The ship in today is one of the Royal Caribbean fleet that has sailed down direct from New Jersey, so meant that the passengers did not need to take a flight. Perhaps this explains the even older than normal average age. Got chatting to a really nice young New York couple who are on it and even they were surprised, they though the next onboard entertainment was going to be wheelchair races.... The average figure is also that of a McDonald's fed American (or Brit, come to that), so in comparison, although none of the following apply, I do feel young and thin, which has got to be a bonus.
Also got chatting to Pete, who, I assume, is the Sneaky Pete owner and he confirms that our theories are correct. The land based or stayover tourist trade has reduced here by at least 50% over the last years, with the cruise ship business taking over. Good for the cruise ships but less so for the hotels and beach bars. He also confirms that my memories of a deserted long Dickenson Bay and just the two hotels, Halcyon Cove and a small Sandals with a long stretch of beach bed free sand are not just in my rosy imagination. When I was last here there were very few cruise ships, Sandals was the small place I remember and you could walk along the beach for miles. The building of a new high rise wing to Sandal's and other developments too close to the sea has eroded the beach producing a rocky outcrop that wasn't here before, truncating the long sweeping bay. Also the bar I remember from before was Miller's (Ann and Ken, you will remember this) was washed away in the '95 hurricane. But I guess I cannot expect everything to stay the same.
Sneaky Pete tells me about prices here, he gets lots of complaints from people who have stopped off on St Maarten, where everything is so much cheaper. Apparently that's a duty free zone, not hampered by the high import duties and heavy paperwork that are imposed by the other islands. Now why did that not show up in our research before we came here.....
Had a fun afternoon watching the Antiques Roadshow on my newly working Slingbox (thanks to the technical assistance of Ant and Dyl who went over to the house). If it keeps working I will finally be able catch up on the X Factor.... Good thing is, it was so long ago, I have forgotten who won, so will still be a surprise..... But having it back is like discovering a whole new box of surprises - I have just watched "Dancing On Ice" which was fun, and am looking at all the other stuff that's been recorded so am in reality tv heaven. Only one downside, it obviously stopped working sometime around Xmas so it didn't record Upstairs Downstairs, but I can download that for just over a fiver on iTunes. So well set up for any rainy days..... now what time is Jeremy Kyle on.....
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