Fairport

It is really worth going and while you are there stop at Flamingo Crossing Ice Cream on Duval near Virginia St.  The best ice cream in Key West.  They only take cash.

Thanks for taking us along with you again. 

Loving your posts.  That mall looks very similar to the Galleria in Milan.

St Martin and St Thomas are pretty much destroyed. Royal Caribbean and Norwegian have canceled stops at those ports until further notice. I am sure Carnival Corp will do the same throughout their various lines. There basically is no infrastructure at these ports for now and it will be quite a while before they get back on their feet. Norwegian is moving all eastern Caribbean cruises to western itineraries for the next 2 months. Princess doesn't have any Caribbean cruises until October, so they have some time to make adjustments.

We have been doing land vacations lately. We can come and go as we please eat when and where we want and stay as long as we want without worrying about missing the ship. This past spring we stayed 3 weeks in Florida in a beach front condo for less than the price of a 10 day cruise. Will we take another cruise? Sure, but for right now we are staying on land.

First, I want you to know how much I have enjoyed your posts over the years.

As to your husbands knees. After enduring months of pain and hobbling around, my wife insisted that I see an Orthopedic Surgeon, Diagnosis, right knee hardly any cartilage. Good news, due to years of spin class my muscle tone is great and that helps my knee. The end result is that I had a cortisone shot in my right knee and have had no pain for two months. A cortisone injection may help, it's worth a shot (pun intended).

Is Captain Mercer still onboard. He hasn't posted to his blog since September 2nd.

On a related note and since we're already discussing bringing alcohol aboard, is there a place in Beijing where we could buy a bottle or two of Jagermeister before boarding the Diamond? What I mean is, do they have liquor store type establishments over in that part of the world?

The easiest way for you to do that would be to buy it at the duty free shop at the airport in the USA before you fly to Beijing.

Still searching for my lost shaker of salt.

I always put towels two chairs then go to my cabin watch the morning show, shower and get ready for the day. We then take our one hour walk, go to the lido grab some breakfast and then go.to the chairs I reserved for us on our balcony.

Yes, if you're gone for lunch and then a swim your chair could rightfully be taken by someone who is going to use it.

Whoops

Yes, if you're gone for lunch and then a swim your chair could rightfully be taken by someone who is going to use it.

Agree.

I think the port taxis may be the same as the white airport taxis which operate on a different price structure tire than the yellow town taxis. We always take the bus. There is a stop right at the port opposite Wal Mart. It is safe and a lot cheaper than a taxi.

I think it was a good swap. Our late departure from PV will allow us to go to "Rhythms off the night" shore excursion which many rave over...

You will enjoy "Rhythms of the night." If you get a chance check out the Vista Grill Restaurant, for great views of the whole area.

We had the pleasure of meeting Bill And Mary Ann, quite by accident in the Azores last year. We have been reading the reports of their world cruises for years. Thanks for taking the time to write these reports, it helps to get us through the Western New York winters. I have one problem with the blog in that the pictures do not look like the Bill and Mary Ann we met, not even close. Are there two Bill and Mary Ann on this cruise?

When we were on the Regal in May there were men in the dining room on formal nights without a jacket. I don't think you will have any problem not wearing a jacket.

I understand your privacy concerns. We have friends that recently sailed in one of the sunset cabins on the X Solstice class ships. These cabins are arranged in a stepped fashion with very little privacy from above. They told us that they spent most of their time back at the pool, rather than on their balcony that they paid the premium for.

How much privacy do they have at the pool? In most cases to view the people in the balcony below yours you have to stand at the rail. Most of the time the balconies are unoccupied and besides how much privacy do you need anyway.

We have stayed there on 2 separate occasions and we LOVE this hotel! It has a great location..good bar/restaurant...nice rooftop pool & bar...within walking distance to the water taxi, beach boardwalk (hotel right across from the ocean) and the boardwalk has lots of people watching, food, drinks. When you book a room you want to book a room in the towers. The other part of the hotel is older and I believe that is what is undergoing renovations. We loved every bit of our stay, including our rooms, service by workers, etc. I would stay there again in a heartbeat.[/quote

 

We agree, have stayed there many times and will again. If you do stay in the older section get a balcony room overlooking the marina. We have tried other hotels, but always go back to the Bahia Mar for all the reasons mentioned above.

Enjoy France. It was good meeting you on the Normandy tour. Thanks again for the cookbook you gave us on the cabin crawl. We loved visiting Paris after the cruise, the only mistake we made was not staying long enough.

A little correction on the Regal's route to the Azores. We skipped Halifax due to a storm in the North Atlantic and sailed directly to the Azores from Fort Lauderdale. Cork in Ireland is our next port.

$3739!! We did a 22 day trip to OZ and NZ including Uluru in 2008 for about the same amount of money.

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While we were dining on deck four, the Coral Princess pulled across from our berth. She must have a gazillion passengers. That means there will be about 4000 passengers onshore today, and that is not counting crew members. With the large number of buses parked on the dock, we assume many of those were on tours. We watched from the promenade deck while the people were coming off of the behemoth ship. The line never seemed to stop. Actually, there were two exits on the Coral Princess, which is a good thing.

The Coral Princess is a great ship, not quite a behemoth, the capacity is less than 2000 passengers, less than half the capacity of the Las Vegas of the Seas. We have enjoyed your posts for years, thanks for doing them, sure gives us something to look forward to on those cold winter mornings.

E630, 631, 701 & E702 are totally unobstructed.

It occurred to me that it might also be informative that we enjoyed the Royal so much (the soot issue notwithstanding), that we have booked a cruise on her twin sister, the Regal (still under construction), for this coming November. We simply chose a different balcony cabin so as not to have to deal with the soot, and are very excited to sail on this class ship again.

We too enjoyed the Royal and have booked a cruise on the Regal in one of the non obstructed "obstructed view" cabins.

I've seen quite a few pictures of that space behind the lifeboats and if they do open it up, which now appears to be the case on Regal Princess, it would benefit them to make it 'one-way only' for walking. As mentioned earlier there is enough space for one person to walk, but not really for two people side by side.

 

As for the front part of Promenade Deck, I wonder if they will close off access before that 'ramp' is reached, and then have a doorway leading back to the interior. Also, that area forward of the lifeboats and the ramp seems to be right alongside the Princess Theater and stage/backstage areas, so I wonder if it will be closed during performances, etc.

There is a doorway from the promenade deck leading to the interior that wraps all the way around the front of ship. In don't know if this can be safely opened to passengers, as this is where the crew has access to the rope lockers, winches, anchor chains and other docking apparatus.