Home for the Holidays: Christmas on ms Zuiderdam

[Krazy Kruizers]

Wonderful review and great pictures.

[Krazy Kruizers]

I was on the cruise just before Shrimp's and they put up the decorations while we were on board (we disembarked 12/20). On 12/19 I went through the ship, top to bottom and photographed all the decorations I saw and will be posting them once my photos are all edited and ready to go.

 

 

Looking forward to them.

[kazu]

Your review is great and your pics are fabulous. Really enjoying this. Thanks so much.

[Copper10-8]

Awesome pics Shrimpie!

[sandjo]

Enjoyed your pictures and posts, Shrimp!:)

[shrimp56]

Day 3: San Juan, PR continued . . .

 

After the hot and stuffy interior of the cathedral we needed something cool to drink, so we headed for the Patio at the center of Hotel El Convento. What a beautiful hotel! Very Spanish mission in style and decorated for the holidays.

 

 

We sat at the patio bar and enjoyed our glasses of Perrier. The Spanish (and others) knew what they were doing placing an open space at the center of a building in a hot climate. The gentle breeze was very refreshing as was the sound of water from the fountains, not to mention our drinks.

 

 

When we reached the corner of Calles Cristo & Fortalza we were drawn to Cristo Chapel and Parque de la Palomas, or "pigeon park." Apparently the Spanish word Palomas means "dove" and applies equally to those lovely white doves of peace as well as the garden variety pigeons, which these were. Pigeon poop and its aroma were in evidence. The wall at the back of the park had cubbyholes built in for the pigeons to roost in.

 

 

The structure at the end of Calle Cristo turned out to be a chapel, built there to prevent people from falling into the sea.

 

 

We then turned right on Calle Fortaleza. At one end, blocked off, was the Governor's mansion. In the other direction lay shopping and our pina coladas.

 

Edited January 11, 2014 by shrimp56

[Mtn2Sea]

Loving your review and photos!

[zelker]

Your photos are lovely. What camera do you shoot?

 

BTW, the Spanish weren't too far off in naming it Parque de la Palomas ... pigeons and doves are in the same bird family (Columbidae) but obviously the experience would have been way more pleasant had you found it full of doves. ;) I do like the pigeon holes in the wall, though.

[shrimp56]

Thanks for the comments:) My camera is a Sony Cybershot, an older H series I think. Although it has a G on the front. 16x optical zoom. Nothing fancy. The closest I can see on the current Sony page is HX50V, but I didn't pay anywhere near that much for it.

[lindaler]

Your photos are wonderful. As I was reading through, I was stopped by the colors and clarity of your pictures. If possible, please don't resize, they are great.

 

And thanks for sharing, you have an eye for details that are very interesting.

[leonidas]

Thank you for your review, love the pics too!

 

Kind regards,

Gina

[shrimp56]

Thanks for the kind comments:) I do love detail. I also confess to using Adobe Photoshop to color correct and sharpen images, but I try not to over do it.

[shrimp56]

Day 3: More San Juan, PR

Can you tell how much we enjoyed Old San Juan? And how easy it is to do your own walking tour with stops for cooling drinks?

 

El Punto at 105 Calle Fortaleza is a restaurant that is recommended for its tasty local cuisine at a good price in a funky setting. I had though of El Punto for dinner if we had lasted that long. (Which we didn't.) The reviews I read said it hard to find , but that issue has been corrected, with an orange awning over the entrance to the long corridor that leads to the restaurant and menus on the outside wall. We poked our head in to take a look. Maybe next visit we will eat there.

 

 

 

My companion looked down a side street and saw some figures hanging from underneath the balcony of a bright green building. On closer inspection this revealed itself as a Nativity scene created with hand-crafted puppets. A bright beacon not to be missed.

 

 

 

In every shop we stopped in our friend asked where the best Pina Colada was and the unanimous choice was Barrachina. In one craft gallery we were told to ask for "Big José." You should too. He is a warm hearted character who was an excellent waiter and a lot of fun. Since we sat in the air-conditioned restaurant part we felt we should have a little food. We ordered and shared a delicious plate of fried plaintains stuffed with shredded chicken. It was not spicy, just full of flavor. We had eaten half of it before I thought to take a picture. Sorry.

 

 

Barrachina claims the creation of the Pina Colada. I will not adjudicate that claim, but I will say it's the best pina colada I've ever had, and I've had a few. Creamy, thick, plenty of rum and very yummy. The quality of the ingredients was such that it remained the same luscious texture to the end. We had been smart to choose inside as a total downpour with wind passed through while we were in Pina Colada heaven. It freshened the air considerably as we rededicated ourselves to window shopping as we headed down Calle Fortaleza towards our ship.

 

Edited January 12, 2014 by shrimp56

[Copper10-8]

Shrimpie; how do you get your large pics onto CC. Used to be able to do it no prob, but can't anymore; Muchas Gracias! My "attachments" bar on top is just blank

[shrimp56]

I use photobucket as my host. I pay $25 a year I think for bandwidth. For me it's worth it since I post a lot of pictures here and there.

 

PS I found you on FB.. my message went to your "other" folder I am sure. If you ignored me on purpose that is cool, but if that isn't the case "begs nicely." I'm Sally Fowler there.

[Copper10-8]

I use photobucket as my host. I pay $25 a year I think for bandwidth. For me it's worth it since I post a lot of pictures here and there.

 

PS I found you on FB.. my message went to your "other" folder I am sure. If you ignored me on purpose that is cool, but if that isn't the case "begs nicely." I'm Sally Fowler there.

 

Thanks! Try it again; never saw you

[shrimp56]

Thanks! Try it again; never saw you

Story of my life LOL I'm a SHRIMP LOL. Poked you again.

[shrimp56]

Day 3: And more . . .

It's all downhill from here... literally. At this point we were heading for the ship, but not without a stop to examine a wall mural and to look up and discover some of San Juan's electrical system. You can also see that not everything in Old San Juan is prettified.

 

 

 

At the bottom of the hill as we neared the cruise terminal area we noticed this Latino/Asian fusion restaurant. The menu looked delicious, and being on a non-Tamarind ship, we looked longingly at the delights listed.... maybe another time.

 

 

The only other ship in port with us was what I was told was Celebrity's newest ship, Reflections, She's beautiful, but much too big for me.

 

 

We trudged back to Zuidy and were revived by Happy Hour and our MDR dinner. Our friend had the mussels and said that they were excellent.

 

 

This was my husband's dessert.

 

 

Thus ended a wonderful day in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Edited January 12, 2014 by shrimp56

[shrimp56]

Interlude

Whew! I bet you thought that day in Old San Juan would never end! Well we didn't want it to. It had just the right balance of activities plus friendship.

 

Time to show some of the ship's decorations, both seasonal and regular,

 

Trains seemed to be a big theme, both in Explorer's Lounge, where the pianist took the little choo-choo off the tracks while she was playing and in The Atrium (pictured)

 

 

Holiday decorations at the entrance to The Explorations Cafe. Nutcracker King figures were big there as well as in The Crow's Nest.

 

 

We seemed to walk through "Boinsai Alley" once or twice a day as it was the only way from MDR to the forward elevators. The corridor that leads to and from The Queen's Lounge was lined on each side with lighted pillars with bonsai on top. Although it became a running joke, we agreed it was nice to walk through.

 

 

There were four "boxes" by this artist. They were all very surreal and extremely creative. The name of the artist escapes me. They were hidden behind a wall someplace, my best guess is at the casino end of Bonsai Alley.

 

 

This is more what I would expect on HAL, a picture of an old ship. I took several shots and managed in each one to block the artist and title information. I've always enjoyed the ship pictures on our other HAL cruises.

 

 

My favorite artwork was this statue of Marcel Marceau in his best known character, Bip. There were other Commedia dell'Arte statues around, but this one touched me the most. It's just past the atrium on the same deck as Pinnacle Grill at the elevators.

 

[Copper10-8]

[quote name=shrimp56;41291680......................................

 

 

 

This is more what I would expect on HAL' date=' a picture of an old ship. I took several shots and managed in each one to block the artist and title information. I've always enjoyed the ship pictures on our other HAL cruises.

 

 

QUOTE]

 

That old ship is HAL's Zuiderdijk (1912-1922) making her way through the Straits of Dover outbound for Savannah, GA around 1914. The two-funneled deep sea tug in the foreground is L. Smit & Co's 1,200 IHP Zwarte Zee (Black Sea) and the artist is Captain Stephen Card; one of his many outstanding works of art

[shrimp56]

Thank you so much for the information. I should have been less careless but that's what hanging in The Crowbar will do to you. Capt Card is multi-gifted human.

Edited January 14, 2014 by shrimp56

[Copper10-8]

Thank you so much for the information. I should have been less careless but that's what hanging in The Crowbar will do to you. Capt Card is multi-gifted human.

 

Watch out for those crowbars! ;)

[Bda Newbie]

Great post. DH and I have spent some time in San Juan, and have had dinner at the Dragonfly. Food was delicious!

[shrimp56]

Great post. DH and I have spent some time in San Juan, and have had dinner at the Dragonfly. Food was delicious!

*sighs* It did look good...

 

Sorry for the hiatus. RL has been busy. Will do my best to resume later today.

[shrimp56]

Day 4: Philipsburg, NA/Art Around the Island

Sorry for the delay. My computer has been crashing and I lost two versions of this post.

 

Coming into Philipsburg: The iconic Sint Maarten landscape.

 

 

What a wonderful shorex this was. I figured if the art wasn't to my taste at least I'd see both the Dutch and the French side of the island. Not only was the art varied and interesting, but the people were too. And our guide, Lisa, was both informative and enthusiastic. We learned a lot about the island that has two 2 nations. The story is that they got tired of fighting over it and made the original division in 1648, but it wasn't until 1816 that it stayed divided for good.

 

Apparently phone calls from one side to the other are international long distance, so when we arrived too early at one gallery Lisa got off the bus and walked over to check the timing, rather than calling LOL. While the US Dollar is widely accepted you can also pay with Euros. I actually bought a piece of jewelry with my euros left over from our Norway cruise, which just happened to still be in my purse.

 

HAL is one of the few cruise lines that offers this shorex on a regular basis from what I can tell. We had 40 people divided into 2 mini-buses. All 5 stops were interesting and worth-while, but I'll focus on a few.

 

Our first stop was at "Maximilian's Art in the Garden Gallery" in Philipsburg where we were docked. While the art was good, (mostly florals and abstracts) it wasn't so much my style, but the setting was glorious. It also looks as though they rent the garden out for weddings and other events.

 

 

 

The most memorable stop was at Ruby Bute's gallery and studio. Ruby is a well known island grand dame known by all, including the Dutch royal family. She is a force of nature and delightful to talk with. In addition to her own work, she has that of other artists available. The style is mostly people and landscapes of the Caribbean.

 

 

I managed to grab this shot out the front of our mini-bus. Grand Case is, for some reason, pronounced "Grand CAUSE" instead of "Cahs."

 

 

Our next to last stop was at Galerie Minguet, where the late painter's daughter oversees her father's work as well as exhibiting works by others. Every price point is available from a reproduction to an original work of art. Again the sun and sand of the region were in evidence.