mk-ultra

Pulled away from the dock at exactly 5:30PM. At around 5PM, overcast skies moved in and gave us a brief spritz of rain and a very welcome 10 degree temperature drop. It feels great on deck. I’d normally stick around for the sunset, but I’ve got a lamb shank to shank and a casino to teach a lesson.

Noticed they were doing lifeboat training today, so I bopped down to deck 5 to make an inquisitive nuisance of myself. Putt-putt-putt... I’m a lifeboat! Putt-putt-putt... Look at how spacious I am! You and 369 of your closest friends fit in me! Hope you wore deodorant. This is my friend. We have our ups and downs. Not sure who this guy is, but he likes bossing me around. The Star Class lifeboats have a wet bar and priority boarding. Keep that SeaPass handy.

Did about 3.5 hours at Labadee today. 87F, no breeze. Basically just did a walkabout of the entire place, then encamped at the suites Barefoot Beach area. Had a couple of Labadoozies, read my book until lunch and ate some marginal food (hey -- they're anything if not consistent; same as the last time I was here a decade ago). Followed that with another Labadoozie and more bookworming. Barefoot Beach area was great. Not crowded at all, and anyone who wanted a lounger in the shade of a palm tree could get one without going all chog about it. Water temp was perfect. 3.5 hours was just right for me. Now I get a nearly empty ship until late this afternoon. ?

About an hour away from our scheduled docking time of 10AM in Labadee. All-aboard is 5:30PM today. It’s still too hazy to get a decent pic, but the hills along the coast here are lookers. Near as I can tell from topo maps, the tallest peak is “Morne Jean” at around ~2200 feet.

Day 6: 8AM; cruising westbound along the coast of the Dominican Republic on our approach to Labadee. Weather is great, but a bit too hazy for snapping pics this early. Gonna be a beach, book and booze day. ?

The Old and New San Juan tour was a bit of a bust. This started and ran smoothly. I especially like the way they handle tours out of the port here. Instead of lining up by station number, you just turn right at the end of the pier and they immediately start putting a van-load of passengers together. When they hit capacity (15 in this case), off you go and they just start collecting people for the next van. I was out there a bit early, along with more than 15 others who booked the same tour. They launched us ahead of the scheduled time. The tour was a little over 2 hours. Our first stop was a short distance from the port, and we had 15 minutes to poke our heads into the Capitol building. Good for a rotunda dome photo, a peek at the PR constitution, and a few historical displays. Granted, the 10-bizillion-tiled dome is very pretty. Next stop (um, drive-by) was the castle/fort Castillo de San Cristobal. We drove up the mock entrance, and then straight back out. No stop and absolutely no vantage from the van to photograph anything but a close-up of a limestone wall. I’ll spare you. As we were admiring the wall, I thought to myself, “Self — that might have been interesting to go inside and look around.” Next stop was the Cementerio Santa Maria. We stopped there for 10 minutes to admire the cemetery and ocean from afar, and to get a distant view of the rump-end of Castillo San Filipe del Moro, that we would also not be visiting. Next we were let off at Plaza Colon. Mostly souvenir shops and restaurants. Some people decided to tour the Marshall’s store. I had a $16 Margarita and bought a colorful carved stone turtle to keep my towel animals company. Having concluded our whirlwind tour of historic Old San Juan, we skedaddled across the bridge to explore New San Juan. 15 minutes later we arrived at a tiny park the size of two basketball courts, within a short walk to the beach behind the Hotel Coronado. The main attraction here was the Ben & Jerry’s. We had 25 minutes to admire the grass, the ocean view, and Ben & Jerry’s air conditioning while eating Coconut Seven Layer Bar ice cream. Ocean view was pretty. And, that was a wrap. Back to the ship. The one thing I really did like was our driver/guide Diego. During our drive time, he did give us a lot of relevant history of all the interesting stuff we wouldn’t be experiencing. I think I’m just cranky because Mr. & Mrs. Talksloud-Alot in the seats behind me were compelled to babble on continuously, loudly, and over Diego’s narration the entire time. I wish I’d brought a couple of extra socks. I’m happy to report their good for nothing son will at least be helping install new window screens while they’re gone Departure was right on time. Lucky for the 2 pier runners (had ‘em today!) who did the 100 yard dash at 12:58 to just squeak in under the 1PM all-aboard time. Not so lucky for the other 3 of 5 people they’d been calling on the PA for since 12:50. Oops. Tip: get your spot on the starboard side rail early (like at least 15 minutes before departure) if you want to snap some great pics on the way out to sea. The railing is really packed for this departure.

Day 5: Just docked in San Juan at 6:45AM. Weather is great. 79F and a teensy bit hazy. Predicted high today of 90F with 0% precip. Not much to photograph yet. View looking northwest from the dock. It’s a short day here (all-aboard at 1PM). I’m doing the Old and New San Juan tour operated by United Tour Guides that meets on the dock at 8:45AM.

5:40PM. Ship just doooooted one long fart, so we’re departing 10 minutes after the all-aboard cutoff. No runners. The casino should allow bidding on runners the night before. Best guess wins the pool the next day. OK, that would be rude.

T-17 until 5:30PM all-aboard. Moving to the hump on 16 to see if I can catch a sighting of a pier-runner sprint. Majestic, I hear.

So, a miracle occurred. Our food tour was supposed to start at 10AM. By 9:50, everyone was accounted for and we started early instead of standing around baking in the sun waiting for stragglers. Good job, shipmates! Off to an excellent start. Our driver would be Serge (funny and informative guy), and our tour guide would be Ankie — a self-professed 55 year old hippie who sold her bar in the Netherlands 11 years ago and moved to Dutch St. Maarten. Even more funny and informative than Serge. Both were great. Our first stop this morning was the Amsterdam Cheese Store. Cool. I do cheese. We turned left out of the port, drove like 100 yards, and pulled into the parking lot of the Amsterdam Cheese & Liquor Store after an arduous 30 second trek. Hrm. Eyebrow goes up. I’m game though. Inside, the 15 of us were ushered to a corner of the store with a display table made from a Dutch merchant’s bike, where TJ (with the assistance of a volunteer passenger) would be taking us on a little Dutch Gouda tour. We started off with with introductions, a glass of champagne, and passed around some toothpick cheeses as TJ described them to us. First was a young cow’s milk Gouda (~6mo) followed by young sheep’s milk Gouda, a pesto Gouda, and finished with a ~2 year aged Gouda). All were tasty. The pesto Gouda also got an eyebrow raise from me, but it was a nice surprise with a balanced amount of basil to it. It was dark green, which 6 year old me loved. The 2nd half of this 30 minute stop would be the passenger-assisted preparation of a pasta dish using 3 of the cheeses we’d tried. TJ brought out a couple of casserole dishes with cooked bow tie pasta in them. That was seasoned with a little Italian seasoning, black pepper, and then each of the cheeses was laid out in a stripe across the top so we could taste the pasta with each individually. Into the oven the casseroles went. While they were getting all melty, TJ gave us a little more background on the cheeses we had tasted. The casseroles came back 10 minutes later (someone has a combi oven back there), had fresh cherry tomatoes added on top, and we each got about a 1/2 cup serving of each. Not gonna lie. It was good. After that we got a few minutes to look around the shop (oddly enough, great selection of Dutch cheeses, treats, and booze). Then back to air-conditioned bus bliss. Our next stop, Zafiro Beach Bar & Restaurant, was also on the Dutch side of the island, about 20 minutes distant and maybe 200’ off of the south side of the runway at Princess Julianna Airport. To get to and from it, we’d cross the famous stretch of Maho “Beach” that people adore getting a sandblast facial from jets on. Having been tempted to visit this spot myself, I can now tell you I am thrilled to have seen it from a bus on the way/from a good meal. It was packed. The “beach” portion is a tiny slip of a thing, while the rest of the shoreline is made up of the artificial locking blocks folks use to protect harbors from pounding waves and invading Germans. The rest is just less-invasion-proofing boulders. This would be our main meal on the tour. Creole chicken with plantains and a rum punch. The pic doesn’t make it look very pretty, but it was excellent. Nice view of the beach from the restaurant. And, for those who may regret not getting the direct jet BJ along the Maho Beach fence, the restaurant has an observation deck nearby where you can watch airplanes approach and land without mussing up your hair or being blown out to sea. Next stop: The aptly named Carousel for a gelato making demonstration (by the owner), a tasting of said made gelato, then two scoops of whatever you wanted from the regular counter outside of the “lab.” Then, well, get on the damn carousel at Carousel, you cad. Escorted off the property by an iguana. 10 minute ride back to the port with a little more narrated history. Tour ran like clockwork. Out of the coach at exactly 2PM. I can see why this tour is 5-starred to death on TripAdvisor. Fun & tasty with a nice side dish of history.

Into CK at 7:45AM. 1 order of eggs Benedict later and I was out by 8:20. Bennies were textbook & tasty. The view of Great Bay from the ship is much improved now that the sun isn’t blasting into the camera. 9:45AM show time on the dock for the 10AM start of the Royal Fun Family Food Tour. Operator is Flavors of St. Martin Food Tours. Looks like they get a lot of love on TripAdvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g147347-d8721899-Reviews-Flavors_of_St_Martin_Food_Tours-Philipsburg_Sint_Maarten_St_Martin_St_Maarten.html

Captain Fancypants reversed our way to the dock. Ship didn’t make that beep-beep-beep backup warning sound. They should just do that as a joke. Our neighbor this morning is the MSC Seaside. Breakfast in CK now.

Morning of day 4: Approaching St. Maarten It’s around 7AM and we’re on approach to St. Maarten, roughly paralleling the southern coast southeast bound, abeam Simpson Bay. Weather looks pretty spectacular. 83F with a 9 knot breeze right now.

Day 3: A good way through our second of 3 sea days today. Dinner last night was (again) at CK. You’ll see a lot of that from me if I bother to even comment on it. I’ve only got one specialty restaurant booked for Thursday night (150 CP). Dinner at CK for me was cream of artichoke soup, with wild mushrooms, arugula and croutons. Very, very good. Every soup I’ve had on an RCI ship has ranged from good to excellent; leaning towards excellent. For an entree I had the veal tenderloin, with pea purée and fava beans. This is the first time I’ve really been disappointed in CK. Tough, overcooked meat (I’m used to that on a ship for the most part), but it had clearly been sitting covered on a speed rack for a long time. Pea purée was crusted over, beans were undercooked and damn near crunchy. Swing and a miss. Mostly just meandered around the ship today, reading my book, interspersed with bar visits. Weather turned rainy last night, cleared up overnight, and it’s been a steady overcast today with an occasional light sprinkle and really variable winds. Nice break on the temps though. CK again tonight. Phillipsburg tomorrow. Confirmed at the Excursion Desk that my planned Pinel Island excursion has indeed been cancelled. Booked a 3-stop culinary tour as a replacement. I’ve been to Phillispburg a couple of times before, and have already done the 360 island tours. Something different this time! And food. Swells this afternoon have that kind of perfect periodicity to them that causes the main pool to go nuts and turn into a (closed, self-emptying) wave ride. Super relaxing sea day. ?

Just had a Kummelweck sandwich from the Park Cafe for lunch. I will be having one per day. Maybe two if nobody is watching. My big goal today is to remember that I need to be at the spa at 3PM for 75 minutes of massage and 20 minutes of being aggressively up-sold magical detox woo. It’s one of our two formal nights. I'll put on my blazer and play dress up over dinner before taking my dashing countenance to the casino to shore up RCI's stock. [NERD WARNING: NERDY STUFF AHEAD] I'm already slowing down to "cruise speed." No need to be anywhere or do anything. Like, Imma just sit here with a book all day and drink fruity things. I totally hit the jackpot selecting one of the books for this cruise. I would have sworn I'd read every Iain M. Banks Culture novel. Somehow, I'd missed Excession. I've been incredibly restrained in saving that book for this cruise instead of immediately consuming it in a nerd binge when I got it. I feel like I found a $100 bill in an old jacket. W00t! Iain passed away in 2013, and the Sci-Fi literary world lost an icon. Humor. Prose. Fantastic characters. All wrapped-up in an astounding universe. Cheers, Iain. ?

Day 2. Both today and tomorrow are sea days. As usual, I woke up early. Popped down to Cafe Promenade for coffee and a pastry. I was surprised to see Guest Services open and 2 people working the desk at 0530. Nobody was in line, so I took the opportunity to see if I could straighten out my erroneous Voom charge and figure out where my missing shore excursion ticket for Phillipsburg was. For the Voom charge, they sent an email off to someone in corporate to see if they could remove it. My shore excursion was cancelled. No notification, but I do see that the money was refunded to my credit card. Off to the Excursion desk later today to book something else. Weather is very nice, but it was windy AF earlier this morning. We’re doing ~18 knots directly into a 10-15 knot gusty breeze. I was down on the pool deck and a lady opened one of the now-famous windows to stick her iPad mini (with a cover opened like a book) out to take a pic of the sunrise. That worked out just about as well as you might imagine. Some dolphin is probably playing Angry Birds on it now. Ate at Windjammer. Being an early bird has its merits. One of which is not having to elbow my way to the trough through a crowd.

Dinner tonight was in CK. I had the escargot as an app, and the lamb loin with marquez meatballs as my entree. I should have taken notes, but also had some nice Chilean reds that are available by the glass. It was great. If you're squeamish about escargot, do yourself a favor and just try it. It's a vehicle for butter and garlic that you have to sop up with bread.

Oh man. Casino TVs are all tuned to ESPN for (an?) NFL game today. I just happened to be sitting in a chair facing a TV. Nice person next to me asked for my opinion on some football-related minutiae. I said, “I don’t usually watch soccer.” Priceless. I resisted asking him about sportsball.

This is my first sailing out of Port Everglades. The departure is ridiculously pretty. Sorry I didn’t take more pics, but I was busy admiring the view with a silly grin plastered all over my face. Tons of locals living in the condos near the channel waving and hanging sheets off of balconies with nice tidings. Time to go back to the cabin and begin the unpackening.

And we’re off!

Mustard drill complete (it was Dijon). Shore crew singling-up the lines. Promising rumbles from the engineering spaces. Total mayhem at the elevators. I’ll hike the 11 decks up, thank you very much.

Allure is O3b for internet access. Speeds aren’t amazeballs, but it’s definitely a usable connection. I’ll try to stream a movie at sea for science.

Swooped back by the cabin. Bags are appearing outside of our cabins (2:30PM or so). Seems like everything on this cruise is ahead of time. I was on Allure last December. It was efficient then, but not as crazy good as this sailing. Fruit magically appeared while I was wandering around.

L2 (port side, aft facing) Crown Loft Suite. I'm on deck 17, and my view down is the putt-putt golf course and (if we were underway), the ocean on the port side. Right now it's putt-putt and fuel tanks. The last two times I've been in a CLS were both ocean facing on the starboard side. Decided to try something different. Don't ever book a CLS.

Cabin is great. Ice bucket is filled. Plate of cookies and a couple of free bottles of dihydrogen monoxide. Just got charged $98.15 for the complimentary internet access that comes with a suite. No way am I going anywhere near Guest Services on day one. I’m no masochist.