Day 26 - Thu - 11/27/2025 - West End, Bermuda

 Today we reached the last port on this cruise:  West End, Bermuda.  This port was the one of the reasons that we booked this cruise along with the Canary Islands. The Sky Princess came alongside the wharf and we were cleared to leave the ship just after 9am.  For this port we had an accompanying tugboat because of the gusty winds.  Those winds continued throughout the day.  However, it was nicely warm with temperatures being just over 70°.


Based upon my research, I had determined that due to our short port stop time, it would not be possible to see much more of the island than the area around the port area unless one wanted the travel around like a chicken with its head cut off.  So after breakfast we gathered our things and scanned off the ship and walked to the nearby National Museum of Bermuda.



After crossing the real moat, the entry fee for seniors to this museum was $15 for seniors and $18 for those under 65.  The museum is housed on the grounds of the former fort.  The largely stone buildings have been repurposed for displays and lots of historical information.  There's also the Governor's house which is a 3 story museum.  And like most ancient forts there are ample gun emplacements to examine with armament going back to the 17 or 18 hundreds.  






Nestled on the grounds is the Dolphin Encounter which proves the opportunity to get in the water with dolphins.  But the real beauty is that spectators can watch for free!  So we did.  In the course of visiting the museum, we walked the entire perimeter of the wall and entered every building.  We couldn't possibly read every placard. But we made a good dent in doing so.  We ended up spending over 2 hours in the museum and we highly recommend it.


Leaving the museum we walked through a craft market area to the Clock Tower Mall which is housed in the former provisioning shed.  It mainly has tourist trinkets for sale, but there are a few food venues.  After taking a few pictures we decided to walk to the Glass Beach which was about a 20 minute walk away.


The walk to the beach was pretty easy and there were sidewalks most of the way along the main highway.  However, they would suddenly end and resume on the opposite side of the street.  Once we were off the main road, we strolled down local streets and paths.  We even passed by a correctional facility, a fuel tank farm, a convict cemetery from the 1800's, and a pretty blue church.  


The beach itself is on the site of a former dump which explains the preponderance of glass fragments.  The fragments have been tumbled in the surf and it's safe to walk on them.  Photographing them at a low angle produces some beautiful pictures.  I explored the beach further and found a 3 bladed airplane propeller that was symmetrically bent indicating it hit the ground under power. We then walked back to the ship.





We stopped at Cactus Jack's to have a drink, but they were strangely closed at 2:30pm.  So we walked back to the ship.  At the gangway the queue was too long, so we obtained complementary drinks and waited under the popup tents that Princess sets up near the gangway.  We watched the queue expand and contract while lounging in the shade.  Finally at 3:10pm, we joined the queue and shortly after we joined it, it doubled!




Our walking track


Back on board we headed for the ice cream booth on deck 5 where I enjoyed a Michaelangelo premium dessert (2 per day are included in our package) remembering life is short so one must eat dessert first!


Shortly before 4 pm the thrusters moved us away from the dock and an abbreviated version of the Love Boat song was played by the ship's horn.  And we sailed out of the harbor accompanied by a standby tugboat.


It was dark by 5:30 when we ate dinner before attending the evening entertainment which was a comedian, Ken Boyd.  He interacted with the audience extensively and read it well.  These observations became the source of his jokes.


We were able to get a final load of laundry done and hung up to dry.  As is our custom we ended the evening at Spotlight Karaoke before retiring for the night.

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