March 9, 2025 Tampa turnaround day

Today ends the first cruise from Tampa and begins the second cruise out of Tampa, a Eastern Central America cruise (Costa Maya, Honduras, Belize & Cozumel) in the same stateroom on Celebrity Constellation.

Clocks went forward an hour overnight for the beginning of Daylight Savings time. There was no Elite breakfast this morning. There was a hint of fog at 7 a.m., but it soon disappeared. The temperature was 18°C with a predicted high of 28°C today. There was a light south wind.

Moored at terminal 2 was Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas and at terminal 3 was Carnival Legend. We were moored at terminal 6 again. Later we noticed as we passed her that Serenade of the Seas had no passengers out on deck and googling found out that her next cruise is scheduled in April.

The 110 continuing passengers met in the Rendezvous Lounge on Deck 4 at 9 a.m. The group needed to wait until the departing passengers were all off the ship, including the person and their partner that were being transferred to a hospital. Last evening a request was made for blood donors for that patient.

The Constellation’s Documents Officer gave everyone their new Seapass cards, with the warning that they were NOT to be used until after the customs and immigration passport check in the terminal. We needed to use our current Seapass cards to scan off the ship. They were kept by the security staff and will be returned on March 16, when we debark the ship to go home. Everyone in the group had their passports ready for the Immigration inspection in the cruise terminal. We all walked off the ship in a line through the terminal to where the Immigration officers stood in the empty warehouse where the leaving passengers luggage had been collected over the past two hours.. The officers took the passports, looked at us and returned the passports. You then got back in line to return to the ship and were scanned back onboard by the security staff with our new Seapass cards.

We returned our passports to the stateroom safe and gathered our hats and backpack. Then left the ship to find the Teco streetcar York Street stop, just outside the terminal to ride to historic Ybor City. By 10:30 a.m. the sun was shining and the temperature was 22°C with a gentle breeze.

The schedule read that the streetcars run every 15 minutes. However, a section of the double track near Amalie Arena was out of service and both directions of the streetcars had to use a single track, which caused delays. The ride to historic Ybor City terminus was about 15 minutes from the York Street station. We spent about 90 minutes mainly on Paseo de Gonzmart (also known as Gonzmart Memorial Road and 7th Avenue). Being Sunday morning a lot of restaurants and stores were not opening until noon. The Centennial Park was where the streetcar route ended. We could hear the park’s roosters as we alighted the streetcar.

Ybor City was founded in 1880 by cigar manufacturers and known for its iconic cigar industry. We walked along Paseo de Gonzmart to the eastern boundary at 22nd Street. Between 21st Street and 22nd Street stands the famous restaurant, Columbia which was established in 1905 and is the oldest and largest Spanish restaurant in the United States. Beautiful tile scenes decorate the 7th Avenue exterior. Near the corner of 7th Avenue and 22nd Street in 1898, the Rough Riders of the U.S. army were stationed and a frequent visitor was Colonel “Teddy” Roosevelt mounted on his horse, Texas, and followed by his little dog, Cuba.

At 18th Street is the Italian Club built in 1918 for Italian immigrants as a social and mutual aid society which was established on April 4, 1894. We stopped for coffee and a scone at the corner with 14th Street at Quiquiriqui in the Haya Hotel. At the corner of 13th street the western side of Ybor City, there was plaque stating that on November 26 and 27, 1891 a draft called “Las Resolucions” was written which became the program of the Unites Cuban Revolutionary Society that eventually secured Cuban independence from Spain in 1898. Just beyond that was the arch that welcomed people into Ybor City from Tampa.

We were close to the Teco streetcar stop at Cadrecha Plaza and had about five minutes to wait for the streetcar. It was a surprise to see a vintage covered open air streetcar turn from 8th Avenue onto 13th Street. The interior had rows of benches which held five people and you entered any row from the side then a rail would barricade the opened when the streetcar was in motion. We rode the streetcar to its Whiting Street and Franklin Street terminus. There was a 15 minute wait at the Amalie station stop for a streetcar coming from Whiting station to pass. We were at the southern end of the downtown having passed the Amalie Arena and the Convention Center. We walked toward the Hiilsborough River to find the Tampa Riverwalk. There were several parks along the way and a section near the University of Southern Florida. Several plaques described the history of the area. Originally settled by Paleo-Indians about 10,000 B.C. known as “The Mound Builders”, the arrival of the European explorers and their diseases nearly wiped out the people by the early 1700s.

It was just a 1.5 km stroll to the Convention Center and then about the same distance to Terminal 6 where the Constellation was moored in Ybor Channel. The sun was shining and the temperature was a pleasant 24°C. The walk took less than 40 minutes. Most of the passengers had already boarded so there was minimal traffic by the terminal. We walked to entrance where security put backpacks and phones through the scanner and we walked through the other scanner. Since we already had our Seapass card we were wavered through checkin and were on the ship within five minutes. We made our way to our Muster Station to be checked in. We had watched the Safety video on the streetcar when it was delayed.

We climbed up to the Oceanview Café on Deck 10 for a bowl of ice cream - scoop of Peanut Butter flavour and scoop of Praline flavour each. The ship allowed us a complimentary 60 minutes of non-stop Wi-Fi to sign on to our email to get the Celebrity’s survey for the finished cruise. The emailed survey took about 15 minutes to complete and we could use the remaining time for whatever we wanted (the excess time could not be saved for later). Claire downloaded the Garmin maps of our two walks today.

At 4 p.m., we climbed up to Deck 12 at the front of the ship (Celebrity Constellation) to watch the ship pull away from its mooring. The Constellation’s route to the Gulf of Mexico was departing Ybor Channel pier travelling into Sparkman Channel which flows into Hillsboro Bay, then Tampa Bay before reaching the Gulf of Mexico. Just before ship pulled away the captain sounded the emergency blast so everyone could identify it. He advised that tonight the winds would be about 30 knots (about 56 km per hour), the distance to Cozumel is 524 nautical miles and the speed would be about 17 knots. He also reminded passengers that clocks would be turned back one hour overnight. Then sounded the horn as we followed Carnival Legend out to the gulf. We passed the American Victory ship museum and an empty Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas stationary at terminal 2.

Constellation’s capacity is 2,184, it is a full ship. The demographic is much younger than last week’s cruise. There are many families with early school age and middle school age children.

We returned to the Rendezvous Lounge on Deck 4 for Happy Hour, which was less than half full, a contrast from last week. The Acoustic Duo Lanisters began their set at 5:30 p.m. We danced until 5:50 p.m. then went to meet our new tablemates for the 5:45/6 p.m. dining seating. We had asked three different dining room maitre d’s on three different days to seat us a table for six. The table of ten from last cruise did not work when there were only 9 on a few evenings down to three on other evenings, with the waiter waiting for the others before taking orders with meals sometimes taking two hours. Well - - we were assigned a table for 2 amongst five tables of six. It worked out well tonight since we wanted to leave about 6:30 p.m. to go to the ballroom dance hour.

We climbed up to the Reflection Lounge on Deck 11 where less than a dozen people were enjoying cocktails and the view seated by the 180° windows. The dance floor was empty. The first recorded song was a rumba and our shoes stuck to the floor. After 10 p.m. last cruise this was party central. People may have danced with drinks in their hands. We tried two dances - Rumba and a Slow Foxtrot our knees started to hurt. We did not dare any quicker tunes.

The evening’s first show featuring comedian, Tom McTingue, started at 7 p.m. in the Celebrity Theatre so we went to it and enjoyed the show. Sarah, the Cruise Director reminded people after the show of other events this evening and to turn clocks back one hour before going to bed.

Total steps 17,990