Today the Nieuw Statendam will call at Amber Cove, Dominican Republic. It’s also Valentine’s Day but mine was at home.
Amber Cove Morning
I was up at 5:30 and headed for coffee. After catching up on news, I ordered a latte in the lido buffet area. Big mistake! They serve it in the regular coffee cups there and you pay full price for what is a smaller serving of latte. Now I know.
Went outside and found my brother and we decided to eat in the buffet. I had eggs with sausage gravy over it.
Also had to get a chocolate croissant. The sun was coming up as we finished.
I went to the cabin to get ready for the day and we were coming into port. The Carnival Celebration was already docking.
They announced we were cleared around 8:15 and we went ashore. The weather was beautiful and it is low humidity. There’s a map of the port right on the pier which was better than the one we got on the ship.
We walked to the pool area and had our choice of loungers. I didn’t see the price for umbrellas but I know the padded loungers/umbrellas in the VIP area where $70 for a couple. We found a couple next to the building that houses the restrooms hoping it would have shade all morning (it did!).
After we got settled our waiter for the day came by and took our drink order. Pina Colada for E and Strawberry daiquiri for me. They were $9 each.
I ventured into the pool a couple of times and walked the whole thing. The deepest it got was shoulder height on me. Before we left about 11:15, every chair was taken and people were still pouring in from the ships.
Amber Cove Afternoon
Our room still hadn’t been serviced when we got back. I took a shower onboard and then we went to the Lido deck for lunch. Today’s choice was the Asian station. I got a bowl filled with fried rice, pork vindaloo, stir fry veggies and beef.
Dessert was a ham/cheese croissant, a taste of bread pudding (good) and mud pie.
They were finishing up when we got back to the cabin after lunch and we found this dog waiting for us.
I did save his life before taking a nap but blinded him by removing the chocolate eyes. By mid-afternoon I was up and headed out with my book. The gelato stand called me and I enjoyed a small cup of pistachio.
Later I ordered a ginger ale and the bar at the pool had just run out of the cans so I went to the observation deck and read there while enjoying one.
While there the captain announced they were doing final count of passengers (at 4:30) and then we left about 10-15 minutes early leaving the Celebration behind.
Amber Cove Evening
I went back to the cabin and got changed for dinner about 5 pm. My brother decided that he’d go as he was which was in shorts. Well he was stopped at the main dining room entrance and asked to change into long pants. He decided to eat in the Lido so I did a solo meal.
We had a specially printed menu for today.
Many of the offerings seem to be from the usual culinary council menu.
I started with the crab cake.
It was good and bigger than I expected. The only thing missing was a lemon wedge. My next starter was baby beets.
For entrée I went with the halibut.
The fish was very good but a tad overcooked (a common problem with fish at restaurants). I ordered the heart cake for dessert with decaf coffee.
Although pretty, it was dry so I just had a couple of bites.
Back in the cabin we had tomorrow’s program, Grand Turk port shopping map and a card to move the locks back. How annoying we changed them for just one day.
I watched the movie “Everything, Everywhere All at Once”. It was the strangest movie; I don’t know why it was nominated for so many awards although Michelle Yeoh was terrific.
Then I finished my book before turning lights out around 10 pm. Steps today were 7,777. No that’s not a typo!
Here is today’s program (Click the image for the full PDF).
Here is the Amber Cove port and shopping map (click image for full PDF).
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