Sat Feb 8, 2025
Hi All! The Wandering Italian and his co-pilot Kathy are going on another adventure. This time it’s a short one by our standards. We’re doing a 7 night cruise to the Caribbean on the Holland America Nieuw Statendam ship.
We booked this several months ago with the thought that we’d get away from the cold but then it was 75 here the other day so go figure! But it will still be fun. And we’re going to two new ports we’ve never been to which are Turks & Caicos as well as Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic. We’re also stopping at a place we both love which is Key West and we also have a day at their private island, Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, so we’re excited.
We flew standby to Miami with a connection via Tampa (all the direct flights were oversold). So we had no problem with the flights but when we got to Miami, our bags were delayed and they said they’d be on the next flight. So we waited for them and they finally arrived. Whew… crisis averted!
Kathy’s sister and brother in law picked us up and we spent the night at their place and they also took us to the port in Fort Lauderdale today. The traffic getting into the port was crazy with 8 ships in port! Her sister and BIL are so patient and are the best!We got to the port about Noon and were on board by 12:15! One of the quickest embarkations ever! But it does help that Kathy is a 4 Star Mariner (2nd from the highest status).
Kathy had been on this ship before but I hadn’t so we took time to walk the ship and get the lay of the land. Then we had a nice lunch and got to our room to unpack. I’ll do another post tonight after dinner. Hope everyone’s having a great weekend!
Here is our itinerary as well as our room and places around the ship! It was a beautiful and sunny day in South Florida!
The Wandering Italian 