At breakfast there was a long line for the first
time. (Possibly, there might always be a
long line at 7:00 AM, but we wouldn’t know about that!) There were a lot of excursions all leaving
within the range of an hour or so. After
breakfast, we packed up and headed for our excursion meet-up point in the
Princess Theater. The woman in charge of
the room was very entertaining, so the time passed quickly before we headed off
the ship to board our tour bus at 9:00 AM.
Our tour guide was Stephen and our driver was Frank. During our drive to Rose Hall, Stephen told
us the legend of Rose Hall and its white witch, Annie Palmer. His version of the legend ended a little
differently from the book version. In
the book, Ann Palmer was strangled to death by an elderly “freed” slave, Taku, who
had supposedly helped her murder at least one of her three husbands. In Stephen’s version, Annie would transform
into a leopard at night and roam the countryside. While she was out roaming one night, a fourth
husband sprinkled salt around her room to prevent Annie’s transformation back
into human form; then, upon her return, he pushed her leopard form out of a
window and Annie fell to her death. Stephen also sang the Jamaican National Anthem
and shared a little history and culture of Jamaica. According to Stephen, most Jamaicans work in
the agriculture industry, with crops of sugar cane, bananas, and marijuana,
which is legal in Jamaica.
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| Rose Hall Mansion |
Upon arriving at Rose Hall, we were introduced to our guide
there, Shaleese. She first gave us a
tour of the first floor rooms of Rose Hall mansion and shared her version of
the Rose Hall legend. Her version was
more similar to the book version, except in her version, Taku was also one of Annie’s
slave lovers. On the second floor, Shaleese
pointed out the rooms in which each of Annie’s three husbands were murdered, as
well as the room in which Annie herself was murdered.
After touring the main house, we descended to the lower
level where we were served punch and entertained with Jamaican music. The Rose Hall tour concluded with a tour of
the grounds and Annie’s final resting place.
Annie’s remains were moved from their initial burial spot to a tomb. It is reported that Annie’s spirit frequently
leaves the tomb and has been seen at various locations around Rose Hall.
We
left Rose Hall and drove to Doctor’s Cave Beach for three full hours of
swimming and relaxation. We had arrived
at the beach a little before noon, and since the excursion was scheduled to end
at 2:00 PM, we were hoping that our “beach” time would be shortened, but no
such luck; we were told to be back at the bus at 3:00 PM! Since neither of us had been looking forward
to 3 hours of beach time, we weren’t happy campers!
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| Doctor's Cave Beach |
However,
we managed to find an empty bench on the walkway underneath a tree, overlooking
the beach. So we planted ourselves there
to “do our time.” Sally did go down to
the beach once briefly, and went out in the water up to her waist; however, Jesse
really wasn’t interested, so we watched other people and talked until 2:00
PM. On our way back to the tour bus, we
stopped at a few shops and picked up a few souvenirs and postcards. The tour bus was waiting, with the A/C going;
several other people had already boarded.
On
our drive back to the cruise ship, the traffic was horrible; we didn’t envy our
bus driver at all. Incidentally, since Jamaica
was owned by England, they drive on the “wrong side” of the road there. Stephen shared more of Jamaica’s culture and
sang a few more songs.
About
3:30 PM we re-boarded the ship.
Apparently there was some announcement that we missed because the schedule
was so strange today. Our excursion was
originally supposed to end at 2:00, and we were surprised when it lasted until
3:30. We had also read that the ship was
supposed to depart port at 3:30 PM; however, when we met Grace and Merrill for
dinner at 6:00 PM, the ship was still in port!
At
dinner, we were seated at a table for 8 and were joined by two other
couples: Jamie and Sue from San Diego, CA,
and Van and Betty from Lovett, TX. Jamie
has been serving in the US Navy for the last 17 years (he looks very young) and
Sue is a graphic designer. Van and Betty
have been married for 58 years and are both retired; they have been on 21
cruises! After dinner, we danced to the
Caribbean Princess Orchestra in the Explorer’s Lounge until they went on break
at 9:00 PM. This was our best dancing
experience so far on this cruise; they played a variety of songs, closing with
a tango.
