Hiii.
Alright, trip #1 of this summer was to the Caribbean. I dunno when it was...end of May I guess. Anyway, Here goes:
The cruise line: Royal Caribbean
The ship: The Allure of the Seas
The trip: Eastern Caribbean
A once in a life time thing...
It all started...at Midnight on the Saturday RIGHT after Jess' graduation (*blog about that). The plane went from Vegas to Memphis, and then from Memphis to Ft Lauderdale. Florida sucks. Literally. I walked off of the plane and into the tunnel and felt like my clothes were shrink-wrapping themselves to my every body-part.
I HATE HUMIDITY.
We took a cab from the airport to our port and the cab driver was from Haiti (I totally spoke Haitian with him. Sak pase!). Very nice guy...
Once at the port, our check in procedure was very simple, organized and well choreographed. Royal Caribbean is a well oiled machine. I was very impressed! And LOVE the fact that there were hand-sanitizers every 3 feet ALL OVER the ship. !!!.
The ship is enormous. I was thinking it would be (the guy on the phone...when I called and asked what there was to do on the ship...told me it is the larges ship in the world, no other will ever be as big, blah blah blah. Go here for more info.), but I wasn't ready for what it was...
(out of order, but this is the little ditty that took us from US VI to British VI in St Martin)
One of the BEST things about the cruise:
Animal Towels!!!
We had the best room-attendant (Kamal, aka Ha-beeb. Ris is racist),
but more on that later.
The ship was beautiful.
Tons of theaters and whatnot. This was taken before the aquatic show
(basically a lame version of O @ the Bellagio)
The Boardwalk
(where most of our time not eating was spent)
there was a friggin carousel on the ship.
this was taken when eating at windjammers buffet on the 16th floor
(probably my favorite spot. no, park place was my favorite)
See? Giant.
The minigolf course and part of the zip line
(St. Thomas in the background)
Basketball court
(just on the other side was a stationary surfing thing, the Flowrider)
Park Place area
(where I ate 50x's a day)
one of the rock walls
one of the fun shows we got to see!!!
So, we got seriously bored and decided to make a towel animal for Ha beeb...
and I think it turned out freakin' rad.
When we returned though, Ha beeb had changed up the octopus and added a lobster!
a bat?
We checked in to the room, were informed we wouldn't receive our luggage until later in the day and decided to go book shows for the week and then take a little nap. We awoke a bit later (once the ship had left port and was on its way) in order to head to our "emergency area" (area we were assigned to go, in the "unlikely event" of an emergency...psh. Unlikely. I think not. *see here*). After we reviewed the emergency procedures (the cruising version of watching the flight attendant buckle and unbuckle a seat belt), we set off to our room to get ready for dinner.
We went and saw Chicago! The cruise ship has several theaters, one of which was used for Broadway-esque shows. When I say we went and saw Chicago, I mean we went and took a nap in a cool, dark theater, while other people watched Chicago. I saw a bit of it, but Ris slept...90% of the show.
After that...we went to bed.
Monday morning we were in port at Nassau! We bought tickets to go to the Atlantis resort water park and...that was the most expensive nap I've ever taken.
We got off the ship RIGHT when we could to maximize our day (we were only scheduled to be in Nassau from 8am-5pm, so we wanted to get to the park early). We arrived at the Atlantis resort and walked through the casino and then into the water park. It was EXACTLY like walking through a station casino and then outside into something like The Beach at Mandalay bay...except with 5-10 water slides. :|
DO NOT EVER GO TO THE ATLANTIS IN THE BAHAMAS.
JUST GOOGLE IMAGE THAT ISH.
It's so much more impressive on Google. Seriously. And it's kinda cool to say you've been there I guess...but no. Not for $500/night. Stay in Vegas.
So, when we walked into the "waterpark," we found out the park didn't open until 10am. ...Awesome. We decided to pull up a lounge chair and take a nap until the park opened. Once the park was up and running...we kept napping!!!! BAHAHAHAAAAA! I couldn't have cared less. At about noon (napping the entire time), Ris looked over at me and said, "wanna head back to the ship?" I grunted and we went back and then...yep, fell asleep. I don't know what it was. Jet lag, time change, the water-bed night sleep...whatever it was, we were EXHAUSTED that day. Again, THE MOST EXPENSIVE nap I've EVER taken in my life.
That night...I think we went to dinner and chilled. Tuesday was an at-sea day, which meant being stuck on the boat all day. It doesn't sound too terrible, especially with the size of the boat, but I don't drink. Or gamble. Or eat all day (well...I did...but I don't). So I was kind of miserable. They did have pools and stuff, but it was really cloudy/rainy on Tuesday and I don't like that...
Wednesday we were in port in St. Martin, where we were scheduled to swim with dolphins...
We woke up super early and got all of the document they listed to bring...and then headed off the ship...into the PORT O POTTY/DEATH smell of St. Martin (The WORST smell I've ever experienced. Ever). We found the group we were dolphin-swimming with and...found out we were supposed to have our passports because we were traveling from the US Virgin Islands to the British Virgin Islands...so ris ran and got our passports (.5mile run, 14 flights of stairs and 2 looong hallways in 1,000% humidity and 100 degree F heat. I, however, had to communicate with the human-puss-in-boots, filling out documents and trying not to faint (the smell). NBD). When everything was filled out and passports were in hand, we headed to our little yacht.
Beautiful St Martin
PIRATES!!!
this was one of the signs designating which line to stand in
when passing through the British VI customs... :)
The yacht-ride to the dolphin area was almost an hour long.
Very pretty. Very sunny. Veerrrrrrrrry sunny.
Driving on the wrong side of the road
will always be a trip to me...
a bird? a plane?
a friggen dinosaur.
BECAUSE THEY MIGHT BE MAN
EATING DINOSAUR DRAGONS
(caribbean water IS incredible, I'll give it that much)
the dolphin area was sectioned off by these plank-things and
netting-fence extending down from the plank-things
to keep the dolphins from free-willy-ing it.
Once we were oriented with the activities of the day, I became anxious. I think "swimming with dolphins" was just one of those things I thought I might do..."someday," kinda like I think I'll die "someday," but...when someday came...somebody wasn't ready/willing.
Good thing I had Ris tho...she's complete chicken poop!
the dolphins we swam with: ? and Calypso
(they're boyfriend and girlfriend...according to the trainers)
Dolphins are stupid looking up close. This pic illustrates this fact quite well. I had no idea how ugly they were until I was face to freakin' face with one, but it looks like a wuss shark mated with a...sloth.Their eyes are in awkward spots and they're...creepy.
okokokokok.
So ris was THE MOST TERRIFIED and she ended up having to do the "swim on it's belly" thing first. What we had to do was swim all the way out into the middle of the squared off thing, put our arms out and then tread water...while waiting for the dolphin to swim AT you and UNDER you. You then had to grab it's slippery fins as it swam by and hold on for dear life while it streamlined upside-down towards the plank everyone was waiting at. Very cool...once you're done, terrifying during.
see? I'm not so sure about it...
I thought it'd be best if i wore my least-exposing swimsuit (all sorts of horrific scenarios had played out in my head when mentally preparing for this adventure), so I wore this green thing that day...It worked out really well! Nothing slipped up or down, however...
I got an Iron Man circle seared into my chest
(it's STILL there, and STILL very, very noticeable)
After swimming with the dolphins, we went and tried to get a little shopping in, but things close pretty early over there, so not much was accomplished, but I had a lot of fun and was really impressed with the overall beauty of St. Martin.
Wednesday night was fun. Ris went to a comedy show and I didn't.
Thursday we ported in St. Thomas and decided to cancel our excursions so we could spend a small fortune (more than most people make in a year) on THINGS!!! (watches, purses, shirts, magical african dirt-cream for our burns, etc).
C-L-E-A-R water.
While walking around the shops, we spotted this neat little sign
not-so-dodgy alleyways
I dunno if startrek (?) people love the caribbean or what the deal is, but the guy that invented Yoda lives there? Has all of his memorabilia there? Weird.
LIZARDS EVERYWHERE!!!!
classy hoops
SO HOT
(gave Venice a serious run for its money)
Thursday was a HUGE success. Everything wanted was purchased (and then some). We returned to the ship, showered, saw the awesome comedy show and then rested the rest of...the cruise really. St. Thomas was our last port, then we turned around and headed back to Port Canaveral.
The lovely Purell stations were EVERYWHERE.
One night we thoroughly examined the many "rafts" hanging on
the side of the ship (more like submarines) and talked
worse-case-scenario strategy.
Deck 4 on the ship was a running/walking track. 1 time around the ship was .33mile or so, and there were awesome "encouraging" signs all over the place...
(huh?)
AND FINALLY...
HA BEEB!!!!!
I'm pretty sure Kamal was in love with us. Probably because we were nice and clean and talked to him and gave him lots of tips...but he was ALWAYS around us. He is from Mauritius ("Maur-ee-sos," between Seychelles/Madagascar, I believe) and a lovely human being. He makes one hell of a towel animal and can make his ears dance using mind tricks. Hilarious. I should have written down some of the stories he told...such a character! :)
I had a lot of fun during certain portions of the cruise. I don't think I'll ever do another one (maaaaybe the Alaskan cruise, just because I've heard awesome things about it).
Also. All of my return trips from here on out will be DIRECT flights. Maybe even first class. It sucks to get home from a cruise and feel wiped out. Especially when you return to an awesomely sympathetic family such as mine...
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