Normally, getting up early to report to immigration (everybody on ship) wouldn't be bad, but at 6:30am after New Year's Eve celebrations that lasted till 2 am--- boy were we tired! Luckily, DH and I went to bed not too long after midnight, but everyone had to report to Walt Disney Theatre before ANYONE could leave ship for excursion. We got up at 6:15 am and then dashed over. They did have coffee, orange juice and pastries available in line where you checked in prior to entering theatre. Once inside, you wait for row to be called to go up to Immigration agent who asks questions. I was so groggy when he quickly asked,"Where were you born?" I thought he meant where were we from. You need birth certificates or passports and everyone in your party must be there. They had to call staterooms to get everyone finally checked in.
We then went up to topsiders for breakfast and back to room to quickly prepare for excursion. We were doing the 5 star st. john which was taking the Leylon Sneed to trunk bay; last time we did the st. john snorkel and just loved trunk bay-- has to be the most beautiful place we have ever seen. that was the one thing on this trip we did not want to miss! We met at studio sea at 7:40 and were told that there were slight swells and there was a slight chance that they might not be able to dock at trunk bay (due to churning up water around coral reef) but if they couldnt, they'd go to their equally nice alternate site, half moon bay. we waited quite a while, still getting people to go to immigration, and then were on our way. we were docked between two mammoth ships, a P & O golden princess and costa atlantica from genova. we got on leylon sneed and started off on 45 min. ride which was quite rough and increasingly so. it was sunny and in the 80's , but rough, choppy water due to winds. Eventuallym 5 people got sick around us, and it took a lot of determination not to join them-- since sometimes that sort of thing gets contagious. it seemed like we would never get there, but we got to trunk bay, slowed down, and they said we werent stopping, but going to alternate site. after another 30 min. of very rough riding, they pulled up about 100 yds. out from bluebeards resort on st. thomas, not st. john. we got our snorkeling gear, but i had two mismatched fins and one kept falling off; DS' pfd kept losing air, but there were no others left that didn't also lose their air. we went off the side into 50 ft. deep water, with huge waves. every time i put my face in to snorkel, a wave covered my air tube! we decided to go to the beach to swim and sunbathe since we didnt see any fish in these rough waters. we noticed the beach nearest where they dropped us off was covered in rocks and coral, so we veered a few feet to the side where there was soft sand and as we made our way ashore, a crewmember from excursion boat yelled at us to get back over where the rocky beach was since the resort didnt want us anchored there and using the beach. i tried to tell her it was too rocky to walk there, but she wouldnt listen; both DS and I got small cuts on our feet from the sharp rocks and coral and debris on this part of the beach. We stayed for about 15 min. and then it was time for us to make it back to the ship which was quite difficult as the currents had increased. I switched pfd's with DS and by the time i got to the boat, i was getting hit with huge waves over my head, taking in mouthfuls of salt water and treading water in 50ft. depths with no air in the pfd. everytime i tried to grab the ladder, a wave crashed me into the side of the boat. there were many children there, bobbing in the water, trying to get aboard. not pleasant. i was exhausted. i found out that this was not their alternate site (which they didnt bother to mention) but a place they had never gone to before, and that's why the resort didnt want us there. even though it was sunny and warm, the water temp was pleasant, i didnt feel i got my money's worth this time (close to $200 for the 3 of us.) i think they knew they wouldnt go to trunk bay and they should've taken us to another beach on st. john. oh well, we enjoyed the swimming anyway even though it was strenuous. this is one reason we probably will take our next cruise in the summer again as we usually do. the big difference is in the summer you can spend every moment in the water wherever you are and it is pleasantly warm and the water is generally calm. in the winter, the wind is very often strong and creates extremely rough seas and very often in the bahamas (castaway cay) it is not comfortably warm to swim. don't get me wrong, it is still beautiful everywhere in the winter, but you miss out on the water sports and sunning you would get in the summer.
It took about 20 min. more to get back to the ship and we went aboard, cleaned up and went to lunch at topsiders which had an american buffet with baked potato bar which was good. also clam chowder was good.
Afterward, we decided to go ashore and go shopping and make phone calls. We had purchased cheap phone cards at home for $3 or $4 for 30 minutes and being in the u.s. virgin islands, it is same rate as home. We called both of our parents to wish them happy new years. Phones by ship at port were very busy. We shopped, bought, wrote, and mailed postcards. St. Thomas is fairly clean and you can see a difference between it and st. maarten. We finally headed back to ship because DH and DS were both hot and tired. (I wanted to soak up every ounce of sunshine and enjoy it.)
DH and I went up to deck 10 to lay on lounge chairs and read as Magic got ready to depart at 4:45. They started sounding the horn around 4:15 and then started calling about 6 families' names that hadn't gotten back on board. I started to think that if they like me, hadn't changed their watch ahead by an hour, they would be out shopping somewhere, thinking they had another hour! As we got ready to sail, there still were a few names they were calling; one family came flying up in a jeep marked security and i have no idea if the others made it. They now have this dueling horns thing that is pretty neat as they depart st. thomas. We are parallel parked between two huge ships and the Magic is going to pull out sideways! As she does, she blows one blast on the horn, then one of the other ships answers her with one blast; then the magic does two; the other ship two; then the magic three; the other ship three-- and the final blow-- the magic launches into "when you wish upon a star" and all the crowds on the magic's deck 10 waving to the other ships cheer and wave. It is pretty neat. We stayed there on deck 10 until st. thomas was out of sight and we enjoyed those last rays of sunlight since we knew it would be cooler ahead in the bahamas.
We dressed for dinner and show and went to see tonight's entertainment, a showing of movie, "Treasure Planet." I wasn't interested in this, but i didn't realize it was an updated scifi version of treasure island, so i ended up liking it after all. We then dashed to rockin bar d for cabaret show of Michael Harrison, comedian and ventriloquist. He made a tennis ball talk, vulture and was pretty good. I heard his adult only show later was really funny too. This was tropical night and we were in animator's palette and this was the show night with all the colors, etc. Jamming John and company were with us, but not the other group and we started to worry that since we hadnt seen them in two days at dinner that they might have been a family left behind. At dinner this night, one of our companions got into a tiff with our servers and that kind of made their attention sort of cold after that. the asst. server reached over to take our companion's dinner plate although she was still eating and didn't ask her if she was done. she firmly told her she was still eating her meal and the asst. left it. a few minutes later, when this diner turned to tell me something, the server came along (not knowing what the asst. had done a few minutes earlier) and he did take her meal away without her knowing it since she was turned, talking to me. Needless to say, she was miffed and i didnt know this, but she reamed out the asst. server later. It wasnt till the next day I told her it wasnt the same girl that took it, but the other guy. I know they want to get on to the next course (this was the late seating), but i think you ask if they are finished. Our family had no problems with the servers and in fact thought they were very good, just quiet, but the others were somewhat high maintenance.
After dinner we just took it easy and relaxed before retiring for the evening. Both of us had new books we were reading and just read quietly for a while. I spent some time with DS on internet too. More tomorrow on our day at sea.
We then went up to topsiders for breakfast and back to room to quickly prepare for excursion. We were doing the 5 star st. john which was taking the Leylon Sneed to trunk bay; last time we did the st. john snorkel and just loved trunk bay-- has to be the most beautiful place we have ever seen. that was the one thing on this trip we did not want to miss! We met at studio sea at 7:40 and were told that there were slight swells and there was a slight chance that they might not be able to dock at trunk bay (due to churning up water around coral reef) but if they couldnt, they'd go to their equally nice alternate site, half moon bay. we waited quite a while, still getting people to go to immigration, and then were on our way. we were docked between two mammoth ships, a P & O golden princess and costa atlantica from genova. we got on leylon sneed and started off on 45 min. ride which was quite rough and increasingly so. it was sunny and in the 80's , but rough, choppy water due to winds. Eventuallym 5 people got sick around us, and it took a lot of determination not to join them-- since sometimes that sort of thing gets contagious. it seemed like we would never get there, but we got to trunk bay, slowed down, and they said we werent stopping, but going to alternate site. after another 30 min. of very rough riding, they pulled up about 100 yds. out from bluebeards resort on st. thomas, not st. john. we got our snorkeling gear, but i had two mismatched fins and one kept falling off; DS' pfd kept losing air, but there were no others left that didn't also lose their air. we went off the side into 50 ft. deep water, with huge waves. every time i put my face in to snorkel, a wave covered my air tube! we decided to go to the beach to swim and sunbathe since we didnt see any fish in these rough waters. we noticed the beach nearest where they dropped us off was covered in rocks and coral, so we veered a few feet to the side where there was soft sand and as we made our way ashore, a crewmember from excursion boat yelled at us to get back over where the rocky beach was since the resort didnt want us anchored there and using the beach. i tried to tell her it was too rocky to walk there, but she wouldnt listen; both DS and I got small cuts on our feet from the sharp rocks and coral and debris on this part of the beach. We stayed for about 15 min. and then it was time for us to make it back to the ship which was quite difficult as the currents had increased. I switched pfd's with DS and by the time i got to the boat, i was getting hit with huge waves over my head, taking in mouthfuls of salt water and treading water in 50ft. depths with no air in the pfd. everytime i tried to grab the ladder, a wave crashed me into the side of the boat. there were many children there, bobbing in the water, trying to get aboard. not pleasant. i was exhausted. i found out that this was not their alternate site (which they didnt bother to mention) but a place they had never gone to before, and that's why the resort didnt want us there. even though it was sunny and warm, the water temp was pleasant, i didnt feel i got my money's worth this time (close to $200 for the 3 of us.) i think they knew they wouldnt go to trunk bay and they should've taken us to another beach on st. john. oh well, we enjoyed the swimming anyway even though it was strenuous. this is one reason we probably will take our next cruise in the summer again as we usually do. the big difference is in the summer you can spend every moment in the water wherever you are and it is pleasantly warm and the water is generally calm. in the winter, the wind is very often strong and creates extremely rough seas and very often in the bahamas (castaway cay) it is not comfortably warm to swim. don't get me wrong, it is still beautiful everywhere in the winter, but you miss out on the water sports and sunning you would get in the summer.
It took about 20 min. more to get back to the ship and we went aboard, cleaned up and went to lunch at topsiders which had an american buffet with baked potato bar which was good. also clam chowder was good.
Afterward, we decided to go ashore and go shopping and make phone calls. We had purchased cheap phone cards at home for $3 or $4 for 30 minutes and being in the u.s. virgin islands, it is same rate as home. We called both of our parents to wish them happy new years. Phones by ship at port were very busy. We shopped, bought, wrote, and mailed postcards. St. Thomas is fairly clean and you can see a difference between it and st. maarten. We finally headed back to ship because DH and DS were both hot and tired. (I wanted to soak up every ounce of sunshine and enjoy it.)
DH and I went up to deck 10 to lay on lounge chairs and read as Magic got ready to depart at 4:45. They started sounding the horn around 4:15 and then started calling about 6 families' names that hadn't gotten back on board. I started to think that if they like me, hadn't changed their watch ahead by an hour, they would be out shopping somewhere, thinking they had another hour! As we got ready to sail, there still were a few names they were calling; one family came flying up in a jeep marked security and i have no idea if the others made it. They now have this dueling horns thing that is pretty neat as they depart st. thomas. We are parallel parked between two huge ships and the Magic is going to pull out sideways! As she does, she blows one blast on the horn, then one of the other ships answers her with one blast; then the magic does two; the other ship two; then the magic three; the other ship three-- and the final blow-- the magic launches into "when you wish upon a star" and all the crowds on the magic's deck 10 waving to the other ships cheer and wave. It is pretty neat. We stayed there on deck 10 until st. thomas was out of sight and we enjoyed those last rays of sunlight since we knew it would be cooler ahead in the bahamas.
We dressed for dinner and show and went to see tonight's entertainment, a showing of movie, "Treasure Planet." I wasn't interested in this, but i didn't realize it was an updated scifi version of treasure island, so i ended up liking it after all. We then dashed to rockin bar d for cabaret show of Michael Harrison, comedian and ventriloquist. He made a tennis ball talk, vulture and was pretty good. I heard his adult only show later was really funny too. This was tropical night and we were in animator's palette and this was the show night with all the colors, etc. Jamming John and company were with us, but not the other group and we started to worry that since we hadnt seen them in two days at dinner that they might have been a family left behind. At dinner this night, one of our companions got into a tiff with our servers and that kind of made their attention sort of cold after that. the asst. server reached over to take our companion's dinner plate although she was still eating and didn't ask her if she was done. she firmly told her she was still eating her meal and the asst. left it. a few minutes later, when this diner turned to tell me something, the server came along (not knowing what the asst. had done a few minutes earlier) and he did take her meal away without her knowing it since she was turned, talking to me. Needless to say, she was miffed and i didnt know this, but she reamed out the asst. server later. It wasnt till the next day I told her it wasnt the same girl that took it, but the other guy. I know they want to get on to the next course (this was the late seating), but i think you ask if they are finished. Our family had no problems with the servers and in fact thought they were very good, just quiet, but the others were somewhat high maintenance.
After dinner we just took it easy and relaxed before retiring for the evening. Both of us had new books we were reading and just read quietly for a while. I spent some time with DS on internet too. More tomorrow on our day at sea.
