BACK TO NEW YORK

Tuesday, 25 September. Thanks to having gained an hour, we were up at 7:00. It was a beautiful sunny day, later getting into the mis-60s. This was our final day at sea and, in fact, our last full day on board. After breakfast in the Horizon Court, we browsed some of the ship's final sales. I went to the gym at 10:30 for my usual 90 minute workout. While I was on the treadmill looking out the ship's forward windows, I saw a large whale suddenly pop to the surface ahead of us toward the starboard side. He came about two-thirds of the way out of the water. He came down and, with a flip of his tail, he was gone. Someone shouted that it was a sperm whale, but all I know is that it was big and black. We were lucky to see any whale in these waters at this time of the year. They are usually gone by late September.

We picked up tuna sandwiches on deck and had lunch in our room. We spent most of the afternoon packing for our arrival in New York in the morning. That evening at dinner we had the traditional baked Alaska parade and bid farewell to our table mates and waiters. Afterwards we went to the show in the Princess Theater, featuring a comic magician. We put our suitcases out in the hall at 10:00.

Wednesday, 26 September. The ship docked at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal (opened in 2006) at 6:15. That was before we got up so we didn't see it sail under the Verrazano Bridge or past the Statue of Liberty. But Liberty Island was still in sight, so we did get to see Lady Liberty, as well as the Bridge and the still-unfinished new World Trade Center buildings.


The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal is located very close to the site of the old Brooklyn Army Terminal from which we sailed to Italy in 1959 on our first trip to Europe. It certainly brought back memories of those more trying times. I was a young Army lieutenant on my way to my first overseas assignment. Jane and I had four small boys, the oldest only 4 1/2 years old. The ship we were boarding wasn't an ocean liner, but an ancient navy troop transport.

We were not debarking until 9:40, so we had time for a leisurely breakfast in the DaVimci dining room. Then we went ashore, claimed our baggage, and caught a taxi to JFK for our 2;27 United flight to Washington Dulles. We were at JFK by 11:00, so we were glad we had one-time passes to the United lounge. It was very nice, and the snacks and cappuccino made a fine lunch. They also had wi-fi so I was able to use my Eee-pad to retrieve the 250 waiting e-mails (of which I deleted 90%). We even had time for a little reading.

Our flight left JFK a few minutes early, and we got to Dulles at 2:50. We were surprised to find the temperature in the 80s, a bit warm after our time in the north. Our connecting flight to the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport took off at 5:00. The air was very rough all the way. We landed at 5:40 and drove home. On the way, we stopped at Hank's Smokehouse, just a couple miles from home, for dinner. We finally got home about 7:30. Fortunately, we had no jet lag to contend with.

Observations. We really enjoyed this cruise. This was our third trans-Atlantic repositioning cruise. The route on this one probably was more interesting than on the previous ones inasmuch as all of the ports of call were at places we'd never visited before. It was somewhat more adventuresome than the others, too. But our concerns about foul weather in the North Atlantic proved unnecessary. The weather was much better than we feared. We packed a lot of foul weather gear that we never used. We also were worried about seasickness due to rough seas, especially when we were assigned a cabin on the highest passenger deck. Those fears also proved groundless. The stabilizers on modern cruise ships are very effective.

As for the ports of call, they were all very interesting. As usual for sea cruises, the time in each port was limited, and you usually can choose only one of many things you'd like to do. On the excursions, there was very little free time and almost no personal contact with the locals. Apparently that's the tradeoff for traveling in luxury to visit a variety of places in a relatively short time. This 16-day cruise had a better balance of sightseeing and leisure than our other trans-Atlantic cruises did. We had seven days in ports and eight days at sea. (The other day is lost to embarkation and debarkation.) It was especially nice that we never had more than three consecutive days at sea.

This was our first cruise with Princess. There were noticeable differences from Holland American (e.g., smaller bathrooms; fewer selections for breakfast in the room; lack of by-the-glass beverage packages). In some respects it wasn't quite as nice, but it was nevertheless quite satisfactory. With more than 3,000 passengers, the Emerald Princess was much larger than the Holland American ships, but the passengers were handled very efficiently. Neither cruise line is perfect, and we doubt any are. In any event, we tend to select our cruises by the ship's itinerary rather than by the cruise line.