We Were Halfway There to Half-Moon Cay- We End the First Leg of Our Cruise

The cruise-line-owned and developed island of Half-Moon Cay was our last stop before the leg ended in Fort Lauderdale.

Half-Moon Cay

Due to good weather and sailing conditions we arrived one hour earlier than scheduled, but still late by most ports of call arrival times at 0900 hours. This was a port of call that required passengers to tender to the island. We immediately noticed two new changes to the tendering process. First, the ship did not set anchors as we had experienced in the past. Instead the ship used its bow thrusters and drive system managed by a computerized GPS system to maintain its station.

Passenger Ferry

Secondly, the ship did not put out lifeboat tenders to ferry the passengers, but instead used a passenger ferry from the island to transport passengers back-and-forth.

We decided not to go ashore at this time as this would be our first stop on the next leg of our 21-day cruise. With a 0800 hour arrival and a 1500 hour departure we would also have much more time on the next go round. Capt. Larry went out on the deck to get some pictures of the island and the tendering process.

Passenger Tender

It was an overcast day and no sooner did he get set up it started to rain which really sealed the deal for not going ashore. We spent the rest of the day reading and relaxing and just taking it easy.

 We arrived back at Fort Lauderdale to shockingly cold 50° weather and lost about three fourths of the passengers who were only cruising the first 10-day leg. The rest of the 400+ passengers had to jump through some Customs and Border Control hoops. CBC requires that all passengers disembark from the ship, and those that are remaining on had to clear customs in order to return to the ship and continue their cruise.

The Island Beach

The cruise line staff were apologizing profusely for this inconvenience, but it was quite apparent that this was all on CBC. Additionally, we were told that all seven of CBC’s facial recognition cameras were out of commission. So we all assembled in the ship’s main theater and were paraded off the ship and through a cordoned maze to a CBC official who examined our passports and our faces and confirmed our identities before we were paraded back onto the ship.

Sister Ship Statendam

The whole process only took a little over an hour but one wonders why this was necessary when we all have to pass through customs at the end of our cruise.

We loaded up and left Fort Lauderdale for a second time on our way to Half-Moon Cay.

Port Everglades

We arrived the next morning, and when we went out on our balcony to view the island, we were surprised by the 66° temperature with a 23 mph northwest wind. It didn’t take much discussion between us to decide that we wouldn’t be going over to the island today.

Saturday Sailing Club

We had looked forward to some beach time, but with our tropical wardrobe we decided that we wouldn’t be very comfortable if we went over. So we spent our time on a bloody mary breakfast, reading, watching the NFL playoffs and relaxing.