Glory, May 12-19th...Trip Report with photos and videos!

[CruisinCandace]

Great review! LOVE the diving photos! I am going on the Glory for the second time in November, but Western Caribbean. I'm glad you had a wonderful cruise.

[ABQrobin]

Thank you everyone!

 

Thanks for the great review so far. I got on the weekend you got off.

Extra thanks for the picture of the crab cake. I'm glad I didn't order it now!

 

the crab cakes tasted good, they just fell apart as soon as my fork touched it.

 

Great review! LOVE the diving photos! I am going on the Glory for the second time in November, but Western Caribbean. I'm glad you had a wonderful cruise.

 

Have a great one!

[quickrate]

the crab cakes fell apart because they had very little bread crumbs in them and more crab. that's a good thing!!

Pat

[ParrotRob]

Thank you everyone!

 

the crab cakes tasted good, they just fell apart as soon as my fork touched it.

 

Have a great one!

 

I'm from Maryland, I don't trust crabcakes from anywhere. There's no jumbo lumps in those.

[cruisin'4fun]

Your photos and videos are breathtaking!

[ABQrobin]

Your photos and videos are breathtaking!

 

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed them. More to come!

 

 

San Juan' date=' PR == coming up next![/b']

[mara93]

Loving the review ... not cruising this itinerary but I love the pics!

[ABQrobin]

Tuesday, May 15th --- San Juan, PR

 

Since our port arrrival was not until 1pm, we got up early, DH hit the guy at 6am, and I went to walk for 45 minutes. Both my knees were sore from the diving the day before, I think I tweaked one of them getting back on the boat after dive #2, and the other one is just always sore. I limped around for awhile, and met back at the room for DH to shower and change. We went up to Lido for breakfast, as usual, then went to walk a little bit afterwards.

 

Side note -- We have only done the Dining Room breakfast once, a few years ago, and hated it. We had to stand in line to get in then seated at a table with a bunch of strangers who just sat there and didn't talk. We don't mind seats with strangers part, it was the dead silence. No one talked, at all. It was very uncomfortable. After the waiter finally took orders, we sat in silence for 30+ minutes waiting for food. Then the food came, and it wasn't even warm. Half the table had gotten the steak and eggs, and everyone complained about it - the only conversation the whole time at the table. uggh. Never again. We will try the dining room breakfast again sometime, but after seeing the long lines at the door on this cruise, I am not sure it will happen soon. No kidding, as we walked around the ship for our Fitbit exercise, we always saw a long line at the door, every single morning.

 

So.... It was a very relaxing morning. We downloaded photos and videos to our laptop we brought with us on the cruise. We don't use the laptop except for this purpose -backup and viewing images from cameras.

 

Lunch at noon - I found a yummy pear and spinach salad on the buffet, as well as fried chicken, a seafood kabob sounded good.

DH went for a regular salad and some pasta. We were both still full from the Steakhouse dinner.

 

Sail in at San Juan is always beautiful.....

 

 

It was drizzling rain..... again. Forecast for the day was more of the same.

Oh well, at least there was a breeze. Last time here we fried in the sun, today would be more pleasant weather at least.

 

 

We docked right on time.... and people started off the ship very slowly.

 

Since we had been to San Juan last year, and had toured both forts already, we decided to just make this a photography and food day. Our goal was to walk around and take photos of the cool multi-colored houses, then eat a big second lunch at a restaurant before returning to ship.

[ABQrobin]

We got off the ship at 1:30pm and started our walk. The dock area has tons of local vendors and hawkers selling goods, tours, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

We walked up the hill to the first fort, took some photos outside, then started walking towards the other fort for a few blocks. We could still see the ship. We did the uphill part of the island first, so the rest would just be looping around streets on the way back downhill to the ship.

 

After a few blocks and dozens of photos, we turned down a side street to start exploring.

[ABQrobin]

So many colorful buildings....some were still showing hurricane damage, but most seemed to have recovered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then we spotted it.... the Cathedral. We had missed it last trip, but this time we were going in.

 

...more...

[ABQrobin]

The top of the Cathedral....

 

 

We walked around to the front....and yeah, it was open for visitors.

 

 

We spent about half hour walking around inside, and made a $5 donation at the desk. No kidding, if you go to San Juan, you MUST visit the Cathedral. They are still doing renovations inside, definitely hurricane damage, but 90% of the cathedral is fine, and beautiful, full of sculptures and paitings!

 

 

[ABQrobin]

 

 

 

 

It was hot inside, so we headed out and the rain began again, just a drizzle so nothing bad.

 

...more...

[ABQrobin]

So.... the neighborhood around the cathedral is on the west side of Old San Juan, near the city wall. We walked around that direction to get more photos.

 

 

 

And it continued to rain....

 

 

 

We were both starting to get hungry and thirsty, so we started looking at the restaurant menus posted outside all the little shops along the way.

After deciding we weren't sure what we wanted to eat, we ended up right back where we started from. The street had cafes on both sides of the street, and all were busy with people eating lunch now.

 

...

[ABQrobin]

This one looked good....

 

 

And they had a seating area outside in the shade!

 

 

The rain had stopped and there was a nice breeze here, so outside was perfect!

 

 

I went with the Mofongo with chicken, he went for the pork chop.

 

My mofongo was made into a bowl! Wow, it was huge. I couldn't eat it all, it was just too big, but it was delicious as was the salad with spicy dressing.

 

...

[ABQrobin]

After our late second lunch, we continued walking back towards the ship.

 

 

 

There was a line at Security, and you had to produce your S&S card as well as a photo ID. One lady was standing there, panicked that she didn't have any photo ID on her. I felt bad for her, but they announced it onboard the ship, and there was a sign just as you were exiting the ship... you MUST have a photo ID and S&S card to get back into the port area.

 

....

[ABQrobin]

We boarded the ship, and headed to our room to shower and change clothes. It had been a long day, we were full from our late second lunch, so no way we were going to dinner at 6pm. Besides, it was almost 6pm anyway. The ship was due to leave port at 9pm, so after dark. We went up on the Lido to relax, watch the sunset, and relax some more.

 

Aaaahhhh.....beautiful sunset.

 

 

After the sunset, we decided to grab snacks.... DH wanted Sushi so we went to the Sushi window on the Lido to order.

Spicy Tuna roll....very good and $5 plus tip

 

Then we went back to the room and decided to order Room Service. We have never ordered room service before, so this was more of an experiment than food need. I ordered a chicken quesadilla and choc cake. DH ran to the bar to grab beer and soda for me.

The order arrived in about 20 minutes which I thought was pretty fast.

 

not bad for $5 plus $2 tip.

[ABQrobin]

It was around the time we were supposed to leave San Juan...................

 

 

and...........

 

Bing Bong...... uh oh. That is never good, especially this cruise.

 

It was CD Dustin.... once again, never good thing when the CD is making an announcement.

 

He said that we had not left San Juan yet as there had been a Medical Evacuation --- again. We would be leaving as soon as passenger and their family were transported to the San Juan hospital.

 

About an hour late, but we finally started to pull away from the dock....

 

Tomorrow, St Thomas! We had scuba diving scheduled and were so excited.

But...tomorrow was going to be the most eventful day of the cruise....

 

...more...

[GypsyLadyLikes2Wander]

We had Faster-to-the-Fun for the first time... when we arrived at 9:45am (crazy early, no idea why the shuttle brought us there so early when they weren't even open yet), we gave our luggage to the porter, and then got in line outside the "Priority" line along with dozens of other people. And we waited, as it drizzled rain. Yuck. Not a great start to the day.

 

Finally, they opened the door and in we went. It took about 10 minutes to walk in, and have someone scan our boarding passes and send us directly to the FTTF seating area. No kidding, insanely fast. We got the the special area, and sat....and sat.... and sat. People started streaming in to the "regular passenger" area, and we still were sitting waiting. And waiting. Around 11am an announcement was made that they were going to start boarding at 11:30. We looked over and realized we saw some people starting up the stairs at the other end, must have been the Diamond and Platinum group. Wow. Right at 11:30 they announced FTTF to board. In 10 minutes we were onboard, heading to our room. Since we had FTTF we figured our room would be ready and we could drop off our carryon bags before heading to the Lido for lunch.

 

...and that is where things started to go sideways for us...

 

to be continued....

 

I have actually read many many times that FTTF isn't really worth it...

[zabnee]

 

Tomorrow, St Thomas! We had scuba diving scheduled and were so excited.

But...tomorrow was going to be the most eventful day of the cruise....

 

...more...

 

 

Aah! thanks for the cliffhanger! I've been watching and avidly reading posts of yours I've seen on other areas of the boards (especially answering questions for Mitsugirl!). I'm a new diver myself, so love seeing your tips and experiences!

Edited June 6, 2018 by zabnee
correct spelling.

[ABQrobin]

Aah! thanks for the cliffhanger! I've been watching and avidly reading posts of yours I've seen on other areas of the boards (especially answering questions for Mitsugirl!). I'm a new diver myself, so love seeing your tips and experiences!

 

Thanks! Yeah.....cliffhangers are fun.

 

 

One last view of the ship, sitting at San Juan.

[Jerseygirl1416]

I love your reviews! The pictures and info are really good. Thanks for taking the time to share!

[ABQrobin]

I love your reviews! The pictures and info are really good. Thanks for taking the time to share!

 

thank you!

[Alaskan Joe]

*Book Mark*

[ABQrobin]

WEDNESDAY ---- ST Thomas

port time: 7am-4pm

 

 

We got up early, 5am, to make sure all the dive gear was packed and ready, then headed up to the Lido for breakfast. The buffet was opening early due to our early arrival time.

 

Bing, Bong...... oh no, here we go again. CD Dustin.... never a good sign. And it was being piped into the staterooms, too.

Announcement --- Good Morning, sorry for the early wakeup but we have a situation that we need to inform everyone to explain what is going on with the ship. We were notified by the Coast Guard that the cruise ship MSC Seaside had a man overboard alert and per Maritime Law, we are required to join in the search. We will be doing a zigzag pattern in our assigned area and will not be docking at St Thomas at this time. We will let you know any further news as soon as possible. Bing Bong.

 

 

Holy Cow. This really is a bummer. We could see the islands, but we couldn't go there. We slowed to a crawl, and started a zigzag pattern in the ocean. We could see the MSC ship doing the same.

 

We went up to the Lido anyhow, and started breakfast... and waited with everyone.

 

 

The MSC Seaside.... I can't imagine what the people onboard that ship must be going through right now. It was annoying for us, but it was so much worse for them. What had happened? We didn't know...yet. We would find out later.

 

Zigzag, zigzag, turn and repeat.

 

 

7am came and went. And everyone waited.

 

 

 

8am came and went.....

 

 

9am came and went....

[ABQrobin]

A helicopter joined us in the search... but still nothing.

Bing Bong.... We have been released from the Search and Rescue effort and will continue to St Thomas. Due to our late arrival, everyone will be notified to the changes to excursion times and cancellations. Back on board time will be adjusted and we'll let you know shortly.

Bing Bong.

 

Okay, we are finally going towards the island now.

Port arrival....10:30am.

We were supposed to be there at 7am. Our dive excursion was supposed to be halfway over by now. We went back to our room to wait for the Notification. NOTHING came. DH realized that they probably took it to the original room, 2405, so he went up there and found the Room Steward. They opened the door and sure enough, slipped under the door was a sheet saying our excursion was cancelled.

GEEZ, thanks alot Shore Excursion desk. Good thing WE figured out to look there.

 

Well, that meant we had nothing planned for the port, and it didn't sound like they were changing our departure time at all. Back to the room to unpack the dive gear, get out our wallets and pack up a bag to take off the ship for the day. It looked like scattered rain, again, and it was windy, again. We took our cameras out of underwater housings, and packed them up for shooting topside photography, and got ready to get off the ship.

 

 

We had seen all the amazing photos of the Skyride up to Paradise Point, so that was going to be our destination today. We planned to have lunch somewhere, maybe up there, depending on how much we liked it.