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Royal Caribbean International
Review with photographs - Explorer leave NJ for the last time
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<blockquote data-quote="Cruizer" data-source="post: 1661439" data-attributes="member: 18088"><p><strong>November 12, 2014 – Aruba</strong></p><p></p><p>It is amazing what a half day’s sleep plus a full night’s sleep can do for you. I’m up a 6:00 and feeling pretty good (except for the right side of my hip). I watch the pilot boat speed away after dropping off the pilot. Then I head to the helipad to get some pictures (which look dull with no sun) and some sunrise photographs (which are just that, the sun rising, as there are no clouds overhead and plenty of clouds on the horizon. </p><p></p><p>We are cleared to go shortly after 7:00am. However, there are no vendors out and about that early. My tour ends at 11:45am and the back on board time is 12:30pm. We leave at 1:00 for the two and a half day trip back to Port Canaveral. There is a message on the TV (for those that actually read the messages) telling the Port Canaveral shore excursion guests that they will have to carry their own luggage off the ship. I can’t wait for the problems that is going to create. </p><p></p><p>At any rate with nothing better to do, I decide to get breakfast and then head down for my tour. I’m a little early so I decide to sit and wait, until someone else shows and gets shown the bus to get on. So I follow and find out I’m actually one of the last to show up. </p><p></p><p>Our first stop is the butterfly farm, which is the reason I brought my good camera. Those butterflies are not the most cooperative photographic subjects I’ve tried to photograph, but I did get some good photographs nonetheless. However, I am drenched in sweat chasing (walking) after the butterflies in the shade. It is hot and humid. I find a shot glass for my friend at the butterfly farm, so life would be good except I also want to get a Caribbean shirt, as Aruba has the best prices for these shirts and we are docked a long walk from the street vendors (and the bus cannot let us off outside the gate).</p><p></p><p>The next stop is the natural bridge. Back around 2005 or 2006 the big natural bridge collapsed. All that is left is a pile of rocks and the smaller bridge. I take a few photographs and then head back to the bus.</p><p></p><p>Our last stop is bunch of boulders. There is some debate about how the boulders ended up where they are. One theory is they were blown out of a volcano and a second theory is that the boulders were pushed up out of the sea by some geological force. The weather conditions have etched some of the boulders into unusual shapes. But from my point of view, these are still just boulders - yippee! The place is called Ayo Rock Formations (in case you develop a boulder fetish and feel like traveling to Aruba to satisfy it).</p><p></p><p>Upon our return to the ship at 11:35am I headed over to the street vendors (dodging all that did not have Caribbean shirts) and found what I was looking for. The price was $15 which is at least five dollars less than any place else on the other islands that sell the Caribbean shirts.</p><p></p><p>I made it back to the line to get onto the ship by noon. And what a line it was. EVERYBODY was coming back at the same time. They even had two security stations for boarding the ship and the line was still moving at a snail’s pace. Fortunately it was hot and muggy, so that besides the joy of a slow moving line, everyone had the chance to feel hot and muggy (in the shade, in the sun - it really didn’t matter much).</p><p></p><p>At any rate, back on board I had lunch and went back to the cabin to change out of my sweat drenched clothing and took a shower. Then I watched an overpriced movie, (thirteen dollars via pay per view) on the TV in the cabin, where at least it was nice and cool.</p><p></p><p>After that I uploaded my photographs and updated this. It should be sunset soon and since we are traveling north (actually NNW) and since I am on the port side of the ship, I can watch the sunset from my balcony. Unfortunately there are no clouds overhead and plenty of clouds on the horizon, so I will not waste any free film on the sunset. Then I’m just going to relax until dinner. So I’ll be back at you after dinner. </p><p></p><p>I had the shrimp cocktail, the included steak and tempura for dinner. Actually everybody at the table ordered the tempura. Tonight’s discussion centered on future cruises. One person booked a repositioning cruise from Boston to Tampa Bay for next October on either the Radiance or the Brilliance (I forget which one). That is a thirteen night cruise with a similar, but better itinerary than this one, mostly because they get to spend a full day in Aruba. If I recall the itinerary correctly, the ship spends three days to get to Saint Kitts, then Saint Lucia and Barbados, another day at sea, Curacao, Aruba and three days at sea back up to Tampa Bay. </p><p></p><p>And even though tomorrow is a day at sea, I decide to just get a good night’s sleep. So until tomorrow morning, goodnight. </p><p></p><p><strong>November 13, 2014 – Day at sea</strong></p><p></p><p>I wake up at 6:00 and look outside. We are heading northwest which means sunrise is on the other side of the ship. I decide to skip getting dressed and going out to the rear of the ship for a possible sunrise photo. Per the ship’s information channel we are approaching Haiti. The ship will have to turn to the northeast to make it between Cuba and Haiti. Then it will turn northwest again as it heads toward Port Canaveral. We are traveling at about eighteen and a half knots. Yesterday we were going just below twenty knots. </p><p></p><p>As I set up my computer this morning I realize my cabin is turning into quite a zoo. I have a rabbit on the night stand, a monkey hanging from the lampshade, an elephant on the table and a dinosaur standing on top of the TV. </p><p></p><p>The Captain’s Corner is at 10:00am and I am looking forward to that. After I finish updating this and backing everything up, I figuring I’ll grab a quick breakfast and then head over to The Palace for the Captain’s Corner. Then after the Captain’s Corner I check out the stores to see if there is anything interesting that is worth buying. That should give the room steward enough time to clean the cabin. </p><p></p><p>After the Captain’s Corner I come back here and update anything of interest from the Captain’s Corner and then continue picking out pictures to post with my review. So far I have only sorted through day one (embarkation day). I have taken 2615 photographs and videos which are taking up 23.7GB of disk space. I can back up a total of eighty gigabytes. By that I mean that I copy everything from the computer to a flash drive so that if the computer’s hard drive fails I have not lost everything. I have 128GB of storage on the memory cards that I use in my DSLR alone (the other cameras have their own separate memory cards) however, after I back everything up, I erase the memory cards so I don’t get different day’s photos mixed up. I store each day’s photos in a separate folder on the computer. And in case anyone is wondering, the review is currently twenty three single spaced type written pages and over fourteen thousand words.</p><p></p><p>Basically I have everything a need for my computer and camera. I have an extension cord for the cool (dry) evenings when I like to update things on the balcony. I have extra batters for all the cameras except the underwater camera (which does not get used as much) and of course I have chargers for each. I also have surge protectors and multi-outlet plugs (they are smaller than a power strip but serve the same porpoise). And I have plenty of memory cards to story the pictures on.</p><p></p><p>Well, it is about two hours before the Captain’s Corner. So I’m going to stop here, back everything up, get dressed and head out for breakfast. </p><p></p><p>Well, there was a change in plans. The weather is nice, so I took my breakfast back to the cabin. </p><p></p><p>Then it was off to the Captain’s Corner. I asked why the one lifeboat had not been hooked up and moved back into its normal position. First there were a few jokes about liking the look and doing the same with all the other lifeboats. But actually there are apparently some mechanical issues. None of the ports we visited had the equipment necessary to fix it, so it will be fixed in Port Canaveral. Also, not one, but two lifeboats were damaged. Lifeboat twenty two was forced up and has damage on the top. </p><p></p><p>One lifeboat will be replaced by a spare lifeboat that is available when we dock on November 15. One of the lifeboats will be repaired and a will then rejoin the ship when it returns to Port Canaveral on November 24. At that point the ship will then have its full complement of lifeboats. The Captain explained that SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) requires the same number of lifeboats on both sides of the ship. So, even without four of the lifeboats, based on lifeboat capacity and the number of passengers and crew, the ship is still within the SOLAS requirements. </p><p></p><p>Someone mentioned the propulsion issued this ship had a month ago. It seems the center fixpod (it does not move) has something wrong with it that requires the ship be taken out of water to fix. So, they have removed the screw (the propellers on a ship are called screws) and the ship is running on just the two azipods. I was wondering why I only saw two wakes coming off the back of the ship. Nonetheless, this has not created any changes in our itinerary (the half day in Aruba was in the schedule long before the propulsion issues became known). </p><p></p><p>The ship will go into dry dock in Spain in March. The fixpod will be repaired; three new specialty restaurants will be added as well as four additional tender boats (as Europe requires a lot of tendering). This ship will then spend time in Europe, Asia and Australia. A Flowrider will be added and other changes will take place. The dry dock is scheduled to last five weeks and cost about sixty five million dollars. </p><p></p><p>Someone asked about fresh water. The ship can make its own water, but it has to be moving forward at at least six knots to do so. As a result, the ship cannot make its own water in port and thus will sometimes buy it locally.</p><p></p><p>Someone asked if any security camera footage of the rogue wave would be included in the Cruise in Review DVD. The cruise director is in charge of what goes on the DVD and his answer to this question was NOOOOO!</p><p></p><p>One person asked if we crossed the equator. Really? Again, how do some of these people earn enough to afford to cruise?</p><p>After the Captain’s Corner I returned to the cabin to update this, upload my photographs and as I look out at the ocean I can see we are having beautiful weather and very smooth seas, something which was confirmed by the Captain at his noon time announcement. The Captain says we can see Haiti off our starboard side and Cuba off our port side. So I am going to take a break from this and head up to deck twelve to see what I can see.</p><p></p><p>It does look nice outside. However, while Haiti was visible off the starboard side, the land we saw off the port side was not Cuba, but rather some little island about 74 nautical miles east of Jamaica. In fact, even now, two and one half hours later, we are still about sixty nautical miles from Cuba, which puts Cuba beyond the horizon. </p><p></p><p>I attended another aviation lecture entitled How Does an Aircraft Fly? This is the second of three lectures on aviation that I have attended (I missed the first one) and there has been audio visual issues all three times. The most interesting part of these lectures, to me at least, is the cause of accidents. Pilots running through a check list but didn’t actually confirm the settings; they just said what the setting should have been. Another time the pilots didn’t realize they had the nose of the plane pointed too far up, causing a stall. </p><p></p><p>At any rate, I’m back in the cabin and I am going to review my photographs to see which ones I want to add to my review. Then as dinner approaches I shave, shower and dress for the last formal night. Tonight I have soup, pasta and the free steak.</p><p></p><p>Back at the cabin I decide to check out the football game, which was not really competitive, so at halftime I go to sleep.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cruizer, post: 1661439, member: 18088"] [B]November 12, 2014 – Aruba[/B] It is amazing what a half day’s sleep plus a full night’s sleep can do for you. I’m up a 6:00 and feeling pretty good (except for the right side of my hip). I watch the pilot boat speed away after dropping off the pilot. Then I head to the helipad to get some pictures (which look dull with no sun) and some sunrise photographs (which are just that, the sun rising, as there are no clouds overhead and plenty of clouds on the horizon. We are cleared to go shortly after 7:00am. However, there are no vendors out and about that early. My tour ends at 11:45am and the back on board time is 12:30pm. We leave at 1:00 for the two and a half day trip back to Port Canaveral. There is a message on the TV (for those that actually read the messages) telling the Port Canaveral shore excursion guests that they will have to carry their own luggage off the ship. I can’t wait for the problems that is going to create. At any rate with nothing better to do, I decide to get breakfast and then head down for my tour. I’m a little early so I decide to sit and wait, until someone else shows and gets shown the bus to get on. So I follow and find out I’m actually one of the last to show up. Our first stop is the butterfly farm, which is the reason I brought my good camera. Those butterflies are not the most cooperative photographic subjects I’ve tried to photograph, but I did get some good photographs nonetheless. However, I am drenched in sweat chasing (walking) after the butterflies in the shade. It is hot and humid. I find a shot glass for my friend at the butterfly farm, so life would be good except I also want to get a Caribbean shirt, as Aruba has the best prices for these shirts and we are docked a long walk from the street vendors (and the bus cannot let us off outside the gate). The next stop is the natural bridge. Back around 2005 or 2006 the big natural bridge collapsed. All that is left is a pile of rocks and the smaller bridge. I take a few photographs and then head back to the bus. Our last stop is bunch of boulders. There is some debate about how the boulders ended up where they are. One theory is they were blown out of a volcano and a second theory is that the boulders were pushed up out of the sea by some geological force. The weather conditions have etched some of the boulders into unusual shapes. But from my point of view, these are still just boulders - yippee! The place is called Ayo Rock Formations (in case you develop a boulder fetish and feel like traveling to Aruba to satisfy it). Upon our return to the ship at 11:35am I headed over to the street vendors (dodging all that did not have Caribbean shirts) and found what I was looking for. The price was $15 which is at least five dollars less than any place else on the other islands that sell the Caribbean shirts. I made it back to the line to get onto the ship by noon. And what a line it was. EVERYBODY was coming back at the same time. They even had two security stations for boarding the ship and the line was still moving at a snail’s pace. Fortunately it was hot and muggy, so that besides the joy of a slow moving line, everyone had the chance to feel hot and muggy (in the shade, in the sun - it really didn’t matter much). At any rate, back on board I had lunch and went back to the cabin to change out of my sweat drenched clothing and took a shower. Then I watched an overpriced movie, (thirteen dollars via pay per view) on the TV in the cabin, where at least it was nice and cool. After that I uploaded my photographs and updated this. It should be sunset soon and since we are traveling north (actually NNW) and since I am on the port side of the ship, I can watch the sunset from my balcony. Unfortunately there are no clouds overhead and plenty of clouds on the horizon, so I will not waste any free film on the sunset. Then I’m just going to relax until dinner. So I’ll be back at you after dinner. I had the shrimp cocktail, the included steak and tempura for dinner. Actually everybody at the table ordered the tempura. Tonight’s discussion centered on future cruises. One person booked a repositioning cruise from Boston to Tampa Bay for next October on either the Radiance or the Brilliance (I forget which one). That is a thirteen night cruise with a similar, but better itinerary than this one, mostly because they get to spend a full day in Aruba. If I recall the itinerary correctly, the ship spends three days to get to Saint Kitts, then Saint Lucia and Barbados, another day at sea, Curacao, Aruba and three days at sea back up to Tampa Bay. And even though tomorrow is a day at sea, I decide to just get a good night’s sleep. So until tomorrow morning, goodnight. [B]November 13, 2014 – Day at sea[/B] I wake up at 6:00 and look outside. We are heading northwest which means sunrise is on the other side of the ship. I decide to skip getting dressed and going out to the rear of the ship for a possible sunrise photo. Per the ship’s information channel we are approaching Haiti. The ship will have to turn to the northeast to make it between Cuba and Haiti. Then it will turn northwest again as it heads toward Port Canaveral. We are traveling at about eighteen and a half knots. Yesterday we were going just below twenty knots. As I set up my computer this morning I realize my cabin is turning into quite a zoo. I have a rabbit on the night stand, a monkey hanging from the lampshade, an elephant on the table and a dinosaur standing on top of the TV. The Captain’s Corner is at 10:00am and I am looking forward to that. After I finish updating this and backing everything up, I figuring I’ll grab a quick breakfast and then head over to The Palace for the Captain’s Corner. Then after the Captain’s Corner I check out the stores to see if there is anything interesting that is worth buying. That should give the room steward enough time to clean the cabin. After the Captain’s Corner I come back here and update anything of interest from the Captain’s Corner and then continue picking out pictures to post with my review. So far I have only sorted through day one (embarkation day). I have taken 2615 photographs and videos which are taking up 23.7GB of disk space. I can back up a total of eighty gigabytes. By that I mean that I copy everything from the computer to a flash drive so that if the computer’s hard drive fails I have not lost everything. I have 128GB of storage on the memory cards that I use in my DSLR alone (the other cameras have their own separate memory cards) however, after I back everything up, I erase the memory cards so I don’t get different day’s photos mixed up. I store each day’s photos in a separate folder on the computer. And in case anyone is wondering, the review is currently twenty three single spaced type written pages and over fourteen thousand words. Basically I have everything a need for my computer and camera. I have an extension cord for the cool (dry) evenings when I like to update things on the balcony. I have extra batters for all the cameras except the underwater camera (which does not get used as much) and of course I have chargers for each. I also have surge protectors and multi-outlet plugs (they are smaller than a power strip but serve the same porpoise). And I have plenty of memory cards to story the pictures on. Well, it is about two hours before the Captain’s Corner. So I’m going to stop here, back everything up, get dressed and head out for breakfast. Well, there was a change in plans. The weather is nice, so I took my breakfast back to the cabin. Then it was off to the Captain’s Corner. I asked why the one lifeboat had not been hooked up and moved back into its normal position. First there were a few jokes about liking the look and doing the same with all the other lifeboats. But actually there are apparently some mechanical issues. None of the ports we visited had the equipment necessary to fix it, so it will be fixed in Port Canaveral. Also, not one, but two lifeboats were damaged. Lifeboat twenty two was forced up and has damage on the top. One lifeboat will be replaced by a spare lifeboat that is available when we dock on November 15. One of the lifeboats will be repaired and a will then rejoin the ship when it returns to Port Canaveral on November 24. At that point the ship will then have its full complement of lifeboats. The Captain explained that SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) requires the same number of lifeboats on both sides of the ship. So, even without four of the lifeboats, based on lifeboat capacity and the number of passengers and crew, the ship is still within the SOLAS requirements. Someone mentioned the propulsion issued this ship had a month ago. It seems the center fixpod (it does not move) has something wrong with it that requires the ship be taken out of water to fix. So, they have removed the screw (the propellers on a ship are called screws) and the ship is running on just the two azipods. I was wondering why I only saw two wakes coming off the back of the ship. Nonetheless, this has not created any changes in our itinerary (the half day in Aruba was in the schedule long before the propulsion issues became known). The ship will go into dry dock in Spain in March. The fixpod will be repaired; three new specialty restaurants will be added as well as four additional tender boats (as Europe requires a lot of tendering). This ship will then spend time in Europe, Asia and Australia. A Flowrider will be added and other changes will take place. The dry dock is scheduled to last five weeks and cost about sixty five million dollars. Someone asked about fresh water. The ship can make its own water, but it has to be moving forward at at least six knots to do so. As a result, the ship cannot make its own water in port and thus will sometimes buy it locally. Someone asked if any security camera footage of the rogue wave would be included in the Cruise in Review DVD. The cruise director is in charge of what goes on the DVD and his answer to this question was NOOOOO! One person asked if we crossed the equator. Really? Again, how do some of these people earn enough to afford to cruise? After the Captain’s Corner I returned to the cabin to update this, upload my photographs and as I look out at the ocean I can see we are having beautiful weather and very smooth seas, something which was confirmed by the Captain at his noon time announcement. The Captain says we can see Haiti off our starboard side and Cuba off our port side. So I am going to take a break from this and head up to deck twelve to see what I can see. It does look nice outside. However, while Haiti was visible off the starboard side, the land we saw off the port side was not Cuba, but rather some little island about 74 nautical miles east of Jamaica. In fact, even now, two and one half hours later, we are still about sixty nautical miles from Cuba, which puts Cuba beyond the horizon. I attended another aviation lecture entitled How Does an Aircraft Fly? This is the second of three lectures on aviation that I have attended (I missed the first one) and there has been audio visual issues all three times. The most interesting part of these lectures, to me at least, is the cause of accidents. Pilots running through a check list but didn’t actually confirm the settings; they just said what the setting should have been. Another time the pilots didn’t realize they had the nose of the plane pointed too far up, causing a stall. At any rate, I’m back in the cabin and I am going to review my photographs to see which ones I want to add to my review. Then as dinner approaches I shave, shower and dress for the last formal night. Tonight I have soup, pasta and the free steak. Back at the cabin I decide to check out the football game, which was not really competitive, so at halftime I go to sleep. [/QUOTE]
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Review with photographs - Explorer leave NJ for the last time
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