Nassau, Bahamas March 24

We sailed into Nassau around noon and there were already 3 other ships in the port.  Once again our little ship was dwarfed by the "floating cities". Our tour guide told us the port can handle as many as seven ships at a time.

The third ship in the back of picture is one of the huge 5000 passenger ships

Picture taken from the top of the hill. Our ship is in the lower left
















Our tour was on a mini bus around the town visiting a fort, the Queens Steps, and driving by historical buildings.  Our tour ended with a short visit to the  high end Atlantis Resort.  there are many beautiful beaches here but we are about 40 years to old for the crowd here!  It is also very expensive.

Remains of the fort

Looking down the Queen's Steps

Of course we had a stop for the souvenir shops!

The shield for the Bahamas features a marlin and a flamingo

Just a few of the yachts at the Atlantis Resort

There were probably over 30 yachts in this small harbor

This was the largest one, 198 ft "Rock.It"  owned by the founder of "Jimmy Johns"

Our last day at Sea March 23

Our last day at sea was not relaxing as we spent a major part of the day packing.  Despite the fact that we had bought very few souvenirs the luggage seemed to be more stuffed than when we started the cruise over two months ago. We also had time for a few games while trying to acquire a few more Regent Reward points.  We did not want any tee shirts or hats for ourselves, but we give them to crew members and we had a few more crew members that we wanted to recognize this way.

At lunch time there was a spectacular seafood display at the pool grill.  Everyone was loading their plates, especially with crab legs and shrimp!  There was also a great paella, three kinds of grilled fish and lots of sushi and sashimi.

One of the huge fish from the Amazon .  The fish is called a pirarucu and can be up to 3 meters long

The sushi was beautifully displayed

Another great ice sculpture

The crab and shrimp display topped with a carved watermelon
















In the evening we went to the Captain's Farewell and Krew Kapers in the theater followed by a very enjoyable dinner with our trivia partners Bob and Eileen hosted by General Manager Davor.

The cast members on stage at the end of the Krew Kapers

The Krew Kapers is always fun.  We enjoy seeing the talented crew members sing and dance.

We had a very enjoyable evening

San Juan, Puerto Rico March 22

We had a very nice sail in to San Juan with bright sunshine and a pretty view of the El Morro fort area.

El Morro at the entrance to the harbor

El Morro is surrounded by green grassy area

It gave us a good feeling to see the US Coast Guard ships














Our tour was to the Bacardi Rum Distillery. It is a huge facility with well run tours.  You begin with a visit to the welcome center that is a large bat shaped building.  The bat is the symbol of the company that is used everywhere and is on the bottles of rum.  We were given a small glass of rum mixed with fruit juice while we waited to be called for our tour.  We also received a plastic souvenir glass along with a ticket that we could exchange for our choice of three different rum drinks.  We chose a "tropical sunrise", it was very tasty but it was rather early in the day to be drinking! Before we could finish our drinks, our buzzers went off (just like waiting in a restaurant) and we boarded a tram to begin our tour.  The tour visited a small museum and then the building that houses the huge fermentation tanks.  After those two buildings we were taken to the gift shop where you could also sample the premium rums and shop for typical souvenirs. Also available were special bottles of premium rum that could be engraved, one of these rums is aged over 20 years and is only available in this shop.

Entrance to the Bacardi facility

Enjoying our drinks with fellow passengers

Yellow building is a small restaurant and the bat shaped visitor center is on the left

Building that houses the fermentation tanks

Entrance to the building

The huge tanks

 Fermentation tanks are monitored by computer

Lighted bottle display inside the gift shop

Where they fill the special engraved bottles














After the visit to Bacardi we were taken to the San Christobal Fort, a National Park site that is very impressive.  We spent about 45 minutes touring the site and then we walked back to the ship.  While we were on tour a Royal Caribbean behemoth ship had docked next to us.  Getting back to our ship was difficult as 3500+  people from that ship were trying to get ashore passing through a small gate that we were trying to enter.   Even after we managed to get through the gate it was like trying to get through a swarm of ants as they were walking on both sides of the barriers that divide the dock in half.  Later when we were getting ready to sail we saw those passengers in a huge long line waiting to get back aboard their ship.

The fort from the street level

Original drawings on the wall of the dungeon

Replica of a barracks inside the fort 

View of the Atlantic from the top level of the fort

View of the dock area from the fort. Our ship is the one in the center

Our little 700 passenger ship next to the 3800 passenger Royal Caribbean













We sailed from San Juan at 5:30 and at 6 pm we attended a special cocktail party for the Grand Voyage guests.  It was a nice event with a good turnout.  We had a nice dinner in Signatures restaurant with some new friends followed by enjoying the last production show "Film Flashback".  This was our favorite show as it featured tributes to famous films like "Top Gun", "Flashdance", "Footloose", "Blues Brothers", "Dirty Dancing" and several more.

St. Johns, Antigua March 21

We had a beautiful sail into St. Johns, docking by 10 am.  It is very nice to see the clear turquoise water of the Caribbean again.  We did see a large number of small flying fish, we assume that the boat scares them and they fly away and coast quite a distance before falling back into the water.  There were several birds that were taking advantage of the situation, diving after the tiny bite size fish.

We had been booked on a six hour catamaran cruise that included stops at two beaches but we decided that it would have been far too much sun so we cancelled that tour and just walked into the town.  It is very "touristy" and expensive.  One also had to run a gauntlet of taxi drivers trying to get you to hire them for a tour, you would think after telling the first five drivers that you were not interested that they would give up, not the case. They were very persistent and it became very annoying so we went back to the ship after about 30 minutes.  The shop keepers are probably losing business from the passengers as many we spoke with had also cut short their walks in town because of the aggressive taxi drivers.

View of St Johns from the top deck

Tom thought he should buy these boats and start a business















At sail away time there was a party for the gold, platinum, and titanium members of the Seven Seas Society that was held on the bow deck that is usually just for crew members. They had it all set up with drinks,  food and a beautiful ice sculpture of flying fish. It was a very nice event.

 The ice sculpture was one of the best they had ever done

There was lots of great food but it was 4:30 in the afternoon so not a lot of it was eaten

They were even cooking stir fry shrimp

Hats were needed in the bright sun

Sea Day and Barbados March 19 and 20

We had a relaxing sea day although there was more swell and waves that made everyone sort of stagger when walking.  It had been a very long time since we had this sort of movement on board.

We had a nice dinner with two of the cast members, Gemma is the dance captain and we had sailed with her last year on the Voyager and Marshall is the male singer who had worked and lived in Las Vegas for a few years so we had lots of things to talk about.

On Sunday morning we arrived in Barbados.  We had an 8 am tour so we had to get up a bit earlier than usual for us.  Being Palm Sunday the town was very quiet, very little traffic and most stores were closed.  Out tour was a photography tour with a local professional photographer, Ronnie Carrington.  He was an excellent tour guide telling us all about Barbados and taking us to several places to take photos.  He showed us a lot of his own photos as well as giving us tips for our shots.  One of the stops was to have a rum punch at a small restored hotel that was originally built about 1830.  At that time there was a railroad that was used to transport the sugar cane. There is very little sugar cane grown on the island now so we saw a lot of unused agricultural land.

The entrance to the Atlantis Hotel

Beautiful turquoise water in front of hotel 

Another view from the hotel















At one time there were hundreds of sugar plantations with small homes called "chattel houses" that housed the workers. The chattel houses are interesting in that they are meant to be easily moved since the workers would not own the land, only their house.  They were all the same basic construction, wood in 10 or 12 foot lengths (the available lumber size) set on rocks.  They have a steep roof with no overhang because of hurricane winds. They all start with one section and may have been added onto over time with additional sections and sheds.  The fronts all have a center door with two windows evenly spaced on each side.  Our tour guide told us that originally all the chattel housed were the same color, brown with white trim but now they are often painted in bright colors.

This chattel house has two sections plus a "shed" added on.

The front of the chattel house

Devils Island (sort of!) March 18

We arrived at Devil's Island at about 1:30 pm.  There are actually three small islands that were originally a French prison colony (Cayenne) from 1852 to 1953. There were a number of books written about the prison colony and a couple of movies, including the 1973 movie "Papillon" starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.  We had visited here in 2012 and had decided not to go ashore this time as we had walked the whole island and seen everything there was to see.  It ended up not making any difference as it was decided that because of the big swell that it was not safe for the passengers to board the tenders and go ashore.

This is the island that was the original administration and welcome center where all of the tourist area is located including a small hotel 

This island is where the isolation prisoners were held

Dock area















Prior to cancelling the tender service both the cruise director and the captain had made announcements about  being extra careful when going ashore as walking around the ruins of the old prison was a bit treacherous. They had even announced that anyone who had difficulty walking (those that used a cane)  would not be allowed to board the tenders. We were watching over the side of the ship and the loading platform was rising and falling about one meter and at times it was underwater.  Prior to cancelling the tender service they even tried putting down an additional anchor and they had also moved the platform from the starboard to the port side. We heard from another passenger that one of the crew members that was transferring from the ship to the tender almost went into the water.

Everyone was disappointed but realized that it was not safe. We stayed at anchor until our scheduled departure time at 6 pm.

These pictures are from the 2012 cruise

Entrance to the cells 

Inside one of the cells 

The cemetary