Day Seventy Eight - March 24

As mentioned in the previous day' blog, we have two sea days before reaching Hamilton, Bermuda. This is where Janice and I went for our honeymoon and are anxious to go back to visit after 36 years.

But we received an itinerary change from Claudio, the General Manager in a letter the evening of March 23 indicating that"due to adverse and severe weather conditions that will result in unsafe sailing conditions we have made the prudent decision to take a southerly course for our crossing and therefore bypass Bermuda."

Rather than two seas days then Hamilton Bermuda then four sea days until Ponta Delgada in the Azores; it is Grand Stirrup Cap then seven sea days in a row until Funchal, Madeira. Also skipping the Azores.

A huge disappointment not only for us but to many other passengers on board.

So the mystery magical cruise continues!!

Rather than being a sea today we are in Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas where NCL Cruise Lines have a private island as does Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Because of the quick change in the itinerary there were no restaurants or shops open. NCL has its own tender vessels to ferry passengers to the island so I hopped on a tender to get some pictures and then return to the ship.

On the RCCL island, there were two ships docked. Mariner of the Seas (passenger capacity 4,252 on a five night Bahamas cruise) and Wonder of the Seas (6,988 passengers on a seven night Western Caribbean cruise). The Wonder of the Seas is a massive ship whose tonnage is 236,857 and considered the largest cruise to date.

The Bahamas is made up of 700 islands although only 30 are inhabited by people. The distance between Miami and the Bahamas is 48 nautical miles. With such a short distance you can see why many cruise lines make a stop to the islands whether its their private island or to Nassau, the capital.

Here are Janice's comments regarding her ship tour.

I decided to add to my bucket list today and go swimming with the pigs. I have done goat yoga in Victoria so I thought that this would be fun too. There are around 30 pigs in total but there were only about 7-8 roaming around. When they get too big they retire them to the barn. They follow the workers like dogs do and will do anything for apples which is all that they feed them. They were very clean and adorable and yes I got to hold them and swim with the huge one although he would only work for a whole apple and not pieces like the smaller ones. The 16 workers are from Bery Island close by where Jack Nicklaus and Steve Tyler own homes. They shared that they are way smarter than dogs and do not eat pork anymore since they started working with the pigs. I was also glad to hear that the retired ones get to live a long natural life. So it was overall a successful fun day!

Also there have been some negative comments made regarding Trivia with the new cruise director but for myself I like him. The questions might be somewhat harder than before but everyone has their own style which we must adapt to.

I will not be posting anything until we reach Funchal Portugal our next port. Seven sea days in a row should be nothing since we already had nine when returning to Los Angeles. It is our first transatlantic crossing and hopefully it will not be too rough although Janice did bring 180 gravol tablets.