My Caribbean Cruise Blog Day 5

Cruiser’s Log, Day 5 (1/13/10)

Wow, has it been five days already??? Yesterday was the halfway point, so I guess so. Sometimes I lose track of what day it is. I believe this is Wednesday.

The alarm woke me up this morning. I slept all night through. I guess all the walking yesterday wore me out. We arrived at the time my alarm was set for, so when I looked out the balcony, we were in the harbor at Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands.

We got dressed and went down to breakfast at the “Garden Café.” Then we returned to the room and got our swimsuits on and gathered our things and went to the Stardust Theater to await our tour. When it was our turn to leave, we boarded a “tender”, several of which I guess are kept on our ship. They are enclosed boats that they use to ferry people back and forth between the shore and the ship when the ship is anchored away from a dock. When we arrived on shore, we were taken to another open-air safari-style bus/taxi and driven a short distance to Dolphin Discovery for our dolphin encounter.

This was the highlight of my week! I LOVED this excursion. If I had it to do again, I might have rather done the “dolphin swim” which give you a bit more interaction with the animals, but I still loved it. I think they said they had 18 adult dolphins and three babies that were born in August. We saw the babies being fed by trainers in another pool area. We stowed our things, got into life vests, and watched an orientation video. Then we headed to the pool and climbed down a set of stairs to a submerged platform. We spent 30 minutes or so in the water, with the dolphin doing tricks and coming by us for us to touch him. The trainer showed us different parts, such as the pinhole ears and how to tell a male from a female. Ours was a boy named Al, by the way. And we each got to be kissed by the dolphin, kiss the dolphin back, and shake “hands” while we were photographed and the whole thing was videotaped. Of course they make a fortune off of that, since it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and if you are in the water, you can’t very well take pictures or video unless you have someone out of the water with you.

After we were done, we took the taxi back to the dock and the tender back to the ship. Since we were already in our swimsuits and the boat was less populated than usual, we climbed in the pool for a while. The thing that I love about the pools is that on both sides of each, there is a wide area, sort of a ledge, that is only 2-3 inches deep. I sat there and was able to soak up the sun, but since I was sitting in the water, I kept cool. It was a beautiful day, around 84 degrees and mostly sunny. I think I added to my sunburn slightly! After a while, we went up a deck to the “sun deck” and I laid on my stomach to get the other side toasted and to let the sun dry me off for a bit. When I got too hot (my suit is 95% black), we went down to the “Garden Café” to eat lunch. Well, that is, after we explored that deck for a little bit. It’s the sports deck and there was shuffleboard and giant chess, a golf cage, and a basketball/soccer/tennis cage.

After lunch, we came upstairs and I showered and Scott took a nap. I got ready and sat watching the scenery as we headed out to sea and played my DS again. Then Scott got up and got ready and we went down to the photo gallery to buy a new memory card for the camera! We went through about 600 pictures and videos! Anyone want to come see slides of our vacation? LOL, just kidding.

Then we went to the Stardust Theater for a murder mystery dinner. I had never been to one, but always wanted to. We were put in a group with Jeff and Debbie and one set of their parents, Greg and Mickey (the other set of parents were in another group). They were from Olathe and were really nice and we had a great time. Jeff played the part of Les Baggs, the escaped convict. Debbie was Nadia Seymour, the model. Greg was Chief Wiki-Wiki. Mickey was Leilani, the hula dancer. I was Holly Day, the wife of a billionaire and Scott was Joey Breakers, the surf dude and murderer! It was a lot of fun. Except I had to go home with a murderer!!!

Then we got a drink refill and headed back to the room to veg. I tried to run to the shop upstairs to get some aloe since we are both sunburned from this afternoon, but they were closed. So we played gin rummy a bit

I marvel at certain things. Like how a huge plane that weighs so much can stay in the air. Or how this gigantic ship that holds nearly 3500 people including the crew and all the sundries that we need and want can float without sinking. We are really moving tonight. We have 800 miles to go to get to the Bahamas Friday, so we are traveling at 21 and a half knots (24-25 mph), when we were going 15-17 (17-19 mph) usually. Yesterday since we weren’t going far, we only went about four knots (four and a half mph). By comparison, 21 knots is fast and the boat is rocking quite a bit.

We went down to the “Garden Café” for a snack since dinner was fancy and a bit skimpy and since I am picky and didn’t care for the offered appetizers and picked out parts of the dessert. We came back upstairs and Scott was teaching me how to play Texas Hold ‘Em. Then we watched Kung Fu Panda on the movie channel, but I fell asleep towards the end, so Scott tucked me in with some Tylenol PM. We had to set the clocks back one hour, so I went to bed at 10 and he stayed up reading. It’s funny, I used to be the one to stay up late, now I am the one going to bed early.

My Caribbean Cruise Blog Day 4

Cruiser’s Log, Day 4 (1/12/10)

I woke up in the middle of the night, coughing and choking, so I got up for a while. We were passing by San Juan, Puerto Rico at the time. After my throat felt better, I went back to bed.

When I woke up, I looked out the balcony and saw a small little rock island going by. We got ready and went to breakfast at the “Garden Café”, then we went back to the room and got ready as we were docking in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. The weather was beautiful! Blue skies, sun, and warm temperatures! But, of course, we weren’t going to the beach!

We collected our things and went downstairs. We were docked between a Carnival cruise ship and a Princess cruise ship. I thought our ship was big enough, but Princess was even BIGGER! And I heard later that there was another one that was even bigger than that! I can’t even imagine! We joined a group going to Coral World and took an open air taxi to the other side of the island to Coki Beach. We were a little disappointed in the park, but it was okay. We saw little sharks and sting rays. Then we went in an observation tower that reached below the sea and we were able to go down and look at the fish, etc. We saw sea turtles and iguanas. We took a break to sit and we called Sue to check on things at home because we were getting AT&T service. I had forgotten the two hour time change and the kids were still at home before school, so I was able to talk to them! I was so happy! The longest I have gone without the kids is four days and I can hardly get through their weekends with their dad without talking to them.

Then we went in an area to see different fishes, lobster, etc. in little aquariums and they brought in two sea lions, which was fun to see and made the trip worthwhile. Then we finished up a little nature trail, bought a couple of things in the gift shop, and headed back to the taxi. Our driver, Agnes (cab number 1110, which we remembered since our room number is 11010), took us back to the pier. From there, we walked around the Havensight Mall which is right next to the docks, and did some shopping. Then we caught another open air cab to the downtown area, which wasn’t far and only cost us $4 each.

We walked around redeeming coupons for free stuff (mostly jewelry) and shopping. We also stopped by the post office and mailed some post cards to the kids. We walked and shopped some more. We thought we had to be back at the ship early because we had signed up for a murder mystery dinner, so we headed back via taxi and went up to our rooms and showered. But, we realized that we had the dates wrong. The murder mystery dinner is tomorrow night. Oh well, we were pretty tired from walking and the sun, so we were pretty happy to be in. I painted my nails with my new nail polish from Del Sol, which changes colors in the sun. Then we went down to dinner at the “Garden Café.” Since it was early, it wasn’t very busy and we got a nice table right by the windows with a beautiful view of the bay and the sailboats and the coast of Charlotte Amalie.

After dinner, we refilled our drinks and went back to our room. We sat on the balcony as the ship departed and watched St. Thomas fade away and the beautiful sunset until it was dark. Then Scott took a nap and I watched P.S. I Love You on the movie channel. I am so glad that we have the balcony room. I don’t mind being in my room when we have such a spectacular view and a door to let in the fresh sea air. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have an interior room and not be able to see the outside except in the common areas.

I guess I was wrong about the Caribbean sea. I guess we will be in the Caribbean for a while in the middle of the night. Our little loop to kill the night before we dock in Tortola tomorrow. And I was reading in our excursion description that our trip tomorrow includes being in the Caribbean sea.

I was flipping channels after my movie and found out that there was a 7.0 earthquake and strong aftershocks in Haiti, which shares its island with the Dominican Republic, which is where we were yesterday. Pretty scary that that is so close. They are saying it was felt as far away as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (which we passed by 2 nights ago), and that there were initially tsunami watches for Puerto Rico (which we passed by last night and are still not far from) and the Bahamas (which is where we will be Friday). I am wondering what time exactly the earthquake occurred because twice while we were shopping today, I felt like I was still on the ship, because it felt like the floor moved beneath my feet. I had to do a double-take and realize I was on the ground, not the ship. I blamed it on “sea legs.” But over dinner, Scott said he felt the same thing. It makes me wonder if we felt it there in the Virgin Islands. So devastating for the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, but I am so thankful for God’s protection for us.

I tried to wake Scott up to go get a snack, but he was near comatose, so I went out by myself. I went through the “Garden Café” and grabbed a few pieces of this fabulous bread that tastes like a soft pretzel. No, really, REALLY soft! And I got an apple along with the bread to take up to the room in case either of us got hungry again. Then I went to pick up our portraits that had been taken Sunday night. They also had up our picture from that morning, leaving the gangway, encountering some friendly pirates. It was a good picture and it’s hard to get pictures of us both together and since it is our honeymoon, I would like more of us together. So I bought it. I refilled both of our drinks and walked around some tables set out with $10 watches, pashminas, purses, and wallets. I didn’t see anything I couldn’t live without, so I headed back to the room.

I played my Nintendo DS for a while (Dr. Layton’s Diabolical box) and then we ordered some dessert from room service. We were watching two other cruise ships from our balcony not too far away. We had seen two others in port today, but had heard that there were two more somewhere. It was interesting to see their lights in the dark. I sometimes feel a bit panicked when I think of how deep the ocean is or how we are out in the middle of it and how I don’t swim very well or that there are sharks somewhere. But it helps when I can see land nearby or the other ships. When I saw the other cruise ships, I asked Scott if we were circling the wagons. Maybe the “pirates of the Caribbean” were upon us! I went to bed and Scott stayed up reading.