January 21, 2020
It seems like we said that a lot as we walked around St. Maarten today. Pushy sales people trying to get you to take samples of lotions or perfumes, and a simple, “No thank you,” was insufficient. One of them pointed to a picture of Selene Dion and told Mom she’d look like that if she used their lotion. “So, you think I’m ugly now,” froze him and left him with mouth hanging open. Score one for Bonnie!
Larry and Maritza, the folks we ate dinner with last night were wandering the same streets as us and when we bumped into each other, Maritza showed me pictures she had taken of a church that we never had seen before, even though we’ve been here close to a half dozen times. And would you believe, it was a Methodist Church? There are some pictures below of their beautiful building. The sign out front said they were part of the Leeward Islands Circuit. The pastor will obviously not use a horse to get to his various charges, but a speed boat perhaps?
Back on board for a light lunch – BLT for me, hot dog with sauerkraut for Mom – and then off to the room for a quick nap and a run through of the astronomy talk before show time. Interestingly the Carnival phone app had me in two places at once – the Limelight Lounge and the Blush restaurant. The cruise director was supposed to make an announcement that the Limelight was the place, but if she did we didn’t hear it. Nevertheless, there was a good crowd in attendance and we had good time.
Well, imagine my surprise when we came back into the room after tonight’s variety show, picked up tomorrow’s Fun Times and lo and behold, there I am on the front page, doing the astronomy talk for the third time. I called the entertainment director, he said an unkind word, and said he would have an announcement made tomorrow. And unless I get word otherwise, there will not be a three-peat.
Tortola, British Virgin Islands tomorrow, then two sea days and home. But for now, I will turn the keyboard over to my cruise buddy.
TTFN
To Monroe’s comment that they would make an announcement I said HA!! Fat chance of that.
Well, my right arm got sunburned today and I didn’t go to the beach. I did not realize that the sun was that hot but walking in it for two hours must have been. We visited the small, and I do mean small, museum off of Front Street that we have visited almost every time we come here. Not much changes in it but it is nice to see it again. We usually make a small donation for its upkeep and they often have small items from local artist for sale and I made a small purchase. Goodies for some of you. We visited several of the shops and I bought a couple of other things. Last but not least a can of coke zero. For lunch. The ferry dropped us off at the upper dock today. Never been this far up the beach. We started walking along the beach area and everything looked different from our last visit. Finally we cut back through to the front street and kept walking. Finally we passed the Yoda museum and came to the end of the street and found the local museum. Then after shopping we headed back up to the point where we had been dropped off to catch the ferry back. That was when we ran into the friends and learned of the church. We finally found it and figured out the reason we hadn’t noticed it before was because the dock we usually were dropped off at was below it and we almost always went to the right on Front Street. This time we had to walk back the other way on Front Street and found the church. Very nice. It was first built in 1851 and had been rebuilt it 1974. I am sure it probably had been destroyed by a hurricane. David took a picture of its Cradle roll and last year they baptized 34 babies. WOW! That is a growing church.
I told David I thought there were way more Jewelry stores this time but he says probably not. I really don’t like lotions and perfumes. And it is very frustrating when you say no thank you to the offered free samples as you walk by store after store
as you walk down the street. I am kind and don’t just ignore them, I say no thank you. But they keep at you and say “ but its free etc”. But if you take it they want you to come inside and they pursue you. Every jewelry store has some one outside offering something free if you come inside and I don’t want that either. Other than that we had a nice walk getting over 10,000 steps before we got back on board.
Really this ship has the poorest organization of its offerings. There have been errors after errors about his talks. They didn’t bring the pins for yesterday’s talk and wouldn’t have brought them today if I hadn’t called about 15 minutes before his talk was finished to tell them there was no one there with the pins. This has never been a problem on any other Carnival ship.
We are going to a new port for us tomorrow and I wanted to try and find something about it. I went to the excursion desk to ask and they told me that they don’t know anything about it. Really! And up on the video screen they were showing all the excursions for San Juan, which is where we were supposed to have been tomorrow, but the schedule was changed. This port is an island that is only 3 square miles big.
We also took on fuel again today. This is the third time we have taken on fuel on this cruise. I don’t ever remember taking on fuel that many times in a cruise. There were three ships in dock today. When we arrived at 8 the Carnival Fascination was already docked. As we came back to the ship from our walk the newest Holland American ship was docking. The Fascination sailed about 3 or so and we sailed at 6.
Supper was good. Kansas City beef soup and chicken fried steak for us both. The waiter Fuad was funny when I ordered it, he said “It is a beef meal not chicken”. I assured him that I knew that. Our table has a group of really good waiters.
Well, I had better go now. Hope you kids all had a good day at school. I love you all. See you soon.
Love Mom, Granny and Bonnie
P.S. Karen, got your email glad everybody is doing fine.
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| St. Maarten Methodist Church |
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| Note the balcony on all sides |
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| The pulpit, chancel rail, and altar |
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