of cards, magnets, but she has won them all.  Irvin, on our team, is thinking of tossing her overboard.  Instead we named ourselves Team Avis, our slogan is "We try Harder and Have More Fun!"

Another thing we may try is the jackpot Bingo game for $2000 this afternoon.  Having won $100 on her first game, Cheryl will only play a game after winning if it is for the Jackpot, and if it does not go in 54 numbers this morning, it has to go in however many numbers it takes in the afternoon.  That last game is usually very full of players.

Tom will check out the super $10 sale in the dining room, try a little golf chipping challenge, go to the military gathering and perhaps try his hand a martini making.  Pictures to come later.

St. Maarten

IToday's adventure involved a thing called a Scoot Coupe.  Imagine the car used on the Disneyland Autopia ride let loose on the hills and highways of a Caribbean island along with taxis, buses, tour vans and jeeps.

We had a blast even if we did scare ourselves half to death in the process. Well, Cheryl did; Tom laughed maniacally most of the way.  We ended up on the far side of the island which is French territory, fortified ourselves with a beach break and alcohol for Cheryl and zoomed back over and down the mountain to the port.

Tom figured this was a good way to keep Cheryl out of the stores and shops.

I can finally report that we connected to the wifi in the room, and on the iPads/ phones, so I might be able to send a picture or two at the end of this post.  I bet the other users either gave up or ran out of minutes...whatever they did there is now access for us.

Catching Up in the Caribbean

Oh the best laid plans!   We do have WiFi access here on the ship, but it is dreadfully slow, especially as there are so many passengers who, like us, receive a wifi credit to use onboard for being loyal Princess passengers.  Consequently, I can use the ship computers in the Internet Cafe to send and receive emails or to make a few quick Facebook posts, but to use our Blogger account I have to use our own device, the iPad.  Me and the other 1,000 people trying to do the same thing.  Or I can arise at 4:00 when there are only a handful of folks trying to access the Internet.  This would be easy if we had a wifi signal in our cabin, but we are far enough away from the routers on the public decks that we get nothing in our metal clad room.  Out on the balcony I can grab a weak signal if I hold the iPad at the correct angle.  (Such troubles I have in my life, right?). Anyway, I will be attempting to make some notes and then trying to blog everything all at once when I do get access, either early in the morning or or perhaps when we reach St. Thomas and I can switch to cell data (which is thankfully still in the US unless you use Verizon).

Today (Sunday) found us anchored off the southern tip of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.  The day started out a little cloudy with few rain showers, but it quickly cleared and the beach was a destination for many, including Tom.  Having been here last year, I opted to hang out onboard and went to Trivia, where I joined a team of folks including a couple from.....Taylor Ranch in Albuquerque.  Small world and all.

MONDAY: Today was a sea day, which meant we slept in late, and did various activities around the ship.  Came in second at trivia, but met a nice group of players. Won at Bingo!  Yes, really.  That makes three wins on four trips.  So now I don't play again until the jackpot at the end of the cruise.  

Tomorrow we visit the island of St. Maarten.  If we find real wifi I will post pictures to go with some of this.  

So beautiful

I think one of my favorite moments in cruising is still the moment when you step from the gangway onto the ship.  Of course, it helps that they have tons of staff standing ready to give you a cocktail and direct you to your room.  And the Ruby Princess is all dressed up for Christmas.  Garlands on the staircase, poinsettias and greenery decorate every nook and cranny and carols are playing over the intercom system.  The excitement is evident on the faces of everyone coming onboard. And everyone is in such a happy mood; if something goes a little awry or a line takes longer than usual, everyone just turns to their neighbor and makes a new friend.  The happiness is palpable.

I did take a few pictures so you could see:

On our way..

Just a quick note to let y'all know we are safely in Fort Lauderdale. We had non-eventful flights; both on time, easy connection.  We've had dinner across the street from the hotel and now are relaxing in our room anticipating the events of tomorrow.  I will try and post a couple of pictures from the ship before we depart.  That is, if I remember to take pictures before we depart!