Western Atlantic

Celebrity Cruise's Millennium holds right at 2000 passengers and it's full. There's still plenty of room with 6 restaurants, 5 bars, indoor and outdoor pools, walking track, movie theater, show theater, library, computer room, music listening room, card rooms, basketball/volleyball court, golf simulator, casino, massage, acupuncture, florist, and of course a bunch of shops.

Hamburgers, pizza, and a pasta bar are available all day and late into the night at other places around the boat. One restaurant is devoted to healthy food. We might try it out sometime. There are also pastry stations, ice cream, sushi, and fancy sandwich stations are open off and on.

There's another restaurant for the high-rollers that is a $30 per person surcharge. It takes 3 hours to eat there. We'll pass.

We've seen maybe a dozen kids total. Easily half the people are retired so some of the sights around the pool are pretty ghastly. That's an acceptable trade-off for not having screaming brats getting in the way.

There are 2 really poor ping-pong tables located out of the 25-knot constant wind but still breezy enough to make the game silly but not impossible.

The daily activity sheet includes computer classes, 3 trivia games, lectures and demonstrations, dance lessons, so-so floor shows, just-past-prime movies, and of course shuffleboard, bingo, duplicate bridge, and much more. The most popular activity for most people is lazing around the pool by day and the bands in the nightclubs at night.

Our cabin is at the front end of the boat and is larger than most others since the closet and bathroom are offset behind the camera in the picture below (Thanks Katie). Bob is sitting at that tiny desk writing this right now. The queen bed is pretty comfortable but a water bed would have been interesting. We've been rocked to sleep each night with the movement of the boat. It's not annoying at all, but then neither of us have any problems with sea-sickness having had lots of practice at road rally navigation.

One day "at sea" then an afternoon and evening at San Juan, PR (2pm-11pm). We walked around the french-quarterish Old San Juan mile square area which is crowded, dirty, and tourist-ridden as 3 ships were in dock at once. The streets are narrow and hilly with lots of plazas, each with strange statuary.

Besides the El Morro Castle fortress (below) all the museums were either closed or not worth seeing so we mainly walked and watched the tourists. These pictures are really the highlights and there were lots of lowlights.

The ships in the harbor are bigger than even the largest hotels. You can't get lost, just walk downhill and you'll see your boat.

After the sun went down, Bob headed for where real people live. Actually he was looking for a brewpub in the town of Carolina. Didn't find it but did find a nifty local cemetery to photograph. He likes the small Canon A95 camera a lot and will recommend it to anyone.

St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands is certainly picturesque. Too bad the 90º humid temperature wasn't to our liking. Activities included snorkeling, parasailing, scuba diving, etc. which we declined at about $100 per person. Most people either spent $12 for a taxi into town and back or just strolled the cheesy shopping "mall" at the dock. Watches, jewelry, cameras, and liquor at not a big discount.

Puerto Rico has a brewery producing Medalla and Medalla Light. Not bad but just another light American lager.

The Borinquen Grill and Brewing brewpub closed about a month ago. It was interesting to look for at least.

The U.S. Virgin Islands claims a "local" Virgin Islands Brewing Co. that distributes Blackbeard Ale (a passable Amber) and Foxy Lager, both made in Minnesota.

There was also an non-alcoholic and a ginger beer branded Vita Malt.

Details about the Millennium: 91,000 tons. 1,950 passengers. 999 crew. 964ft long. 105ft wide. 11 decks. Cruises at 24 knots. Built in France in 2000. Draught is 26ft.

The propulsion is by two 17ft diameter screws powered by electricity. Instead of diesel engines, there are two 33,000hp GE turbines making a total of 50 megawatts. There is much less vibration than from diesel engines. Spare heat from the turbines runs a 12,000hp steam turbine (9 megawatts) and a distilling plant for fresh water, which is quite good. They certainly don't sell much Evian bottled water at $2.25. No explanation, though, why the hot and cold in our bathroom faucet weirdly keeps changing back and forth.

In case of a problem, there is a spare turbine engine in a crate that can replace a broken one in 8 hours installation. The Millennium was the first turbine-powered cruise ship and now has 3 sister ships in operation.

There's a TV in our room with the obligatory failing batteries in the remote. 8 channels of ship's notices, ads for shore excursions, and a map of our location. 2 channels have last year's situation comedies and CSI on tape, a channel of George and Gracie era TV, a channel of last year's movies that seem to run at random times, CNN sometimes, and 5 channels of music. Plus, of course, pay-per-view movies.

Ernest Bourgnine is on board (misspelled in the ship's newspaper). He gave three afternoon talks about his life and they have been running on one of the TV channels ever since. He's going to Milan to do a movie, Guerilla, being done in Italian.

There's a golf simulator, not state of the art, available for $30 per hour - $20 per person if more than one. An onboard golf pro gives lessons for $90/hour. There are scheduled golf outings at each port costing between $170 and $185 per person ($40 extra to rent clubs). They couldn't get 8 people for either Mahogany Run on St. Thomas or the Hyatt Dorado Beach on San Juan, which hosts a PGA Senior "Champions" tour event.

Beers are $3.50 to $4.75 for Bud, Coors, Miller Lite, Corona, Heineken, Red Stripe, and Guinness bottles. There's one bottle of Lagavulin at the fantail bar on deck 10 at $9.25 a shot. Most drinks are $5.50 up to $18 for Royal Salute and high-end brandies.

Topless sunbathing is on deck 13. Bob hasn't been up there, but then neither has Terry.

The sea at night.
Actually there is too much light everywhere topside to see many stars at night.

The first day, before leaving the dock, there was a lifeboat drill for all 3000 people. Everyone is issued an orange life vest with three attention-getting aids: reflective strips, a water-activated light, and a little plastic whistle. The whistle seems pretty useless; if a helicopter or motorboat is looking for you, they won't hear the whistle over the noise of the engines. Maybe it would be useful if a group of us bobbing around in the sea decide to play water polo and need a referee.

We had some excitement Thursday morning about 3am. At least we saw some excitement. We were awakened by a Coast Guard helicopter at the bow of the boat, outside our window. It hovered and lowered a basket to the deck. The crew unhooked the basket and a man got in followed by a suitcase. Then the helicopter came back down to about 40ft and winched him up.

During the 6 days at sea from St. Thomas to Lisbon (course 67º and passing over 20ºN x 60ºW - a minor confluence) we will advance the clocks 1 hour on each of 5 nights. This snail-lag hit after the second day (Friday) when Terry stayed up until 1:30am and Bob slept until 10am.

The internet newsgroups said Celebrity Cruises don't have the best entertainment in the business. Sunday night's entertainment was a Xylophone player.

Monday the sea was officially "rough" with 10ft waves. The swimming pools are sloshing over the deck and people are still swimming. It's far more uncomfortable when the ship rocks from side to side than it is when it rocks from fore to aft. Bob even got a (free!) dramamine pill from sick bay.

Tuesday: We've passed through a cold front and some small rain showers. It's about 70º and sunny again. Tommorow, Lisbon.