Shame on the Princesses
Our next item on the program is an ocean cruise to the islands of the Caribbean. A rare opportunity to see many interesting places while traveling in one large comfortable hotel - a ship without unnecessary and tedious transfers with dragging and unpacking suitcases. Before this trip, we, being already experienced "cruisers", believed that this was exactly the case. So it certainly is, but with a comfortable hotel - we were clearly not lucky with the ship. The newest ship of a respected American company called "Ruby Princess" is a vivid example of how it is possible to vulgarize the idea of cruise travel in pursuit of super profits and skimping on quality. The ship was overcrowded with tourists to such an extent that on a sunny day you had to look for empty seats and sun loungers on deck to sunbathe. Somehow we have already lost the habit of the city beaches of Sochi and Alushta of the Soviet era. I had to leave this pleasure and move to sunbathing on my balcony, since we had it. The correctness of such a decision was reinforced by the prudently stockpiled by us arsenals of local exotic rums, tequilas and an ice maker located nearby (Americans always have order with ice). In the ports of call, we replenished our supplies in various ingenious ways, bypassing the barrier cordons (with this, as you know, we have order). Even more surprising was the power system. At first, they tried to get us a restaurant with a buffet system for dinner, a table in the a la carte restaurant had to be won back by the American representative of San Expo who traveled with us. Then, returning from excursions, we faced the same situation - only one of the two buffet restaurants was open. Moreover, the main dish here was not even an American hamburger, but a vegetarian “potato crumb”, which was given to each starving tourist personally by a chef with a spiritual face of a person who had just created a culinary masterpiece from truffles with black caviar. In general, paying in dollars for the rental of tuxedos, mandatory for gala dinners on the ship, my friends and I were expecting something more decent. I will not bore you with a description of a fair amount of other service costs for a liner with the proud prefix lux, which was awarded to it by its Russian representative, the Breeze-line company. I can only say that at the end of the trip, our overseas guide, a man more than loyal to everything American, said that, given the quality of service, we should have come to the captain's evening in shorts instead of tuxedos. Similar conclusions about this ship were made by both Americans and Europeans. It is no coincidence that today cruises on the Ruby Princess are widely offered on the Russian market with big discounts. Why did I decide to tell divers about this as well? Because the same thing often happens with dive safari - the concepts of "new", "large" and the prefix "luxury" do not always determine the class of the vessel. In addition, as a rule, these ships do not have the most important thing - what experienced sailors call the word "Spirit" - the spirit of the ship. Three years ago we sailed from Bali to Komodo on our newest yacht, the Sea Safari IX, extremely pleased with the circumstance. At that time, none of the team of sufficiently experienced divers could have imagined that, thanks to a too young captain and inexperienced crew, we would run aground, and would move most of the way with a damaged propeller and an anchor hanging in the water on a jammed chain. Only the loss of the anchor and the captain's exit to the captain's bridge in underwear is considered a great shame in the fleet. By the way, the experienced captain of the Ruby Princess, understanding everything perfectly, and as if having overheard our conversation, did not even go out to the people for the captain's dinner. And in order for the good memory of the Ruby to live longer in our hearts, the "poor" American company Princess-Carnival (the largest cruise company in the world) decided to borrow a thousand dollars from the rich Europeans and Russians, blocking them on credit card accounts for a whole month . They do not allow such liberties with compatriots! But for a person who finds himself on another continent, this thousand may not be superfluous. . In addition, we had to live a week in Key Largo and two days in Miami with the obligatory shock shopping. "Sleep off" on the poor "Ruby", let's get back to the main thing. The Caribbean cruise itself is of great interest in terms of ecotourism close to diving. This is also a wonderful park with a waterfall in Ocho Rios (Jamaica), where as a free attraction you can climb the ledges, overcoming a rough current, from the ocean to the top of the waterfall. In addition to the remains of the ancient civilizations of the Aztecs and Mayans, the island of Cozumel is famous for its protected turtle beach - a maternity hospital, a place where tens of thousands of olive and leatherback turtles swim at certain times to lay their eggs there. Sea turtles return to lay their eggs at their birthplace, some traveling thousands of miles to do so! That's really "where you were born,... give birth there. " No French and Finnish dads are scary. But still, the most interesting and pleasant place where you definitely want to return, and not only for turtles, is Grand Cayman. To be continued. . .
