Cruise Story 2010
Friday, September 17
We boarded a 1am plane from Salt Lake City to Atlanta, Georgia to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We arrived in Florida around 10am, then were taxied to our motel. All arrangements were previously arranged. That was nice. We didn't leave the motel because we were inexperienced vacationers who didn't know anything about Florida- where to go or how to get there. It turned out to be a long day.
Saturday, September 18
We were bus-taxied for about an hour to Miami. We enjoyed the ride. I thought it was interesting that the carpool lane was separated by poles coming out of the ground. There's no need for the sign "Do Not Cross Double White Lines". We arrived at the beach where our cruise ship and one other ship were boarding passengers. After tipping the taxi guy, standing in lines, tipping another guy for luggage help, and standing in more lines, we stepped onto our new home for the next 7 days. We acquainted ourselves with the ship. We took special note of food areas and the workout area. A mandatory safety briefing had our ears ringing from the blasting speakers and we witnessed a guy pass out right next to us. Awesome. At 4pm we watched the land slip by as we headed out to sea. We were at sea the rest of the day/night.
Sunday, September 19
We arrived at the small private island Half Moon Cay at 9am. This was our favorite stop of the whole cruise. We were taxied to shore on smaller boats. We were some of the first people on the shore because we had an early excursion - a tour around the island. One of my favorite memories was walking on the beach with Cameron, only one other couple in sight. WE took pictures, wrote our names in the sand (doesn't everybody do this???), and walked in the white sandy beach with clear blue water. Amazing.
Our tour was a glass-bottom boat, sight seeing tour. We saw fish, seaweed, shells, etc. through the glass floor of the boat. A Jamaican lady was our tour guide. Awesome accent. After the tour, lunch was served. Then we swam on the beach with the other THOUSANDS of people that now occupied all the previously set up blue lounging chairs. We were amazed at how fast the beach filled up.
We were back on the ship by 5:00. The ship set sail. We ate dinner and hung out in our room.
Monday, September 20
This was a day at sea. We wandered around and ate a lot. Didn't do much. We read more of the first Hunger Games book. Dinner was Elegant dress. We met the two other couples at our table. We are all about the same age and got along really well.
Tuesday, September 21
We arrived at St. Thomas Island at 9am.
We got on a smaller bus and they took us on a tour around the island, up the mountain overlooking the towns below, and over the other side of the mountain to Megan's Beach. This beach wasn't as nice as Half Moon Cay's beach, but we still had a lot of fun. We bought an expensive sandwich lunch from the local store located on the beachfront. Good food.
Then we were taxied to Black Beard's Castle and made our way down the mountain, back to the ship. We did a little shopping and took lots of pictures. When we got closer to the ship, around every corner we were asked by numerous taxi drivers if we wanted a ride back to the ship.
Once we were on the ship, we got ready, ate dinner, and watched the theater presentation of Just Rock.
Wednesday, September 22
We made it to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We had no previously scheduled events/tours/excursions so we set out on our own, on foot. We walked around their busy town and thankfully, ran into a guy who directed us to the main shopping area in the city. We walked along skinny sidewalks made of what looked like small, smooth bricks. In the spots were a brick was missing, trash/garbage filled it's space. We mostly window shopped, but did make some purchases. Cam was having the time of his life. This place reminded him of his mission in Brazil. He even talked a little Portuguese/Spanish with a sales lady at a store. We kept walking and made our way to a castle right next to the beach. MAN! I wish we still had our camera! Awesome pictures. We walked back to the ship and when in our room, went through our purchases, pictures, etc...No need to go to the gym that night! I felt like we walked the whole island.
Thursday, September 23
Grand Turk.
This is a very small island with people from other islands living here - people from Jamaica, Haiti, etc... The beach is rocky with shells, but has clear water.
We saw a girl posing uncomfortably in a skimpy bikini in the middle of everybody on the beach. Wannabe model in the future maybe? We shopped around and then went kayaking. They bused us to another part of the island. As we drove through the town, we saw small salt lakes at the center of town, pink flamingos, a little store, and the old and new hospital. The driver explained that up until a year ago, their hospital was a one bedroom run-down house. Now, standing across the street, is a new bigger building that is the hospital. We also had to make our way around a small boat that had been relocated to the road when a hurricane hit the island a while back. Kayaking was a blast! We also got to take shells from the beach. The only down part of this day was we lost our camera on the island. Back on the ship, we attended another elegant dinner where we ended up discussing our woes about our camera to the couple at our table.
The nice couple agreed to send us all the pictures they took, minus the ones with them making an appearance. How nice is that??? Nice! We went to the gym and ran/lifted weights.
Friday, September 24
This was another day at sea. These days were the hardest because we missed the kids like crazy! We wandered around the ship some more, bought stuff from the ship store, and played mini golf. We packed and placed our luggage outside of our room to be taken to shore the next day.
Saturday, September 25
We arrived back in Miami, sat and read while we waited for our deck number to be called, read more, then got on a bus that took us to the airport. We waited and read in the airport for 3-4ish hours. We ate pizza at the airport and finally boarded. We were flown to JFK airport in New York, got on a different plane and sat and waited our turn to take off. By this time, we had finished the Hunger Games book and didn't have the last two. So we were pretty bored. We tried sleeping...didn't work. We got to Salt Lake about 11pm.
Random Info:
The atmosphere on the cruise felt like a washed-down version of Las Vegas on water - very much out of my comfort zone. There weren't very many family-friendly activities. Because of this, we ended up spending time after 10pm in our room, buying videos off of the TV and ordering in Room Service. The one night we did venture out of our room after 10pm, we ran into a group of people who were drunk. We were waiting in line to get pizza when they came in ordering the pizza guy around and throwing out very colorful words. We ate sandwiches instead. Throughout this cruise I became very aware of how guarded I have been growing up in a tiny town in Utah. And I'm okay with that. We had a blast, especially off the ship. We would definitely go again, and hope to some day! Maybe a Disney Cruise next. We'll see.
(Thanks to Lindsey who emailed us her pictures from the cruise.)
