Cruise to the Southern Caribbean Jan, 2008
Day 3 (01/06/2008)
This morning, we docked in St. Thomas, part of the Virgin Islands.  This was the only day we experienced rain - all other days it was bright and sunny.  It rained on and off all day.
View of the island, from our window at breakfast.
 You can see the people's houses in the hills.

After breakfast, we went ashore.  There were TONS of jewelry places there, and as we soon saw, this is common theme for most all the islands we visited.  Some real good deals on diamonds and gold can be had here!  Mom ended up getting a good deal on a ring, after visiting several places.  In these islands, the tourist business is their main economy.
Mom, checking out the wares
 It started raining VERY HARD!



Me, buying some things for the folks back home!
 Back on ship, later on, other sailboats in the harbor

We got TOTALLY SOAKED walking back to the ship, due to the heavy rain, and due to the long line of people going aboard.  They run you through a metal detector, and whatever you have with you through an xray machine just like the airport.  This happens every time you return to the ship.

That night, I asked the Maitre d' if we could switch to the scheduled, fixed-seating dining.  This way, we could be with the same people every night, and make some friends.  He accomodated us, and we sat at table 21 with five other people who had also asked to be switched.  Here they are:

Bruce and Anne
 Betsy, friend of Bruce and Anne
 Ron and Doris

We went to a few shows and events with them.  After dinner, we went to see Heather Sullivan, who is quite the talented singer and pianist.  She performed almost every night from 9:00PM to 11:00PM at one of the lounges, taking requests from the audience.  Mom loved her, and Heather took a liking to my mom.  On the night we celebrated mom's birthday, Heather sung "Happy Birthday" to her!
Heather, singing her heart out
 Her and mom

There was definitely lots of high-tech equipment on the ship.  In the central "Piazza", I noticed what appears to be a touch screen on one of the walls to select audio sources for that area.  I would assume this is a MediaMatrix system.  I did take a tour through the Princess Theatre, and know they are using a MediaMatrix system for that section.

The Princess Theatre is one of the places they had shows.  There were TONS of moving lights that were very well used.  Here are a few shots:
The touch screen, for selecting presets and levels
 Only a portion of the many moving lights!

That evening, we saw a show called Motor City.  Singing and dancing were great, but the music was mixed quite louder than it needed to be.
The show
 Neat lighting and backdrop!

I went to an evening magic show, which was pretty funny.  Here are a couple shots from that.  The comedian/magician guy (black dude) was good about involving the audience with his skits, as you can see.
Forgot what she was doing!
 "Muscle men!"


Go to Day 4