Hello, Star Pride

Today is the big day. I board Star Pride for 14 days of sun and fun.

Boarding doesn’t start until 1 pm so I enjoyed another lovely breakfast at Mimosas cafe in the Hotel Casablanca. They are only open for breakfast/brunch, which is really too bad as they do a great job. In keeping with the Casablanca theme, there are 3 big screen TVs in the lobby two of which are playing the movie. I finally got a screen shot at the right time.

It was beautiful blue sky yesterday but as you can see today is quite overcast. There is still some blue peaking through though and it’s still 27 or so degrees, above zero. Sorry to be rubbing this in on one of the coldest days for most of you. The hotel kept my luggage and I headed out to explore some more around Old San Juan. As you can see from the picture of the map, it’s a relatively small area. It takes no more than 30 minutes to walk between the two Castillos on either end of the north side of the peninsula. I got cooled by a bit of a mist/drizzle as I walked this morning, although within minutes it stopped and was again hot and humid. I’m warning you now that any pictures of me will demonstrate that my hair is going to be uncontrollable for the rest of the cruise.

At the appointed hour I retrieved my luggage from the hotel and walked about 7 minutes to the cruise ship terminal. The boarding process was painless, but had many steps. The pre-requisite health screening reminded me that Nanci and I went on a Windstar cruise to the South Pacific February 2, 2020, just before the pandemic hit. During the boarding process there, the only questions were whether we’d been to, or in contact with, anyone who had been to, Wuhan, China. Little did we know…….

Once on board I was escorted to my cabin and left to settle in. Since my luggage had not arrived, I was free to wander and explore the ship. She is much bigger than the sailing class ship we were on in the South Pacific, but still really small in relative terms. Only 156 cabins for a max of 312 passengers. (Max 311 this cruise :-)) All three of the Star class ships have been “stretched” in recent years having been cut in half and an extra section being placed in the middle of the ship. I sure hope the marine engineers knew what they were doing! The bathrooms have all been redone and they are beautiful. The facilities are top notch as you’ll see from the photos. Not many people lounging about today since probably half are newly arrived and are settling in and exploring.

I grabbed some lunch from the Veranda restaurant on the top deck, and sat outside in the breeze. This is where breakfast and lunch are served daily. In my exploring I got trapped by the spa managers in the spa area checking out the gym. They showed me the facilities and would love for all passengers to purchase a multi-experience package but they have a hard sell with me. The gym is quite well appointed and there is a fitness, yoga, pilates, drill Sargent on duty most times during the day. They have classes which are complimentary, you just have to sign up the evening before. I have booked excursions most mornings so don’t know how I’ll get to classes, but I brought my workout gear just in case the spirit moves me.

We have a “muster drill” at 5:15, a draw for spa services and then have no other planned activities. After a couple of days of travel and hoofing it all over San Juan, I’m ready to just relax a bit. Tomorrow we are at sea so I may not blog. And the wifi is going to be frustrating I can tell already, so bare with me if I don’t get to it every day.

This just in…. Breaking news…… I have a door bell, and this was just delivered as a gift as a returning passenger. It would be rude not to eat them, right?