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In
August 2010, we again visited our friends, Rick & Paula Woolf (who
live in Cooper City, FL) to take an eight day cruise with them---and their
long term friends---Gerry and Judy Katz.
During
this cruise we had these four port visits (with arrival and departure
times). |
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The
way in which these cruises are advertised is a little deceptive in that
this one is supposed to be "8 days." However, if you look more
closely at those departure and arrival times, the 1st day is spent boarding
the ship and the ship returns to port at 7 AM on the last day, so this
is actually a '6 Day Cruise!' |
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If
you think that humongous grin on Rick's face is because he just got laid,
you'd be WRONG! (The truth is he knows he's going to have his first gourmet
underway meal as soon as we get out of Fort Lauderdale's harbor.) BTW,
that's Gerry and Judy Katz in the background with their heads sticking
out. |
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The
first port we hit was Princess Cays which was developed by the Princess
Cruise Line as a recreational stop for their passengers---one at which
Princess ships... |
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...could
simply drop anchor offshore and use small boats to take people ashore
for various tours. Rick and Lena had booked a Snorkeling Tour while Steve
relaxed aboard ship. |
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With
the Emerald Princess anchored offshore, ship's passengers enjoy various
activities along the beach. |
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Our second port visit was St. Maarten (or St. Martin) and, as can be seen in this image, we tied up alongside the pier for this visit. |
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While the immediate port area had some very nice shops, we already had names of shops in town that had been recommended by friends. |
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I have to admit, though, that this port area was much nicer than many of those I saw while aboard US Navy ships! |
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As can be seen in this photo of our ship tied up at the pier with another cruise liner, the weather was absolutely perfect for our visit. |
As we walked around the end of the pier on our way to go shopping, this view of our ship with an American flag was rather interesting. |
One key goal on this cruise was to pick out a Llardro statue to give to Anya (Lena's daughter) at Christmas. While we liked both of these statues of a young woman... |
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...Lena decided this one was what she wanted for Anya! |
Now, if this Hummel figurine did NOT have a $22,000 price tag, Steve would have grabbed it for us! |
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After we finished our shopping, we took a bus tour around St. Maarten and got this 'full length' photo of our ship across the water. St. Maarten is an island of only 37 square miles... |
...but, it is jointly-owned by two nations: The Netherlands and France. The French territory covers about 2/3 of the island; Netherlands has the other 1/3. Ironically, we ended up not taking any more photos of St. Martin. |
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Our next port was St. Thomas and, after a bad experience with the bus tour on St. Martin, we ended up taking a private taxi around St. Thomas. From the height at this 'viewpoint,' we could see our ship across the harbor... |
...along with a great deal of the island. Using the telephoto in this photo, our ship seemed to be considerably closer than in the previous image. |
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I've no idea what kind of tree has these red blooms, but, they were beautiful. |
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This very tall 'well-dressed' guy (with his goat!) was encouraging people to take his photo---which I did. Unfortunately, he expected to be PAID for posing with his goat and got more than a little upset when we did not reimburse him for his efforts... |
