Hello from the lovely shore of Granada! And when I say lovely shore, what I mean is lovely Sea Princess. Alan and I attempted to discover Granada this morning and did not last long. As we docked this morning, it was to pastel pink and blue skies over little volcanic islands, just beautiful.
We took our time leaving the ship as we were not joining any official shore excursions, we just wanted to wander and get a feel for Granada. Well, that lasted less than one hour! Now I understand why people pay for shore excursions! I had been warned by a colleague at work at how hard the locals hassle the cruise line guests, but I really did not believe it. Now that we have lived it, let me tell you – it is extremely unpleasant. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was lovely and friendly with huge smiles on their faces. They also informed me how grateful they are to America for the invasion in 1983. Since I did not fully understand what that was all about, it was very interesting to hear the story from people who live on an island that the United States actually invaded!
However, as I had been forewarned, once you leave the air conditioned little shopping mall right at the cruise ship dock, it is fantastically down hill from then on. People come out of nowhere asking if you want a taxi, offering to sell spice – but the worst one was Mr Percival Smith. At first he seemed like a gregarious older gentleman, down on his luck, but easy to talk to and really nice. But we realized he had elected himself as our Guide and we were not going to get rid of him for any reason under the sun. So we ended up back onboard. Honest! Well, at first, we dodged him and then he found us, then others just like him were everywhere we looked. Very unpleasant and, hopefully, not to be repeated on other islands!
We will be going back onshore soon because there is free wireless internet there. The wireless package on board is too expensive for limited minutes and we are told the satellite connection causes the signals to be very slow. So I will not be posting blogs unless I stumble across something similar to the set up on Granada. Ok, I guess Granada is not all bad then! (It does look beautiful, we were just not given sufficient time to take it in.)
Getting here, again, had a few obstacles. On the drive down to Manchester, my car developed a metallic ringing noise. And this is the only car we could use at the moment as we are in the midst of changing our big car. We held our breath, driving through snowy mountains, but made it ok. The hotel was lovely, just a cheap airport hotel – Premium Hotels. But perfectly fine in everyway. And the restaurant was not overpriced for the captive audience.
Would it be a surprise if I went anywhere in the UK and did not know someone? Well, that did not happen. At Manchester Airport waiting for the same flight to go on the same cruise is a woman I know from Ayr. She remembered me just fine, but I could not remember her name, which is Evelyn. I have not seen her since we got off the plane either.
Another obstacle course, remember when we got a deal to compensate for the inconvenience of travelling to Manchester due to Princess CruiseLines mistake of overbooking the Edinburgh flight? We were supposed to have onboard spending money, it is not here. Just something to keep us occupied for a few days getting that straightened out. Life would not be interesting without the little obstacles!
Oh, when we boarded the Sea Princess at Barbados, she was docked along side “The “World”. I seem to remember that this cruise ship was the biggest ever built, once upon a time. It was out at Ayr Harbour a few years ago and seemed enormous. Well, cruise ships get bigger all the time, and our ship is actually bigger than the world!
I had tried to add photos to this blog, but could not do it in the limited time we had, sorry!
I saw a little saying at the mall on Granada and meant to write it down, but I will try to remember it and share it with you:
Dig the garden and plant the seeds. Don’t wait for someone else to bring you flowers.
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