Caribbean Cruise 2014:
Day 3 - Turks & Caicos


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Caribbean Cruise 2014: [Day 1 - Ft. Lauderdale] [Day 2 - Half Moon Cay] [Day 3 - Turks & Caicos] [Day 4 - Dominican Republic] [Day 5 - At Sea] [Day 6 - Bonaire] [Day 7 - Curaçao] [Day 8 - Aruba] [Day 9 - At Sea] [Day 10 - At Sea] [Day 11 - Ft. Lauderdale]

Sunday, March 2, 2014: We treated ourselves to room service for breakfast, with omelettes, juice, potato cakes, and English muffins.

We had a noon arrival scheduled at Grand Turk.
Another ship had been in port since early in the day, so we would have to share.
This ship is P & O Cruises' Azura.
Fortunately, the port was specifically built to handle several ships at once, with plenty of free chairs on the beach.
We joined the mob disembarking the boat as soon as we were cleared, ...
... then waited for our turn to get a photo of Orchy at the entrance.
This entire area was built by and for the cruiselines to give passengers something to do. For example, shopping at the same shops found elsewhere in the Caribbean, ...
... and the sprawling complex of Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.
We checked in at the front desk of the restaurant because we had rented a cabana for the day.
Omar took Tom's cruise card and exchanged it for a key to Cabana #1.
The cabana is a single room with an air conditioner, shutters that close for privacy, plenty of comfortable seating, ...
... and a call button to summon a server to place food and beverage orders.
The locking French doors face the patio, ...
... which in turn, faces the pool.
First order of business: ordering some beverages and food. Debbie's Bahama Mama arrived in a large plastic blender ("There's booze in the blender...").
Lunch's first course was an order of fried conch and fried calamari. Tom had a Turk's Head Lager to wash down his food.
We locked up the cabana and spent some time enjoying the large pool area, then returned to dry off on the patio while we decided what to consume next.
Round two started with a Landshark beer for Debbie and a drink called Five O'Clock Somewhere in the world's largest plastic goblet. We also ordered a lobster wrap for Debbie and a jerk cheeseburger (served in a guiter-shaped metal basket) for Tom, but never took a photo of them.
After a relaxing afternoon, it was time to pack up and take some photos on our way out. Here are some of the pretty bougainvillea blossoms growing up a tree trunk.
The place had pretty much cleared out by the time we left, but with one of the ships in port being a Holland America ship, it wasn't all that hopping to begin with.
Here's the Flow Rider that was used precisely once by anyone during our stay.
The swim up bar was winding down as well. It was at this very location that we heard "Big Bamboo," last heard on a boat excursion on St. Lucia.
Here's a look back at the row of cabanas.
This is the only photo we got of our server, Omar. He had described it as a very slow day. The busiest days are when a Carnival ship is in port. This is not a surprise to us.
Thanks for a pleasant afternoon, Margaritaville!
We strolled along the beach briefly on our short trip back to the ship.
Photographing the entrance was much easier at this time of day.
The Azura was preparing to depart, so we lingered on the pier for a while.
There were thousands of these small silver fish in the water ...
... along with a couple of these cornetfish.
The large group of silver fish started to form themselves into a ball, and after a few minutes, we figured out why. This dark figure disappearing under the dock was a small shark looking for lunch.
After some showering and relaxing, it was time for dinner. We always took the outside elevators when possible because of pretty views like this
After a day of deep fried seafood, we decided to keep the trend going by ordering the seafood croquette for our appetizer. Yum.
Our stroll back from the Vista dining room always took us past this gorgeous glass sculpture in the atrium.
It changed colors gradually from reds to blues to greens. We'll show you again later.
Here are two porcelain goldfish sculptures on display.

One of the great treats of cruise ships is getting to watch the Academy Awards without any commercials. During the commercial breaks, we were treated to screens like this with famous movie scores playing in the background. We'd first enjoyed this phenomenon in French Polynesia.

Day 4 >


Caribbean Cruise 2014: [Day 1 - Ft. Lauderdale] [Day 2 - Half Moon Cay] [Day 3 - Turks & Caicos] [Day 4 - Dominican Republic] [Day 5 - At Sea] [Day 6 - Bonaire] [Day 7 - Curaçao] [Day 8 - Aruba] [Day 9 - At Sea] [Day 10 - At Sea] [Day 11 - Ft. Lauderdale]

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