Cruising from San Juan - Jan 2023

[Strenz]

The same happen to us, we went into St. Kitts twice, great for me it has great beaches and vistas. lovely island. Happy Sailing

[RMS Olympic]

Thanks for the note on St Thomas.....and that on Sundays it’s quiet. Guess I lucked out in that the only excursion I booked was for St Thomas. Hope the swim platform is open the rest of the week....if not it’s walk the ports and try to take in the local color.....and remember the ports from days gone by....😈

[GottaKnowWhen]

3 hours ago, RMS Olympic said:

Thanks for the note on St Thomas.....and that on Sundays it’s quiet. Guess I lucked out in that the only excursion I booked was for St Thomas. Hope the swim platform is open the rest of the week....if not it’s walk the ports and try to take in the local color.....and remember the ports from days gone by....😈

Note that our Sunday visit was on a day when there were no other ships in port. If there had been one or two or three or more Royal or Carnival or NCL ships in port, 

I think the shops etc would have been open for business. 

[fedexretiree]

On 1/17/2023 at 7:02 AM, GottaKnowWhen said:

One of the joys of sailing on a smaller ship is that they often anchor and tender into small ports that larger ships can’t handle. Downside: sometimes tendering isn’t an option.

 

Skipping Little Bay, Monserrat today, now sailing towards St. Kitts as a back-up port of call. The wave swells were too high to allow for safe tendering…

 

The staff and crew have made it all a very smooth transition.

 

Stan

Other than skipping Monserrat, have the seas been calm or choppy for most of your trip?

[GottaKnowWhen]

5 hours ago, fedexretiree said:

Other than skipping Monserrat, have the seas been calm or choppy for most of your trip?

Hard to say. E.g., I thought our overnight last night was quite smooth, I just overheard someone at the table next to ours at breakfast, he was commenting about how rough it had been! In general, anytime on the Atlantic side, to the east, there have been noticeable swells. On the Caribbean side, not so much. But not choppy, never smooth totally even in the bays.

[RMS Olympic]

Rough is when your beverage is spilled due to excessive rocking. Be it coffee beer or a lemon drop....one drop spilled is unacceptable.....stabilizers please🤪😝😜😎

[GottaKnowWhen]

4 hours ago, RMS Olympic said:

Rough is when your beverage is spilled due to excessive rocking. Be it coffee beer or a lemon drop....one drop spilled is unacceptable.....stabilizers please🤪😝😜😎

Ok, I’ll buy that definition.

Yesterday was calm enough that they planned  to deploy the platform and swim toys. But the small “rescue” boat wasn’t functioning. Today the platform was down! At 6:00pm the scheduled closure was delayed because the 100or so persons out there wanted to stay out.

Oh, and it was a beautiful day on Jost Van Dyke!

Tomorrow we’ll do an excursion to the Virgin Gordy “baths”, coastal rock formations,  and then it is off to the famous Virgin Gordy Prickly Pear Beach Windstar beach bbq.

Expected to have a full ship this next week, including 62 who are staying on from this week.

 

[RMS Olympic]

A full ship? Oh no!

lines everywhere, waiting on over packed elevators, tender tickets, little or no deck chairs available. Say it isn’t so. 😢

No more big ships for me.....Windstar and Star Clippers keep me going to sea.

I hope a full ship on Windstar is still fantastic.

Thank you for these posts...a week from tomorrow embarkation....can’t wait.

Question.....based on the port schedule is there one particular night that is best for candles dining? I want to make reservations as soon as I can.🦐🥩🥂🍰

[GottaKnowWhen]

On 1/20/2023 at 8:40 AM, RMS Olympic said:

A full ship? Oh no!

lines everywhere, waiting on over packed elevators, tender tickets, little or no deck chairs available. Say it isn’t so. 😢

No more big ships for me.....Windstar and Star Clippers keep me going to sea.

I hope a full ship on Windstar is still fantastic.

Thank you for these posts...a week from tomorrow embarkation....can’t wait.

Question.....based on the port schedule is there one particular night that is best for candles dining? I want to make reservations as soon as I can.🦐🥩🥂🍰

We chose Tuesday. Monday was the on-deck barbecue, Wednesday (Pigeon Island) one week was beach bbq, Friday (Virgin Gorda) was beach bbq the other week. But except for Monday, I think any night is good.

[GottaKnowWhen]

Easy smooth debarkation in San Juan yesterday. A nice farewell conversation with the Captain Ricardo and Hotel Director Richard on the way off. A wild day in Old San Juan, the 3rd day of SANSE, the celebration of SAN SEbastian. Hundreds/thousands of people. Four music stages, dozens/hundreds of food stalls, hundreds of artisans at their booths. Spread all over Old San Juan. A great vibe, music and dancing in the streets until late night. Going back out for more shortly (our hotel is right on the edge of the action.)

Meanwhile, I did upload some more photos from the cruise as well as from SANSE. The site linked below is reasonably up to date and complete for this trip. Let's say 98% complete...

[miklinga]

GottaKnowWhen, 

 

Thanks for the detailed information about your cruise.  We just booked for the March 4th 14-day cruise.  Can you verify that Windstar uses the port in Old Town?  I will assume they will use the same port each time in San Juan.  We have been to San Juan several times but never on a cruise and know there is another port. 

 

This will be our first time on the Pride.  We were on the Legend twice before the stretch and on the Surf and the Spirit.

 

Thanks for your help.

Mike and Linda

[SVBing]

Yes….. we are also on same cruise

 

[GottaKnowWhen]

2 hours ago, miklinga said:

GottaKnowWhen, 

 

Thanks for the detailed information about your cruise.  We just booked for the March 4th 14-day cruise.  Can you verify that Windstar uses the port in Old Town?  I will assume they will use the same port each time in San Juan.  We have been to San Juan several times but never on a cruise and know there is another port. 

 

This will be our first time on the Pride.  We were on the Legend twice before the stretch and on the Surf and the Spirit.

 

Thanks for your help.

Mike and Linda

Yes, the ship docks at the port in Old San Juan, and not across the inlet by the downtown airport. 

The turn-around process on day 7 was quite painless, they allowed departing passengers to leave, everybody off by 9:00am, and then those on back to back were quickly processed in the lounge and free to be on our way for a day ashore.

Stan

Edited February 6, 2023 by GottaKnowWhen

[RMS Olympic]

Just got off the Pride on Saturday. The Pride was wonderful!!!

JP running the Amphora dinning restaurant was a true treasure. Mr Maier the hotel manager always around.....monitoring the crew and conversing with passengers. Mel at the Star Bar.....always a smile.

And thanks to Emmeli the future cruise consultant.....I booked a 2024 cruise on the Spirit😎

[GottaKnowWhen]

I have just finished my updates to my gallery for our January Star Pride trip - see link below in my Signature. A combination of a busy schedule some days when on board, and of course the occasional slow internet connection together conspired to prevent me from a good day-by-day update. I have now gone back, edited and uploaded photos to supplement or replace my previous uploads. Good memories!

 

And an addendum: if you browse some of my other galleries on the same site, you may notice that the images in this recent gallery are a slightly different style. I have included about 10% of the images I shot during our time in San Juan and on the cruise, and I included shots which I think of as postcard/travelogue photos. Often I will look for 3-5% at most, with more of a concentration on "artistic impressions" than on postcard shots.

 

Stan

Edited February 10, 2023 by GottaKnowWhen

[Host Jazzbeau]

Thanks @GottaKnowWhen – just reread this whole blog, and it may have sealed the deal on a B2B in January 2025.  We had two cruises on the Star Yachts cancelled because of the renovation delays and Covid – now it seems to safe to try again!

[RMS Olympic]

Only draw back after the Pride is saying goodbye to big ships. Thank heavens for WindStar. After 40+ years on cruise ships, I can’t see going back on big ships, thousands of passengers, lines to dine, tender tickets, making reservations for dinner or a show.
Just entering to Amphora without a reservation....heaven.

I currently have the Spirit booked for March 2024.....and now thinking of adding a December canal cruise back on the Pride. 

All it takes is💵💸💰🥴