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| Post tourist season and the tender docks are being repaired |
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| Not a Yellow Submarine, but a white one, good venue to watch underwater wonders |
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| Local open air tender tied up to the side of Veendam and awaiting passengers |
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| Disney Fantasy with twice as many people aboard than Veendam... |
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| Shore side scene in Grand Caymans |
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| Stack of Veendam, as seen through the tennis court net |
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| The 'retreat' on the aft deck. Never beautiful, but even less so when all the hot tubs are closed |
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| The 'Retreat' on the aft deck of the Veendam, rather abandoned looking. Even the artificial palm trees have lost their luster |
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| Our wake, reaching all the way to the horizon....passing Havana Cuba right now |
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| Hand Washing station at the entrance of the Lido Restaurant...now used quite often. |
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| Delphin sculpture in the Lido Pool, which is still open to the public. |
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| Ship Board art, unaffected by any Gastric afflictions... |
For a last port of call - Grand Cayman on the Cayman Islands. Unloading of the ship was handled by two of our own tenders, this time functioning normally, and an open air local tender. Sea swells co operated for a change.
The little town ashore has changed since the last hurricane, a few years ago, damaged almost all of the buildings, many did not survive at all, and toppled hundreds of palm trees lining the shore and the famous Seven Mile Beach, which is only five miles long.
The town lost some of its colonial charm, although some historical buildings were restored to former glory, many have disappeared and paved hot parking lots have taken their place. The city seems to have morphed into a super collection of jewellery stores, rum cake stores, t-shirt stores, fast food like Subway and KFC, a plethora of international banks, several shopping malls all offering the same 'unique' items, and three or four overpriced restaurants. Outside is 'Hell' a little settlement with a post office, where one may send post cards from Hell. The main attraction are the long sandy beaches lapped by azure, emerald green and cobalt coloured water of the Caribbean. Scuba divers, snorkelers, and sting ray petters are in heaven here.
I walked around, checked a sea side restaurant - no prices shown on the menu, always a suspicious sign for me. When I asked for pricing of some of the menu items, which were mostly North American style fast food, they were so outrageously high, that I refrained. After making several rounds through town, in ever rising temperatures and without feeling any inclination to fry on a shade less beach, a returned via local tender to the ship.
Disney Cruise Line had just dropped anchor beside Veendam, meaning that another 3000 or so customers were going ashore to spend money. Looking up to the upper decks of this ship, the Disney Fantasy, one could see yards and yards of water slides, waterfalls, elevated mini rails, all crowned by the unmistakable Mickey Mouse logo.
The Veendam is still under Code Red shut down, although Gastric Intestinal cases are apparently reduced to four. Still, the bucket brigade - about a dozen house keeping staff with gloved hands and sanitizing equipment - board tour buses and local tenders to sanitize any surface that could be contaminated and touched by human hand. Walking from the bow area to the stern area of the ship still involves going through at least three enforced hand sanitizing stations. No towel can be re-used even in your own cabin, all is laundered after one use. In cabin fruit baskets have disappeared. Daily newspapers are handed out by rubber gloved attendants, paper racks are empty. And that on top of all the shut down measures already in place. The black and white Captain's Ball has been cancelled - too many people too close together. Even the orchid plants and flower bowls on dinner tables are quarantined to a storage room for the duration. The ship's outside and inside handrails are sanitized several times a day, even arm rests on chairs are wiped down. It is said, that some passengers imported the bug after returning from a shore side excursion in Callao which we visited 17 and 18th April. But, the strict measures had effect, not only that the illness has all but disappeared, but people finally got the message to 'wash their hands'. The odd guest still insists that they do not need to wash theirs, to which the standard answer is - hold out your hand for the sanitizing squirt.
Packing time has arrived, at least for this segment of the trip. In a few days, we will no longer recognize the Cruise Director by the strong whiff of heady scent (he just bought another 20 bottles, he says), we will miss the remarkable fleshy monuments to cruise ship eating, which mostly have managed to escape being crushed or asphyxiated under their own weight, we will miss the background bickering of couples arguing whether the word 'nice' is the supreme expression of something 'nice' (what is better than 'nice' she asked, to which he answered 'maybe great'), we will miss the handful of pre-teens oblivious to any other human standing in their way, we will miss the Birkenstocks and baggy jeans on formal night, the large lady who insists of wearing skin tight leggings over her continence aid...and so on and so forth.
Overall a decent trip. Definitely no longer being what it is advertised to be: luxurious, elegant, unique, excellent and so forth. Rising costs and cruise fare pressures have made sure of that. But still, a very pleasant way to go from A to B - certainly a lot more comfortable and a lot more interesting than hours and hours sitting on a plane.
On Wednesday I will change venues, from the MS Veendam to the MS Amsterdam, where friends await....
