Norwegian Cruise Lines Private Island Great Stirrup Cay

Thursday, May 4, 2017.  The last stop of our 4 day cruise on the Norwegian Sky was to Norwegian Cruise Line's private island Great Stirrup Cay, located in the Berry Islands, Bahamas.  I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy this portion of the cruise as we have been t not been to a cruise ship's island in a number of years.  But I was pleasantly surprised.  I had read that getting a lounge chair would be difficult.  But we were able to secure a lounge chair in a great semi-shady spot.  The day was gorgeous, the water clear, tendering ashore was easy, the staff was friendly, the drinks and snacks plentiful.  What more could you ask for!  

Norwegian Sky Anchored Near Great Stirrup Cay

Lounge Chair Area - Left

Lounge Chair Area - Right 

Cruise ship again

Snorkeling

Coral

Loads of fish hiding under the rocks

My Favorite - the Parrotfish

More Fish

Sunken Garden Statues

Shark Statue

We spent most of our stay at the island snorkeling right off the beach.  There are rocky spots on the right side of the beach, rocks in the center and a reef to the left of the center rock for snorkeling.  The reef was the best snorkeling spot as there were a lot of reef fish hanging about.  After snorkeling for an hour we decided to head toward shore.  About halfway to shore we happened upon a 3 foot sea turtle.  He let us observe and swim with him for about 30 minutes.  Such a treat!  Below are some of the photos we took with him.

After hanging out on the lounge chair sipping on a Pina Colada.  We decided to head back to the boat for a snack and a shower.  What a great day!

Rainbow as the ship was preparing to leave

Cuba - By Cruise Ship - Norwegian Sky

Monday, May 1, 2017 Gordon and I boarded the Norwegian Sky cruise ship on it's maiden voyage to Cuba.  Even though our first encounter in Cuba was less than stellar, we were still excited to see Havana and the cruise ship gave us transportation, a place to sleep and good food (lots of good food!).

We set sail at 5 pm with salsa music, dancing and a barbeque on deck for the 200 mile overnight sail to Havana, Cuba.  Cruising to Cuba is easy.  The night sail was uneventful (Yay!), the drinks and dinner were plentiful and good (Double Yay!).  We woke up the next day in Cuba.  Disembarkation was a little slow as we had to go through security AND immigration.   Here they will take your visa papers, check your passport and take your picture.

Immigration lines

Luckily we were in a fast line and in a few minutes we were out on the Havana streets.  The tour buses pick you up right outside the immigration building.  Since we decided to create our own tour, we crossed the street and spoke to several tour vendors who had set up shop right outside of the cruise ship terminal.  Some of the options included:  horse carriage tours, private vintage car tours,  newer car taxi tours, and a hop on hop off bus tour.  The private tours ranged from $40 to $80 (in CUCs which are tourist pesos).   The hop on hop off bus tour is $10 in CUCs per person.  We chose the hop on hop off bus tour to get an overview of the city and then if we thought we wanted the private tour we could take that later.  The hop on hop off bus comes right to the cruise terminal.  

Across the street from the Cruise Terminal

Horse Carriage Private Carriage tour 

Vintage Tour Cars

If you take a private tour make sure your driver/tour guide speaks english as we spoke to people who were on private tours where the guide spoke very little english.

The infrastructure in Havana is crumbling.  Sadly enough, the housing is really pretty bad throughout Havana.  In the 1930s Havana was dubbed the "Paris of the Caribbean",  if overlook all the rubble and you can envision back 80 years ago the buildings had to be beautiful.   Below are some typical Neighborhoods. 

 

The photo above is a closer look at the photo before it.  If you look closely you will see a blue water barrel.  They are all over on the rooftops.  We were told from fellow cruise ship passengers that their tour guides told them that water rationing is prevalent and water is only available every other day.  The electricity is not always available either.   

Hemingway and Cuba

On day two of our Havana experience we decided to check out some of the Ernest Hemingway haunts.  Hemingway called Havana, Cuba home from 1939 to 1960.  He lived on a 15 acre property about 15 miles from Havana called "Finca Vigia".  Since we have been to the Hemingway House in Key West we wanted to see the Hemingway House in Havana.  So,  we got off the ship and headed across the street from the terminal to get a taxi.  The taxi coordinator told our driver (who didn't know any english and we knew limited spanish) where we wanted to go.  We hopped in his yellow russian car (with air conditioning) and set off.  We ended up at Hemingway Marina, the opposite direction from the Hemingway House.  We walked around the marina since we were there and we had several friends who had arrived on sailboats in April.  Unfortunately, the house was pretty far away so we didn't get to see it.  A fellow passenger told us that they visited the house but didn't get to go inside.   We decided to visit Sloppy Joe's and La Floridita.  A local told us that Hemingway didn't frequent Sloppy Joe's, his hang out was La Floridita.  

La Floridita

Inside La Floridita

La Floridita "The Cradle of the Daiquri"

 Sloppy Joe's Havana

More Havana Photos

Malecon - A long walkway along the shore

Vintage Car tours

                                      

Norwegian Sky

Streets of Havana

Bicycle Taxi

Havana Street

Fort and Morro Castle

Laundry Day

Sorry for the fuzzy photo.  The guy in white is carrying (right hand) his chicken dinner home with feathers.

Havana is like being in a time warp.  Our cell phones didn't work and the internet is really slow and limited.  It was definitely an educational experience.  We found the people to be nice and we felt safe.  If you plan on visiting Havana going by cruise ship definitely a good choice.  As a reminder, these are our experiences we were in Havana for 2 days.  Next stop on the cruise...Great Stirrup Cay, Norwegian Cruise Lines Private Island.

Cuba - Our First Experience as Americans in the Cuban Countryside

About a month ago I wrote about our experience with credit cards in Cuba.  We have now recovered from that whirlwind trip.  Before I tell you all about our first impressions of Cuba,  I want everyone to know that by no means are we experts on Cuba.  We were there for two nights and Cuba is a big island so our experiences were limited.

We landed at the Holguin airport.  Holguin a city of 288,000 people located on the northeast side of Cuba approximately 456 miles from Havana.  According to Google Maps it would over a 9 hour drive.   We chose Holguin because it would be a contrast to our trip in May which we will be going to Havana by cruise ship.

We secured a taxi as soon as we got out of the airport and immediately went to exchange some US dollars for pesos at the bank in the airport.  There are two types of pesos in Cuba, CUP the national peso for residents only and CUC the convertible peso for tourists.  You can read about the Cuban peso here.  While we waited we spoke to a middle aged Canadian guy who was in town to see his girlfriend and check up on his business ventures.  He had purchased (with a Cuban friend) a house and cafe.  The house cost $3100 and the cafe $700.  They rent the house out to tourists and his friend runs the cafe.  Our conversation was short because it was his turn to exchange his Canadian dollars and his friends were waiting for him.

After exchanging some of our US dollars for CUCs we then started out on our 1 hour, 37 mile trek to the resort.  Our taxi driver, Victor spoke a little english so we were able to ask him questions during our trip.  The route to the resort did not go through the city, but around the edge so we didn't get to see much of Holguin mostly the countryside.  We were surprised that the roads were in pretty good shape and Victor told us that they were repaired before a papal visit.   While Gordon spoke to Victor I looked out my window.  Cuba is mountainous with the Sierra Maestra mountains to the east with the highest peak on the island of 6,650 ft.  We went through a large rural area with small farms about 40 acres in size that had little roadside stands close by selling their fruits and vegetables.

Fruit Stand

Typical Cuban Farm

Horse and buggies are commonly used to transport the people and produce from villages and farms.  They even had horse and buggy taxis.  The cars are vintage 50's american cars, as well as, more current chinese and russian cars.  Older motorcycles with sidecars were also prevalent modes of
transportation.

Horse Drawn Taxi Carriage

Motorcycle with Side Car

Motorcycle with Side Car Transporting 3 people 

We asked Victor about what he did for a living, he replied that he rented out rooms in his house and drove a taxi, he was proud that he owned his own car and was in business for himself.  He said that his house had a group of Canadians renting it this week and it was almost always rented.  We asked how people knew about his house and he said people referred them and he met people while driving his taxi.  You can find places to stay online Airbnb or through people you know but they do not advertise their rooms.  It appears to be a word of mouth and cash only type of business.  While in line waiting to go through customs I asked the very same question of a couple of Cuban ladies who worked in the US and were visiting their families.  They confirmed what Victor had told us and one of the ladies gave me her email address and said that she had family who would be happy to help us should we come back again.  The ladies also assured me that Cuba is safe and that most of the crime is petty theft.

The average Cuban makes $20 per month and a doctor can make up to $67 per month.  The best jobs are in resorts where you could get tips.  From what I could tell the tips were $1 per couple during the evening and the resorts were huge so I thought they took home a few dollars a each working day.  Also the resort guest bring school supplies, toys, and clothing as extra tips.  While sitting at the bar at the resort I witnessed one bartender receive three different bags of goodies from three different guests.  The women bartenders took a break and grabbed the bags retreating to the back room.  They came back after about five minutes with smiles on their faces.  All of the Cuban people (outside of one of the resort desk clerks, you can read about that experience here.)  were extremely nice.  They were excited that we were American and visiting their country.

The resort, Blau Costa Verde, was not a good experience.  The room was good and we had a view of the ocean which was nice.  The snorkeling was OK, not great.  The food was cold and marginal at best.  One night we ate at a resort specialty restaurant and the food there was cold.  I'm a little bit of a picky eater, but Gordon is not and even he was disappointed.  The drinks were good though.  The cappuccino was great.  Most of the guests were Canadian and European.  I think they were mostly there for the weather and drinks.  LOL!

On our way back we were picked up by a friend or relative of one of the guest services gals.  The car was a 50's vintage chevy.  Gordon sat in the front and I rode in the back listening to their conversation and looking out the window at the countryside.  Cuba felt like I had traveled back in time.

Beautiful Beach at our Resort

Cuba - a quick trip

Cuba.  There's so much to say about this country and our experiences there that I have decided to break it up into two posts.   We were only there for two days even though we planned on staying four days.  So we will start with the story of our resort check in issues.  

We booked our reservation with the Blau Costa Verde resort online.  Our reservation was for the VIP (Plus) section with an Ocean View room.  So it was one of the most expensive rooms the resort offered.  The web reservation took our credit card information, our address and the total amount to be paid in US dollars.  And then it said, "The total amount of the stay will be paid upon arrival.  For payments made by credit card, the hotel, will charge a fee of 3% of the booking value as handling fee."   We knew that you couldn't use credit cards in Cuba as the USA does not have a banking relationship there.  But Blau is a Spanish owned company so we figured the credit cards would be processed in Spain.  

So, we arrived in Holguin, Cuba.  First stop was to go to the bank in the airport and change some of our US dollars to Pesos.  Each Pesos is about $1.15 US Dollars.  Next, we caught a cab to the resort, which is an hour drive and cost $45 pesos.  (The resorts are in the countryside and a long way from the city.)  We got to the resort and went straight to the check in desk.  They told us how much our bill would be and we presented our Amex credit card.  It didn't go through.   We were confused....three credits later and the front desk clerk said with an attitude.  You will have to pay cash.  We started counting money and trying to figure out if we had enough for our stay.  We would need enough money for the hotel and $40 to return to the airport.  

This situation is new to us as we have never had this happen in all of our travels.   

We were 34 pesos short for the resort and 40 pesos for the cab ride for a total of 74 pesos.  We said, give us a cheaper room, downgrade us, we are fine with that.  And they said, no, you will have to  pay cash or leave we can't change your reservation.  You will have to go to Holguin and stay there.  We said where would we stay?  And they said at someone's house.  It was 3pm at this time and if we did go back it would be 4pm and we would be searching for a place to stay.  The clock was ticking and we had no room.  I asked to talk to a manager.  So the front desk clerk said, "you can talk to customer service."  And she pointed toward the Customer Service office.  By this time a bus load of Canadian tour guests had arrived and we were getting nasty comments and looks from the people behind us.

We went to customer service,  and someone was in the office with a complaint ahead of us.  By this time the panic was setting in.  We had no place to stay for the night and Blau was not being helpful.  And the clock was ticking.  (Customer service consists of one person for thousands of guests.)  When we finally got to see her she was extremely nice.  We said I think we need to speak with a manager.  She said no, that is not possible, I can help you.  She then recommended we purchase a internet card, go online and change our reservation that is the only thing we could do.   Tick tock, $1.5 pesos for the 60 minute internet card and we were sitting down at an ancient computer trying to change our reservation.   The computer was PAINFULLY SLOW.  Tick tock.  We finally get to the page 10 minutes had passed and the modify your reservation page errored out.  We couldn't get to our reservation to change it.  I went to find the customer service person while Gordon kept working on the reservation.   I explained that the webpage wasn't working and she went to talk to the manager.  She came back and said you will have to go to town there is nothing we can do.  We said, this is a Spanish company can't you run the card from there.  She went back to the manager.  She came back and said no.  I said can we just talk to the manager.  She said no.  There was A LOT of back and forth.   During all of this our customer service gal disappeared.  I went to office and a new person was sitting there.  The first gal had gone home for the day.  Luckily, the second gal was extremely helpful.  We would suggest something, she would go back to the manager, and come back no.  At one point I said, I don't think it will look good if you have guest sleeping on your couches in the lobby cause that's what we are down too.   FINALLY, she came out and said, the front desk will change your reservation.  I'm thinking, they could have done this all along.  Checking in took awhile as we had to figure out how many days we had enough cash for considering we may have to find a place to stay in Holguin and pay for food.  We settled on two nights.  Finally, we were checked in and that nasty Tick Tock had stopped.  We then made the trekked out to our room in the furthermost three story building and schlepped our luggage up the three flights of stairs as they don't have elevators.  Mentally, we were in shock.  At this point we had a room for two nights and nowhere else to go in a foreign country with very little money.  Something we are not used too.  We decided to deal with that issue tomorrow morning and headed to the bar.

The next day we weighed all of our options, which were, stay in someone's home (the hotels are all resorts so we would have the same issue at any other hotel) or see if we could change our flight to Tuesday and go home early.  Fortunately, we were on JetBlue and they were able to work with us on changing our flights.

So the moral to this story is, if you from the USA and are going to Cuba take lots of cash!

See the next post about our impressions of Cuba.  :)

What do you do when you aren't traveling?

What do you do when you are not traveling?  That is a question I often get asked when we attend parties in our community.

 The last couple of months we have traded in our passports for paint brushes, hammers, and nails.  We have been fixing up our condo and I personally think it's been more exhausting than traveling!  Our renovations have included kitchen, spare bedrooms, living room, and dining room.  All that is left is the Master Bedroom and Bathrooms.  We will more than likely finish the Master bedroom within the next month.  Bathrooms are to be completed at a later date as the travel bug has hit us.

In the meantime, we took a short trip to the panhandle of Florida to visit family and from there zipped up to Atlanta, GA to visit our son.  We had a lot of fun on this short road trip!

Where to next?  We have scanned potential cruises and booked a short cruise to Cuba.  Cuba has always been on our list of travel destinations and a cruise will let us dip our toes in the water to get a taste of the island helping us determine whether or not we want to return for a longer visit.  Next we booked a cruise to Alaska.  Our daughter lives in Seattle and we will be heading up there to visit her and catch a cruise from there.

In the meantime here's some photos from the Florida panhandle and Atlanta road trip!

Beautiful Emerald coast of the Florida Panhandle

Sunset in Fort Walton Beach, FL

If you look closely there was a green flash sunset!

Coming into Atlanta, GA

Buckhead, GA

Peachtree Rd.