Cruise Day 4: St. Thomas

The ship docked in St. Thomas VI a little before 9:00 a.m. Casey and I had decided to go to Rosie's and grab breakfast, before we went through immigration. Since St. Thomas is a US territory, and we had been to the Bahamas, we had to go through immigration to debark from the ship. So while everyone was rushing the immigration line, we sat and enjoyed a tasty breakfast. The view was breathtaking just from the ship. It looked so much like I had always pictured Monte Carlo.

Views of St. Thomas from the ship.

We managed to make it off the ship by about 9:30 a.m. We hopped on a taxi and headed over to the main market place at Charlotte Amalie. We had been told that out of all the places to shop on this cruise, St. Thomas was by far the best. As soon as we got out of the taxi and headed for the shops, we got stopped by a guy who wanted us to do a contest. Incredibly, we both won a prize. I supposedly won some money. All they needed was my credit card, and they would make a replica of it with my funds. Yeah. Right. HAHAHA! What a scam! It was really hot and humid there. I guess it wouldn't have been so bad, if we had already had hot temps here. The shop owners in St. Thomas REALLY want you to buy from their shops. The run out in the street and try to convince you, drag you, or lure you in with coupons. This even went for the convenience stores. They are so pushy that I felt harassed. I know that they depend on tourism, but WOW!! This was the only negative experience that I had anywhere that I went. At the shopping program we attended we were given a list of the very best shops to do business with. They were so good, in fact, that the ship would guarantee your purchase. Casey and I went to look for Diamonds International to pick up my free charm bracelet and my free charm from St. Thomas. We also made a quick stop into Venetian Jewelers to claim my free 1 carat midnight sapphire that Casey had set for me. We stopped by another jewelery store, which I can't remember the name right now, and claimed the free necklace. We stopped in AH Rise, a really cool store with jewelry, liquor, and LOTS of other really cool stuff. I also got a t-shirt from Del Sol. Del Sol is a really cool shop, where everything they have changes color in the sun or UV light. They even have nail polish that changes. After we were done shopping, we grabbed a taxi back to the ship to drop off our stuff and change into our swim suits to go to the beach.

The marketplace at Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas VI

In front of the Del Sol in St. Thomas

We wanted to go to Maegan's Bay Beach, which is one of the top 10 beaches in the world. We managed to get a really sweet taxi driver named Earline (prounced Er line like a straight line). She had driven tourist taxi's for 30 years. She gave us some history about the island and lots of good information. The drive took us over the really narrow, winding roads of the mountains on the island. The scenery was breathtaking! We were all busy trying to take pictures. She dropped us off at the beach, and we asked her to come back and pick us up at 5:30. I can definitely see why Maegan's Bay Beach is a top beach. It is BEAUTIFUL!! It was a little crowded that day, because of all the cruise ship tourists, but it was still GREAT. Since it's a bay, the water was nice and calm. It was super warm and really easy to swim there. There's a $4.00 charge to get into the beach. They use the funds for the upkeep. There's a little restaurant with food and drinks right there, along with picnic pavilions and a shower/restroom area. It was very clean and well kept. Maegan's Bay was one of the highlights from my cruise!

Scenes from Maegan's Bay Beach

Me in the distance playing in the water.

The time just flew by at the beach, and soon it was time for Earline to pick us up. She had noticed that we were all scrambling to take pictures, while she was driving. She was SO nice and sweet that she told us to wait and she would take us to 2 look out points on opposite sides of the island to get pictures. One of the views was looking down on Maegan's Bay and one of the views was looking down at the port. What views!! I'll never forget those views.

Overlooking Maegan's Bay Beach

Overlooking the port.

All too soon, Earline had us back at the ship. She dropped us off at the little marketplace right in front of the ships. There, Casey bought me a beautiful Caribbean bracelet. With much reluctance to leave St. Thomas, we boarded the ship. It was nearly 7:00 p.m., so we hustled to get ready for our dinner seating. Dinner was fabulous as usual. I had a yummy broccoli soup with grilled chicken and vegetables for dinner. They had FANTASTIC Tiramisu for dessert. Afterwards, we returned to our room. We had an early morning in St. Martin coming up.

Our towel animal that night...Puppy!

Tomorrow, St. Martin/St. Maarteen...

Indiana Jones WOOT!!

Casey and I are headed out to the Montana Drive In to see Indiana Jones 4: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tonight. The double feature is Iron Man, which is GREAT, because we haven't seen it yet. I know the reviews of Indy have been mixed. I'm going in with an open mind. I'm sure I'll love it, just because it's Indy. If I'm entertained for the time I'm there, then it was worth my money. I'm just really looking forward to it! SQUEEE!!!!

Tee Hee!

Happy Memorial Day!

I'd just like to wish everyone a happy and safe Memorial Day!! To all the men and women who have served our country and who are currently serving: Thank you SO much for all you do!!! Also, a VERY special thanks to all of our canine and animal troops as well!!

War Dog Memorials

Cruise Day 3: Day at Sea

Tuesday was a day at sea, so hopefully, this post will be a little shorter than yesterday's, but don't hold me to it. The ship was making its way from Nassau to St. Thomas Virgin Islands. We had picked up speed and the wind was blowing too. Even though Casey and I had planned to sleep in, we were up by 6:30 a.m. After breakfast at Rosie's, we decided to wander around the ship some more.

With the ship's speed and the wind blowing, THIS is what we all looked like on deck.

I was lucky. I never really suffered from any seasickness with nausea. Because of the speed and the wind, the ship would rock from time to time on Tuesday. Every once in a while Casey and I would run into a wall or door, when we were walking around. About mid morning, we went to a program on the shopping deals that you could get in St. Thomas and St. Martin. We also received coupons for a free 7 charm bracelet from the Diamonds International stores on these islands, a free 1 carat midnight sapphire, free necklace, and other goodies. All we had to do was go by the stores and present our certificates. (I did manage to get all of my freebies. Casey had my sapphire set for me in a beautiful white gold ring.) I dealt with the rocking pretty well, until mid afternoon. I guess my poor brain had had enough, and I started to get pretty dizzy. Thankfully, no nausea. I decided to go back to the room and take some Bonine, since it said it would help with the dizziness. Luckily, it did. Since we had gotten up so early, we decided to take a nap around 2:00. We both must have been exhausted, because we slept until nearly 4:00 p.m.

Since we had napped through lunch, we were a bit peckish. So, we went in search of something to eat. Unfortunately, about that time, everything was closed getting ready for the dinner hour. Casey spotted the Java bar, and I was able to get a bottle of water and this wicked chocolate cake. It was about 5 layers, and the icing tasted like fudge. It was SO SO yummy! I guess they figured they couldn't lie about how rich it was, because they called it Fat Chocolate Cake. I was only able to eat about a fourth of it, and then Casey had to help. Even with help, we could only eat about half of it. Casey managed to grab a bite at the sushi bar, so we were set until dinner.

Sitting on the Promenade Deck eating sushi and Fat Chocolate Cake.

Late that afternoon, I decided to take a sunset run. Talk about beautiful!! Like I said before, that was one of the best parts about running on the ship. The view. Little did I know, Casey had snuck up to the track and was taking pictures of my run and the sunset.

Cooling down from the run.

Every night, Carnival shows a movie on the jumbo tron. We decided to just to have something light for supper and skip going to the dining room (the only time during the week). We found out that they were showing Transformers that night, so we decided to go, even though we had already seen it. It was just like being at the drive in on the ship!

It was pretty late when it was over, so Casey and I decided to just head back to the room and rest.

Our towel animal for the night...Piggy!

T.V. was SO weird on the ship. Their broadcasting affiliates were from Denver, Colorado. I can't figure out why, because it seems they would broadcast Miami or something. Because of this, all the programming ran 2 hours later, and we managed to catch American Idol and Hell's Kitchen. We called it a night after that, since we had a port day on Wednesday.

Well, I figured this post would be shorter. I see it didn't turn out that way. Sorry if I'm boring you guys. I guess I'm doing this for myself as well. I want to have a written record of everything we did, before I forget details. Thanks for reading! Tomorrow, St. Thomas VI......

Cruise Day 2: Nassau, Bahamas

WARNING: This is a long post, so you might want to put the kids to bed, walk the dogs, feed the cats, and get yourself a snack. Hehehehehe!

Casey and I were up very early on Tuesday morning. The ship was scheduled to dock at 7:00 a.m. We had decided to not fight the lines at Rosie's and order breakfast room services. After quick showers and some tasty breakfasts, we were ready to head to the dock. Since we had never done this type of thing before, we weren't quite sure what to expect. It seems we were some of the early birds. The town of Nassau was still sleeping. None of the little shops were open yet. Our only plan for the day was to head to Cable Beach. We found the line of taxi's waiting to take tourists to their destinations. We told the chief wrangler where we wanted to go, and he sent us to the appropriate taxi. We were on the taxi with one other family, who had planned to go the the Atlantis Resort & Casino. Casey and I had looked into that excursion, but had decided against it. It was rather pricey and all you could really do was go through the aquarium, which is one of the largest salt water aquariums in the world. It granted no access to the rest of the resort and its beach. On the way there, the taxi driver gave us some super secret information. He said that because all of us were early there were no guards posted, so we could go through all of the resort for free AND have access to the private beach for the day. What a cool trip freebie. He instructed us, as he dropped us off, to go through the lobby, downstairs through the casino and aquarium, and we were done we could go out the back through the grounds to the beach. WOOHOO!

The resort was beautiful and sprawling. There was so much to look at, we could hardly take it all in. Here's a few pics of the grounds:

Main lobby entrance at the Atlantis

Views of the Atlantis Resort & Casino grounds:

Once we were inside, we passed through one of the biggest casinos that I've ever seen. It took us over 5 mintues to walk from one end of the thing to the other. The entrance to the aquarium and "The Dig" were on the other side. The size of the fish were astounding! These fish were the Mac trucks of the fish world!! They have a Manta Ray (a kind of Sting Ray) that was 14 feet wide!! The picture doesn't even do it justice. It was looming!!

Some HUGE fish!!

There were also LOTS of beautiful fish and reef aquariums too! The cool thing about this aquarium is it goes up to the outside of the resort. They pump millions of gallons of sea water into the aquarium every day. "The Dig" is scattered throughout the aquarium as well. The designers wanted to make it look like the archealogical dig find of the lost city of Atlantis.

Beautiful reef aquariums and tropical fish.

Scenes from "The Dig", where I decided to do my version of Indiana Jones.

After we were finished in the aquarium and "dig", we made our way through the grounds to Atlantic beach. Beautiful is an understatment, when describing this beach. The sand was powdery white, and it was the most clear, blue water I had ever seen at that point. It was only around 8:45, so there were only about 6 other people on the whole beach. There were lounge chairs with the little cabanas on top for the taking. Casey and I grabbed a couple and picked out our spot for the day. We had been there about 15 minutes, when a man in an Atlantis uniform came and asked us if were were guests at the resort. We just knew we had been BUSTED!! We honestly told him no. He said "I'm supposed to charge rent for the chairs for nonguests, but no worries. You take care of me, and I'll take care of you." He then went and got us several nice fluffy beach towels and told us the drink shack opened at 11:00, where the restrooms were, and were the showers and footwashes were. Casey tipped him a nice $20.00, and we were set for the day. It was perfect on the beach for taking a dip and just relaxing. We had been there for about an hour, when a guy (he called himself Coconut Joe) came around offering fresh drinks. It was too cool. He cracked a fresh coconut for us and let us drink some of the milk. Then he made us Bahama Mamas in the coconut shells!

Atlantic Beach

We had an early sail time for that afternoon (our shortest day in port on the cruise), so Casey and I hailed our taxi back to the ship around 1:00 p.m. That was the CRAZIEST taxi ride I've ever been on in my life!! The streets there are so incredibly narrow, and our taxi driver was driving fast and darting in and out of traffic. All of the passengers were teasing him about his driving, but he was a really good sport. I think we were all teasing him to keep ourselves from stroking out! We did arrive safely back to the ship. We meandered around until dinner. Another WONDERFUL dinner in the dining room. After dinner we were exhausted, so we decided to call it a night. Our bed was turned back and our schedule of the next day's activities, along with our towel animal was on the bed.

More tomorrow about our day at sea.

So Much To Tell

Well, I guess that I might as well get started on the details of the trip. So, ya'll just stay with me. As I said in my last post before we left for the port, we were scheduled to take that noon shuttle to the port. We were packed, ready, and waiting, when I noticed the other couple sailing on the Valor had their Carnival luggage tags. I asked them where they got them, and they said they were sent online. Nothing had ever been sent to us, and believe me, I had scoured every pixel of my Carnival account page. So, I was a little worried. The shuttle arrived right on time. Our patience paid off by waiting. There were only 4 other people on the shuttle. I knew that if I could survive that drive on the shuttle, I would have NO problem surviving the trip on the ship. That shuttle drive scared the peewaddins out me. That was one of the craziest rides I've ever been on, except for the ride in St. Thomas, which I'll get to later. We finally arrived at the port and got our bags unloaded. The Carnival porters were absolute sweethearts. They got us tags and gave us our cabin number in about 5 seconds. Crisis averted. Whew!

As I said, our timing couldn't have been more perfect. They were already boarding folks onto the ship. We went through security, which was a lot like airport security in a flash. Then we went through the line to get our "Sign & Sail" cards. It's your room key, and you also make any purchases on the ship with it. They accept NO cash on the ship, except at the purser's desk. Once we had our cards, we got in line to board. They were boarding the ship in small groups to make it faster and easier. We waited in the boarding line probably no more than 10 minutes. When we finally got onto the ship, it was 1:30 p.m. That was the time that everyone could go to their stateroom, so we immediately got to go to our cabin. It was an inside cabin, but that was fine with us. I had heard that the cabins were REALLY small, so I was suprised that we had as much room as we did. You guys know that Casey and I like to stay at Microtels, because they are really nice and cheap, so we felt right at home. We stashed our stuff, and waited for the safety drill. They do all of those drills, before you ever pull out of the port. We learned where to go and how to board the lifeboats in case of an emergency. As soon as that was over, we dropped off our lifejackets in our cabin, and headed up to the Bon Voyage deck party. They were handing out the tropical drinks with the fruit and tiny umbrellas to everyone. So, I ended up paying for a drink almost immediately. Oh well we got to keep the souvenir glasses, so I guess it was worth it. We pulled out of port right on time. The view leaving Miami was breathtaking. It was also a bit strange, since I had never traveled out of the US before. It was a weird feeling watching the US disappear, but it was soon forgotten.

I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast, so we immediately headed to Rosie's to have lunch. Rosie's was the cafeteria style buffet on the ship. I had some really good roasted chicken and ratatouille. Once we had our bellies full, Casey and I decided to explore the ship. That took the rest of the afternoon until it was time to get ready for dinner. Dinner was such a fun experience! We met our waiters, Armando and Rico. Armando was from El Salvador and Rico was from the Phillipines. They were both cute as buttons and did a fantastic job of serving us all week.

 

Armando, Casey, Me, and Rico

We were assigned to sit at a booth with another couple. Their names were Suzanne and Dan, and they were from Vermont. We really lucked out. We really liked them both and had a great time with them all week. Dinner was fantastic that night. Casey and I both had the NY strip. I had a yummy soup for an appetizer and they served green peas in some sort of casserole and THE best macoroni and cheese that I've ever eaten! For dessert, I had the chocolate melting cake, and Casey had the Cream Brulee'. We split them and shared. Both were wonderful. By the time dinner was finished, it was nearly 10:00 p.m.

We went up on deck a little after dinner, just to see what everything looked like at night. They had music and the big jumbo tron going. It was really nice. We went back to the room, and I decided to take a run on the track. The track was on deck 11 and on the outside. It was really something running on the ocean with the view. Spectacular! Running on the track was one of the most fun things I did on the ship. Afterwards, I went back to the cabin. It was after midnight by then, so I cleaned up, and got ready for bed. We had an early port morning coming up in Nassau, and we were really looking forward to our first full day. More tomorrow.....

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