Our Caribbean Cruise

Our cruise was amazing- it was everything you want in a vacation. There were so many stories and pictures that it was really hard to choose my favorites. I don't journal anywhere else but here and since I figure people don't really want to scroll through all my vacation pictures, I thought I'd just backdate them and link them all to this post. So if you want to read anymore about any of the ports we visited, just click on the link below each picture.

Puerto Rico- our bonus vacation day.

Aruba- our first time snorkeling.

Bonaire, where the scuba-diving is awesome and the flamingos run wild.

Grenada- most romantic beach ever.

Dominica: The Rain Forest!

St. Thomas (post coming soon) - I saw the most amazing sea turtle while I was snorkeling at this beach.



Pictures and stories from the ship.

I got my swim trunks and my flippie-floppies.

Leaving St. Thomas

Life on a boat is pretty sweet. I could get used to it.

Here's our boat. (I just typed that out as, "Here's our goat." I thought it was funny. I even considered leaving it.) Once as we approached the ship after one of our days at port, Bobby said, "It looks like a skyscraper laid down on it's side." See all those windows wrapping around the front of the boat at the very top? That's the gym. There's a long row of treadmills and elliptical machines lined up so you are looking out the front of the ship at the ocean while you jog. It was AWESOME. I haven't worked out once since I got home. There's just no coming back from something like that.

I absolutely loved having a window in our room. I paid $100 dollars extra so that we could have a window in our room, only to find out that I had purchased a room with a "fully obstructed view." What the what?! I was so mad at myself for wasting the money, but we totally lucked out. Our window was behind a lifeboat, but we were on the side of it, so our view was basically unobstructed as long as we stood slightly to the right when looking out the window. I love Bobby for humoring me when I asked to take this picture.

Wait a minute, what's Justin doing out there? ;)

Our rooms were cleaned twice a day. The first night they left chocolate-covered strawberries for us, and every night after that we had chocolates on our pillows and a turn-down service.

The entertainment on the boat was good. Justin and I both volunteered to be hypnotized. It didn't work for me- I think the problem was I was over-thinking it. I was totally paranoid that I was going to wet my pants! And you all know my history of embarrassing moments, so my imagination was running wild with possible scenarios which might bring me and my family completely humiliation. So I didn't make the cut. Justin was AMAZING. So hilarious. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard. There were a couple comedians on the ship that were definitely worth writing home about. The first guy had more of a self-deprecating kind of humor. He joked about marriage and having teenagers and getting old. I wouldn't want to be his wife or daughter, but he still made me laugh pretty hard. There were two jokes of his that I want to remember:

1.) He was talking about how his wife gets mad at him for stupid little things. The most ridiculous fight he's had with her was over an old friend of hers from high school that he ran into. His name was Merlin. When he came home and told her, she was angry with him because he couldn't remember Merlin's last name. So he said, "How many Merlins do you know, you wizard whore?" He said she did not like that.

2.) Then he was talking about how angry his wife gets at him for being such an embarrassment when they're out in public. He joked about hoping the paparazzi wouldn't find out that he had farted in the dollar store. (For the record, I hate that word. We don't say it in our house. Somehow I didn't think "boofed" would make the same impact.) It was so funny. I wish I could remember exactly how he put it.

The other comedian had a totally different style. He used a lot of magic tricks and he was really hyper and energetic and as a result extremely entertaining. At the end of the show, the cruise director came up to the stage to make some announcements and the comedian popped his head through the curtain and made some funny faces at her, then disappeared before she noticed. After she turned her head back around toward the audience, he popped his head out again, only this time from underneath the curtain so he could peek under her skirt! Of course that got a huge reaction from the audience and the cruise director caught him and freaked out! She was really embarrassed and couldn't stop laughing. If it was part of every one of his three shows that night, she's a pretty good actress. She said, "Maybe I should have worn trousers." Then the comedian popped out of the curtain a third time and said, "Maybe you should have worn panties" then made a gesture with his hand up near his hear and whispered "call me," a flourish he had perfected through the course of the performance. It was so funny.

We all sang karaoke. Paul was the only one who sang solo. And rightfully so, considering he probably has the best voice out of all of us. The three guys sang a Red Hot Chile Peppers song and after twenty minutes of discussion, we three girls settled on Joy to the World by Three Dog Night. We get up there to start singing and they start playing the traditional Christmas version of Joy to the World. Luckily we had a backup and ended up singing Oh-Bla-Di, Oh-Bla-Da.


The food. Oh, I think maybe the food deserves it's own post, so I'll come back to that later.

Another one of my favorite ways to pass the time on the boat was laying out on the lounge chairs near the pool in front of the giant movie screen. Our first and only day at sea, we all met outside in the morning, scouted out six chairs (which was quite the ordeal) so we could all hang out and watch Baby Mama. It's getting close to show time, and a trailer for Mamma Mia! comes on. Justin turns to me and asks, "Are we watching Baby Mama or Mamma Mia?" I said, "Oh Justin, I wouldn't make you three guys watch Mamma Mia." Well, the movie of the day was in fact Mamma Mia. There was a misprint in the newsletter the night before. I felt so bad! (I happen to love Mamma Mia, so we stuck around and watched it for a while anyway.)

I took a nap almost every day. Sometimes it was in our room before dinner, sometimes on the lounge chairs on the boat, and once on the beautiful beach in St. Thomas. Now maybe I'm just easily pleased, but to me, the ability to take naps like that seems like the ultimate in luxury.

So, when can I go again?

Dominica

We had quite a few Dominican guys who guided us down the river. We stopped for a few minutes and they all climbed up this bank and jumped off it. We asked if we could. The six of us and a few others were the only ones who wanted to try it. It was so much fun we did it again and asked someone to take our picture for us. The picture didn't turn out too great because it was our cheapo water camera. But at least we have a picture of it.

River tubing in Dominica was a lot of fun. A funny thing that happened was we came to a fork in the river and Ashley followed me to the right and we got stuck maybe about four different times. The kicker was that we could hear all the smart tubers, the ones who chose to take the left, screaming with delight as they rushed down a really fun set of rapids. Meantime we're over on the right using our feet and our arms to try and disentangle ourselves from the reeds and the rocks that were getting in our way. It was pretty funny.

After the river tubing, we stopped to watch a short performance from some Native Carib dancers while we ate an authentic Dominican meal. We were starving and it tasted delicious. Bobby and I even volunteered to join the dancers.

Like how I'm giving Bobby the "stink eye" for ogling that Carib dancer? She was totally coming on to him. ;)

After that it was on to the Emerald Pool. Dominicans are the wildest drivers. We were all holding on for dear life in the tour van every time the driver turned a corner and nearly hit opposing traffic.

The Emerald Pool was gorgeous. See for yourself.

Grenada

I think Grenada may have been my favorite day. I'm pretty sure I could say that about any of the days, though. Aruba was my first time snorkeling, St. Thomas had my underwater sea turtle friend, Dominica had the cool rain forests and fruit growing everywhere... But as far as time spent with me and my Bobby McGee, Grenada was my favorite day. Melody caught this moment on camera for me and I am so grateful. I felt like we could have stayed there forever just talking and watching the waves. It was perfect.

We arrived in Grenada with a plan. We had done a little reading and discovered that there are beautiful beaches at the southern tip of the island and collectively those beaches are called Point Salinas. So we went out in search of a water taxi or a bus or something to take us to our destination beach. This was much harder than we thought. Most of the tour guides tried to convince us to go to Grand Ams beach, which was a lot more commercialized and near a spice market. But we didn't want to give up on this secluded beach we'd read about so we kept looking. We finally found a guy who said he would take us to Point Salinas. We settled on a price and he drove around town for a while looking for more tourists to fill his van. We hear him start getting really excited and he pulls over and we turn around to see guess who? Paul and Melody! So the four of us shared the taxi and headed for Point Salinas. There were two drivers with us and they were just delightful. (Bobby loves when I say "just delightful".) They told us all about the island, how it's still recovering from a hurricane that hit in 2004; he told us about the people, how kind they are, Grenada's low crime rate, and about the religions on the island. Just after he finished listing off some of the island's major religions, guess what we saw? I was so excited!! We even saw some missionaries walking around later.

I took this shot from the van and I just noticed as I was loading this picture that there is a Heineken sign behind the LDS sign, making it look as if they serve beer at the church. I think that is hilarious.

Here's a few shots from our perfect day on the beach:

Paul sipping on the best virgin pina colada I've ever tasted. So delicious in fact that we bought one for ourselves.

Grenada is well known for their spices, so we hit the spice market on the way home and picked up some gifts. I asked this lady if I could take a picture of her hair. It was so pretty, I couldn't stop staring at it. We bought cinnamon, cinnamon sticks, whole nutmeg, vanilla extract and almond extract. The cinnamon is all I've tried so far and it is fantastic. I wish I had grabbed some more. Oh well, I guess we'll have to go back there, too.

Bonaire

Bonaire, Bonaire... Wish we could have spent more time there. (We only had about 5 hours to enjoy the island.) But between the six of us we packed a lot in and enjoyed our time there.

I was pregnant on the cruise- was being the operative word- so I couldn't scuba dive. I was really hoping Bobby would go anyway, and he did. He didn't grow up near the ocean like me, so as you can imagine, he's not as at ease in the water. But he went for it! He loved snorkeling in Aruba, so I think that weighed in a lot. He was a total rockstar. I mean, noone should get a dive like that the first day they even take a class. I was impressed and thrilled for him that he was going to have this awesome experience.

Ooh, he's so handsome...

Then he got in the water...

I don't consider myself a paranoid person. I think it's important to be cautious, but I also like to take risks occasionally. Bobby and I watched the instructional video together. Afterward the instructor was giving them verbal instructions while I took pictures and watched Justin, Ash, and Bobby get outfitted in their gear. Fool that I am, I wasn't worried at all at that point.

As I watched Bobby enter the water, still no fear. I was snorkeling just above him and had my cheap water camera and took a few pictures. First thing he did was sink all the way to the bottom and sit on the ocean floor. I thought to myself, "Oh... cool, he just wants to sit on the ocean floor and see what that feels like." Then I noticed everyone looking at him and the instructor swam over to him to help him back up. I think it was then that it occurred to me that this was a very ambitious dive for a first time scuba-diver. That's when the fear set in. A million thoughts at once... A lot of what if's. What bothered me the most was the fear that something would happen to him and I wouldn't be there. We were supposed to be trying this together, but our plans changed as soon as we found out there are risks even in such an early pregnancy.


Bobby just after entering the water. Sitting on the ocean floor.

Bobby with the instructor on his left. He was great about staying right with Bobby. Bobby scuba-diving solo at the very beginning of the dive.

Justin and Ashley holding hands. Another one of Bobby flying solo, Justin and Ash below to the left.

Melody and Paul snorkeling.

After following them until I couldn't really see them anymore from way above at the water's surface, I was sort of aware that I was getting carried away. So I grabbed Melody and Paul, who said the snorkeling there was even better than the day before in Aruba- can't help feeling like I missed a cool opportunity there, but I was worried about my husband so what does a girl do?- and asked if they wanted to go find some flamingos. (Bonaire boasts the world's largest population of flamingos.) We poked around some shops and looked around for taxis, but soon found out that a flamingo pilgrimage would last much longer than an hour, which was all we had left before we had to return to the boat. Blast! So I cut my losses and decided to shop. Smartest idea I'd had all day. I bought some cool Christmas ornaments for gifts. One is for my Dad. He loves ornaments. I found those old lollipops that you can whistle. My mom used to buy those for me and I haven't seen them since I was a kid. The girls loved them. I also found this dress which matches a Laurimar pendant my Mom bought for me when she was in St. Thomas with my Dad years ago. So I wore the dress and the necklace in St. Thomas on Saturday.

I had about half an hour left so I thought I better head back to the boat. And then I saw this:

This picture is for Jessica. When I saw these mannequins, I knew I had to stop and take this picture for her. Thirty minutes later when I was released from the trance of their demon eyes, I headed back for the ship and met Justin, Ashley and Bobby for lunch.

And guess what they saw after scuba-diving? Flamingos! They asked a local where they could find them and were directed to the home of a local artist who had flamingos running around in her backyard! I was so excited that Ashley had her camera so she could share her pictures! Don't they look fake? They're not.

Obviously, Bobby made it out just fine. He loved his scuba-diving experience.

I was a little surprised at how happy I was that he enjoyed snorkeling and scuba-diving so much. I remember being surprised that Bobby didn't enjoy going to the beach as much I do. He makes a huge effort for me because he knows how much I love the water. The Caribbean was a completely different experience. When you're in that gorgeous, crystal blue water, you look down and you see your feet. I think being able to see through the water he was swimming in made him feel much more at ease. He loved every beach we visited. So did I. It's nice when your partner is willing to try and enjoy things when they know it's important to you, but it's completely ideal when you both truly enjoy doing the same thing. So I guess we're just going to have to vacation in the Caribbean from now on. That sounds good to me.