Oh, Island in the Sun: Breeze-ing Back to the Southern Caribbean (Part Five)featured
Our first day in port began with a bit of an early start. It’s funny how that happens…waking early when you plan to sleep in and wanting nothing more than to sleep in when you have to be up early. It wasn’t because we were eager to get out into port or because we had an excursion – we were just getting too much rest to sleep in! We were already docked in Grand Turk in Turks & Caicos, and while everyone was rushing off the ship, we took our time getting ready and heading out.
Grand Turk is a small island. Legitimately small. It’s less than seven square miles, and if you’re up on the Lido deck, you can see the ocean off the other side of the island. If you get up onto a high enough deck, you can see the entire island.
Because the island is so small, there isn’t entirely too much to do. There’s some shopping right at the pier, a Froots smoothie stand that has wi-fi available for purchase and a Margaritaville with a large pool and a swim up bar. There are cabs that will take you on island tours and a couple of beaches you can settle in at right at the pier, but the island doesn’t have any must-see attractions and the pier doesn’t offer much of anything extraordinary. In fact, it feels reminiscent of the port at Roatan, probably because the Carnival Corp has pumped millions into developing both.
We’ve taken to treating Grand Turk as a sea day with a short port-side excursion to walk around and do a bit of shopping. In an effort to get back to the ship and into the pool quickly, we grabbed everything we’d need before we left the room for breakfast, and opted for a quick meal of arepas and coffee.
The sun was high above and uncomfortably hot when we exited the ship. We were docked alongside the HAL Westerdam, which made the port incredibly congested. While two ships can dock in port, the island is too small to handle two large ships. I don’t even want to know what the pool at Margaritaville looked like with ~5600 cruisers in port.
The port area was decked out for Halloween, complete with blood red water in the fountain and spider webs in the trees.
We hit a few shops, picking up some souvenirs and snapping some pictures alongside the beach, but we didn’t stay out for longer than an hour. After all, the more crowded the pier was, the less crowded the pool was going to be back onboard.
We dropped our purchases off at the room and headed out towards a gloriously empty aft pool.
It didn’t take long for our blissfully empty pool to fill up, so once we were dry, we headed in for lunch. And executing my ability to make adult decisions, I decided on a lunch of…cheesecake. Not just any cheesecake – the tiramisu cheesecake I deliberately seek out on every cruise because it’s the greatest thing you’ll ever eat on a Lido deck that isn’t an arepa.
The Lido Marketplace was packed, but a bad day of crowding
on the Breeze was still better than a good day on the Valor. I brought my
cheesecake lunch back to the room, and ate it on the balcony while we enjoyed
our primo seats to watch people run back to the ship as back onboard time
approached.
We arrived after the Westerdam in the morning, but we departed before she did, which made for a picturesque departure as we left Grand Turk and made our way into the open waters towards La Romana.
When Grand Turk was a waning blip on the horizon, I headed inside and found Mom and Stephanie perusing the dinner menus on the television. We all agreed that we didn’t care for the menu in the main dining room, so Mom called the Supper Club to make reservations. With the late notice, they told us they were booked solid…until we mentioned that we were Platinum. Then there was a 9:00 pm reservation (late dinner reservation = long nap = win). Ten minutes later, they called us back with a 5:30 pm reservation opening up. We should probably be better about making our reservations earlier, but I appreciated their effort to fit us in. I know that Platinum perks are always a hot button topic, but as long as I have my priority embarkation, priority line, priority tendering and priority reservations, I can temper my expectations for the rest.
Our invites for the Past Guest Party called for 3:30 pm, so I hopped in the shower and quickly got ready so we could head downstairs a little early.
Sure enough, 15 minutes before the party was to begin, a long line was beginning to weave its way through the atrium, like a vine of ivy made of cruisers who couldn’t waste a moment to get their fill of punch or…punch. I found that there were two kinds of people: people waiting in line and people loudly making fun of people waiting in line. I’m guessing the latter either weren’t invited for their choice of punch or didn’t care to wait in line to get an extra five minutes of punch drinking in.
Despite the party being split in two (our party had cruisers with 20+ sea days, and there was another party that followed ours), it was still extraordinarily crowded. It seemed we were in this odd row that for whatever reason, just had really awful service and every server with apps either skipped our row or ran out when they got to our row, but the bar servers passing the punch around were perfectly willing to get anyone who asked whatever they wanted from the bar.
With a plate of bacon cheesecake pops (which sound odd but are seriously so good) and our punch classes pushed aside in favor of frozen libations, we kicked back and relaxed as Wee Jimmy took the stage.
Oh, and in another incidence of cruise karma, the party of four who crammed next to mom in a space that would only fit two? The server forgot their special order drinks. Multiple times. Don’t cram into small spaces for the sake of cramming into small spaces – there are servers on the second level of the theatre, too.
We headed back to the room to change for dinner after the party, and finding ourselves with a little extra time, took some time on the balcony.
When we checked in at Fahrenheit 555, the hostess remembered us from last year’s cruise (or so she said) and ushered us to a table in the main dining area. They weren’t lying when they said they were at capacity for the evening – every table was taken.
Our meal was perfectly paced and everything we tasted was superb. Not being able to settle on one sauce to accompany my steak this time, I ordered every sauce they offer on the side and, like a cruising version of Goldilocks, meticulously tasted each one. The béarnaise? Too rich and overpowering. The peppercorn sauce? Bland. But the mushroom sauce? That was just right.
Salmon Amuse Bouche
Red Pepper Soup Amuse Bouche
Brioche Roll with Butter and Tapenades
Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail
Baked Onion Soup
Baby Leaf Spinach and Fresh Mushrooms
Classic Caesar Salad
Sliced Sun-Ripened Beef Steak Tomato
Surf & Turf
Broiled Prime New York Strip Loin Steak
Broiled Filet Mignon
Trio of Sauces
Baked Potato
Yukon Gold Mash with Wasabi Horseradish
Creamed Spinach with Garlic
Caramelized Washington Apples
Homemade Sherbet
Selection of International Cheeses
There is an additional $35 fee to dine at Fahrenheit 555, but it’s worth every dollar. The service and quality of food are in another class, not just on Carnival, but across every cruise line we’ve been on. It rivals some of the steakhouses we enjoy in Chicago, which seems to be the biggest compliment I can pay to it.
After dinner, we walked along the Lanai deck a bit before heading back to the room. What started as a quick rest while we watched Dancing with the Stars turned into all of us just completely immobilized in our beds. Between the heavy dinner and a storm outside, all of us were struggling to keep our eyes open.
I took what had to be a pretty short nap, because Castle was on when I woke up. At that point, we all decided that going out didn’t feel as good of a decision as staying in was. At some point, Wee Jimmy came on the PA to announce that the deck party (which had been moved indoors to the atrium because of the storm) was now being moved outside because of noise complaints. I’ll take that to mean the deck party was a good time, but I had no regrets: nothing was more appealing than putting on my sweats and sitting on the balcony.
I headed in when lightning started breaking through the sky. With Mom and Stephanie asleep, I had full control of the TV, and I found a show called 90 Day Fiancee while I was flipping through the channels. Something about the sea air and motion of the ocean makes awful television seem incredible, and since Nancy Grace wasn’t an option on this trip, I settled in to watch people who barely knew each other decide to get married before falling asleep.
Today’s Lido Lunch Menus
Today’s Lido Dinner Menus
<
