Caribbean 2025

 After a day at sea, we arrived at the downtown Nassau Bahamas port just before 8 AM. We were already in the morning devotional with Kevin Williams. The MSC Seaside was already moored and we took a berth next to them. Here in the Bahamas we had scheduled an another snorkeling trip and we gathered up our gear after breakfast and headed down to the pier where we found the local guides. What was very interesting was that they offered to cancel our snorkeling trip because it was windy and there was current and we asked if it was still possible to snorkel and they said of course it was. So we elected to go ahead with the trip and we were joined by another couple who signed up for the same event. There were many other events going on on Pearl Island besides our snorkeling trip so when everybody had checked in, we then followed our guide down to the waiting catamaran and were whisked out to Pearl Island. I believe there were three different types of groups going on excursions from this ve...

Once again, our morning started out early with a 7:30 AM devotional with Michael Randall. He was a powerful speaker and the husband of another singer in the main program. Afterwards, we grabbed a quick breakfast in the Lido Marketplace and it was good. On sea days, Stephanie conducts a coffee chat and today she interviewed the assistant hotel general manager, JOHN. Nobody seemed aware that this event was happening, but we're quite familiar with the schedule so we were the only two people there. It then became a pretty intimate chance to chat with them about what's going on.  And I learned a few pretty interesting things about the future of Holland America and the ship. I asked John if there was any difference between this crowd as a charter and a regular cruise like we had last week. He paused before saying "Yes there is a pretty big difference. And that difference is that this crowd does not engage with the staff or crew". He finds it frustrating because he's use...

  As is our custom for this cruise, we had an early morning devotional time. Today was led by a very successful blind pianist, Gordon Mote. He shared testimony about his life and how God used others to help him along. After the devotional time we headed up to the Lido Market for our morning breakfast. We didn't have anything scheduled for this port so we weren't in any hurry to get off the ship. After breakfast, we headed out and walked the long pier to the Plaza area, which was developed by Carnival in around 2006 at a cost of $50 million. I don't have any memory of being here in the plaza, but I know that we've been here at least once before. We walked through the plaza and were observing a historical sign when a hustler presented us with the option to take a narrated van tour around the island for a cost of $40 each. So we decided to do that and went and boarded the van after a short wait. Grand Turk is only about 7 miles long and 2 1/2 to 3 miles wide so it's no...

 We woke up this morning at 6:30 knowing that we had a devotional time scheduled for 7 AM. While waiting for the devotional to start, I checked on my schedule and saw that we were slated to go on a snorkeling trip here at Amber Cove. I forgotten about it, but we were eager to do it. So after the devotion by Wesley Prichard ended, we quickly gathered up our snorkeling gear and were among the first to check off the boat. We easily found our excursion group inside the Amber Cove area. Edward, our leader, then led us and we took about a 30 minute bus ride from the port through the town of Puerto Plata to a beach location to the south of there. We waded into the shallow water and boarded by wading knee deep water to a set of stairs. After all we're aboard the catamaran, the captain then backed away from shore, pivoted the boat around and headed south into the open sea. He then turned over control to his assistant while he gave a safety briefing And told us about what would be happening....

 On this our first day at sea, we had a morning devotional and it was at 7:30 in the morning. So we were up early to avoid it make that event. The speaker was Woody Wright and he's a musician and he  spoke about how music engages the entire brain and is used for treating people with dementia and Alzheimer's. My wife has been involved in that ministry for three or four years since Covid and is active participate three times a week online helping people with those issues. Later we spoke with him one on one and had a great conversation.  Most of the rest of the day was spent attending concert and singing sessions along with eating.  I'm not going to the details about that unless any of my readers are interested in it. I would say that our hearts were very full after participating in all these activities. One really interesting thing happened during the day today. There was a hymn sing scheduled for the billboard on board and we went early to get a good seat. Shortly aft...

 Today was turnaround day and it actually turned out to be a fairly busy day. We had to be out of our room by 8:15 AM and so our alarms went off at 7 AM and we finished the last-minute packing and went up to the Lido for one final breakfast on this leg.  The Lido Marketplace was extremely busy and we finally found a seat and enjoyed a nice breakfast. We didn't need to be in the Pinnacle bar until 9 AM to do the immigration inspection. This week's cruise is a full charter cruise meaning that the sponsor of this cruise chartered the entire ship and they control the programming.  The casino is closed, alcohol promotion is eliminated, there are very few public announcements by Stephanie, our Cruise & Travel Director, there are no events scheduled by HAL except shore excursions, the casino is closed, and the charter group provides all the Main Stage and Rolling Stone lounge programming.  All of the restaurants are open as well as the shops and photo studio.  ...