After 1 night in Miami in very average accommodation travel agent Ruthie has excelled again and without realising booked us for a 7 night cruise of the Eastern Caribbean on the worlds largest cruise ship, Symphony of the Seas. It was the length of 3 soccers fields and carried 6800 guests and 2245 crew. And low and behold, its Captain is our all time favourite from Rhapsody of the Seas, Captain Rob. No surprise he’s got the gig on the biggest cruise ship in the world. It was still spring break in America so the demographics of the guests was family orientated and not a Zimmer frame in sight. It also happens to be this ships 1st birthday. WOW is all I can say. On our first day we were overwhelmed with all the available activities and there seemed to be people and queues everywhere! After all this was like a floating city. Reservations need to be made ahead for the shows and even on our first day we couldn’t get our first choice of times but managed to tick off “Hairspray” on our first night. It was as good, if not better than any Broadway production. It was a step above anything we’ve seen on a cruise ship. The next day Ruthie wanted to do the zip line! I was chief photographer and then thought why not. Yes, that’s right, without any prompting from Ruthie (maybe it was the Bloody Mary that gave me the courage) I lined up and did it! 16 stories high floating on the ocean I zip lined. Not too bad for this man not keen on heights! The show for the next night was called 1977, an extravaganza on ice. It opened with 28 drones performing a light show using a specially designed IPS (Internal Positioning Satellite). Paige’s boyfriend Josh would find this interesting. The ice skaters were amazing. All the skaters had been world champions at some stage of their careers. The choreography involving a lot of throws and spins with heads so close to the ice was breathtaking. Royal Caribbean are now the biggest producer of ice skating shows in the world and they’ve come a long way since 2012 where we saw the ice show on Voyager of the Seas.

Another lazy day at sea and we spent quite a bit of time in Central Park. Yes you heard right, the ship has a replica of Central Park. It was lovely and cool amongst all the plants surrounded by bars and eateries. Even the odd person napping and looking homeless added to the authentic feel.

Our first port of call was Phillipsburg, St. Maarten in the Dutch West Indies. Back in the 17th century Dutch settlers started harvesting salt here. This 37 square mile island is the smallest landmass governed by two nations. The Dutch half is 16 square miles and the French half is 21 square miles. This island felt the full force of category 6 hurricane Irma in 2017 but they seemed very positive people and a lot of rebuilding has occurred. Our driver Pearl, told us they are the only country to survive without any casualties, a storm of this category and although rebuilding has happened there are still signs of the damage around town. Their economy fully relies on tourism to survive but there is no property tax payable so you find the average worker can afford a McMansion. The Russian business tycoon, Roman Abramovich, owner of the Chelsea football club flies in on his private jet and has a New Year’s Eve party on his property on this island every year. He charges 15000 Euros a head! Our driver told us of one family of 10 plus 2 babysitters that attended. Do the maths (the babysitters only cost 10000 per head). Imagine how many Coronas and canapés I would need to have to get my value for money! The marina is full of impressive yachts. The Victoria Secret business keeps their yacht, Limitless, here. The mega yacht, Venus, of the late Steve Jobs is still kept here by his wife.

Ruthie had her sights set on only one place, Maho Beach. This is the beach where the airport is just across the road and arriving planes fly very low over the crowd at the beach. This has been on Ruthie’s bucket list but I wasn’t so sure. A woman died 2 years ago when a departing jet engine backdraft blew her back and she hit her head on the road. For us however it was an exhilarating experience. I can’t explain what the feeling is like to be in the water and feel the blast of heat and wind from the rear of a departing jet. It was also quite an adrenaline rush being in the water with a large passenger airliner flying over your head coming in to land, everyone with cameras out waving at the passengers (or squealing like Ruthie) and feeling that you could nearly touch that plane was amazing. The other thing that struck me was that even with all those people on the beach, it was beautifully clean and the Caribbean waters were a brilliant turquoise and blue. Unfortunately, our photos don’t do the whole experience justice. Do you know how hard it is to get a selfie with a jet plane behind your head? We had so much fun with an American family from Atlanta and their children trying to get the perfect photo. As normal the kids got it before all the adults but we had so much fun trying. We left that beach on a high and returned to the ship, sipping a couple of Budweisers while watching a stunning sunset at sail away.

St Thomas in the Virgin Islands was our next stop. This island too had been hit by hurricane Irma. The actual population has decreased because so many people lost everything and have moved away. But when you have a floating cruise ship population of 17000 hitting the island on 1 day, the economy is certainly stimulated. We caught a bus to Mangens Bay beach which took us to the other side of the island from the Caribbean sea to the Atlantic Ocean. This beach was once rated as one of the top 10 beaches in the world. The bay is heart shaped and I think all the tourists had the same idea. We had a cooling swim in the Caribbean waters but it was busy. To me it doesn’t beat our beautiful Cape but the water was just a little warmer. The beach has been visited by celebrities such as Denzel Washington, presidents including Ronald Reagan, politicians, Joe Biden etc.

It may be touted as the cheapest place to buy diamonds but we found Pirates of the Caribbean here! In St. Maartin they charged me $3 for my Corona, in St. Thomas they charged me $8. They were the true Pirates of the Caribbean!

That night the show was called Hiro, set on the aqua deck which comprises 2 small diving pools which must be pretty deep as there was high diving as part of the show. I didn’t quite get the storyline but it was again breathtaking with tightrope walking, aerial artists, high diving, bungee jumping and many special effects.

A lazy day at sea and we keep trying to win a drink bottle at Trivia but without any luck although we are getting better. The show for the night was Flight. It started with futuristic space travel and went back through time to the Wright Brothers flying their first aeroplane. Again first class. The entertainment on this ship has been phenomenal.

Our last port of call is Nassau in the Bahamas. There were 5 ships in dock bringing about 20000 tourists on shore to boost the economy. We caught a taxi which took us over the Sydney Pointier bridge in to Paradise Island which is home to Atlantis Resort. The beach was tropical white sand and beautiful blue warm water. I really enjoyed the swim here although Ruthie found the drag and the rough surf shore break a bit much and almost needed rescuing.

It was really hard to take sailing and visiting the Caribbean for a week. NOT!!! Captain Rob passed these little snippets of information to us: the ship uses 1 gallon of fuel per 55 feet but while this may sound uneconomical, it equates to 80 miles per person per gallon. After all we are sailing the biggest Winnebago on the ocean.