Days 1 and 2
As a note all passengers are referred to by their Cruise Critic monikers in order to make an effort at protecting the innocent or guilty or revelers, or whatever! Crew members are referred to by name so that they can get all the recognition that they are due for the wonderful job that they all did taking care of us. Special thanks to Capt T, Amy, Christophe, Jamie, Zoltan, Memed, Merza, June, Chad, and Super Mario!
(Many thanks to Frequent Traveler for letting me use her material to refresh my memory and save me a lot of time)
It’s time for the journey to begin. We (myself, FT, DD, and DS) will be off to the airport in Charlotte within the hour. (The predicted bad weather did not arrive before we left) We were soon winging our way to Saint Thomas and an afternoon of shopping. Everyone is excited, in fact we have two twenty somethings bouncing off the walls. The trip from CLT was uneventful - other than the fact that FT's rollerboard that goes in the overhead all over the world wouldn't fit in US Air plane to St. Thomas. No big deal. checked it and it made it there.
We arrived in Saint Thomas around 2:15 p.m. and after a quick cab ride to the Marriott Frenchmen's Reef we checked in and the children and I grabbed a cab to town for shopping. I was in the market for a new DSLR and since DD celebrated an important birthday while traveling she got to pick her own presents.
We enjoyed dinner at the hotel and then spent some time at a great new Rum bar at Frenchmen's Reef-that is sleek, very comfy, and has great view of St. Thomas and the harbor.
The scheduled itinerary for this voyage is:
So you may wonder what our itinerary finally looked like:
Sunday dawned bright and sunny. After a nice buffet breakfast in the hotel, FT and I spent a few hours at Morning Star beach, and left for the yacht around noon. As check in time is never before 2:00 p.m. we dropped our bags with security ( the dock workers are wonderful at Crown Bay) and went into town. DD had left her sun glasses at home so we added another birthday present to her collection. While a lot of things, especially cameras and electronics are good deals in St. Thomas, other than no tax, prices for sun glasses are no better than at home.
Only one ship was in town so just about every thing shut down at one. While FT and DD shopped DS and I found a lovely sidewalk beverage establishment and enjoyed a few adult beverages. We were soon joined by the ladies an promptly at 1:40 we grabbed a cab and ventured to Crown Bay to board our home for the next five days. After a quick walk over we were on SD II in no time at all. As we approached the ship, Captain T was at the top of the gangway, and warmly greeted us.
I was then introduced to Christophe Cornu, our hotel manager for this voyage, and Amy Boothman, our Club and Activities Director and we were given a cool towel and a perfectly chilled glass of champagne. (For FT as she says it was the first of her never empty glasses of champagne.) (The house champagne is Nicolas Feuillatte.) After a few brief minutes, we were shown to the Main Salon where we waited, to be shown to the lobby where our photos were taken for our boarding cards. We were then shown to our cabin, well really the Admiral's Suite which FT had upgraded us to by our stewardess, Arla, who did a great job taking good care of us. When we boarded she told FT that her nightly cheese tray was already ordered. When we got to the cabin someone else's back packs ended were there leading us to think we have some small children on board. The kids were escorted down to deck 2 to their cabin 211.
The rest of our luggage (my book bag with my laptop was taken on immediately by the dock workers) was on board within 10 minutes and we were unpacked by 3:00 at the latest. I meet the kids at the TOY and gave them a tour of the ship. The galley was worked very hard as a lot of guest ordered lunch at TOY. The owner, and his wife and daughter are on board, as are a number of SD sales execs.
Muster drill was at 5:30 pm. It went without a hitch. Welcome cocktails wer served in the main salon with Edgardo at the piano. Amy gave us a brief overview of tomorrow and then the captain warned us, we are going to be heading into rough waters after dinner so we delayed sailing until around 11:00 p.m.
We dined al fresco on deck 4 as is our preference. The menu Sunday night included:
Soups
Salads
Chef's Main Dishes
There were of course the Vegetarian alternatives and the selections from the Oriental Wellness Cuisine.
Desserts
We were waited on by June and Maître’d Jamie. Both of these fine gentlemen, along with the tag team of George, the sommelier and Chief Bartender Zoltan, Chad, Memed, Merza, and others took excellent care of us at dinner every night (especially when we dined aft on deck four). Dinner, in the usual SD fashion was wonderful. The Filet was perfect and service was exquisite. The standard wines were very nice and fit in perfectly. I did not pay a bit of attention to the labels, but trusted George and Chad, to make good selections, which they did. On SD for the most part there is never a reason to need any wine other than the standard pour.
Due to the weather conditions we stayed late in San Juan and sailed at 11:00 p.m. Chad did a great job of keeping FT's after dinner drink -lemoncello - never empty. (According to her he's a sly bartender.) Before retiring for the night we found our SD pajamas with our names. The captain was right it was a rocking night.
continued on Day 2