The Eastern Caribbean Cruise – 6 days on Holland America
Farewell, Fort Lauderdale; off to the eastern Caribbean for
a cruise with Matt and his family; back before new year!
Dec 24, 2024 - Here is what you are NOT seeing on our
holiday cruise today …. A port call in the Dominican Republic. The rain and
rough seas led Holland America to cancel all stops here for all of its ships
today. So, onward to tomorrow’s port call in San Juan, Puerto Rico. On the plus
side: the ship has a terrific lending library!
Oh yes, these cruise ships try to make an extra dollar every
way they can. Since we were ship-bound today after the port call in the
Dominican Republic was canceled, the adults decided to play bingo. This is not
a free activity, by the way, at $39 per person per game. But it was fun to dust
off my bingo skills!
We had a really nice Christmas eve dinner on the ship!
Dec 25, 2024- San Juan, Puerto Rico, our first port stop on
this Holland America eastern Caribbean cruise. Along with 12,000 others
flooding from the 4 cruise ships that stopped here today, we saw many
centuries-old forts, cemetery, government houses. A beautiful city!
San Juan has lots of new construction. Every street in the
city seems to end at the sea. Beaches are ALL public. Gorgeous hotels, many
historic. And the city was celebrating Christmas!
Today, January 26, also known as Boxing Day (look it up, if
you’re not familiar), Pippi Longstocking wakes up to find that the ship Nieuw
Amsterdam has docked in the harbor of St Thomas, part of the U.S. Virgin
Islands where no passport is required and US dollars are gladly accepted. We
are on one of 5 ships that will be here today. Matt had arranged for a tour
that took us to MountainTop, 1600 feet elevation where we looked over the
Atlantic Ocean and wandered through a huge souvenir shop where one end was
devoted to whipping up and selling banana daiquiris (at 9 am, a bit too early
for me to imbibe…). The trip down to the sea level gave lots of opportunities
to look out over the Caribbean Sea, which is the side of this 31-square-mile
island where we’d docked.
St Thomas is tourism-dependent, with lots of photo ops and
greenery punctuated by picturesque buildings.
At every port of call, the ship puts a brochure like this in
each room, as orientation to the area. This brochure describes the port that we
stopped at in the U. S. Virgin Islands. The town is called Charlotte Amalie,
and it was founded in 1666 “and contains excellent Danish-colonial architecture
listed on the National Register of Historic Places... Shops are tucked into
massive stone buildings that were once used as Danish warehouses for sugar and
other goods.”
Here is what AI says about the history of the relationship
with the USA:
The islands were originally divided into English and Danish
parts in the 17th century. The Danish part, known as the Danish West Indies,
was in economic decline after slavery was abolished in 1848. The Danish
government repeatedly tried to sell the islands due to mounting deficits.
The U.S. became interested in the islands during the Civil
War, when a naval station in the West Indies was needed. The U.S. Senate
refused to approve the purchase of St. Thomas and St. John in 1870.
The U.S. purchased the islands from Denmark in 1917 for $25
million dollars in gold coin to:
-Ensure tranquility in the Caribbean Ocean
-Use the islands' location and deep bays for naval warships
-Control the main passage through the Caribbean to the
Panama Canal
The transfer took place on March 31, 1917. The treaty of
cession promised U.S. citizenship to the inhabitants, except for those who
chose to retain Danish citizenship.
U.S. citizenship was conferred on U.S. Virgin Islanders in
1927 and 1932.
Federal authority over the islands was placed in the
Department of the Interior in 1931.
This ship had some interesting lectures during the day,
holiday movies some nights, and a try-hard comedian. Today we are all day at
sea en route to a stop in the Bahamas. To try and keep everybody happy, the
buffet had a “cake event.”
On the last full day of our cruise, December 28, the ship
anchored off Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas. Half Moon Cay is located in the Cat
Island District of the Bahamas, about 100 miles southeast of Nassau. It's also
known as Little San Salvador Island. Carnival Corporation owns Half Moon Cay,
along with Princess Cays. Carnival also owns Holland America, which previously
purchased the island in 1996. It is a port of call for Holland America cruises.
The island currently doesn't have deep water docking, so cruise ship passengers
use tenders to disembark and embark. Matt wisely reserved a floating cabana so
everyone could enjoy time in these beautiful blue waters, in an uncrowded way.
As two ships docked at the same time, with a passenger load of over 7000, the
beach got pretty busy pretty fast.
Ah, holiday travel! So far “only” a 5 hour flight delay.
Packet of SunChips for lunch as it’s not possible to check bags earlier than 6
hours before flight and THERE IS NO REAL FOOD THIS SIDE OF TSA IN FORT
LAUDERDALE AIRPORT.
