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| Newark New Jersey Cruise Port |
Today we boarded the Royal Caribbean Anthem of the Seas. What a beautiful Quantum class ship! We are in a balcony cabin this time, so we get to watch the beautiful sea go by as we travel to England. Many brits on board but not as many as I had expected. We even have a kettle in our room for hot tea. Hopefully we’ll have some crumpets to go with it.
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| Beautiful Lady Liberty with her light shining! |
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| Staten Island Ferry passing in front of the Statue of Liberty reminded me of the 9/11 footage. |
The trip over was by Uber. It wasn’t as shocking as the cab fare from the airport to the hotel. We only paid $40 for this 10-mile trip. We had the friendliest and most cautious young man pick us up. He obeyed every traffic sign and speed limit over. I expected them to be like NY and almost wreck to the destination. Glad we didn’t get that person!
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| Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge |
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| Passing under the bridge |
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| Such an amazing view. |
It is a wet, cold, and dreary day. I hope the entire trip isn’t like this. Surely not! Our check-in was a breeze, and, on the ship shall we go! We love our balcony room. Roomy and updated with usb ports for our electronics.
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| Our Cruise Director. He’s British and funny. |
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| The Royal Caribbean Orchestra is very talented. |
Our stateroom attendant is from Ukraine. We mentioned her home country and she almost broke out in tears. She misses her family but from listening to her, we aren’t sure if they are safe or not. We told her we are praying for her country to be over this war and safe. We believe she was scheduled to return home once we arrived in England, but we speculated from our conversation that she will be staying on with Royal for an extended stay. This is another reason we love this cruise line. They take care of their employees. We have met one other gentleman working in the dining room from Ukraine. Not sure how many are on this ship.
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| A funny comedian. One of many entertainment opportunities lined up. |
We departed late today due to the fog but luckily it wasn’t too dark or too foggy for the captain to drive us up to the Statue of Liberty. We were in awe. They played the National Anthem as we drove through and then the captain turned the ship around so that the other side of the ship’s sailors could marvel at the amazing view. It was an amazing site. Such a blessing to see.
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| This girl could sing! She brought the house down with a couple of Whitneys songs! |
The teardrop memorial is close to the ship, but the weather was too bad for us to explore. Hopefully we’ll get up here again when the weather isn’t so bad, and we can explore more. What we would like is for our friend Audrey and Ralph to give us a tour sometime! (hint, hint).
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| It was great to see kids back up on the stage! |
We didn’t explore much today. We were exhausted from the wedding and travel, so we went straight to the room after a quick lunch. I passed out for about an hour or two. After dinner we attended the opening show. After the cruise director, who’s from England but now lives in South Carolina, gave us the 11-day overview of what to expect, we listened to the Orchestra play some amazing tunes. We also had a beautiful singer that will be singing later in the production show. She sang a couple of Whitney’s songs and looked about 4 feet tall. Wow, what a voice from that tiny body! Then a very funny comedian closed out the night and so did we.The cruise will be amazing with all the entertainment lined up so even if the weather is bad, we will enjoy it.
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| Our view for dinner tonight. Amazing! |
May God bless and keep you safe always!
Chuck & Lea Ann
WorldTravelReynolds 