Caribbean Cruise Diary (6)

Date: 2018-05-14

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Day 10: Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

Arrival 8am / Departure 3pm

A relaxed morning — up at 7am, the ship still approaching the island. Half Moon Cay is a private island owned by Holland America's parent company, Carnival Corporation, so only Carnival Group ships can use it.

Breakfast in the Main Dining Room: Greek yoghurt with prunes and crab eggs Benedict. The poached eggs were perfectly cooked — cut open, the yolk ran slowly and smoothly. The best-quality ingredients of any eggs Benedict I'd had on the trip.

We changed into swimming things (beach towels are provided in the cabin), and took a tender boat from the ship to the island. The water approaching the shore: turquoise, then emerald-green. Extraordinarily vivid colours.

A Beach Day

We had pre-booked a small sun shade tent on the beach. After settling in, we went straight to the water.

The beach shelves very gently — you can walk a long way out before it gets deep. No rocks or pebbles underfoot; just fine white sand. The visibility in the water is remarkable — tropical fish swimming right alongside us, completely unafraid, close enough to touch. Children nearby were shrieking with delight. For someone who grew up swimming only in pools, this was genuinely revelatory — sea swimming that felt safe, comfortable and joyful.

The pattern repeated happily: swim, lie on the sand in the breeze to dry, get warm, swim again. By lunchtime the sun was fierce.

Lunch: Caribbean BBQ

The island has a central covered dining area with a full BBQ spread: Jerk chicken (a Caribbean speciality — marinated in allspice and scotch bonnet peppers, grilled over charcoal), fish tacos, various salads, cut fresh fruit, pastries, ice cream, and chilled gazpacho made with watermelon and coconut milk. The salsa served with grilled meat and fish was pineapple and mango — unexpectedly well-matched with the fish. Chickens wandered freely among the tables, pecking at fallen scraps.

We returned to the beach after lunch, applying sunscreen liberally, until around 1pm when we gathered our things and took the tender boat back to the ship.

Final Evening

The afternoon was the last session of the cruise's lecture series. Back in the cabin: suitcases had been placed on protective mats for packing. We packed everything except what we needed overnight; bags left outside the door by midnight would be collected by crew and waiting in the terminal the next morning.

Final dinner. The last evening of a cruise always carries a slight melancholy — the enjoyment is ending. But the feeling quickly turns to motivation: work hard, save, book the next one.

The table companions we had met — Indian sisters from Delhi — exchanged contact details. Maybe we would cross paths again on some ship somewhere.

The farewell show featured an Olympic medal-winning acrobat and a comedy magician. The comedy was in English: the audience was in fits; we understood perhaps half. Language humour is the hardest to follow. We said goodbye and thank you to our cabin steward, who had been exceptional throughout. Tonight's towel art: a frog.

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Day 11 (Final): Fort Lauderdale

March 17. Ship arrives 7am. London flight 6:10pm.

Up at 5:30am, out of bed at 6. Still dark; the ship moving quietly, Miami's skyline approaching. In the cabin, a printed voyage certificate confirmed the statistics of the trip: total miles sailed, 1,188,774 gallons of water consumed, 28,979 eggs served — signed by the captain and cruise director.

Breakfast from 6:30am in the Main Dining Room: Greek yoghurt and prunes, then the Japanese set (rice, miso soup, salmon, rolled omelette).

Disembarkation at 8am. A couple from Florida joined us at breakfast — they mentioned that several passengers on this sailing would not disembark; they would simply stay on as the ship repositioned to its next itinerary. Holland America changes routes gradually with each sailing, so long-stay passengers never quite repeat themselves. A BBC programme once featured a wealthy widow who had lived on a cruise ship for years. It turns out this is not unusual. No worries about food or shelter, a warm community around you, new faces every week. Not hard to understand.

Fort Lauderdale City Tour & Canal Cruise

We had pre-booked a post-disembarkation tour: city bus, canal cruise by vintage paddleboat (the Jungle Queen — a dead ringer for the Mark Twain at Disneyland), and transfer to the airport. All luggage stored on the bus throughout. Tour cost: $60 per person — genuinely good value given that the canal cruise alone costs $40–50 per person and a taxi to the airport runs around $40.

Fort Lauderdale is where wealthy Americans and celebrities keep their second homes. The hotels along the seafront — Hilton, Westin, Marriott, Sheraton, Ritz-Carlton, Conrad — line up one after another. Behind them, a network of canals connects the city to the sea, with massive private yachts moored at the docks of each waterfront estate. Several of these yachts were easily worth tens of millions. An extraordinary concentration of private wealth.

At the port itself, after the canal tour: our own ship, the ms Nieuw Amsterdam, plus Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas (3,600 passengers) and the Harmony of the Seas — one of the world's largest ships at the time, carrying 5,500 passengers with a crew of 2,200. Seven cruise ships in the port that day. An entire fleet.

Home

At the airport by 2pm; flight at 6pm. Clubhouse sandwich in the terminal (turkey ham, regular ham, tomato and lettuce — American portions). Checked in once the BA desk opened; email catch-up in the terminal since there had been no reliable internet aboard.

Boarding at 5:30pm. The flight attendant warned us: "Gatwick is snowing."

Snow?!

Landing at London Gatwick just after 6am local time, stepping into 2–3°C — a 20°C temperature drop from Miami. Scrambled to unpack a down jacket at the bus stop. Drive home through grey winter skies.

Then the jet lag hit. The Caribbean really does have extraordinary colours.

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