Sea Day and St. Barts...plus room change

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” - Beth Bingham

1:30 PM was the Killer Whale Racing! Had to try this new experience….the Dining Room staff have hand crafted six sleek and beautiful racing whales! Instead of racing horses we rolled the dice out on the pool deck and raced WHALES! And my team won one time so I collected 6 Dam (each Holland America ship ends in “dam”) dollars. With each dollar you accumulate, you can purchase Holland America merchandise – key chains, t-shirts, sweatshirts, visors…I’ll share my grand total with you.

Lukcom dropped off two gifts for us! A nice leather diary in an exotic cover and a leather key holder (also good for business cards) which are very nice voyage gifts from the Holland America.

Guest Chef is Kirsten Dixon, the chef/owner of Within the Wild Adventure Company, an Alaskan Travel company offering three remote boutique adventure lodges. She attended culinary school at the Cordon Bleu in Paris and received a master’s degree in Astronomy from Adelaide University in Australia. She presented a cooking demonstration in the culinary arts demonstration center (a Signature event for Holland America).

Penny Mathisen, from Sydney’s Opera House sang songs from London’s West End. She has been singing professionally at sea since she was 19 years old! Wonderful renditions from Cats, Les Miserables, Carmen…classics and Broadway.

Their showroom provokes the feel of a cabaret lounge: low ceiling, slanted floor leading to the stage, tub chairs and tables for drinks. It is an intimate surrounding with a powerful live orchestra behind the entertainer.

The casino is very dead. We talked to the dealers and they said on the longer cruises, it is hard to get people interested…how many people want to lose money 50+ days in a row?? A week, OK, it is a game, a hobby. Over 50 days could be serious money the way some of them play.

Tonight’s movie is “Amelia”, which I personally find very interesting. From Kansas, Amelia Earhart learned to fly at age 23 and won the “Distinguished Flying Cross” as the first woman to pilot a plane solo across the Atlantic Ocean. At age 39, in the 1930s, she sets out on an attempt to circumnavigate the globe…and we all know the rest of the story. I cried at the end; you have to admire her spirit and passion for flying.

Saturday, March 27, 2010
“My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.” - Diane Arbus

St. Barts (St. Barthelemy, Caribbean)
We were up early to see the approach to this small island of the rich, famous and often most beautiful people. It is the ultimate in sophistication in the Tropics; chic, rich and very Parisian. You go for the relaxation, the French cuisine, the white-sand beaches and the ultimate in comfort. Columbus discovered it in 1493 and named it after his brother. On the approach we saw two beautiful rainbows on St. Maarten and clouds ahead on St. Barts. But it cleared up for a sunny, hot and humid day – 84 degrees at least.

This is a tender port so after our room service breakfast (love it!), we claimed our tender tickets in the showroom and headed to the tender, a motor boat for approx. 100 passengers – not too small at all. It was a short 10 minute ride to Gustavia, St. Barts and we docked right on the main street. We hired a taxi for an hour+ ride around the island – seeing fabulous beaches and driving up and down steep hills past small-ish ritzy resorts where life is easy. We saw much more cactus and trees-bent-over-due-to-the-wind than I imagined would be on the island, an old salt field and an airport that would frighten even the most experienced traveler. At the roundabout on the top of the island there is a sign to “duck if a plane is preparing to land over your head” as they land on one of the shortest runways possible for a 19-seater plane – ½ mile.

Most of the roads were 1.5 lanes wide with very little signage; only two gas stations and two banks on the island; the euro is the accepted currency; French is the main language and they are considered an Outer Territory of France but receive no money from their government. 95% of the island’s income comes from tourists. In the capital Gustavia, named for the Swedish King, we walked the main streets passing expensive boutiques (Gucci, Hermes…you get the idea) with many Swedish style buildings (their first conquerors) and climbed an extremely steep hill to the fort, which was closed for the lunch hour.

The three day regatta/sailboat race was taking place and it was incredible! On this beautiful afternoon we watched HUGE sailboats (guessing 100-130 feet) racing around the marina with big colorful sails. I’m sorry I don’t know the correct terms but their beauty was evident as they whizzed past our ship – almost too close for comfort! They appeared to be steering right in to the front of our ship as they moved along with sails fluttering in the breeze – approx. 40 sailboats. Memorable.

We walked through town and saw some beautiful teak wood furniture from Southeast Asia 2400 euros each. Multiply that figure by 30% and that is the cost of ONE chair, which was probably purchased for 50 dollars in Asia. GORGEOUS quality and designs - not your local WalMart. One chair had 2” wide round blocks of wood about 6” long that formed the seat of a chair. When you were seated, the blocks of wood were pushed down in varying depths as needed and it was actually very comfortable even if it looked like you were seated on round thick clothes pins.

We were hot and tired by the time we walked back to the tender and boarded the ship.
We saw Captain Albert Jan Schoonderbeek (Dutchman) disembark as he headed to the Holland America Captain’s meeting in San Diego. We heard Captain Gundersen (Norwegian) is onboard now.

In our stateroom, Lukcom had dropped off two more gifts! Hand sanitizer (the cruise lines are trying very hard to keep the norovirus off the ships) and a nice day bag stating GRAND BLACK SEA AND MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE 2010 – HOLLAND AMERICA.

We are on a GRAND VOYAGE – not your usual cruise. A cruise is typically a shorter trip with more emphasis on beach/relaxation, gambling, drinking and younger guests since they are shorter in length. A Grand Voyage has specialized lecturers and onboard activities for the older guest who is usually more interested in historical, architectural and cultural aspects of a region.
Consider:
29 days from Auckland to Hong Kong – Feb 7, 2011 (New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia)
or
32 days from Sydney to Dubai – Feb 21, 2011 (Vietnam, Philippines, Dubai, Mumbai India, Hong Kong and Singapore)
or
33 days from Ft. Lauderdale to Buenos Aires Argentina – Jan 5, 2011 – Amazon Segment!


After a quick fajita at the pool bar, we headed back to our stateroom to hear drip-drip-drip….UGGH.
Towels, phone calls, more visits than we can count from the front desk and housekeeping and more towels and more visits and looks of disbelief and apologies in a by-now-very-humid room and still no engineering department showed up to fix the leak. The clothes are on the bed – some wet, some dry, all the towels are used up and Gene is trying to watch the Final Four basketball tournament in a room constantly being visited by all but the engineer. The water is coming from the top of the door frame between the bedroom and walk-in closet and also from the ceiling panel in the walk-in closet.

Dinner time. I left. He can watch basketball and deal with the leak.
Saw another rainbow at dinner! FOUR of them today! Incredibly beautiful.

I found an ideal typing area in the card room next to the Ocean Bar, where a fabulous live dance band plays. “Are you lonesome tonight?” is playing now…now “Can’t live without you”…

All passengers receive a daily highlight newspaper for their region of the world. You can ask for any additional national newspapers. Beside the Times Digest, we receive The Canadian, Australia Today and Britain Today. In no other paper except Australia Today, on March 25, did we read that the U.S. Health bill needs a new House vote due to two procedural violations.

Well, we are changing rooms. Not sure if we will get one with a tub or a shower but they tell us we can’t stay in the room we have. Bummer. Real bummer. All that unpacking and organizing and now re-packing and re-organizing to be done on my birthday and all the letters I have printed and copied with my room number included for clients and letters I sent out tonight to all the officers personally inviting them to our cocktail party on Tuesday night….But let's put this in perspective, Luisa! How fortunate you are to be where you are and to have a room to change to!!!

Sorry, gang, but I just spent $8 trying to upload 3 pictures and it is just too slow...I'll have to wait until I get on land and have free WiFi.