Mark awoke just after 6am (we had gained another hour to be GMT-5). He caught the sunrise and went out onto the balcony as the ship gently pulled into port.
By 8am the ship was securely docked in a pretty little harbour though we were still having a buffet breakfast as did not want to be caught up in the great rush off the ship. Whilst eating we were informed that there was to be a delay disembarking as we were waiting for immigration clearance from the port authorities. This meant that once we had finished breakfast we decided against joining the masses by the exit gangway and made our way up to the promenade deck to capture these lovely pictures.
Out on the promenade Pam immediately met up with some craft class friends - Mark thinks there is some tingly spidey-sense system in place that pulls them to each other around the ship.
Every 30minutes more announcements came with updates that did not really tell us much other than that there were issues that senior bridge management were trying to resolve with the port authorities but until then no-one could disembark. By 10am (2hours after we should have started disembarking) the gangplanks were pulled back onboard (we were told for security reasons) and by 11am we were told the port stop was aborted and no-one would be going ashore. However, we are to remain in situ until the ship refuelled and then must depart the port.
The next few hours were spent in the main, central, Neptune pool area where we swam, sat in jacuzzis (in Pam’s case nattering), ate poolside food, read and watched downloaded shows and sunbathed and napped. Basically a very lazy afternoon spent in 25c heat whilst the ship sailed away in the afternoon.
The Captain gave a pretty thorough update message at 6pm. Essentially the ship submits paperwork to the port authorities and based on the number of Norovirus cases onboard the Bahamas decided to deny us entry. He apparently argued strongly against this decision informing them of the measures in place to reduce the spread and the reduction in cases but to no avail. We all appreciated the update though wish it had been made much earlier (as that would have stopped 6 hours of gossiping/speculations and helped his staff who were fending off questions). Also would be nice to know the number of cases onboard but you never seem to be told these things.
Tomorrow we are due in Fort Lauderdale, USA. We have been told everyone (except those in isolation) must be off the ship by 11am and will not be allowed back onboard for 6hrs whilst they perform another deep clean - the same one that was performed in Southampton and delayed our initial boarding. Hopefully this will work and hopefully we will get on land for the first time in 10 days though it is Friday 13th so what could possibly go wrong! I would say that most passengers are still positive and upbeat but that is more so from the experienced cruisers. The newer cruisers are generally not the happy ones. The other concern is that it doesn’t feel like a clean ship. We have given it the benefit of the doubt as it is 18 years old and they are understaffed and inexperienced but there seems to be lots of cleaning/wiping/tidying but no sign of hoovering.
We had another nice main dining room dinner with new table companions. Wonder when we will come across repeat companions. After dinner we did the early show of the Run Around Kids again. Pam, and the vast majority, enjoyed them but it is a no from Mark. If they could stick to the music and avoid the cringy comedy it would be fine.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
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