Halloween, Dominican Republic & Back To Miami

We were on the cruise for Halloween, and whilst I was sad to miss out on all the neighbourhood kids costumes we did get to see the ship costumes and people really went all out. Here is Godzilla singing karaoke to “I’m sexy and I know it”.

Kim and I went as Wilma Flintsone and Betty Rubble. Jen and Andrew copped out with Halloween t shirts but they were in the minority. We saw an Addams Family, a Titanic couple, Beetlejuice, Dracula, super heroes, Jasmine and a genie half in a lamp (that worryingly had writing across it saying “rub my lamp”).

The next day we saw a showcase of all the different towel animals they make (I got slightly obsessed with towel animals).

After Halloween we stopped at Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic.

Amber Cove is just a cruise port and shopping center which I think is a good idea because it must stop the island from being over run with tourists from the cruises.

They had all the duty free shops like the other ports but of course we had an excursion booked. Now it was seriously hot and we were all signed up to do zip lining but Kimmy chose to switch us to go to a luxury resort and I was glad she did because when we got off the ship the last thing I felt like doing was climbing about the trees in the heat but Andrew and Jen went zip lining and came back covered in bruises but they had fun. They had a lot of excursions where you could swim with dolphins etc but since the Blackfish documentary I’ve felt a bit wary about things like that.

Kim and I went to a luxury resort where it apparently was mostly time shares where people had these big luxury villas and each villa came with a golf cart to drive around the resort in. I thought time shares were a thing of the past but apparently not.

The beach was nice but lots of little stones and seaweed about the place.

 The beach bar had swings on it.

After a while at the beach we went to the pool which wasn’t very busy because apparently most of the villas have their own pools.

After that we browsed around the shops and headed back on the ship to a towel bear.

The next day was another day at sea, the highlight of which was the hairy chest contest where a series of men who didn’t seem to know what they’d signed up for got publicly humiliated for everyone’s amusement.

And that was it, time to go!

We left the ship in Miami and Jen & Andrew had organised a rental car for the day so we had a mooch about in a minivan that Andrew hated with a passion but also seemed to grow quite attached to by the end of the day.

Then it was back on the plane to Hartford on an evening flight. Have you seen this before? A water vapour air conditioning thing? I wasn’t sure if we were being gassed or if we were on fire (luckily neither).

So that was that, but we have our cruise souvenirs from Kim and I winning the Harry Potter trivia contest on the book case to remember the (mostly) fun times we had.

San Juan & St Thomas

So remember how in Grand Turk Kim’s Dad Jerry had swallowed sea water and had a panic? He went to the medical center on the ship to get checked over and they kept him there because they thought he’d had a heart attack! So that threw a spanner in the works. We were all back and forth to the medical center to sit with him and rotate eating, and bringing him clothes and stuff – the staff were really good and kind. It was agreed that he would be taken off the ship by ambulance at the next port which was San Juan but that he was stable. So Kim’s Mom stayed with him over night and Kim, her sister, her sister’s husband and I were all unsure of what to do as there wasn’t much we could do to help. We went to see the show for that night which was a Spanish themed dancing show and then had an early night.

The next day we sat around in a hospital in San Juan and Kim and I got paid back for every time we were frustrated that our patients at work couldn’t speak English because although San Juan is in Puerto Rico and is part of the USA hardly anyone could speak English. None of us could really speak much Spanish apart from the odd word here or there. The doctors in San Juan said they thought Jerry had had some kind of cardiac event but they couldn’t tell until they took him to the cardiac cath lab so he had to stay in San Juan for a week (spoiler alert – it turned out he didn’t have a heart attack and was completely fine so he missed out on the cruise for nothing, ugh!). Kim’s Mom stayed with her Dad in San Juan, luckily there was a hotel directly above the hospital (weird?) and we continued on with the cruise with Kim’s sister Jen and Jen’s husband Andrew as obviously everything had already been paid for very kindly by Kim’s parents.

It was evening time when we escaped the hospital and we had a nice walk around old San Juan and looked in a couple of shops.

Moaned about the irony of Kim’s parents booking a big family holiday that they then couldn’t go on.

And then headed back to the ship.

The next day we went to St Thomas which was a lovely island but it was ridiculously hot. So. Hot. We were booked on a tour excursion and we started out at a beautiful beach and had a swim. There were pelicans flying over the water (no one was excited about this except me!).

I spotted my style icon for when I am an old lady.

Next we went up a mountain top with a good view. We were transported around in these mini bus taxi things. Ours was called ‘best taxi’… it was decidedly not the best taxi. A white knuckle ride up and down jungle strewn hills with tight narrow forked turns where the driver would beep his horn to alert people he was coming at breakneck speed. I was packed in with a ton of Americans who were going “Oh my lord!” and a Texan saying “I think there’s smoke coming from your wheel?!” as I grabbed on to Kim so she didn’t fall out of the side on the bends.

 Anyway, we all lived to tell the tale and got out at a duty free shop at the top of the mountain which claims to be home of the banana daiquiri.

So we got one, would be rude not to really.

And then went out to enjoy the view, drink in hand. “Make sure you stir it, it’s strong” said the lady who made them, so what did Kim do? Drank it without stirring of course, and was rewarded with a hefty dose of banana liqueur.

After that we looked around the market place and shops.

But it was the kind of heat where you’ll do anything to stand in the shade so we sat it out after a while and went back to the ship after a lemonade.

Back to our towel dinosaur.

Cruise & Grand Turk

So we were aboard on the cruise, I’ve never been on a cruise before so I didn’t really know how things were done. Our luggage was dropped off outside our cabin. We had a little porthole. Kim’s parents had a room with a balcony but it was virtually identical apart from that.

Once you leave port you’re just out in the middle of the ocean and there isn’t a ton to see except a few seabirds here and there.

Cruise life basically revolves around eating, you get up when you like and make your way to the breakfast buffet. You can also eat your lunch here or pay more to go to a restaurant but we never bothered with that. The food was good quality and you could pick whatever you liked, there was a huge variety. Also if you didn’t want what was at the buffet they had a sushi station, omelette station, pizza station, deli sandwiches etc. Juice and coffee is free in the morning, soda in the afternoon but you pay for alcoholic drinks or anything more fancy like a latte. Soft serve ice creams were free too, or included in the price I should say!

In the evening you eat in the dining room, you always get the same table and the same wait staff which was nice because you get to know them a little and the service was really great. A lot of the service staff came from India and the Philippines, the entertainment staff came from the USA and the UK and the ship staff and officers seemed to be from all different countries.

Each night there was a main show, I didn’t expect this to be very good and thought it would be a bit Butlins-esque (only the UK people will know what I mean by this) but all the shows we saw were really good, I was impressed.

In addition to the main show they had entertainment around the clock, you literally could be entertained all day and all night by different contests, shows, music, games etc. We all got quite into a ship wide game of Clue (Cluedo in the UK).

When you have a day where you are stopping at a port you have a ‘debarkation’ time (I don’t like the word ‘debark’ – it sounds like a painful veterinary procedure for dogs, I think I prefer ‘disembark’) and you can get off the ship at this time if you like and return before the ship sets sail. What you do in the port is up to you but there are lots of excursions offered (anything to get your money, right?).

Our first stop was Grand Turk, which I believe may be a bit misleading. A better name might be Fairly Small But Nice Turk as it is tiny and Caicos (of Turks and Caicos) is much bigger.

We docked at the cruise center port which is clearly aimed at tourists, although as I am a tourist I don’t really mind because I want to actively be sold tat and souvenirs that I don’t really need. We could have ventured out to the delicately named Cockburn Town but Kim’s family had booked us all for snorkeling and a catamaran.

The sea was lovely and clear, we went out on the massive catamaran and stopped a little way out from Grand Turk to snorkel with the fish. The fish were all different beautiful colours and swam around us whilst the tour operators threw little bits of bread in the water which the fish like. Now this is where we hit a slight snag, Kim’s Dad’s mask didn’t fit him very well because of his moustache so he swallowed some sea water and had a bit of a panic in the water. Luckily Kim’s brother in law Andrew fished him out and he sat down on deck for a bit. After that the catamaran took us to a tiny island with a little shack on it and not much else.

We had the beach to ourselves and it had powder fine white sand, we all had a nice rum punch.

After that they played music and we had more rum punch on the catamaran and got back to Grand Turk.

Kim’s family camped out at the beach and Kim and I went to look around the shops.

We stopped at regular intervals to lather up Kim with sunscreen because she is the whitest person ever. At one point we came across Kim’s Mom wandering around alone and tipsy after too many rum punches so we ushered her back to the beach giggling.

And then we headed back to ship to cover the bottom of our shower with all the sand we picked up that day.

 

Hartford To Miami

Life has been busy lately, busy busy. But I thought I’d tell you about our cruise last month. We started our trip with a flight from Hartford to Miami. We stayed over night at Kim’s parents house to leave at 3am (who doesn’t love that?). The princess Diana plate gave us her blessing.

We left but then looped back round to the house because Kim’s Dad forgot all of his shoes.

I hadn’t been to Hartford airport before… it was pretty average, a few shops and that was it. We sucked down some coffee.

When we got to Miami we were boiling because we were all in our cold weather clothes. Kimmy had worn her Uggs and said she had a sweaty soup in there until she was able to switch footwear.

So we stayed in Miami for a night and had a wander around that evening.

The hotel was nice but I didn’t really care for Miami as a city, I didn’t really like the architecture or over crowded feel. Also it felt very Spanish speaking and I can’t say anything other than ‘hello’, ‘cheese’ and ‘tequila’ in Spanish.

That evening we went for a sunset cruise around the cost of Miami which was gorgeous.

It was cool to see all the buildings lit up and all the mansions along the waterline.

The next morning we had to check in for the cruise. The security checks were pretty basic.

So we left our luggage with the staff who drop it off at your room. We went up on the deck for cocktails and to watch the ship leave.

And that was the start of our cruise!