Wednesday Night Riders: THE CRUISE

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

THE CRUISE

While I do feel somewhat guilty about telling you about our Wingers' Cruise to the Caribbean when I read you just "suffered" through a nine inch snow storm, I did promise to keep you informed about our journey South. We have now completed the cruise and are ready to check into our condo at Panama City Beach.

We had a great time on the cruise with all of our Gold Wing friends from all parts of the country, but for such a large ship (one of the largest in the world--6,000 passengers) it seemed to be a lot more crowded than the other two smaller ships we sailed on before.

At our dinner table in the evening we had couples from Arizona, California, Virginia, and Alabama. We also met up again with Wingers from previous voyages from Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee. For group activities we played Pictionary (our team won), Trivia (we weren't too good) and had a 60's dance party that was a lot of fun.

Our route through the Caribbean started from Port Canaveral in Florida. Our first stop was supposed to be Nassau in the Bahamas, but a storm with very strong winds forced us to change out route to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Even then we were delayed by strong winds and could only stay there a short time. Julie and I did get off the ship and enjoyed a pina colada at a sea side bar.

After our stop in San Juan, we sailed off to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. There we took a bus tour all around the island and then stopped at a beach for swimming or just relaxing. After St. Thomas we set sail for St. Maartin, a Dutch and French colony. There we drove Jeeps all around the island and again stopped at a beach. This one was on the French side and was a clothing optional beach. (Sorry, guys, no photos!) After our visit to St. Maartin we spend two days at sea and arrived back in Port Canaveral on Sunday morning. We then had to pack and unpack for the trip to the condo. Being a tourist is a lot of hard work!

Here's some photos from the cruise. Hopefully they will help shorten your winter a little. The Gold Wing group from Panama City already called me to make sure I knew about a ride coming up this Saturday. I'm looking forward to putting some miles on the "new" trike and not having to be the "leader".