The Mystery Revealed

Thanks to the horrific damage caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in the Caribbean, our upcoming cruise has been changed from an itinerary of favorite and familiar ports to one that is taking us to four new and never visited ports (for us, at least.) Although it will be nice to see some new places, I'm feeling a bit uneasy with the fact that I have not been able to spend much time researching what we will do.

At first the only change that Holland America announced was that Nassau would replace Grand Turk and we would be there on the first day of the cruise followed by a sea day (reversed from the original schedule.) The ports of San Juan and St. Thomas were still on the schedule in spite of news reports showing total devastation of the islands. Finally last week a second revision was announced with Cap Cana, Dominican Republic and St. Croix replacing San Juan and St. Thomas, respectively.

Originally my plan was:

• Grand Turk --- Bob would scuba dive and I would enjoy a day on the beach, just steps from the dock
• San Juan --- I had found a walking food tour that explored the old city
• St. Thomas --- a day at Sapphire Beach for swimming, sunning and snorkeling
• Half Moon Cay --- another lazy beach day with even lunch provided by Holland America

Cap Cana, DR (near Punta Cana) and St. Croix are less visited ports so I'm having trouble finding many options of what to do on our visits. Nassau on the other hand will be overrun with cruisers. I believe there will be at least four OTHER ships joining the Nieuw Amsterdam on the day that we are there. AND...to make matters worse, we will be there on a Sunday when it sounds like many tourist places will be closed.  For now my preliminary plan for Nassau is to do a self-guided walking tour using directions I found online.

With less than 3 weeks until we cruise, Holland America has not posted any ship sponsored tours for Cap Cana or St. Croix. I will be spending time online looking for reviews from other cruisers to find something to do while in port.

A side note...several weeks ago, I had booked Bob's scuba diving tour in Grand Turk through the Holland America website and our credit card was billed immediately. When the schedule changed we had gotten an email stating that the tour would be cancelled and our VISA card would be credited.

I kept checking the online credit card statement, but just figured the transaction would take some time to show up. (After all...the refund we got from Norwegian after our Hawaii cruise took MONTHS!) Can you imagine my surprise when I logged onto our reservation on the Holland America website and saw the schedule had a booking for scuba diving on a SEA DAY!! I quickly cancelled the reservation but we have been chuckling over the idea of a sea day scuba excursion! Bob is certified for deep diving, but that might be a little extreme!

And as the itinerary for this cruise has been changing, our cabin category has also evolved. Hoping to do this quick get-away as cheaply as possible, we started by booking an inside cabin in late June. I pored over the deck plans on cruisedeckplans.com (which has a feature that lets you drag one level of deck over another to see what lies above and below potential cabin choices) and I chose a Category J cabin on the Main Deck. These cabins are larger than most inside cabins and I was pleased with my choice.

A month later, the price on this cabin had dropped so I called and got a price adjustment. A couple of days after final payment was due in August, the price dropped again and I requested another price adjustment. Holland America was not willing to do that, but did upgrade us from the inside cabin to a guaranteed oceanview cabin. Yay...a window for us...we will have daylight!

Then...a little over a week ago I saw quite a drastic drop in price AGAIN! (With all of the hurricane damage, I'm guessing Caribbean bookings are way down.) The cost of a balcony cabin is now only $10 higher than what we had been paying for an inside cabin so we were able to pay the difference and move up to the lowest level of balcony stateroom. We have no idea where this cabin will be located and there is a good chance our railing will be solid steel rather than clear plexiglass, but hey...we now have daylight AND fresh air AND a balcony!!

Today the countdown clock is showing 20 days until we cruise! Scary because I am confused on what to do in the ports, but exciting because it is so close. It is getting real!!