Suite Life at Sea (get it?)

27 November 2013 – At sea north of the Dominican Republic

After observing the beach at Fort Lauderdale for a day, we embarked Silver Spirit Monday noon. Funny how the security and crowd control staff of the huge Fort Lauderdale cruise port (pretentiously called, "Port Everglades", which in itself sounds kind of funny) doesn't know how to handle an only 480 passenger turn around. Even though Silver Spirit is the largest ship of the Silversea fleet, the crowd control was more geared to the 6000 passenger Allure of the Seas and Oasis of the Seas, both of which had turn around stops, respectively, at Ft. Lauderdale in the two previous days. We were able to see Allure of the Seas, by the way, from our hotel room's balcony. It looked very big even from three miles away. The 100 or so of us early arrivals at Passenger Terminal 21 (!) were sent through two security checks and then herded sequentially to a number of seating areas, all the while being lectured at about the procedures that are going on with US Customs and Immigration and the Coast Guard, all of which were theoretical and essentially BS. We all handled it with typical 6 Star Plus customer grace. That is, we all complained to each other with occasionally one of the group explaining to the staff at the port that what was really going on was simply that the ship was still disembarking passengers and embarking first some crew members who were joining the ship. And it wasn't me doing the explaining. The early embarkation passengers of Silversea are a knowledgeable bunch.

Based on some very fortunate circumstances and the superior skills of my friend and cruise agent, Jim, we found that indeed we had been upgraded to a three room suite. Four, if you count the separate toilet and sink room from the two sink and Jacuzzi/bath plus walk in shower bathroom. We have three sinks, for heaven's sake. The "veranda", cruise jargon for a balcony, is 120 square feet added to the 620+ square foot suite. Holly cow, after almost two days at sea we have yet to sit in a few of the chairs in the suite, but we have already enjoyed the veranda quite a bit. This morning I watched our butler, our butler!, service our espresso maker. I could get used to it. First I'll have to get used to being very rich, and that ain't happening.

One of the joys of this cruise is being able to spend some time with our dear friends, Heinz and Ellen Biesdorf. Heinz turns 90 years old this coming July and tells me he is trying to spend down all his money. They are planning cruises in 2014 and thinking of a few itineraries in 2015. He is having a super time, and of course seeing them makes positive thinking easy.

We will dock tomorrow in Road Town, Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. Maybe we'll see Allure of the seas there. If so, I'll just stay in the suite and explore it further.

28 November 2013 – Road Town, BVI

Silver Spirit backed in to the new cruise ship pier precisely at 9 am this morning despite the almost three hour delay in leaving Ft. Lauderdale due to the US Customs doing a very thorough inspection of the ship's paperwork and also checking each of the crew cabins for hidden mahi mahi. (You can do a Google search for an explanation for how Silversea Cruises got on the US Customs "never forget or forgive" list.) We were saddened as we backed to see an ambulance waiting on the pier for an ill passenger to be evacuated. Perhaps they will be back on board before sailing this afternoon. [He was.] I'm sure no one would want to to miss tonight's Motown music show. You betcha. Barbara and I took an early walk around Road Town rather than a ship's organized tour. This capital of the British Virgin Islands is a port I had visited some 6 or 7 years ago. It was fun to stretch our legs and observe the local weekday scene. We studied the local infrastructure and were greeted by a local Christmas elf who was handing out leaflets.

Tomorrow we anchor in the small harbor at Gustavia, St. Barts, an island full of rich and/or French people. Will report in a few days.

OK, we're doing it again.

5,000 mile cruise from Ft. Lauderdale, to Ft. Lauderdale, and back to Fort Lauderdale.

Well, well. We resolved not to take another cruise until at least April, 2014. We'll do that, but meanwhile it got cold and yucky here in Colorado. So, we're off on another "mindless" Caribbean cruise and then no doubt some travels before the "big one" next Spring. Details on that one will be forthcoming.

Meanwhile we spend a few days in Fort Lauderdale and then embark Silver Spirit, the largest and newest of Silversea Cruises traditional cruise ships for back to back Eastern and Western Caribbean cruises. Looking forward to seeing dear friends in Florida and on the ship and having some (good?) adventures. And there's always the opportunity of poking some fun at those other passengers--I don't call them "guests" unless they are comp'ed the cruise as I was years ago but not now, for heaven's sake--but not too much sarcasm, I promise. Kinda.

I promise also not to post too many words, favoring pictures that I hope speak for themselves. Remember that you can click on most of the pictures in the posts to get larger, high resolution images. (Try clicking on the one above, say.)

And during the trip you might want to check out my Facebook page for "bonus" content and other comments.

This new blog will be expanded over the Winter to include some reports of trips we do until the next new blog series as well as the usual deep philosophical insights(?). You betcha. I'll send out notices occasionally but by all means do check the blog from time to time since I won't be annoying you with too frequent e-mails whenever I upload a new post. I promise that, too.

So, where did I put that sunscreen and DEET spray?

M.