Azamara Cruise - Day 3

By the second day at sea most of the passengers have become familiar with the ship and they start to fall into their cruise vacation patterns. Some will spend most of the day at the pool, while others will opt for the vast number of things available on the daily program. For example, this ship has a college professor from the Naval Academy who gave a lecture on “Who Owns the Seas?”. And if that wasn’t your cup of tea you could attend the formal tea with harp at 3:30 PM.
What’s also noticeable is that people are starting to become more familiar with their fellow passengers. Perhaps they ate dinner with them, or struck up a conversation in the Jacuzzi, but more socializing was definitely taking place. What’s nice about a cruise is that most folks feel very safe in the knowledge their fellow passengers like cruising and sharing their life experiences (in most cases).
Linda and I noticed a couple of things about the Journey. First, it has both a female hotel manager and a female executive chef. In over 25 years of cruising this is the first time I have ever come across this situation—and both of them were doing a fantastic job! Linda observed, and I agree, that this is a happy crew and it comes across in their service style-- both efficient and friendly at the same time.
One of the small vices of a cruise is that occasionally you will watch a TV movie that you never would at home. Yesterday a Steven Seagal movie caught our attention even though it featured the shooting of thousands of bullets, the breaking of every kind of glass imaginable and a cast of really bad guys eventually losing to the righteous law enforcers. All in all, a silly movie, but something a little fun to see.
We passed by the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispanola, and our hearts and prayers went out to the poor people of Haiti who are struggling with the aftermath of a devastating earth quake. It’s great to know that the cruise ships docking at Labadee on the Northern end of Haiti are still delivering much need aid and supplying much needed tourism jobs as well.
This morning Linda and I were doing our two-mile walk around the 10th deck track and off to our starboard side was Puerto Rico and a humpback whale which entertained us with a display of jumping and splashing for about 15 minutes. All of this took place after I carefully explained to Linda that she would only see whales in Alaska, or Hawaii or Mexico—so much for convention al wisdom. That was the first whale I ever seen in the Caribbean in after many cruises in these waters.
Well, tomorrow we’ll be arriving in St. John. We’ll snorkel at Trunk Bay and report on this island