Barbara J. Hamby

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April 2003 Cruise

We flew to Miami Saturday, April 5, 2003. We were put up at the Sheraton Biscayne overnight, then boarded the ship on Sunday. We got underway Sunday night for two days at sea, a bonanza for the shops and casino. Wednesday we arrived at St. Maarten Island and went over on tenders. Al took a tour of the island and I toured a butterfly farm and then went around the island. Half of it is French owned, half Dutch. Very interesting. Al’s bus driver was Dutch and put down the French; my bus driver was French and you know the rest. They were very knowledgeable about the island and gave good information. Al had trouble understanding accents everywhere we went because he doesn’t hear as well as I do. Some accents over a P.A. system were too much for me also.

Thursday we were at St. Thomas and St. John islands. I stayed on the ship to swim and Al took in both islands, starting at 6:15 a.m. and arriving back at the ship exhausted in the late afternoon. He enjoys setting foot on soil owned by many different countries. On this cruise he touched down on Dutch, French and English soil. 

Friday we were at sea and Saturday we dropped anchor near a small island in the Bahamas owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines. Again, I stayed on the ship and swam; Al took the tender to the very crowded beach to swim in the surf. The two salt-water pools on the ship are very small, so swimming was not possible when all 2,200 people were on board. Standing in the water might be possible, but moving much was not.

The Norwegian Cruise Lines S/S Norway was formerly The France, an ocean liner, for many years. Norwegian Cruise Lines bought it I think about thirty years ago and poured a lot of money into upgrading it for cruises. It is beginning to show its age and reportedly will be decommissioned in about two years. We had rusty water for three days, after some plumbing problems. The showers were interesting and required lessons to operate.

As usual, the food was plentiful and great. However, I managed to gain only about 3 or 4 pounds, about half what I gained in Cabo San Lucas and took several weeks to lose (probably because we ate in the buffet most of the time, only three times in the dining room). The live entertainment on the ship was quite good and even the Star Search on which passengers competed for possible employment as entertainers on the cruise line, was mostly very entertaining. I didn’t try the karaoke.

We met many interesting people on the ship and on the flights. Al played chess with several passengers on our last day at sea. Unfortunately, that left me free to shop, but I restrained myself fairly well. Most of the few purchases I made were on St. Maarten, where the prices were better.

Sunday the 13th we arrived back at Miami and left the ship in the early morning, boarded a tour bus and took about an hour and a half tour of Miami, which included Coral Gables, South Beach, and several other adjoining suburbs. South Beach, if I remember correctly, is the one noted for art deco architecture, of which we saw many examples.

Our bus driver/guide pointed out Al Capone’s former hangouts, the steps where the Italian dress designer was shot, in front of his home, and many other celebrities’ homes. He told a story about Madonna trying to buy a house in the 1970’s on the very exclusive Star Island. She was refused and responded with two impolite words. In the 90’s, she bought a house in another part of Miami and realtors from Star Island called on her to try to sell her a place there. She responded with the same two words and threw them out, according to his story.

After the tour, we were dropped off at the airport for our flight home.

As a footnote, sometime later we heard the Norway had a fire at the end of a cruise shortly after the one we took, and would be retired.