We returned earlier this week from a 7 day sea cruise. In earlier posts in this series I highlighted the first 7 days' adventures. This post will complete the series and outline the experiences for the final 3 days of the cruise:
Entertainment: On Friday we attended a performance by comic Billy Vader-- another cruiseship veteran headliner. This show was virtually identical to a performance of his I had attended earlier, right down to the sight gags and his interactions with the cruise director at the conclusion of the show. Later Friday night we caught an encore of the Newlywed Game in the Explorer's lounge hosted by assistant cruise director Mark Turner. The selected contestants this go round were a big improvement on the original run!
On Saturday night we attended a performance of the musical revue Motor City, performed by the Princess singers and dancers. The hilight of the show is a segment performed witrh flourescent masks and costumes under blacklight. For some reason the show featured a performance of Tina Turner's "Rollin' on the River" even tho she wasn't a Motown recording artist! On Saturday night we monitored "comic juggler' Steve Carle's show in the Universe show lounge. The show was more amusing than technically impressive, but did feature some great audience interaction moments. It nicely capture the spontaneity and immediacy of a street busker performance.
Following Carle's performance we attended the Princess Pop Star finals at the same venue. Princess Pop Star is the ships' version of American Idol, featuring karaoke performances by the ships' passengers. Carle, comic Elliot Maxx and the lead female vocalist from Treasure (the Explorer lounge's resident band) served as the celebrity judges. The all male cast of 6 contestants-- selected by audience ballots in three earlier "heats" held in the Explorer's lounge-- included a Dino Martino style crooner (who sang "Amore"), a Chinese American channeling Elvis in his version of "Its Now or Never", a hispanic who sang "You Raise Me Up" (most appropriate selection on an Easter Sunday), a manic white soul singer fond of performing Van Morrison and Michael MacDonald covers and a pastor from Florida who sang Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline". The eventual winner was Will Smith (no, not that Will Smith) who excelled at singing the falsetto vocal lines in covers of 60s Philly Soul songs like those made famous by the Delfonics. With the exception of the Treasure vocalist, who acted as straight woman, Carle and Maxx used the judge's bench as a platform to launch more comic salvos.
Food: Friday was the second formal night and featured lobster on the dining room menu. There was also a champagne waterfall staged in the central atrium at 11:30. The hilight of our Saturday dining experience was the Cherries Jubilee dessert flamed table side by the maitre d. two at our table also ordered the napoleon dessert pastry, which both enjoyed. The chef offered us a special "one time only" Easter menu on Sunday. I sampled gnocchi, grilled prawns and Tilapia from the menu and found the latter most satisfying.
Ports of call:
Ocho Rios, Jamiaca: This was our last port of call. Here, the excursion tour groups actually met in a tent on shore portside instead of in the Princess theatre. We had selected a dual excursion featuring a climb at Dunns River Falls and a chair lift trip up Mystic Mountain rainforest to ride down in a "Jamaican bobsled". The tour operator had organized a series of small passenger vans to shuttle tour takers back and forth between the ship and the tour venues on a flexible schedule basis.
We went to Dunns River Falls first and our driver stopped at a roadside "sticky feet" water shoe vending outlet for people (like yours truly) who hadn't brought along their own suitable rubber soled footware from home. The going rate for the watershoes was US $17. Once at the park we were met by two female tour guides who escorted us first past another sticky feet vending stand (insisting that everyone must wear water shoes in order to "climb") and then to a storage locker rental facility where we were forced to pay another $8 ($3 which was a deposit refundable) in order to stow goods that we didn't want to get wet. We found another pair to share our locker with and split the cost (since they were quite large) Thereafter we met our male falls tour guide who conveniently neglected to remind "climbers" to store their digital cameras in the locker. Instead he later confiscated them up into a bag that he carried along and returned them (for a ransom "tip") after we reached the top! We had the foresight to bring along our own waterproof camera but others were forced to purchase still and video tickets from other hustlers who tagged along with our tour group!
Climbing up the falls can actually be quite dangerous, although the water was clear when we went up, because the moisture leaves slippery moss on the rocks and there are many underwater crevices to twist an ankle in. Apparently there is a nursing station somewhere in the park, but fortunately everyone in our group appeared to make in up without any cuts, bumps or broken bones! There are natural waterslides, falls and pools to plunge into along the way and the guides milk all of them to the max to generate multiple photo ops!
The exit from the park can be tough to negotiate with all the cash in your wallet intact since you are guided along an exit path dotted with numerous vending stalls. The hard sell tactics of the local vendors hawking their wares can become quite annoying to tolerate.
After making our escape from Dunns River Falls we were dropped at Mystic mountain. this is a brand new facility opened less than a year. Our driver claimed it was co-owned by a transplanted "American Jew" with the help of a grant from the Jamaican tourism board and Carnival cruiseship line investment dollars. Basically you board a chair lift at the base of the mountain and then travel up a very long vertical distance to a station at the top. The ride up is quite scenic and pleasant. The station at the summit contains a shop, washroom facilities and the loading point for the Jamaican bobsled run.
The bobsled run is inspired by the John Candy Disney comedy "Cool Runnings" which told the story of the Jamaican entry in the Olympic bobsled competition. Its basically a roller coaster
ride, however for the upper section of the track, the only force controlling your descent (in one person cars) is gravity and a braking lever on the side. Once you get to the bottom, your car is hauled back up the hill using a mechanical pulley system, similar to a traditional roller coaster. The run in total takes 5 minutes to complete. After completing your run, you can purchase photos taken by automated cameras for a cost of $10 a piece. Following the bobsled run, you have the option of going zip lining or returning back down the mountain on the chair lift. We passed on the former. Instead we rode right down and caught another passenger van back to the dock (Jamaicans drive, like the Brits, on the left side of the road) and re-boarded the ship
Disembarkation:
We were unable to use the self-disembarkation option (where you haul off all your own luggage) since we had a senior with a walker in our party. We were originally assigned a late departing colour group (having failed to return our disembarkation questionnaires that were due back in on Thursday) but were able to switch to an earlier departing colour group (since we had an 11:20 AM flight to catch back at the airport) without hassle when we went to the passenger service desk. We were instructed to put our luggage out for collection ideally before dinner and, otherwise, before retiring and did so. The following morning we reported to the Wheelhouse lounge (the designated spot for Platinum Captains Circle members to wait) at our appointed time and were called to disembark shortly thereafter. It took us about 5 minutes to exit to the grandstand after joining the line snaking thru the central atrium on Level 5. Upon entering the terminal we were directed to collect the luggage that we had put out for collection the preceding evening in a area designated for our aqua colour group. While we found most of our luggage pieces there quickly, my garment bag was conspicuously absent. After searching through all the other colour groups, we eventually located the missing piece about a half an hour later group with the pink colour group! Not sure how that happened. In any case it was smooth sailing thru customs to the airport after that. We took a private passenger van there for $17 pp, which is apparently cheaper than the transfer fee Princess charges for their airport shuttle coach. (We got spoiled on the trip to the terminal from the airport, 10 days earlier, when a driver with a town car, delivered all four of us in style for $40 fare total!)
Our Air Canada flight (we had a celebrity passenger-- former PM Brian Mulroney-- aboard) was on time pulling out of the gate but got delayed sitting on the tarmac awaiting runway clearance but we managed t back up time in the air and arrived back in good time. We had no hassles in Customs and our Sykpark van driver was already waiting to take us to the lot where we left our parked cars when we arrived at the designated pick up point!
Another cruise was in the history books!
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