twangster

Day 6 - St Thomas
After a short overnight ride over from Tortola we arrived to a rain storm in St Thomas at Crown Bay.  Fortunately it's the Caribbean.  If you don't like the weather wait 15 minutes.  
This is a work day for me.  Gotta pay for these cruises somehow.  I stayed on the ship.  #boring




I was curious where we went last night since it's a very short distance.  Looks like we just puddled around for a bit then made our way to St Thomas.

Not all St Thomas stops are equal.  St John's works best when you have a long day in St Thomas.  What hours are you there?
Here was a day in St Thomas and the Royal excursion to St John's last year from Serenade:
https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/6002-serenade-33018-10-night-eastern-caribbean/&do=findComment&comment=64272
This excursion was called  "St John's "All Inclusive" Beach & Snorkel".
If doing your own thing plan not to take the last possible ferry and don't assume a cab will be around when you need one.  Give yourself lots of buffer, islands ferries run on island time.

Melbourne is a sleepy little airport which can be great but sometimes that means rental cars options are more limited or priced higher.  It's also not that much closer, it's still a drive.  
One thing I didn't like, if a flight has delays or cancels there are very few flights into Melbourne while Orlando has many daily flight that your airline can move you to if one flight cancels.  
I did Melbourne once but now just use Orlando when cruising from PC.

The port area is very nice with some shopping, a few waterfront bars and no pushy vendors.

The desired effect worked and full relaxation mode kicked in.

There are several bars that we were free to visit.





This beach is popular with the yachting and sailing crowd.

My excursion today was Escape to Jost Van Dyke booked through Royal and later cheaper when it went on sale and I saved $19.  Jost Van Dyke is one of the smaller islands in the BVI with a small permanent population.  I've been to Jost Van Dyke before and booking this excursion was the very next thing I did after booking this cruise.
Very close to the end of the pier is the staging area for excursion boats.

The boat has both inside and outside seating fore and aft.   

The forward outdoor seating does some sea spray but it was very refreshing.

Around 25 minutes later we were approaching this little slice of heaven right here on Jost Van Dyke.

The water here is quite stunning.

I wasn't quick enough to capture the decent size sea turtle that popped up close by in this general direction.

On previous trips here the boat anchored and we swam to shore.  This excursion comes with a barge that takes guests to shore where you can just walk onto the beach without getting wet.

There are numerous bars that line the beach.  Our designated section was at the end of the beach at Ocean 7 names after seven sisters that founded this bar.  Loungers and umbrellas were reserved for us.  We received tickets for one drink (beer/soda/water) and one meal each.


It's such a beautiful beach. 

Chops was $48 plus 18%.  Since I'm D+ I used a C&A BOGO offer to get a second visit for free.
The Café menu:

I've been in cruise mode having a great time making new friends so I apologize for the lack of updates.
This was our sail out from San Juan at midnight.

The fountain on Paseo de la Princesa that I capture earlier.

El Morro at night.

Melbourne is a sleepy little airport which can be great but sometimes that means rental cars options are more limited or priced higher.  It's also not that much closer, it's still a drive.  
One thing I didn't like, if a flight has delays or cancels there are very few flights into Melbourne while Orlando has many daily flight that your airline can move you to if one flight cancels.  
I did Melbourne once but now just use Orlando when cruising from PC.

Walking back to the ship I just had to capture it with some water blur effect and the nearly full moon.

It was too early to go back on board so with several hours until all aboard time I wanted to go back to Paseo de la Princesa.




I always enjoy stops that include the ability to take pictures of the ship at night so I couldn't let the opportunity go to waste.


Time to head back on board.

My destination was sort of El Morro and anything I happen to see along the way so I just started walking up hill vaguely in that direction snapping a few pictures along the way.

I walked past a church with open doors so I couldn't resist a photo.

Eventually I reached the edge of the field in front of El Morro just in time for sunset.


Behind me the lights along the road towards Castillo San Cristóbal caught my attention so I went that way.

I wasn't really feeling the photography juices flowing so I had to figure something out. 

Maybe some long exposure light streaking photos would do the trick.

This is why I love golden hour.



Castillo San Cristóbal.  With my camera doing a 30 second exposure I used the light on my phone to "paint" the area closest to me with light.  

Day 4 - San Juan
Quite windy as we approached Puerto Rico but Empress handled it really well.

The pilot boat was having a fun ride.


Finally San Juan was within sight.

El Morro was grand as ever.


Into our berth early as promised.

The Ocean's 7 bar:

At 11am our lunch was ready.

Lunch was a hamburger or a hot dog.  I wouldn't rave about the meal but it did the job.

Fearful I might develop an ache somewhere in my body I thought it wise to take a local drink called a Painkiller.  

To be extra safe I thought it best to consume several.

There are several bars that we were free to visit.





This beach is popular with the yachting and sailing crowd.

@JLMoran asked me if they ever have a piano player in the MDR during dinner.  

I was fortunate enough to be picked for the Hotel Director's Table once again.  I learned that it's not always just the top elite that get invited based on numbers.  The Captain or Hotel Director has the ability to choose. 
Once again Jorge our Guest Services Manager joined us.  This is the last cruise for Julie our Hotel Director and Jorge as well.  While Julie goes home for 2 months Jorge is heading to Majesty for a few months.   


Some of my tablemates tonight were the pier runners at CocoCay.  Long story.  The ship called one of their emergency contacts when they were late.  Another step in the protocol I didn't know about.
I asked Julie about the previous Eastern cruise when guests were left at CocoCay.  She confirmed there were 3 guests involved and they all made their way to San Juan at their expense.  They contacted Mariner first and confirmed they had space before leaving the guests.  When the decision to skip San Juan due to civil unrest was made it was Jorge who contacted the port agent to make arrangements to get the guests over to the BVI at Royal's expense. 
I asked about the process when a guest misses the ship.  Multiple security wearing body cameras enter their cabin.  They document everything on camera.  They will open the safe and look for passports, wallet, credit cards and money.  Money is counted very visibly on camera.  They collect it all and put it in a bag.  If they see diapers in a cabin of missing guests they'll grab some of those too.  Everything is put in a bag and readied to be handed off to the local port agent.  
She said when a guest does make it at the last second (pier runner) it's very sobering for them to see their stuff in a sealed bag when they realize how close they came to missing the ship.  If a guest does miss the ship they hand the sealed package to the port agent who later gives it to the guest.  In the case of the last cruise and missing CocoCay guests the sealed packages were left with Mariner's security team.
Julie is very personable and it was interesting to hear more stories from her lengthy time at sea starting as a revenue manager.  She shared a picture a friend (crew) on Mariner took using a drone showing Empress and Mariner at the pier in CocoCay.  She airdropped the photo to me so I airdropped the Milky Way photo from my Empress Western cruise the week before back to her.  Since the drone photo isn't my picture I'm not going to share it here but it's a pretty cool picture. 
Some of my table mates will be on a Navigator B2B I have coming up.  Another will be on a Vision Panama cruise coming up with me.   Last cruise a table mate at the HD Table will be on an Oasis B3B with me later this year.  You meet so many nice people at these events and I greatly appreciate the invitation. 
Once again we were presented with a memento of our dinner experience.


Loyalty does pay.

Royal tends to dock at Crown Bay unless CB is full, at least in my experience.  

Day 3 - Midday
Pool deck is popular.

Carving demonstration in the Centrum.


Trivia in the Schooner Bar.  That's Brittney our Sports Deck Manager.  Her parents were on for the 2nd leg of my B2B last cruise. 

Beer sale!  

It's views like this I really appreciate on Empress.  The deck 6 Centrum doors to the outdoor deck that wraps around the ship.  The sea feels like it's right there.

All aboard for Empress was 2:30pm so we could make San Juan by 3pm after a sea day. 
Around 2:45pm as I wandered up to deck 11 to take in sail away I heard the announcement -   "Would the following guest make their way to guest services...".  Not one, or two or five or eight but ten guests were about to become Mariner passengers.  Then came the ship's whistle several times.
Looking down from deck 11 I could see Julie our Hotel Director and Jorge our Guest Services Manager on the pier.


Pier runners!  At 2:47pm five guests came running up the pier.  

At 2:53pm a golf cart delivered the remaining guests.  Finally we could leave.  With a brief horn exchange with Mariner we were off.

A last look back at Mariner and Perfect Day at CocoCay.


I needed to ensure they still had ample Guinness on board so I headed to the Schooner Bar. 

They have the Heineken draught beer machine out for this sailing.  It's a self contained countertop beer cooler and dispenser since Empress doesn't have permanent taps.

Snorkelling was fun but it was for some Snack Shack.

Juice choices today.

A Shack Crispy Chicken Sandwich, Mozzarella Sticks with Marinara sauce and a Funnel Cake for dessert.  Yum.

Over to Oasis Lagoon for a Margarita.



It's so nice having a pool to jump into.

I went back to the ship to drop off my camera stuff and grab my snorkel gear.  It's so nice having a pier now at CocoCay.

They were handing out cards to remind people of our 2:30pm all aboard time.

While going up the stairs to my cabin I found the wireless link that ties the ship network to CocoCay.


It wasn't hard to find a 2nd row lounger for my stuff while I snorkelled.







The Sergeant Majors were pretty friendly today.



This part of CocoCay still resembles the CocoCay of old for folks who just want a chill beach day.

Day 2 - CocoCay
I woke and discovered we were already here and tied up to the pier early.

Mariner is with us today.  The NCL Sky was sailing past on her way to anchor at GSC next door.


Live music to greet us this morning.


I think it's going to be a Perfect Day.

Crown and Anchor sail away party deck 6 aft, Diamond and higher.

I ran into the IT Manager and asked him if his O3b upgrade came through.  Nope.  The contractors I saw working are doing some routine maintenance replacing some components with a goal to improve reception when one set of antennas is blocked.  That's an issue at CocoCay with other larger ships beside us - they block one set of satellite antennas.  
We talked about Voom and I learned a few new things.  Empress shares transponders with a few other ships.  Navigator and Mariner use the same transponder.  Other groups of ships share different transponders.  For this legacy satellite system a different satellite covers the Western Caribbean compared to the Eastern Caribbean.  We'll use the same satellite for the entirety of this cruise.  On the last cruise in the Western Caribbean we switched satellites during the cruise.  
In terms of rain fade he pointed out something I should have thought of.  What goes up must come down.  Speedcast and O3b have their primary earth station in Miami.  Our data traffic comes down in Miami as a gateway to reach the internet.  If Miami is encountering bad weather like a line of strong thunderstorms that can impact every ships Voom even if the ships are in sunny skies a thousand miles away.  It was obvious when he said it but I had never thought about it.
The bridge has some data feeds that use a different satellite platform but if the Captain wants to stream Netflix in his cabin that uses the same Voom the rest of us use.
With the darkening skies over Miami as we pulled out I wonder if some ship somewhere is experiencing a Voom slow down.



Rain moving in.  Time to move to the Schooner Bar.

Another hidden discovery is that Wow! bands can be used to access your cabin.

Unfortunately when used in this fashion anyone on the ship can use your Wow! band to access your cabin.

Okay, that's a lame joke but I was enjoying drinks at the Schooner Bar up to this point...

Cabin Tour!
As we waited for cabins to become available at 1:30pm I was waiting in the elevator lobby near my cabin.  As the hall door was opened by crew moving luggage, James my new cabin attendant spotted me.  He was servicing the block of cabins right beside my last cabin so he recognized me.  He waved me through telling me my cabin was ready.  Nice touch.
Junior Suite 9600 Starboard.

This JS is the reverse layout from my last JS.

Pretty much identical with the same "efficient" bathroom and shower.


Walk in closet.

I waited until we had left the port to take balcony pictures.  This cabin is the most forward JS on deck 9 so the balcony doesn't have a divider on the forward side.  You do lose a small corner and the elevator lobby can see this balcony but the forward view is better.
The better sea views can also be enjoyed when sitting on the sofa inside the cabin.



The pool deck above narrows so the overhang is slightly smaller.  The view aft.

The view down.

Something I forgot to mention in my last Empress thread are the USB outlets.  They are found on the bottom of the lights on each side of the bed.  It's a great hidden feature.


It's really nice having USB outlets on both sides of the bed.