Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Why I love to Travel--Cruising Addition

**So I totally wrote this eons ago, and never posted it! Sorry I'm so slow to post!**

When you get to be a certain age, there's something very comforting about unpacking in one place and having your hotel move to different locations rather than you doing the moving. There's something magical about having someone make your bed up for you in the morning, just to turn it down at night. And at any age, it's too good to be true when other people will not just cook for you, but serve you as much food as you can gorge on.


Last year I took a cruise with a bunch of women I didn't know and Kristin (see sidebar for blogs because I can't remember how to link things!). I survived the high seas, and told Hubby that rather than going to Disney World to have breakfast with Winnie the Pooh for my 30th birthday, we should take a cruise. The cruise was actually cheaper than Disney World (before the airfare to Puerto Rico and back), and we know we'll be taking a little one to Disney World for breakfast with Pooh soon enough. Hubby had never taken a cruise, and as last year was his first year seeing an ocean, this was a huge chance.


We thought about abandoning the cruise as we are hoping to have a little one come into the world and come home with us in a couple of weeks, but really, the chance to have one last blow out for the two of us, and one final kiss goodbye to the joyful days of my youth, was much more fun. So we left Thanksgiving Day for the big city to spend the night and catch the plane.


I've already droned on about the plane, so let's get to the airport in Puerto Rico. We landed after 10 pm their time (6 pm in Podunk) and discovered that the government must run the taxis in PR, as there is the tourism department that meets you at the airport and assigns the fare to you--no taxi meters. So we raced around Puerto Rico in the dark, noting everything listed in Spanish, and my trying to remember those many years suffering through Spanish class in high school. While they are a US territory, Spanish is primary, and most people spoke English, but there were a couple of times where someone translated for us to be sure we were going to get where we were supposed to get via the taxis. Anyway, we had a balcony view that we were not impressed with at midnight, and we fought to go to sleep.


The next morning, Hubby stepped out onto the balcony and discovered that we were with a block of pristine white beach and beautiful Atlantic Ocean, so we raced out to hit the beach. I, of course, didn't think we'd be out there that long--we were burned in no time. Go figure. So then we hit the ship.


The ship we were on was 13 decks, and held about 2300 travelers, plus I believe a crew of 900. We were assigned to the early seating, and our table mates were a fun couple from B.C., Canada celebrating their honeymoon, and another nice couple from Israel celebrating 25 years of marriage. We had 5 stops back to back and then a day at sea. Our first stop was St. Thomas, where we overslept that morning (thanks to the time difference!), but were fortunate enough to have the tourism department dude guide us to a lovely beach. We spent the day in the water and just loving the sand! St. Thomas was beautiful--definitely some place we'd like to go back, and would recommend.


The next day was St. Martin, and my celebration of another decade completed on the Earth. It was a traumatic day for several reasons. As you may have noticed, I was not excited about turning 30. I really had a ton of plans of things to accomplish in life before I turned THAT old, and I didn't do one doggone thing. So as we prepared to hit the streets of St. Martin, I was putting on makeup and checking for new wrinkles, when I found THEM. Nope, not new wrinkles--apparently gravity was being nice to my face that morning--but rather two very obvious, long, waving in the wind, white hairs right along my part. Are you kidding me? Was there not another day that these could have been found? So the day started off on a very sad note.

Immediately after taking the water taxi downtown, we were attacked by very pushy sales people for some resort community. Hubby and I have attended many speeches, and no, we don't have a time share any where, but I think we were so sleep deprived and sunned (not to mentioned stunned by the white hair!) that we didn't know what was happening, and we went...of course, the $250 offer for simply listening to the talk was promising, and the ones we've attended in the past actually did pay up what was promised. So we wasted a couple of hours walking around a timeshare and politely assured the salespeople that the place was lovely, and while we make an obscene amount of money, we spend an even more obscene amount, and couldn't afford it. They handed us a voucher for $250 towards jewelry that wasn't that nice and was WAY overpriced (as in, the cheapest thing there was like $600 so they'd make their money back because the piece was worth maybe $100). We did our mandatory souvenir shopping, and just went back to the boat.

The next day brought us to Antigua. We decided that rather than deal with pushy people, we'd just catch a taxi to a beach again. However, no taxi driver would take us without "a tour of the island" and the tourism lady chewed our rears for not wanting a tour because "everybody thinks only about the beaches and there is much more to the island." So we agreed to pay sixty bucks and take "a tour" of the island with a couple hours on the beach. The taxi driver was a very angry woman, and she was screaming into her cell phone as she led us and another nice couple from Canada to her taxi. She continued to bark things into her cell phone, and despite her heavy accent, we're not totally dumb, and could hear statements like "will this get me what I need? How much do you need? I'll give you $600--will that get it to me? Where should I meet you?" and then we pulled over in what was not the wealthiest part of Antigua and watched her hand a wad of cash to a male who pulled up in a dark SUV with tinted windows and she again asked if that would get her what she needed. We raced off to a beach and once we were on secure land, the Canadians and Hubby and I looked at each other and agreed that in our countries, this would have been considered a drug deal. That night we attended a mystery dinner on the ship, and were telling our dinner companions about the experience, and were assured by one that he had been offered drugs as soon as he was off the ship, and decided Antigua was not the place for him to go wandering. So, while Antigua was beautiful (once we got out of the "slums" from her arrangement with the man), we are a little jaded.

That experience lead us to agree that while we wanted to not spend oodles of money, and had therefore avoided the excursions through the ship, we needed something for St. Lucia. We booked a historical tour of St. Lucia, and the morning we docked there, St. Lucia instantly felt welcoming, warm, and friendly. We took the tour, and saw most of the island, as well got to attend a silk screening factory. I would totally go back to St. Lucia in a heart beat.

Our last stop was Barbados, and we booked a swim with sea turtles, snorkeling, and beach trip. Barbados was incredibly beautiful. We'd never been snorkeling before, and I ended up with nosefuls of salt water despite the mask, and the feeling that I was going to drown--weird, because I've been in oceans before, and I can swim, so I don't know what my problem was--so I only swam with the turtles for like 10 minutes. Hubby loved it. He swam with the turtles, he touched the turtles, he went to the "ship wreck" (barges that had sunk) and the reef...I think Hubby would have stayed forever if possible. It was very cool. We ended with a stay on the beach right next to the resort that Tiger Woods rented out to get married...and if I had Tiger Woods' money, I would so be there all the time.

We had a day at sea, and then returned to Puerto Rico. We planned to tour old San Juan and to see the forts, and to really make the most out of our time in Puerto Rico. Of course, I woke up sick that morning, and stumbled to breakfast so that I could say goodbye to the couple from B.C., Canada. They had made dinners such fun! I met up with them and a nice couple from New Jersey that were seated with Hubby, and the nice lady from New Jersey asked me when the baby was due. Now, keep in mind I'm sick, so the first thing I think about is that Hubby told them that we were waiting for the birth of our daughter the end of December. I had no idea why he would have told complete strangers about the adoption, but hey--we're excited, and we were on vacation. Nope, it turns out that because I'm FAT, and Hubby told the others I was having a slow morning because I wasn't feeling well, she assumed I'm pregnant. She recovered quickly, and I was so sick that I didn't even catch on to this until after we were off the ship and at the hotel. So instead of touring San Juan, we spent our last day of vacation with me wishing to die on a couch and then a bed at the hotel.

While we most likely will not cruise with this cruise line again (lots of hidden charges, not as inclusive as we'd been led to believe, and surprisingly, the food was no where near what I thought it should be--it didn't come close to the other cruise line for last year's cruise), we will definitely be cruising again in our future. For one thing, I'm getting too old to not be cruising :) For another, I like being catered to and to having a new port of adventure just around the corner. Of course, with a new baby, the next time I'm cruising will be for my 50th birthday...and I'm sure I'll then be looking for brown hair to surprise me.

2 comments:

kdfaith18 said...

Hey darlin! Or should I say world traveler...

I have three things. First, you need to tell me what Cruise line you were on. I don't think that you mentioned in the blog.

Second, the reason you need to tell me this is because I will be booking a cruise within the relatively near future and don't want a bad line.

Third, you can't count yourself out on travelling with the baby, cause the reason I am booking a cruise is for my 30th BDay. I'm planning on making an open invitation to all my girl friends for the cruise that I pick. It will be sometime in 2010 and will cost no more than $500 per person so that with enough notice anyone can come. I'm going to shell out for a big fancy suite so that we have a party spot.

So...DON'T count yourself out...cause I really hope you can come for this one!

Kate said...

It has the initials RC :)And I would love to know about your 30th cruise! Are you heading out on the FBCLA cruise in Sept this year?