My Caribbean Cruise Blog Day 3

Cruiser’s Log, Day 3 (1/11/10)

I didn’t sleep so well last night. I had back and abdominal cramps most of the night. I wish I had brought some Tylenol PM. I took some simethicone, some Pepcid AC, and some ibu profin. I went to sleep around 1:30am, but woke up again to go to the bathroom. I woke up again at 4am and couldn’t sleep, so I sat up for an hour. I went out on the balcony and saw that we were surrounded by fog--I think we were passing near Cuba then. Then I sat and played Bejeweled on my phone until I felt sleepy again. I woke up again at 7 and decided that I’d had enough. I got up and looked outside and saw that it was beginning to get light and there was a body of land beside us. I checked the captain’s log TV channel and saw that we were running parallel to the north side of the Dominican Republic. It was about sunrise, so I wanted to watch, but we were sailing towards the sunrise. I could watch it on TV, which has a channel showing the view from our forward deck. I watched the island take form as the light increased.

Scott got up and we got ready and headed to breakfast. We again ate at the “Garden Café” (enjoying the view of a beautiful little island that a man nearby thought must be Cher‘s private island!), then we went back to our room to change into our swimsuits and get ready to go. We went down to the Starlight Theater and waited for our tour to be called. It took a while, but when it finally was called, we headed down to deck 4 and went out to our boats. We had anchored out in the harbor and boats came up to the ship to pick us up. I didn’t know this, but the part of the Dominican Republic that we were at was a peninsula jutting out from the mainland. We were surprised when our boat took us back to the little island that we had been admiring! It’s called Cayo Leventado. We got off the boat and began walking through the shops to get to the beach. All of the proprietors were trying to get us to stop and look at their merchandise and buy from them. “I give you a great deal.” We finally ended up buying a shirt for Billy and the guy talked us into a dress/coverup for me. That is the part I like the least. I feel sorry for them and wonder if they live in poverty, but I can’t support them all and they are all so pushy.

When we got to the beach, the weather was nice, but it was cloudy and windy. We sat in beach chairs for a bit, then went swimming, I have to interject what I said before, that I have never seen an ocean (except while flying over it) and have certainly never been swimming in an ocean. It was scary and fun. I was scared at how deep it could get beyond the shallows because I am not a good swimmer. And scary because I was thinking about things like sharks in the water. We alternated sitting on the beach, swimming, and beach-combing. We collected lots of shells and interesting rocks and some pieces of coral. We also saw a crab being tossed by the surf. I tried to get a picture of him, but the waves were so rough that he would get washed back out before I could focus on him and snap the picture. Then it started to rain. I didn‘t mind so much because it was still warmer than home and since we were already wet from swimming, rain didn‘t really bother me. But the wind was pretty fierce and our towels got wet from the rain. I decided it was warmer to get back in the water, so we stayed out there for a while. It stopped raining and the wind stopped blowing, but when it started raining again, we headed back to the ship, after spending maybe three hours there. When we got back, we showered and went to lunch at where? You guessed it, the “Garden Café!” Then we came back to our room to relax.

I was so tired and Scott took a nap, but I didn’t want to because I wanted to be good and exhausted so I would sleep tonight. But I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I eventually succumbed. When I woke up, the ship was moving and the Dominican Republic was getting further away.

Interesting point: I didn’t realize that we are never (I think) actually going to enter the Caribbean sea. I know these are the Caribbean islands, but we are actually staying in the Atlantic Ocean.

Scott wasn’t feeling too well, so we sat around and watched TV for a bit. After a while, we went through the shops, asked a question at guest services and went to look at our portraits taken last night. We found a few we liked and ordered them. We pick them up tomorrow night. Then we went in search of dinner. We decided to go to the “Indigo,” one of the main dining rooms. The food was good, but the service was pretty bad. It took less time to get our food than to get someone to take our order, no one took our drink order until our meal was done, and we waited nearly 30 minutes after our meal was done before we got our dessert.

We walked through, checking stuff out, getting drink refills. Then we returned to the room to rest because we both forgot to put on sunscreen and even though it was RAINING, I got a sunburn! Even though Scott isn’t red, we thought that might be the reason for his feeling ill. Our steward is not feeling well, so we have a temporary replacement, Rommel, and he exchanged our beach towels for us, saving me a trip back downstairs. I am praying our swimsuits and my sarong and beach bag dry out by tomorrow morning!

I feel a little weird being so disconnected from the outside world. I wish I could talk to the kids, but the charges are like $6 per minute. I am also scared of an emergency, not that it would help us to know about it, and them not being able to reach us, because we didn’t leave any numbers to the ship. We thought we would leave our cell phones on, but when we found out that text messaging data transfer rates were $19.95/1 MB, we decided to turn them off to keep from being charged a fortune. I feel like an irresponsible mother.

I had thought with all my worries and fears in the beginning that I was not cut out for travel and maybe I should give it up. But I am really enjoying this trip and don’t really mind that we haven’t seen the sun or that it’s been raining or some bad restaurant service.

We watched House and The Bucket List and Scott read. Then we ordered room service. That’s the great thing about being on the ship--room service is free! After the food was gone and the movie was over, I went to bed and Scott stayed up to read.