Riviera and Great Stirrup Cay

We're off on a short trip, perhaps to get the bad taste of Australia out.  For us this is the Flokos retirement cruise, as the captain during our Around The World cruise, Dimitrios Flokos, is retiring after this trip.  We've left the cold and barren beaches of Boca Raton (sunny and 78 when we left) to enjoy the Caribbean.  Today was sunny and 78.

Even though we've sailed more than 300 days with Oceania, it's always been on the smaller ships.  Riviera is one of the bigger ships, relatively speaking: Insignia held about 650 passengers, Riviera a little over 1200.  Neither approaches the 4000+ behemoths also in Norwegian's stable.

Our room is a little bigger than the comparable Insignia stateroom, by about 64 sq ft.  It's noticeable.  There's even a tub in the bathroom.

 Lots more space around the pool, and more floors full of passengers.

 Departing from Miami, here's something I hadn't seen before -- cars in containers.  I've seen special car carrier ships where they drove the cars off at the destination.  I guess everything is in a container nowadays.

 Sunset behind the tall buildings of downtown Miami.  We left before the lights came on.

First stop was at Great Stirrup Cay, a Norwegian owned Bahamian island.  Our tiny ship barely filled up 30% of the first beach, with two more beaches down the path.  It was beautiful, white sand and protected swimming/floating/snorkeling.  I found the sun to be just a little harsh, but there was shade to be found.  I had to move around as the earth rotated, but it wasn't crowded.

 Norwegian views the island as one large bar, I believe. 

 The crowd at the second beach.  4 people and 1 pink flamingo.

 They also have food service facilities built in so they can serve a BBQ lunch.  It was pretty good, and different than the normal lunch at Terrace.

 Tendering is done with dedicated vessels left docked at the island.  Much nicer than using the ship's lifeboats.  We'll get to do that later in the trip.