scubacruiserx2

Happy Mother's Day ! 💗

It appears that Disney may have left the larger cove where we snorkeled and the Lighthouse Beach intact . From the Google Map you can see the point . the island beyond and the larger cove where we snorkeled on the reefs . https://www.google.com/maps/@24.6156775,-76.1517276,867m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu Not much life on the reef . Soft corals , sea fans and a small school French Grunts hiding under the rocks . We prefer SCUBA diving and still photos where the Strobe Flash shows the true colors . Photos from the same trip at Grand Cayman . And our Avatar - That's a Moray

At Lighthouse Beach there is a point that juts out into the ocean from which we took these photos , facing back . From left to the right was a cove where we snorkeled , a panorama of the cove , the old lighthouse and the ocean and beach . The beach from the point and walking the beach

What a nice birthday surprise . It looks like it's going to the beach for your birthday .

A video panorama of the Lighthouse Beach before Disney development . On the horizon after the cove you can see the Regal Princess as a white spot at the 15 second mark , in the distance . The most current Google map of development . https://www.google.com/maps/@24.6213773,-76.1519099,2963m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

While we like Half Moon Cay , it is only a part of Little San Salvador Island in the Bahamas . The people who work there are from Eleuthera and commute daily by boat . Our favorite cruise ship Cay was Princess Cay located at the Southern area of Eleuthera . There was a natural beach called Lighthouse Beach which was off of the Princess property that we used to go to . You can see from left to right on this map , Eleuthera Island ( Princess Cay ) , Little San Salvador Island ( Half Moon Cay ) and Cat Island . https://www.google.com/maps/place/Little+San+Salvador+Island/@24.5754043,-76.0265797,12.05z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x893042c47ce97625:0xb817f511398b8006!8m2!3d24.5712472!4d-75.9143867!16zL20vMGNzcWRw?entry=ttu Unfortunately , Disney bought Lighthouse Beach and will change it in the same way that Carnival buys or rents land like Amber Cove in the DR . And HAL did with Half Moon Cay . Here's the story on the Disney purchase . https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2023/03/new-disney-cruise-line-island-destination-at-lighthouse-point-in-the-bahamas-to-welcome-guests-in-summer-2024/ Please look at what Disney is doing and we will show photos of what it was when we went there on a Princess cruise with a local guide before the Disney purchase . We left the Princess property by a gate in the back of the property by showing our Passport and met our guide here . We needed a 4 wheel drive vehicle to travel to the beach in the back of the truck .

Found the better photo of the lighthouse

Instead of the Northeastern reef system with waves , we would be diving and eating on the calmer West side . The dark blue line on the horizon is where the wall drops off to 7000 ' deep .

At the beginning of the last century salt production was Grand Turk's main business with an export of 140 million pounds per year . Donkeys were used for labor and you can still see wild ones all over the island . We saw this one near the lighthouse looking for food in the scrub

This was the only time that we went on the East side of Grand Turk . With 1000 shipwrecks on this side , it's best for cruise ships to keep their distance . Pretty but deadly .

A map of Amber Cove We found some photos from Grand Turk when we first visited there with a trip to the Lighthouse 7 miles from the port at the North end of the Island . The only lighthouse in the country, it was prefabricated in England and built in 1852 it first used whale oil to light the lamp before being converted to kerosene . As we walked around the grounds we took a picture of the lighthouse but the glare from the sun didn't allow a good photo .

We spent Cinco de Mayo with our daughters , SIL and her 2 sons . Today she has a 2 hour surgery in the hospital where she has been a nurse for 17 years . If you pray we would appreciate that you would pray for her surgery and the team of Doctors and nurses , and her family as she undergoes a 6 month rehab before returning to work and cruising later on our family cruise . Thank you . 🙏

For our visit to Amber Cove and what we did we would recommend post # 297 on the link below .

7-Day Tropical Caribbean

They did a good job for a great price . Highly recommended for wedding . The guests that didn't sail left the ship before it left . We went on our daughter's honeymoon but didn't see her or our SIL until the last night at the Chef 's Table . 😊🙂

They were and they did ! We hope to surprise the family with it , maybe on an afternoon at sea . This was the food that came with our daughters wedding on Carnival in the Port of Miami .

On a long cruise from Alaska to Ft. Lauderdale we met a group of people at the interdenominational church service . We agreed to also meet in the mornings at sea for a bible study . Near the end of the cruise we had the room for the group to meet for an afternoon tea from HAL . We haven't seen so much food since our daughter got married on a cruise ship . We want to do this with the family . The group beginning to arrive . The 2 ladies with glasses took a HAL excursion in Costa Rica called A Zipline Adventure . There was a lot of rain in the mountains and 2 miles of mud that they had to hike through in the dark to get back to the ship . But we had sailed to make the time for our transit through the Panama Canal . We met2 days later in Panama , after the Canal . The rest of the group

What kind of food or drinks are included ?

One of the things that we added to our future HMC Villa rental is a butler service . Our TA did this on their 1st HAL cruise , but when we looked at Youtube , we could not find any videos of this service which includes food and drinks . We hope to record some photos or a video when we go .

So sorry that squatters moved in while you were gone ! We felt like we were playing a game of Survivor on the island for our clamshell , so that's why I stayed there . We're from Florida and we know about the heat in the shell so we stay away from the midday sun . We think they are used for the frequent pop up showers .

A look at HMC and a video of the cabana and the beach Villa that we will be renting . https://insightcruises.com/pdf/Half_Moon_Cay.pdf

Room for 2 in a clamshell Nieuw Amsterdam on the rocks at HMC The mats that people were using for floating and Pat and Tyler snorkeling for fish . They found some that a lady was feeding and a turtle also The sister ships at HMC Getting too crowded for us . We have some nice beaches in Florida but we don't go where the crowds are . A large number of people keep bugging us about our shell . Pat did meet a couple of ladies from the other ship who had paid and got no shell . It's seems that HAL had sold more shells than were available . They seemed to be very nice so we asked at the rental area if we could leave them the shell and she said OK so we waited until they got settled in the shell before we left at about 11 AM .

Friday October 28th , 2023 HMC Less than a week later we were back at HMC with our grandson for his 20th birthday present , his first trip on HAL . We were up early to pick a clam shell before it got busy so we were on the 1st Tender . The Nieuw Statendam was right behind us . As soon as we got off we made a beeline to the rental place before it got very busy The water was warm and clear and Pat and Tyler wanted to snorkel . I just took photos and guarded the clam shell as people were checking ours out and asking a lot of questions about it .

Our first Neptune Suite was our first visit to Alaska cabin # 7071 . It was near the elevators and the Neptune Lounge . It was quite except for the people coming and going to the lounge especially during drinking hours in the afternoon . When we were on the balcony there was a loss of privacy on the balcony next to the glass elevators where you can be seen and many people stopped to get off on that floor to use the Lounge .

Returning to the ship