November 23,2023 San Juan

Turn around day for our second leg of this cruise fell on Thanksgiving day. I suspect the itinerary dates were set by folks in Europe…because I can’t imagine that an American thought it would be a good thing to start and end a cruise on Thanksgiving. Whatever.

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We walked off the ship around 9:30 am. The local authorities require all passengers, including those of us staying on board for another cruise to disembark. They need the ship to get to a “zero count”. So we were off early…with a mission to buy me a new pair of sneakers…seems I’m wearing a hole in the insole of my current pair.

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Timmy found a nearby Foot Locker on his Google map…so we strolled towards it…and when we arrived…it was closed! Of course it was. Hello? It’s Thanksgiving.

Plaza de Armas

He then found a Marshall’s department store …14 minutes away…we set off again… and well you know what’s coming next. Took us 20 minutes and there were some hills involved. Closed? Yup. Closed. Anyway… the store sits adjacent to a pretty park…Plaza de Armas. I took a few photos and we headed back to the port through empty streets.

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The Custom House
🩵🩵🩵
Pretty little bar …across from the dock. Talk about prime location.
We took this exact same photo in 2018 when we were docked here with Symphony…back then the city was barely recovering from hurricane Maria, which occurred a year earlier. And Serenity was nicely framed behind Amazing Grace. (Today that’s a Silver Sea ship) We sent the photo to our sweet Gracie. Again.
Back at the Bistro we wrote postcards. And I might have had two Portuguese tarts.
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I absolutely love embarkation day, especially if we are holdovers from a previous cruise. It’s so much fun to watch new guests arrive… to see their excitement and joy when they see old friends again. There’s a happy buzz running throughout the ship. And I love it. We ate in the Trident Grill because I was craving a hamburger with blue cheese, lettuce and tomato. And sweet potato fries.

I took this photo.
Then Timmy grabbed my phone and took 5 or 6 more pics…
I really, really love these burgers
Like really l o v e them.
Here we have Sebastian with Tim
I think these mirror pics are getting worse not better…at least Tim has his head in this one.
Sailaway was at 6:00 pm and Serenity had a fun party on the pool deck…

I took 7000 photos…here are a few of my favorites.

That’s DJ Flair spinning some fun Island Music.
Timmy was attempting a selfie, when a kind guest offered to take our photo…that’s why I’m holding two drinks…neither of which were mine. I was holding Tim’s Rum drink when he was struggling with the selfie…then the person who took our pic handed me her drink. True story.
Along came Slavi with some reinforcements. 🩵
I love how my dress compliments the tropical shirts worn by the crew.
Kate the bar manager and Peter the Food and Beverage guru. Both of these folks are highly visible…interacting on a daily basis with the guests.
Folks on deck 13 along the rail enjoying sail away.
Timmy and Adam aka DJ Flair.

We chatted with fellow guests, enjoyed a few tunes and then made our way to Waterside for Thanksgiving dinner.

This is a beet appetizer, if you can believe it…so beautiful and yummy…I hated to eat it.
But I did.
Butternut squash soup with allspice…beyond yummy.
Tim’s consume’
Tim’s been taking an inordinate number of photos of me eating today.
So this is John spooning some cranberry relish.
I opted for a salad with roast turkey.
Timmy with his traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
Extra dark meat.
The Crystal in Motion Variety Show

We passed on dessert and capped off the evening in the Galaxy Lounge. It was a great way to end another super day on Serenity.

I cannot allow Thanksgiving day to pass without counting my blessings. I’m so grateful for Tim, my sons, LoveBugs, siblings, all our extended families and our two cats. I am truly blessed to be able to travel the world with Timmy and then return home for a periodic LoveBug fix. Thanks for following along. 🩵