July 1, 2024
No Cruise for the Miller's
Sadly, Tuesday's delay news meant plan B had to be enacted for my buddies The Miller's ! I was so disappointed having to call them and relay the latest delays; they were supposed to meet me and the ship in Stockholm, Sweden based on our original itinerary for two weeks. We had even come up with an alternate plan, last week, to get them to Belfast to join the ship there, if we were going to sail on July first, as we were hoping. Again, DANG RUTTERS! The Miller's are resilient, they went to visit Lady Liberty and Ellis Island on Friday, in lieu of flying from Newark to Stockholm. Hopefully, we can rendezvous in a future port soon.
Ternate, Indonesia, which is both the name of the city and island, and is part of the Maluku Islands in eastern Indonesia. It is a port that sees maybe 3 Cruise ships a year. However, they really made an effort to show us the best of what they can offer. It's mainly a Muslim country, and we knew we had to dress discretely, but we knew little else. We didn't have our typical port talk prior, due to a technical issue with the AV equipment. Ben a fellow resident, organized an island tour, with about 8 stops, for 90 of us residents.
Cebu greeted our Ship with a big warm welcome, despite having just been rocked by a major Earthquake, days before our arrival. The Minister of Tourism arrived with a motorcade and she proceeded to chat with the residents and thank us, for all our support.
Today we were Cave explorers! We went to the one of UNESCO newly classified 7 NEW WONDERS OF NATURE - The Puerto Princesa Underground River.