Hurricane Erin

So I have this app that I pretty much had to download to join my cruise. The app told me that I needed to go to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal to join the ship. I booked the Uber, loaded my bags and headed off. $70US dollars later I arrive to find not the good ship Crown Princess docked and ready to allow my embarkation, but the Island Princess, not the ship I was booked to depart on. I do a simple Google search of "Where is the Crown Princess?" Up pops the map showing it docked in Manhattan and less than a mile from my Hotel I had just spent $70 to leave.  Another $50US later and I am back in Manhattan and ready to board. So after checking the bags, going through the security screening and having various body parts prodded and scanned I finally made it. 

It was now about 3.00pm in the afternoon and to re enter New York City for  the night would have meant an entire security check yada yada yada and I just didn't have it in me. I unpacked, met my steward, and headed for the bar. A few gin and tonics later and the world was a much better place. While all of this was going on the ship's captain was keeping us updated on all matters Hurricane. Our category 4 storm had been down graded to a category 2. It was still heading up the coast but far out to sea. The captain decided to delay departure until midnight the next day so we got ourselves another day in the big apple. 

As you can see from the pics the digs are pretty good. Click on one of the pictures if you want to see it in a larger format. 

I checked if I had to go through the immigration malarky and found I could just walk off the ship and only needed my medallion. I took my passport as well and went to visit another warship. It's like I didn't get enough of that in Honolulu. This ship is the USS Intrepid, and old WWII aircraft carrier that was in operation from 1944 to 1974. Its quite literally littered with old aircraft that used to take off and land from this type of carrier. This particular ship had survived four kamikaze attacks and one torpedo attack. You don't really get the scale of these things until you walk the flight deck and the hangar. 

There was also somewhat incredulously The Enterprise, the test unit for the space shuttle program. It flew a grand total of 20 minutes and never went into space. You couldn't even go inside. There was also a Concorde, which was booked out so I couldn't enter. To finish it off there was a WWII submarine, The Growler. It had about an hour wait to get on board so I gave it a miss. 

I walked the six blocks back to our ship and with virtually no screening got back on board in a heart beat. They didn't seem to care that I was bringing on board a hand grenade (a gift of some chilli sauce in a hand bottle shaped to look like the aforementioned weapon). I also picked up some other essential supplies to satiate the needs of one of my staff.  

I have this special food and drink package so I booked into one of the speciality dining rooms for dinner. The meal was superb however they set a new land speed record in serving me. I walked out a little pissed as I'd consumed a pre dinner drink, white wine with the entrée, red wine with the main and a dessert wine with surprisingly enough, the dessert. At meals end I found myself another bar, joined a trivia team and had a whisky or two. Not troubling the scorer during the trivia (where's Peter Collison when you need him - hopeless!!!) I went up on deck for our midnight departure. 

Seeing the night time New York skyline from the water was nothing short of spectacular. It took over an hour and a half to clear the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and into Lower New York Bay and out into the Atlantic. Hurricane Erin had done me a favour. I wouldn't have had the chance to enjoy such a spectacular departure without her.