Cruising The Caribbean

Today we are making very good progress on our trip toward St. Barthelemy. Since we departed Fort Lauderdale yesterday evening we have traveled over 390 miles. We are currently located at Latitude 23 degrees 54 minutes North and Longitude 73 degrees 23 minutes West. This places us East of San Salvador Island. he Royal Princess has 691 more miles to travel tonight and tomorrow before we reach St. Barthelemy. We are traveling at 19.6 knots with only about a 6 foot swell. Wind and swell are both expected to increase before tomorrow morning. Great weather otherwise with partly cloudy sky and a temperature of 82 degrees. Last night we had a near full moon over the water which made for great viewing.

Just after lunch today we attended a special screening of a movie produced by Princess Cruises about the Amazon River. This really gave us a better insight into what is ahead of us when we reach Brazil.

Fort Lauderdale Arrival

This morning we arrived in Fort Lauderdale. Made it to the hotel at about 10:00am, but our room wasn't ready. However, our friends Pat and Barry from the UK drove over from their time share and had us over to their place for lunch. We also picked up a few supplies. We know that along the Amazon River we will be visiting some villages that have children in need of school supplies. We purchase some erasers; rulers; colored pencils and some colored hair bands to give them. This is a tradition that the Princess ships do when they traverse the Amazon River.

About midday tomorrow we will be boarding the Royal Princess for the trip south.

Medical Evacuation

We are just off the coast of Cuba this morning. The Captain came on the public address system and said that a passenger needed to be medically evacuated from the ship and that a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter was en route to the ship. Approximately 40 minutes later the helicopter arrived. The ship’s crew had closed the forward pool area and secured all loose items. The helicopter came into that area and hovered above it. They lowered the crew chief and two baskets. They then took the spouse off in a basket followed by the patient and finally the crew chief. The Captain said that the helicopter was taking the passenger to Nassau.

In the morning we will be arriving at Fort Lauderdale and will link up with our friends Pat and Berry from the UK. Don’t board the Royal Princess for the Amazon until Saturday afternoon.

Colorful Aruba

Colorful Aruba is our port of call this morning. We arrived around 7:00am inside the reef surrounding the island. It’s always nice to come here and see all the colorful buildings, buses, signs and its unique Dutch influence. The interior is dotted with cactus and divi-divi trees. It has numerous white sandy beaches with many secluded coves along the coast. The people speak Papiamento which is a language that combines elements of Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, African, and English.

Cindy looked for some linens, but again the prices are too high here in Aruba. We will look again when we get on the trip down to the Amazon. We did pickup a 7 inch tall Hummel that was being closed out at over 50% discount. Here is Cindy at the local bus depot.


There are plenty of tour buses waiting for tourists as they arrive.


At 5:00pm we depart for Fort Lauderdale. We will have 2 sea days en route. Once there we will spend the night in the Las Olas area where there are water taxis and boats. This is only a pit stop to spend the evening and pickup a few supplies before boarding the Royal Princess for the Amazon.

Bypassed Curacao

At about 12:15pm today we got a real surprise from the Captain. He came on the public address system and said that if we had been watching we would have seen the Pilot boat leave the ship and head back to Willemstad, Curacao. The reason the pilots had not remained with our ship and escorted us to the port was due to the high swells and wind. Evidently they were unable to put men on the “dolphins” which are tie-down points in the water that the Ruby Princess would have been tied to. Because of this, we are now leaving the area of Curacao and heading for Aruba. We don’t know when we will arrive, but probably in the morning.

Isle of Spice

Today we arrived in the St. George’s, Grenada, also known as the Isle of Spice. It’s the smallest independent country in the Western Hemisphere made up of three islands (Carriacou, Petite Martinique and Grenada). Grenada is one of the world’s major producers of nutmeg, mace clove, cinnamon and cocoa. There are plenty of shops selling these spices. One local ordinance is that no building can be built higher than a coconut palm.


Cindy bought a nice little basket full of various spices. The lady that sold it to her added some extra nutmeg nuts and recipes to the package.

The weather today is the nicest we have seen. The temperature is 82 degrees and very little humidity.

Depart at 2:00pm today en route to Curacao. Don’t get to Curacao tomorrow until 1:00pm.

Welcome to Dominica

Welcome to Dominica. Lying between Guadeloupe and Martinique is the island of Dominica an unspoiled Caribbean mountainous paradise. It is covered with rain forest and is a sanctuary for rare birds and other animals. It is a former British possession which became independent in 1978.


We arrived here this morning about 9:00am. The sky is crystal clear and so is the bright blue water surrounding the island. The temperature will reach 81 degrees today.

Walking around the city of Roseau this morning was a real delight. We were able to see many of the shops as well as much of the local culture and color. Pier side we were met by a man in native dress playing the steel drums, then on into town to checkout everything. Of course not everything is wonderful. As can be seen by one of the photos, some people do sleep on the street here as in most cities. As we were walking we looked into the kitchen window of a small restaurant and one of the two ladies cooking really didn’t like me taking her photo as she yelled at me, “no no”.

At 3:00pm today there will be an official parade marking the start of the carnival celebrations. It will be very colorful and march directly in front of our docked ship. Tonight the ship will depart Dominica en route to our next stop which is Grenada.