The end of an era

Well that's the last trip on the Independence done, over all it was a good cruise.
It is a bit sad to see the old girl leaving the UK for the last time, but having been on her so many times, it is time for a change, and as this is probably our last transatlantic crossing, it will be nice to see a couple of different ships based in the UK.

Coco Cay

Well this must be the fourth or fifth time I've been to Coco Cay, and still not got off.
Not really interested in beaches and that's all that's here.
So that means we've not been off the ship once on this cruise, luckily I like sea days, lol.
We've got four ports next week on the Oasis, so will probably get off at those.

Old San Juan Porto Rico

Don't know why I've put that title because I didn't get off, it was so hot I decided to give it a miss.
But it is one of my favorite stops, we normally go to a little ice cream parlour for the free Wi-Fi as it's usually very quiet, not like Starbucks, or Burger King, which get so crowded. But sadly Shaun, who did get off told me that it's closed down, which is a real shame.
On a different note, the early morning chats in the diamond lounge are as popular as ever, every cruise I go on ends up with great early morning chats, the where about eight or ten of us yesterday.
The topics of conversation vary so much it's unbelievable, and it's always nice people.
As I've said many times before, it's all about meeting people on these cruises.
This one is no different, I've met some old friends and made some new ones.

US immigration and its usual shite attitude

Well the US immigration met all my low expectations.
Sheila and I approached the customs officer, and with a smile I said good morning and handed her my documents. I then stood back and casually pushed my hands in to my shorts pockets.
The cheeky cow did no more than glare at me and in a very condescending voice said to me "take your hands out of your pockets " I said "what? Really? " she said yes take your hands out of your pockets. Well I lost it and said to Sheila "I'm 64 years of age and being spoken to like a child. I then pushed my hands back in to my pockets, Fuming. She then said it's a security issue and that she didn't know where I'd been before I came to immigration. I said "well take a wild guess where I've been as we'd been on a cruise ship for the last 12 days".
Anyway that was about it she stamped my passport and off we went. It just pisses me off the attitude of these people, give them a uniform and a bit of power and it goes to their head.
I'm afraid as much as I love the USA I can't be doing with their over the top, and paranoid immigration service. It's things like this that make you realize why the USA is so hated around the world.

Oh goody US immigration

We've got the usual US immigration farce at St Thomas this morning, the line for non US passengers is the full length of the Royal Promenade, it's now 9.30am and it's been like that since 7am.
Sheila and I have decided to leave going right until the last minute, because I'm definitely not standing in that bloody line.
The real bad thing is that we'll have to do it all over again in Ft Lauderdale, all because our last stop is in Coco Cay which is British.
Why can't they work these stops out better?
If our last stop was a US port we wouldn't have to do all this crap again.
But no that would be to simple for RCCL.
We've decided that this will be our last transatlantic for a good while, as we're sick of the US immigration, and also the long haul flights.

Bridge Tour

I forgot to mention that I did my first bridge tour the other day.
It was good and quite also the view is amazing. It seems like there is quite a lot of wasted space, as there are two big sections between the main controls and the two wing controls, but as the captain said they need to see the sides of the ship when docking so that's why they are designed that way.
So basically they are corridors from and to each control pods.
That's probably going to be as boring to read as it was to write, LMAO.

Clothing optional update

One of the rumours about the clothing optional cruise following this one, was that they where going to take out all the loose furniture in the pyramid lounge and put in lots of mattresses.
Well I was talking to the 1st officer at lunch the other day, and he assures me that it's absolutely true. All the loose furniture is coming out and being replaced with mattresses.
The use of which I'll leave to your imagination, lol.
There will be no staff allowed in the lounge except maybe one or two security staff.
I'm guessing that there will be so many volunteers for this job, that they'll have to put all the security staffs names in a hat and do a draw.
Yesterday was Jill's 70th birthday and Sheila and Sue had got her a small present each and a couple of cards. We all embarrassed her by singing Happy Birthday to her as she came in to the lounge. Then later on Mel the diamond concierge and some of the staff presented her with a small cake and sang happy birthday again. Really lovely touch for a lovely lady.
As I said the other day the atmosphere in that lounge is brilliant once again.