Horizons of the Caribbean

During Christmas 2013, we went on a cruise in the Caribbean. The sailing started from Miami and for 7 days, we visited several Caribbean islands. We also spent a few days at sea. The only thing in sight, 360 degrees, is the horizon. Here are some pictures of the horizon taken at different times of day and at various location on board and on shore.

Rainbow over water

St Martin

Shadowed by clouds

.San Juan

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Dawn near Miami

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Dusk

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Beautiful and lonely …   the horizon was what the explorers saw for months until (if they were lucky) they found an island or a continent.

Views from our shipboard veranda

Below are the views from our veranda on board the Celebrity Reflection during a 7-day cruise through the Caribbean sea. Our cabin was located on the 12th floor, midship, starboard. For more views of the ship, click here and here for earlier posts.

These photos were taken more or less from the same spot on the handrail. The photos are roughly in chronological order.

Miami – San Juan – St. Thomas – St. Martin – Miami

Miami

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San Juan

St Thomas

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St Martin

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Miami Beach

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Back to Miami.

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Galley tour on board Celebrity Reflection

On our first “at-sea” day, we went to one of the “events” which is a tour of the galleys on board the ship. The galley is a compartment of a ship, train or aircraft where the food is cooked and prepared – i.e., the mobile industrial kitchen.

The German executive chef started with a power point presentation giving all kinds of Guinness book of records type- statistics – 12300 pounds of potatoes and 75000 pounds of fresh fruits …

The tour is a smart move because it costs the cruise line nothing.

It afforded the ship’s senior catering staff time to interact with guests, and boasts customer confidence in food hygiene.

The tour is interesting for those curious people who always want to see behind the scenes. =)

Instead of having  a centralized galley (like older ships), each of the restaurants on our ship has its own galley. It saves the waitstaff from carrying a tray of hot food and walking to one of the far-flung restaurants.  This is sensible as the cruise ship gets bigger and bigger.

Apparently, the cruise ship uploaded all the food we needed for the entire 7-day trip in Miami. Somehow they have to keep all the food fresh.

The staff that took us on the tour have on average 15 years of experience on board a cruise ship. The catering staff wore different color scarfs to indicate their rank.  The senior staff who hosted our tour all wore black scarf (like Karate black belt).

This is the menu for the main dining room for the entire trip –  7 columns for 7 days.

Bakery.

The tour was held just after breakfast so all the workspace was still relatively empty.

This is the dessert menu for the main dining room.

Dish-washing area.

It is really quite an operation !

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On board the Celebrity Reflection, part 2

More pictures from the cruise we took during winter 2013. Part 1 is here.

The Celebrity brand of cruise focus on food and services rather than parties or shopping. This is our ship – Reflection – in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

This is the ship’s main dining room.

This is one of the many stations in the self-service restaurant that was opened more or less around the clock.

Our cabin class provides an exclusive sit-down restaurant which serves permits unscheduled seating (unlike the main dining room which imposes a set time for dinner).

We liked the ambiance of the room – it has sea view. The food comes in smaller portions and in healthier form.

Supposedly, less cream and fat was used in the cooking.  Look at the English bacon which looks almost too lean and dry.

Breakfast museli trolley – prepared to your liking by your table.

The Celebrity ships are marked by a “X” on its chimney. There is a story behind it but I forgot.

These are some of the other huge cruise ships that we saw when we left Miami.

Floating hotel/mini city if you consider the number of support staff onboard. I hear that our ship has an incinerator, a water desalination plant, and a diesel-powered electricity generator. What else ?

This is another Celebrity ship – the Silhouette which belongs to the same class as our ship.

Can cruise ship gets any bigger ? Is there a limit where they become unsafe, unattractive, or uneconomical ? Could there be something like a reverse Moore’s law here? (Moore’s law states that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every 18 months; here the number of rooms on a cruise ship increases by … X ?)

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On board the Celebrity Reflection, part 1

In our last minute search for a winter holiday, we wanted a destination that is warm and truly relaxing, preferably English-speaking. We did not want to do much sightseeing or shopping.  Cruising the Caribbean came up as the obvious option. It has been quite a few years since we last went on a cruise. Cruising the Mediterranean was an option but the climate is not really warm enough.

After wading through an ocean of choices on cruise ships, ports of call, cabin class, connecting flights and layovers, we decided on Celebrity’s newest flagship – Reflection. It came into service in Feb 2013.

Our itinerary was a 7-day cruise round trip out of Miami, with stops at San Juan, Puerto Rico, one of the US Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, and the island of St. Martin.

We would have loved to do a 9-day trip since I (Chris) had the vacation days this year.

Chris’s mom and sis cruised with us that time also on a Celebrity ship – the Century.  It is now one of the oldest ship in Celebrity’s fleet and is sailing from the ports in the China seas.

The ship’s atrium.

There was a tree suspended in midair on the 7th floor above the ship’s atrium.

Other than making the ship longer or wider, they are getting taller. There are at least 15 levels that are accessible to guests, 12 of which connected by banks of elevators.

I counted 12 restaurants/eateries, 13 bars/cafes, 3 pools, and a host of facilities ranging from a casino, theatre, art gallery, library (see above picture) and at least ten shops.  There is also an indoor pool with an age restrictio

There are a few surprising innovations. On level 15, there is the Lawn Club Grill –  a patch of real grass with cabanas and in the middle of it is a restaurant where a guest can sign up to use the outdoor grills with the help of a grill master to cook a meal for friends and families.

I assume the cruise industry must be very competitive. They have to keep bringing back past customers, fend off other cruise companies and convert land/air tourists to cruisers.

In the spa, there is a Persian Garden which is a air conditioned room full of heated tiled loungers surrounded by a row of dry sauna, hamam, cold room, and themed showers. The idea is to go through the dry/wet/cold/hot treatment and doze off on the loungers in-between. It was nice but a bit overhyped.

The room shown below facing the bow is my favorite where I sunk into the chair and fell asleep while staring at the ocean.

There seemed to be plenty of treadmills, right ? Wrong, in the morning, it was impossible to find an unoccupied machine.

Of course, there is the nightly entertainment which was very competent and included some American Idol finalists.

Good times.

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Our 2013 trips – part 1

* H A P P Y  *  N E W  *  Y E A R  *

W i s h i n g  – y o u – a l l – t h e – v e r y –  b e s t – i n – 2 0 1 4  ! !

As the end of 2013 is upon us, we are taking a look back at some of the places we visited. The places are organized in reverse chronological order and there is a part 2 to come tomorrow. Some of the trips are business trips and some are vacations.

Click on the link to jump to the posts – there are usually a series of related posts per location, they are uploaded around the same time – you can discover them easily in the calendar at the bottom of the post.

December 2013

We just came back from a cruise in the Caribbean sea on Celebrity’s Reflection. This was taken in San Juan, Puerto Rico – one of the ports of call. The pictures will be up here soon.

The cruise started and ended in Miami – we spent a few days at the Epic Hotel, downtown Miami

Barcelona, Spain in October 2013

Sao Paulo, Brazil in October 2013

Jungfraujoch, Switzerland in September 2013  (posts to come in 2014)

Near Interlaken, September 2013

Lavaux, Switzerland with VL in July 2013

Glacier 3000, Switzerland with YS – July 2013

Lac Liosin, Switzerland with YS – July 2013

Chambery, France with IT in July 2013

There were 7 separate trips in this second half of 2013, and another 7 trips in the first half – see next post.