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Third (and last) Summary and Ports - Celebrity Mercury Jan 11-Jan 23
From part one - Good embarkation
**The Dis-Embarkation was good too. - Probably better than the next cruise which probably got back into Baltimore on Feb 1 in after a snowstorm. We got about 14 inches of snow on Jan 30th, and had another minor snowfall last night. We were given a time of 8:15 and we were off the ship and picking up our rental car by about 0900, even though the cab driver accidentally went through the tunnel first, and even though Bob (from the back seat) directed us all around the rental car terminal before we found the entrance. Drove home and got there before noon. Bob got the cars started and the water turned on, and then we turned in the rental car, and picked some stuff up from the commissary and unpacked - all on Saturday. Love cruising out of Baltimore We liked our room - it was quiet, comfortable and well laid out. I found the charts on the TV and the one in the lobby to be deficient, and the weather forecast to be about useless. The captain's announcements ("from the nav-i-ga-tion-al bridge") at noon were stilted. The button marked "WakeUp" call on the room phone did not really work. I asked for 7 am and it was the day that we turned our watches forward (and they didn't remind us in the daily program) and the call came at 8 am. Other times, it just didn't work at all. There was a procedure to follow listed in the room book which did work, but I don't think they should have a button marked "Wake-Up Call" if you won't get one. Also they said we would have beach towels in our room and they weren't there. At the first port they said the room steward would give them to us but he didn't know anything about it and didn't have any. He said they would be at the gangway and they weren't. Bob had to go up to the pool and get them. After the first port, they were at the gangway. The theatre was nice and Bob liked some of the shows and didn't like some others. I didn't like the layout of the promenade deck because you couldn't walk all the way around, even when you climbed stairs. We couldn't get early dining, but liked our table partners. I did not think (in spite of the heart healthy and vegetarian options) that the food was as 'healthy' as other ships and my impression was that the meat/entree servings were bigger (which is not a good thing IMHO). When they say something has asparagus, there are two tiny pieces on the plate kind of like a garnish. Not really vegetables at all. The lunch menus especially had a lot of fried foods. Really did NOT like the buffet - layout or service or offerings. . **Ports The itinerary was 3 sea days, five ports, 3 sea days. The ports were St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. Kitts, Antigua and St. Martin. Although the weather forecast said "Sun with chance of showers" every day, we had rain all day in St. Thomas and St. Kitts, and no rain anywhere else. Might as well not even SAY what the weather is going to be. Of these ports, the only one we hadn't been to was St. Croix. The ship information on the ports was a little lacking or was wrong. For instance they said it was a 10 minute walk to where the excursion vans were located in St. Croix, and it was not - they were right there on the pier next to the gangway so that we didn't have to walk at all. And they didn't mention the walk on St. Maartin, so I didn't know that I could pay $1.00 and get a golf cart ride down the pier. As it was, I had to stop and sit down about four times before I even got to where the taxis were. I took a tour everywhere except St. Martin. *St. Thomas, I took the BOSS (Breathing Observation Submersible Scooter formerly called BOB) tour. This was the picture they took of me. http://cache.virtualtourist.com/4733...-St_Thomas.jpg I had been given a digital snorkel camera and I wanted to try it out. Since I was in the water anyway, it didn't matter that it rained all day - I think the beach excursion people must have been very disappointed. I enjoyed the excursion. Bob just took a cab down to the marina and took some pictures. *St Croix I took the round the island tour because I wanted to see both Christensted and Fredericksted which meant that we missed the Whim plantation etc, but all of those tours seemed to involve a lot of walking. The van drove us out past the fort at Fredericksted. We stopped at Cane Bay and then at the site of Columbus's Landing in 1493. We went on from here to Christensted Harbor. Here Bob used the bathroom and then took pictures of the fort and harbor. I watched a chicken cross the road, and then went into the National Park bookstore and stamped a piece of paper (since the map didn't have on it the NPS site, I didn't know to bring my NPS Passport book with which I could have gotten into the Fort for free) with three NPS stamps. Instead I went to the Christensted National Historic Site across from the fort. This was a Lutheran Church originally. Then a stake body truck with huge speakers in the back playing at full volume came up the road. There was to be a parade apparently. The truck led off with four National Guard flag bearers, and then there was a whole platoon of baton twirlers in royal blue outfits with white boots - all the way from about 5 years old on up. After them came the baseball teams. Apparently there was to be a tournament, and they were marching up to the ball fields. After this we went to the 'industrial' side of the island which has the 2nd largest oil refinery (no pictures allowed) which used to be a Hess refinery, and we saw some goats, and the University of the VI. *St Kitts - it was Sunday, although the program says Monday. Our tour was called Essential St. Kitts. Because of the rain, the photo people were inside the ship. This time we really DID have to walk the length of the pier to get to the tour buses. I buttoned my raincoat over my camera and got into the front seat of the van. It was still raining quite a bit, so I took pictures between wipes of the wipers or rolled down the window to take out the side. The guide decided to go to Brimstone Fortress first and we were about the first people there -it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The road up was very narrow. (Bob's comment was that they had not wasted any asphalt in building it). At each curve was a small sign which said HORN and the driver honked his horn. We got to the admissions booth and I rented an audio guider for $5.00 It was raining a little, but not a downpour. I sometimes had to wipe drops off my camera lens and whenever I sat down the surface was wet. I asked Bob to go up to the top of the fortress, and he did and took some terrific pictures up there. We left the fortress and drove down the narrow road, meeting people coming up - each car had to get off on the side of the road to pass. On the way to the batik factory, we stopped for the guide to show us some Carib petroglyphs and a man with a monkey came by begging. Bob took his picture and gave him a little money because from the front seat I couldn't turn around far enough to take the picture. At the batik factory, because I stopped to take photos of some flowers, I got there just in time to hear the end of the presentation so I don't have a good idea of how it is done, but I did buy some items there which are to be shipped to me at home. When we got back to the ship, I was soaked to the skin. *Antigua - We took the helicopter tour of Montserrat. We flew over the harbor with the ships in it and in 10 minutes we were over the ocean heading to Montserrat. We were over the old airport by 1020. The pilot was saying that he was going to take us over to the old capitol but then he said - Hey there's a pyroclastic flow that is fresh. It was coming down and turning the sea water to steam and the buildings that had been there were burning and marked by smoke plumes. So we couldn't get over to the old capitol because of ash in the air. We couldn't see the top of the volcano because it was in a cloud, and we didn't see any red lava or anything - it was all grey. But the flow of ash was very dramatic and we got some good pictures. I even took a short video. The pilot tried a couple of ways to get over to the old capitol but was blocked each time by dust clouds. By 1050 we were on our way back to Antigua and we were back on the ground by 1100 and by 1120 we were walking back down the dock to the ship *St Maartin - No tour. Before we rented a car to try and get a photo of a lighthouse I saw on the first visit, but we couldn't get there because of road construction. So this time we just took a taxi there. ** Ship activities We went to the Cruise Critics "Connections" Party. There was food and juice and coffee available, and four of the men got together and sang an a cappella barbershop quartet which was really good and enjoyable Some of them also got together and sang "I want to take you on a Sea Cruise." I was a bit disappointed that everyone didn't get to introduce themselves to the group. We didn't participate in the gift exchange, or the other activities. The Cruise Director and the Activities Directors were at the Connections party and they had both just gotten on the boat in Baltimore so they apologized for the lack of activities but said that the programs for the first two days were printed before they got on. Later these two guys were on the TV every day explaining what was going on that do - they were so frenetic that Bob wondered if they were 'on' something. There were movies, but one of our table-mates said that he went to see "Slum Dog Millionaire" but the screen was too small for him to be able to read the captions. People played shuffleboard. I saw people playing games in the atrium. There were golf putting games. The library appeared deserted when I looked in there, but they had computer classes which appeared to be well attended. I didn't think there were as many lectures about the Caribbean locations as usual and the ones there were, were not re-broadcast. They had dance parties for various eras, but they didn't seem to have things like the Newly Wed/Oldly Wed Game. They did of course have shopping talks, which are of absolutely no interest to me. The port maps showed ONLY the shops. There was nothing whatever on there about any other possible attractions - no museums, no forts, -- nothing. When I asked, they said it was because of liability. Bunk. Noting the locations of the museums does not expose you to any liability. There were a lot of hot tubs including one that was in between the pool sections. This made it absolutely impossible to swim laps of any kind. I did not see any place on the ship where that would be possible. One of my children commented that all we seemed to do on the cruise was eat and play trivia. And that was almost true. After the first day when there was only one trivia, there were sometimes 3 or 4 trivia a day. We played all the trivia we could. The procedures were a little different than on other ships - they did not limit the number of people on a team (a larger team would give you more ability to have someone on the team who knew the answers but most of the time it was just four of us or maybe as many as 6), and they let us mark our own papers. Before, we've always switched papers and marked someone else's paper. This was only a problem because we won A LOT. Bob and I came back with a T-shirt, 2 golf hats, 1 luggage tag and 8 Celebrity pens from a 12 day cruise. It gets embarrassing after awhile (but not enough to stop playing) I gave extra tips to the waiter and assistant waiter, but not to the room steward - this was the first cruise where I have done that. After I got home it took me over a week to get my computer back to where it would both get and send emails. |
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Third (and last) Summary and Ports - Celebrity Mercury Jan 11-Jan 23
--SNIP--
*St. Thomas, I took the BOSS (Breathing Observation Submersible Scooter formerly called BOB) tour. This was the picture they took of me. http://cache.virtualtourist.com/4733...-St_Thomas.jpg *** Thought I was looking at Mickey Mouse when I first looked at the picture... Like the porthole ears! --SNIP-- Here Bob used the bathroom and then took pictures of the fort and harbor. I watched a chicken cross the road, ... *** Why did the chicken cross the road? ;-) --SNIP-- Thanks for the reports. |
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Third (and last) Summary and Ports - Celebrity Mercury Jan 11-Jan 23
On Wed, 3 Feb 2010 13:46:13 -0500, "LVTravel"
wrote: --SNIP-- *St. Thomas, I took the BOSS (Breathing Observation Submersible Scooter formerly called BOB) tour. This was the picture they took of me. http://cache.virtualtourist.com/4733...-St_Thomas.jpg *** Thought I was looking at Mickey Mouse when I first looked at the picture... Like the porthole ears! That was my thought too. I think the bubble make my head look smaller than it is. --SNIP-- Here Bob used the bathroom and then took pictures of the fort and harbor. I watched a chicken cross the road, ... *** Why did the chicken cross the road? ;-) Don't know. There was a lot of traffic and it took the chicken several tries. --SNIP-- Thanks for the reports. YW |
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Third (and last) Summary and Ports - Celebrity Mercury Jan11-J...
The chicken crossed the road to get to the other side, any one should
know that cruise lover(~~~~~) .. |
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Third (and last) Summary and Ports - Celebrity Mercury Jan 11-Jan23
Sounds like you had a good trip. Enjoyed every word of your report(s)!
Thank you so much for sharing. We like playing trivia, too! Diana Ball Austin, TX |
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Pictures- Celebrity Mercury Jan 11-Jan 23
I put pictures of the food on Mercury here
http://www.cruisemates.com/gallery/view.php?id=5265 This is the album of photos on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#!/a...&id=1643993700 I put the pictures with the narrative and they are here Embarkation and sea days http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/afeb1/#TL St. Thomas (including a shot of my purple bruised thumb http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/b0028/#TL St. Croix (including the chicken crossing the road) http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/b002c/#TL St. Kitts http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/b002f/#TL Antigua (Montserrat) http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/b0030/#TL http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/b0032/#TL There's also a short video of the pyroclastic flows http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/vv/3234/ St. Martin and coming home http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/b0034/#TL |
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