DAY 13 DAY 9 SILVERSEA SPIRIT - DISEMBARKATION DAY

Having dinner in our room was a great way to enjoy our final meal.  We’ve done this the last couple of times when we have sailed on Crystal Cruises as well.  It just makes it easier to enjoy a relaxing evening, to spend time talking with the butler and to then place our final items in our luggage.  We can’t say enough how wonderful butler Probhashish has been.  He will be going on a well deserved holiday at the same time we leave Spirit.  After working several contract on Spirit he will be moving over to the Silver Shadow.

We enjoyed the actual dinner.  We saved the Champagne that was part of the amentity that we received from our credit card company along with some on board credit and enjoyed salad, pizza, champagne, some beer (Keith), and some fruit as our dessert.

As our butler came to the room to pick up the dishes he asked us if we want him to prepare a bath for us.  Well, we will need to keep this a secret as to whether or not we said yes or no.  Either way, that was very thoughtful of him.

We slept very well last night as we sailed to our final stop in Fort Lauderdale.  As we always say, the gentle rocking of the ship makes it easy to fall asleep and the wine and champagne is good too.  LOL.

As we write this we are getting ready to have breakfast in our room and we will leave Spirit in a couple of hours.  We will update this blog with a review sometime in the next week.  

We hope you have enjoyed our blog.

Keith & Anne Marie

DAY 12 DAY 8 SILVERSEA SPIRIT - AT SEA

Before dinner we had a pre-dinner drink at The Bar.   We were taken good care of one of the members of the staff who works there, Jose, who we have come to adore.  As usual, he knew the wine we prefer and that Anne Marie also likes to have a glass of sparkling water in addition to wine.  We’d love to take him home with us.  We feel the same way about the butler; Probha.

While we were at The Bar, the Captain spoke from the bridge as we were leaving Cozumel at 6:00 PM.  He noted that we would have strong winds from the time we left Cozumel until the time we arrived to Florida.  This is all part of the experience of cruising.  At dinner one couple was a bit sea sick and didn't order or eat much.

This was the second time we dined at La Terrazza and like our first visit of this cruise we thoroughly enjoyed dinner.  For us, this is another reminder to not rush to judgement the first time we exprerience something for the very first time.  When we sailed Silver Shadow in 2009, we dined at their La Terrazza one-time for dinner and we didn’t like it.  It just didn’t work for us.  However, we have had other examples of this.  When Keith used the elliptical machine for the very first time many years ago he didn’t like it but instead of giving up he persevered for a couple of weeks and got used to it and loves it to this day.  Even on Crystal Cruises in the early years we would sail once a year and while Keith loved the Asian Restaurants on each of its three ships (our first Crystal Cruise was on the Harmony which no longer is in the Crystal Fleet) there was something about the Prego Italian Restaurant that didn’t work for Keith.  We would go there once per cruise and Keith thinks what didn’t work for him was some of the items since they are quite rich with ingredients.  Fast forward to the 2007 World Cruise and for the first two months we didn’t even dine there until we went with another couple and the wife is careful about many foods as Keith is and gave us good recommendations that worked for Keith and in-time he modified the approach and since that time we consider Prego to be on of our favorite restaurants at land or at sea.  In other words, sometimes in life it’s a good idea to give something another try and sometime it takes a few times. 

Back to dinner at La Terrazzo.

The food was fantastic.  We both had four courses and the first three were the same including a small tasting of a pasta dish for our appetizer, a salad, and a swordfish entree and then for dessert Anne Marie had a cream puff and gave Keith half of it and Keith had a fruit plate.

Last evening’s entertainment included a solo show performed by Cruise Director Moss which featured a rendition of songs down memory lane including The Beatles, Chuck Berry, The Monkees, Bill Joel and Dire Straits. 

The seas were not as rough as we had expected given the talk given by the Captain when we left port.  With that said, always best to error on the part of caution and some people do get sea sick easily.  Last night while at dinner, we noticed that a couple near us had stopped eating their first course and then a short while later they left.  The wife looked like she was a bit sea sick. 

We slept very well and began our day as we have each day on the Spirit.  We enjoyed breakfast in our room to start the day.  We continued to do packing and by the time we left the room so that the suite attendant could clean the room, we packed most items for tomorrow’s disembarkation. Speaking of disembarkation, last evening we received information related to disembarkation.  We are to pick up our passports tomorrow morning and we received the confirmation for the private vehicle that Silversea has arranged for us along with some additional information about disembarkation.  We also received two surveys to fill out and completed those and turned them into the reception desk.

We both worked out again at the Fitness Center and then enjoyed the ship for the rest of the morning. 

We enjoyed our final lunch of the Cruise at La Terrazza where we each enjoyed a salad entrée. 

There were a number of activities on the schedule including fitness classes and seminars, team trivia, blackjack tournament, galley tour, golf putting, wine tasting, an enrichment lecture.  A talk was also given about the new Silversea ship, which is being constructed in Italy called the Silver Muse.

While some people sat outside for the vast majority of the people the outside weather was not very conducive with fairly strong winds so some additional items were added to the schedule including a movie.

This evening we will have dinner in our room for the first time of this cruise.  

Keith & Anne Marie

DAY 11 DAY 7 SILVERSEA SPIRIT - COZUMEL, MEXICO

Before dinner we had a pre-dinner drink at The Bar.  For those of you who have not sailed Spirit this lounge is located on deck 5 near the reception desk.  It is a beautiful lounge with a vibrant bar and one of the most beautiful lounges we have enjoyed at sea or on land.  There are lots of places to sit and we sit at one of several locations that have a table and two chairs.  If you want to sit with others there are plenty of areas to sit in the lounge as well.  Jose took good care of us, remembering not only our names but also our drink preferences.

We then made our way to dinner at The Restaurant.   We sat at the same table that we sat at when we had dinner the other night.  The restaurant was not very busy and we enjoyed a very quiet meal.

Spirit remained in port until 10:00 PM and all passengers needed to be back on board by 9:30 PM.  I understand from someone that the area near the ship was actually constructed by Carnival.  I know they built the area adjacent to the terminal area of Grand Turk.

There were several places around the ship to listen to music after dinner, but we just called it a night and enjoyed the comfort of our room.

After Spirit departed at 10:00 PM, we headed to our next port of call in Cozumel, Mexico.

The seas were calm and we slept very well and started our morning the way we have started each morning since we boarded.  Keith was up first and worked out at the Fitness Center and a short while later we had breakfast in our room thanks to Butler Probha.

We then got ready to visit Cozumel.  We have visited Cozumel numerous times. Our first visit was in the mid-1990’s on board the Century which was one of several ships we sailed back then with Celebrity Cruises and our most recent visit was a couple of years ago on-board Crystal Serenity.  In between, we visited this port on several times and on various cruise ships and cruise lines. 

We arrived to Cozumel at 8:00 AM.  Two ships (Celebrity and Royal Caribbean) were already in port, at another pier, at the time of our arrival and two other ships (NCL and Carnival) were arriving to port shortly after we arrived. 

It was overcast and it had rained prior to our arrival.

On our second visit to Cozumel, we cruised with friends Larry and Anne and their son Chad along with our children Jennifer and Eric. They actually assigned the ships Priest to our table and he would give us tips as to what to do in each port.  He was not your typical priest in terms of his background including that he said he had been a runner for the Mafia.  For Cozumel he said we should go to Senor Frogs so we all did so it brought back memories when we passed by it today.  We were 17 years younger than we are today and we can remember Keith, Anne and Larry on line dance and getting tastes of mixed drinks during the dance.  Anne Marie was the wiser one and sat with the kids and enjoyed a soft drink. 

We do want to mention that we have never been to Hooters; only seen them from the outside such as today.

Many of the stores are different than back in 1998 and do reflect that Cozumel has a lot of tourism including many cruise ships that visit and there are many more upscale shops.

As we walked we realized that we were fortunate that we missed the heavy rains, as there were lots of large puddles of water.  We enjoyed a two-hour walk and with the cloud cover it was very comfortable walking around. 

There was a military exercise which began when we first arrived and continued even after we returned to the ship.

This was our last port of call and in addition to not taking any tours, other than Key West where we purchased a water proof bag to protect Keith’s DSLR camera as it was raining, we didn’t make on purchase.   Although we are not big shoppers when we travel, this still might have been a first.  We did look for the grand kids but, we didn’t see anything that would work for them.

We enjoyed the rest of the day on board the Spirit. We worked out a couple of times at the Fitness Center and we read, wrote and watched another movie.  We also had lunch at La Terrazza and will be dining there this evening.

It also poured in the afternoon for quite awhile so we were fortunate to get out in the morning and not to encounter any rain.

Keith & Anne Marie

DAY 10 DAY 6 SILVERSEA SPIRIT - COSTA MAYA, MEXICO

Before dinner last evening we had a pre-dinner drink at The Bar.  Once again, Jose took wonderful care of us.

Afterwards, we dined at the specialty restaurant called La Champagne.  In total, they accommodate only 24 people and people will arrive at various times from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM.  We would have to say this is one of the finest restaurants that we have dined at at sea or on land.  There is a cost of $40.00 per person.  The meal was six courses and we took photos of everything other than one course.

Head Waiter Tayfun who was not only very knowledgeable but had a wonderful sense of humor.

Keith had the Venison.

Anne Marie had the Lobster.

Last evening’s entertainment included a 10:00 PM show which was titled Musica Maestro which included song, dance and music. 

The only bad news is that we had to set the clocks forward one hour but the good news is no more setting of clocks for the remainder of this cruise.

We both slept very well.  We find that the gentle rocking of the ship makes it easy to fall asleep and the wine helps too.

Keith was up first and enjoyed another nice workout at the Fitness Center.

We had breakfast in our room.

We then got ready to visit Costa Maya, Mexico.

As we  had mentioned this is one of the few cruises ever where we did not book any excursions because the itinerary was not why we chose this sailing.  Rather, the schedule fit in a short window we had to get-away and the cruise itself was an opportunity between the cruise and a pre-cruise stay to get away for close to two weeks and also provided the opportunity to sail a cruise ship that we never sailed.  We are both not beach people.  Anne Marie used to enjoy the beach but the heat gets to her and I get bored at beaches although I do like to walk them but with this port being focused on beach activities none of the excursions offered by Silversea appealed to us and we really were not interested in a private excursion.  So, we will just see what is available near the pier.  If nothing is, it will be another sea day. 

Once back on board the ship we both went to the Fitness Center to workout.  

Each day we have lunch at La Terrazzo where we make a salad entree.  We pretty much focus on the area with the salad items and vegetables and then add some type of other item such fish, or chicken to the salad.  We took photos of most of the areas.  Many of the items will be the same or similar from day to day such as salad items.  However, each day will feature different types of lettuce and one day you might see fresh mushrooms as lunch did today and another day artichokes.  Each day includes Sushi but somedays include sashimi.  Hot items do seem to change.  If we could make one suggestion it would be to have less cold cut types of meats and more on freshly prepared meats instead.

You can also order at with the water at your table made to order pizza and there are several choices available.

As lovers of Salad for lunch, these types of buffets work very well for us.

After lunch, we enjoyed the rest of the day on-board Spirit.  Keith went for another workout sat outside, and then read, wrote and watched a movie and Anne Marie did some packing and then sat out by the pool.  

We enjoyed terrific weather with highs in the low 80's and a full sun and it made it easy to forget that it is winter time in the Northern Hemisphere.

Life is good.
Keith & Anne Marie