5 Day Caribbean Cruise

05/27/05 - 06/02/05

American Airlines - Just Cruises - Carnival Imagination

Clayt & Pat Stahl

Clay, Chris, Michele, Shannon, & Sean Stahl

Cayman Islands

Jamaica

Friday 05/27 Dinner In Phila & Overnight Hotel Stay

Since we have a 6AM departure time, we got a room at the Ramada Inn, just south of the airport on Industrial Highway in Essington. Included in the hotel price was parking and shuttle rides to and from the airport. It gave us an extra hour's sleep and removed some of the anxiety of getting to the airport on time. We took our time getting to the hotel and had a nice dinner at the Chart House in Philadelphia on the way. By the time we were finished with dinner, I95 was not too busy and we arrived at the hotel while it was still daylight. We took a break from the Phillies game on TV to have a drink in the hotel bar before calling it a relatively early night.

Saturday 05/28 Flight To Miami & Ship Boarding

We still had to get up at 4:00 for the 4:30 shuttle ride to the airport. They recommended arriving 2 hours before our 6AM flight time, but the airport is somewhat less busy at that hour and we got through security as well as could be expected. It is the usual with Clayt's titanium hip replacements setting off the machine, getting wanded, and patted down. We were at the departure gate before 5AM, in plenty of time!

The flight was uneventful, except for two things. First, there was no wine available on this early flight, the first time we have seen that! Although it was about 7:30AM, our body time then was about noon, and we had taken an early American Airlines flight last year and wine was available. O well, we just had to deal with it! The other unusual event was quickly regaining altitude just as we were about to land because another plane had not cleared the runway in time. So we had a 10 minute air tour of Miami before finally landing just a little bit late.

Since it is still early (before 9AM), and we can't get on the ship until 1PM (they say), we had breakfast and browsed all the shops in the sizeable Miami International Airport terminal. About 11, we got on a bus that Carnival provides as part of our package and it took about 20 minutes to get to the cruise ship terminal. It is the same port facility as we used on the Southern Caribbean cruise 15 months ago, but that was Norwegian, and this is Carnival and

their facilities are nearby. Here we had to go through four separate lines, the first to have our credit card swiped, the second upstairs to receive the "Sail & Sign" card, the third to get our photo taken and put into the card, the fourth for the embarkation photo, which we had all seven of us pose, and finally a short line to walk on the ship! It wasn't that bad, but on most other cruises, there was a single line to get all of the first three things done. We noticed that this crowd seemed to be a lot younger than most of the cruises that we have been on previously, but we expected that on Carnival.

Both the ship and our room are nice, although it is difficult to compare to other cruises that we have taken. This ship only has a few rooms with balconies, so here we have an outside room with a nice picture window. It is certainly big enough, especially the bathroom and shower. Clay & Chris have the same kind of room, with Michele, Shannon, and Sean across the corridor, both on another deck. We joined the Stahls for the first lunch at the buffet, as we did on all of our cruises, here it is the Horizion Grill.
There was the mandatory lifeboat drill, although here our muster station was in one of the lounges. We have been stacked three deep on the deck in the sun on some other cruises! One of our life jackets was missing the clip on the band that is used to hold it on. They told us to get the cabin steward to take care of it. We asked him, and we guess he did, although we never checked!

The seven of us found chairs on deck by the pool with a nice view of the sea, we must be in the Caribbean by now! We were also on the periphery of the "Sail Away Party". Of course, it was geared for the younger crowd with both the music and crew-led line dancing, and hordes of people selling the drink of the day- a fruity pink thing with an umbrella. They were selling like hotcakes. Pat, Clay, and Chris liked them, and you can exchange the plastic glass for a reduced cost "drink of the next day" or any other fruity drink!

We sailed a little earlier than we had thought, and went out on deck as we moved out past Miami beach and into the Atlantic. Of course, we are using the same port as our Southern Caribbean Cruise less than three months ago! While on the deck, we saw some of the few balconies that are available. They are all set back from the side of the ship so that their view is over people on the deck, and some of them had their view partially blocked by lifeboats! The balconies definitely don't seem worth the extra expense on this ship.

Pat rented Walkie Talkies for all of us so we can keep in contact as we wander to different places on the ship. Learning to use them was a little bit of trouble, but after some instruction, especially from Michele and Shannon, we had a good time with them,although not all of them could hold a charge for as long as they should.

We talked with the golf pro about playing at Grand Cayman, and he mentioned that their course suffered a lot of hurricane damage especially with the trees, and strongly recommended that we play in Jamaica, the next stop. We want to sightsee in Jamaica though and will stick with Grand Cayman. Besides, not having trees is not necessarily a negative, the way we play, but the weather forecast didn't look too hot! Later we found out that we were very wrong. It is a nine-hole course, and when we told him that we wanted to play 18, he just nodded that we could do that if we wanted!

All seven of us are at the same table in the Spirit Dining room for dinner. All dinners are casual dress, except for tomorrow. No shorts are requested, but this was not followed by everyone, although we have seen people turned away for that on past cruises! There are round tables which would seem ideal for a party of seven, but ours is a rectangular booth open at both ends, and the initial impression was disappointment. However, we had partitions in back of each side, and that was great for shielding out much of the neighboring table noise, although the waiters had to circumnavigate a few of these to get from one end of our table to the other. The service was more leisurely than we are used to, probably because we have the late seating. On some other cruises, we have had the early seating and they want to hustle you through for the next group! The food was typical cruise fare, very good medium-sized portions. A nice feature this time was that the waiter got us the bottle of wine, unlike most previous cruises, where waiting for the wine steward would usually get you the wine halfway through your dinner. The wine list that we were given only had four bottles on a special deal page, the normal pages listing the wines was missing! Another was quickly received, and is probably by far the best that we have seen on any cruise with a wide selection of wines and a wide, extremely fair, range of prices.

After dinner, Clayt crashed, but the others went to hear Ron Crites, a country singer with a "Multimedia Music Station", giving a full band sound, and specializing in George Jones music. Geez, if Clayt had known that... He will catch him tomorrow!

Sunday 05/29 Caribbean Sea

Pat & Clayt had the served breakfast in the Pride dining room with 6 other people from various areas in the United States, with the usual discussions about their home areas and trips that they have been on. The Pride Dining Room is used for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, while last evening's Spirit Dining Room is for dinner only! There are no tables for two here, they seat you with two or three other couples automatically. As on most ships, the two dining rooms are separated by the kitchen, making that deck difficult to traverse as one must go a deck up or down to get from one end of the ship to the other.

Since it was early, Clayt and Pat had no trouble securing a couple of chaise lounges by the pool (in the shade) for a while, before trying to meet the golf pro to sign up for golf in Grand Cayman tomorrow. He wasn't where he was supposed to be, as he wasn't yesterday, but we had him paged from the information desk and finally got signed up and received instructions on what to do tomorrow!

We had lunch with 4 other people in the dining room. A couple that was seated when we got there decided to try the buffet instead(!?) and left before ordering. We don't think that it was because we arrived shortly after them! Anyway, the lunch maintained the good feeling that we have about the food on the ship so far.

We went to see Sean play in a ping pong tournament. He made it to the semi-finals. A typical day-at-sea activity was a relay race in the main pool, where the contestants had to swim with balloons tucked under their shirts that they blew up after swimming a lap - obviously for young people! An announcement came over the loudspeaker that Cuba was 9 miles away and visible off the port side, but we couldn't see anything that was definitely it! Later, there was a substantial piece of land off the port side that had to be Cuba, even though you can't see any bongos, or cigars!

There appear to be plenty of deck chairs, and if you can find a place to put one, you are in business. Also, there is never a problem finding a shady place, most of the people want to work on their tan. So far, the use of the walkie talkies is mixed, sometimes there is a lot of static and the sound is tough to understand. Also when anyone wants to talk to anyone else, all other five people get the message. Clay went by the Sushi Bar a number of times, but it was always closed this day.

We met Clay, Chris, and Sean in the Dynasty Lounge at the end of their bingo. There were a lot playing and they didn't win anything! Following the bingo was the "Comedy Matinee Show", a stand-up comedian giving a PG rated show. He will have an adult show later this night, and he was probably saving his good stuff for that!

The Captain's cocktail party was in the main theater where many of the ship's officers were introduced. The captain was Italian, as were many of the others. Hors d'oeuvres were served along with gratis drinks as is the usual custom.

Tonight's dinner was formal, and we dressed up accordingly, although there were not too many tuxedos and evening gowns as we have seen on other cruises. Dinner was similar to last night, very good! We took a bottle of wine that we brought on board. Their policy is that you can bring it on board and pay a $10 corkage fee if you drink it in a public area, and we told the waiter what we were doing. He acknowledged that, and even poured it for us, but we were never charged .

We went to listen to Ron Crites, the country singer for about 45 minutes while waiting for the show in the theater. We got to the show a little late and had trouble finding Clay and the others but we didn't miss much. It was a Las Vegas-type production with elaborate costumed performers singing and dancing show tunes. Although our seats were on the side with a partially obstructed view, it was very good and we enjoyed it very much.

We went back to the bar with Ron Crites, the country singer and got him to sing some George Jones songs, and a Michele and Shannon request "Family Tradition", for which they know "interesting" replies to some of the verses! He was very friendly, and Clay bought one of his CDs.

Monday 05/30 Georgetown, Cayman Islands

Since we are going on the golf excursion, we went to the breakfast buffet in the Horizon dining room. At 8AM, we and 6 others were waiting by the disembarkation exit. After about 20 minutes and the arrival of another threesome(!), Taylor Williams, the golf pro brought out sets of clubs for almost everyone. We finally made our way on to the tender with the clubs and onto a van on shore. It was very hot, and a little tight in the van with the air conditioning working overtime, and after about a 10 minute ride, we were at the Hyatt Hotel and the Hyatt Brittania Golf Club, billed as "The Caribbean's first signature Jack Nicklas golf course".



It was quite underwhelming, perhaps due in part to last year's hurricanes which hit the Cayman Islands very hard. The clubhouse was a tent with only a table, a laptop computer, and a cash drawer! The clubhouse building was still heavily damaged from last year's hurricanes. The Caymans were hit very hard and this golf course must have been in the middle of it! There were workers on the course, and we guess that they were making progress, but it sure is slow! We suspected that we would have to walk, but at least there were pull carts. We were the third group to go off, with our playing partner Steve and Clayt sharing a set of clubs. It was extremely hot and the club sharing meant that Clayt and Steve did even more walking. The tees and fairways had only brown scrub grass with clumps of weeds, but the greens were decent, although extremely slow and in need of mowing.

Although the course was in terrible condition, the layout was fairly interesting- links style, i.e. flat, but with mounds separating the fairways. Even though it is a nine hole course with various options, such as executive course-length greens along the way and limited-flight ball options, we had planned to play 18 by repeating the nine holes. However, with it being so hot, with no shade, and with no benches anywhere, after the sixth hole, we both "hit the wall", and there was no thought of playing 18, but just finishing the nine. In fact, Pat just walked the 8th and 9th. There was water to drink on the course and that helped, but it was still an ordeal.



Instead of boarding the tender to go back to the ship with the other golfers, we got them to take care of the clubs and we stayed in town. It was still brutally hot, and our stay consisted of only a stop for local beers at the local Hard Rock, and Pat visiting two shops. There was an extremely long line to get the tender for the other ship in port, Carnival's Inspiration. We're not sure why they had such a long line, but thankfully, there was no line at all for us, we couldn't have taken any more time in the hot sun! The Inspiration is structurally the same as our Imagination, and our Granddaughter Michele noted that when she was on the Inspiration on a previous cruise with her college sorority, only the decor is different! When we were here 14 months ago, there were six ships in port, today it is only us and the Inspiration! Our lifeboats were the tenders for many of our non-docked destinations during other cruises, but here they were all from Georgetown's port.

We were back on the ship about 1PM, although it didn't leave until 4. We had to recuperate in our cabin after that "near-death experience", so we crashed a while before getting a little bit of late lunch at the Horizon buffet.

The "Wine & Cheese Party" was simply a glass of wine at a reduced price along with a small complimentary plate of cheeses and grapes. Clayt finally found the Sushi Bar open,and after a 20 minute wait in line, had a plate of nice, but heavy-in-rice sushi. Saki was available, but there was no Japanese beer, and Clayt had to be happy with a can of Heinekin at a nearby bar to wash the sushi down.

After dinner, the two of us went to the piano bar to listen to Brad singing "Rockin' Bar Music", not too rockin', but nice old favorites. We were very tired from the day of golf in the hot sun, and just finished our drinks listening to a few songs by country singer Ron Crites before going to bed.

Tuesday 05/31 Ocho Rios, Jamacia

We arrived in Ocho Rios, close to the scheduled 7AM time and docked at a pier also used for the loading of Bauxite ore and sugar, not a very nice place at all for a cruise ship. The Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas tied up well after us and was in a much better berth, with easy access to the town, whereas we were about a mile taxi ride away, definitely the inferior of the two docks. It didn't make any difference here as we just meeting for the shore tour, but getting anywhere later required a taxi.

All seven of our party, along with about 10 others boarded a van for the Coyaba River Garden and Dunn's River Falls tour. After passing through the small town of Ocho Rios, we had a



short but very steep ride to the Coyaba River Gardens. There was a brief circular walk with the guide through the gardens explaining the various plants and trees native to Jamaica. A "highlight" was a big marijuana plant positioned to catch the American tourist's eye. In Jamaica, one third of the population uses, and it has been said to be an aid to worker's productivity!? Jamaica is the largest grower and exporter in the Caribbean, and the United States has pressured Jamaica to reduce the crop. At the end of the garden walk, there was a small museum visit with some Pre-Colombian artifacts and a history of both Ocho Rios and Jamaica.


We came back to the town and made a stop at the Taj Mahal shopping area with many typical upscale tourist shops. It was sandwiched between two busy streets with a lift gate and guard at each, to control the number of autos inside we guess, although there seemed to be plenty of parking spaces.

Another short drive just out of town in the opposite direction brought us to Dunn's River Falls. We had seen this on the internet with widely differing reviews, ranging from the "experience of a lifetime" to an "extremely dangerous undertaking!" It is a 600 foot drop cascading waterfall over which people climb hand in hand with a guide leading each group. We had brought old sneakers just for the purpose, while the Stahls rented rubber foot coverings at one of the stands just inside the park.


Our guide for the falls led us down to the bay where the waterfall empties, and started to form the human chain. After a look at the start of the climb, first Clayt and then Pat wisely opted out! It was much steeper and rockier than either had anticipated! This could not happen in the sue-happy United States, as it did look to be extremely dangerous. We had heard that there were places where you could enter and leave the waterfall, and that was our intent, but there were only a few of those!



The Stahls were in the middle of our (without us!) group's chain and they climbed, while Clayt and Pat followed along the paved and wooden walkway with a good view of the activity. The waterfall was very crowded with many chains of climbers and other individuals that wandered out of the chains all over. It was a smart move for us to bypass the climb, as most of the climbers were very young, and we didn't see anyone else near our age making the climb. The people that went were of different sizes and shapes, and some had to be pulled and pushed up in many places.



There were stops along the way for makeshift water slides over some sizeable rocks and climbers sitting in pools with cascading water over their heads. The climb took about 45 minutes or so, and even though there were a lot of stumbles, nobody seemed to get seriously hurt. There had to be some bumps and bruises though, and after watching the Stahls and hoards of others, we were sure we had made the correct decision!

After getting back to the ship at 1PM, we took a taxi a mile down the road to the Island Village, a complex of shops and restaurants and a Margaritaville. It took forever to get served, but we finished in just about time. It was our first Margaritaville, and seemed typical of young people's bars. There was a lot of noise, and loud music. There was also some games for prizes some of which involved young women performing on stage. A Michael Jackson imitator was quite good though. One of the activities involved the naming of the 9 Margaritivilles, four of which are in Jamaica! Our bill was timely presented, and after paying, we went outside where the taxi driver promised he would meet us, we thought, insured by a good tip when he brought us. Not too surprisingly, he wasn't there, but also not surprisingly, another taxi was very happy to take us the mile or so back to the ship, and we made it with plenty of time to spare.

The ship sailed at 3:30PM, with the weather being overcast and a little windy. Although the seas didn't seem too rough, there was a noticeable sideways motion of the ship, the first that we have noticed on this trip. It was especially noticeable when Clayt was looking at the laptop screen. This didn't last however, and later in the evening and overnight, there was no discomfort at all. There were few activities planned for this day, not only for the time that everyone was off the ship, but even after the ship sailed! We were tired anyway, although not nearly as bad as yesterday, and the down time was somewhat welcome.

Dinner was good as usual, with the waitstaff dancing around the room, some in costumes, and also with some of the guests joining in. We brought another bottle of wine to dinner that we had brought on the ship and for which we are supposed to be charged a $10 corkage fee, but again they didn't charge us. We weren't sneaky about it, telling the waiter that it was our wine (as if he didn't know!), getting us wine glasses, and having him pour it. He will get a few extra bucks gratuity, needless to say!
It turns out that some of the walkie talkies were very poor in holding their charge. After charging them all night, they were supposed to be good for the day, but some lost their charge after about an hour. Pat talked to Taylor Williams, the golf pro that we rented them from about the problem and he said we could return the four of them for some credit.

Wednesday 06/01 Caribbean Sea

Since we have a leisurely day at sea on the way back to Miami, we went to the Pride Dining Room for a served breakfast and were joined by a couple from Noo Yawk, and a lady from L. A. The couple were first time cruisers and since we were "experienced with six", they had many questions about our previous cruises and cruise lines. After breakfast, a page at the lobby information desk for Taylor Williams about the walkie talkie problem went unanswered. However, Clayt did find him at the golf lesson cage, and we turned in the walkie-talkies that couldn't hold a charge. He agreed that we were due a refund, but it didn't sound like it would be very much.

We attended the packed disembarkation meeting individually, but there was nothing that we really needed as we will get printed instructions of all the stuff anyway. The cruise director was there and along with the usual one-liners and a few give-away items, didn't say much more than we will get on our printed instructions. One unusual thing was that they have a special disembarkation procedure where you get off early and take your luggage with you. Even the standard disembarkation allows you to get off en-masse without regard to your baggage tag color, we still have the same one that we used to board.

Clayt finally found the golf pro and returned the walkie-talkies that wouldn't hold a charge and we will get some credit, but probably not much. Clay came by with his visible diabetes pump and Taylor discussed it with him for a long time as he has been thinking about getting one! We had a little mixup getting to lunch, as Michele and Shannon went early, and Clayt and Pat followed in the Pride dining room, but we were at separate tables.

After lunch, we all attended the "Newlywed Not So Newlywed Game". They picked the most recent (married in Grand Cayman, two days ago), the longest (48 years, we missed by one year!), and the average of 24 years. The couples had to answer 10 questions and if they both gave the same answer, they got a point. The Cruise Director looked at the answers as they wrote them down, and had the usual fun with them. At the end, they all got a bottle of champagne regardless of the score. This cruise director was probably one of the best that we have seen on any of the seven cruises that we have taken. There were two crowds around the pool that we noticed, for the de-rigueur ice carving, and an unusual towel-folding demonstration given by the stateroom stewards, accompanied by the sale of a towel-folding book. Now there is a niche market!

We missed Comedian Hank McGauley two nights ago in the theater, and he was in the smaller and packed Xanadu lounge for a short performance in late afternoon. He was pretty good, a middle aged black man poking fun at both blacks and whites, but of course in good taste! Steve, our partner from the golf survival experience at Grand Cayman, was in the adjoining seat and we had a few more words about the hot day after the show. We then did most of our packing before dinner, so we were free to chill before dinner.

The final night's dinner featured the waitstaff again dancing around the room. And also again, a bottle of wine was brought to the table with the waiters serving it with no charge, this time the sailing gift from the travel agent to Clay & Chris. We also purchased another bottle from their very nice wine list. We then went to listen to Ron Crites, the country singer again. The Stahls joined us, but left for a while to make contributions to the casino. When they came back, Clay went back to the cabin to put out the luggage, and Pat had another round with the Stahls.

DAY PORT NAUT. MILES KNOTS Sat Miami     Sun At Sea     Mon Cayman Islands 667 18.0 Tue Jamaica 253 17.2 Wed At Sea     Thu Miami 727 19.3 TOTAL   1647 18.4

Thursday 06/02 Miami Ship Disembarking & Flight To Phila

There was a special early "self-assist" disembarkation, where you carry all of your luggage yourself. Since our flight isn't until the afternoon and the airport is not far away, we didn't take advantage of that. The buffet breakfast was not as crowded as we expected it to be, but the hallway outside our cabin was jammed with the early debarkers.

This crowd was soon gone and we packed the rest of the stuff in our carry-ons (carry-offs first?), and made our way up to the Promenade Deck right next to the casino to await the regular disembarkation announcement. Previous cruises had disembarkation by baggage tag colors to space out the crowd, but with the early debarkers, it wasn't be too bad to exit en-masse. We had waited about 45 minutes after the announcement to let the line shorten, but we still had a little while in line, probably not too surprising. Immigration and customs was a breeze as usual.

We found our luggage and the airport shuttle with no problem and got to the Miami airport about 11AM for the 3:30PM flight. After lunch at Chilis and a departure gate change, we boarded the plane on time. There was a short delay taxing away and the pilot announced a 45 minute delay at the runway entrance that was shortly canceled, and we still arrived in Philadelphia almost on schedule. A call to the Ramada promptly brought a van, the wheels were still on our car, and we were in Levittown for dinner about 8PM. Another great vacation!