CRUISE

This past week Jon and I got to spend our time cruising through the Caribbean.  I had such an fun time that I wanted to share my experiences with you without making you sit through a slide show of my pictures and making you listen to my long boring stories. So feel free to browse through the pictures or read the stories which ever you would like.

West Palm Beach, Florida

Our Cruise Ship embarked out of Ft Lauderdale, Fl but it was cheaper to fly into West Palm Beach and stay an extra night. So we started our vacation early by flying into West Palm Beach on Saturday. Jon got us a great rate at a Holiday Inn near West Palm Beach Airport so we stayed there.  

I love trying new restaurants so for dinner on Saturday night we decided to get out of our hotel and explore. We ended up going to West Palm Beach City Place. Which we came to find out is a very happening place on a Saturday night. Parking wasn’t free but the parking garage attendant said that if we spend $100 or more they will take off an hour of your parking time or the Cheesecake Factory will vouch no matter how much you spend.

So we decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory. It’s not anything new to us but we haven’t been there in over a year and we love cheesecake plus with free parking, we figured it was the best deal. Even though we are on vacation we didn’t want to break the bank. Another plus was that the wait was only 30 min and we got to sit outside and in enjoy the warm weather.

Determined to try sometime different, I got an Eggplant Sandwich. Jon was grossed out but I thought it was really good.

Jon got his usual Sun Dried Tomatoes Fettuccini Alfredo.

And of course we got cheesecake. We spilt Carmel Macadamia Nut Cheesecake.

After dinner we walked around the City Place– Which is almost like a Mall, just outside and covering a couple blocks. There was a Band playing on a courtyard stage and a water show going on. Great music, entertainment and nice weather – a good choice for going out on a Saturday night.

EMBARKATION DAY

Sunday afternoon we arrived at the port thinking that we would be able to check-in and be on the ship in a short amount of time. But when the bus dropped us off the area was packed. There were people standing in line all around the perimeter of the parking lot. Now there were 2 cruise ships right next to each other so we thought that maybe both ships were really busy and each had a really long line but when we walked towards our cruise ship and started to follow the line all the way to the back we realized that there was only one line and it was for our cruise ship. There had to be at least 2,000 people in the line – no joke. We waited for over an hour just to get close to the check-in area.

As we were standing in line we heard a couple of rumors as to why it was taking so long to get everyone checked in. Apparently the cruise before us was a “Rock ‘n Roll” Theme cruise and the people who were on the ship were a little hard core. So when the ship was pulling into port that morning they were stopped and searched for drugs before anyone could leave. This delayed the turning over of the ship and everything went behind schedule. And that is why we had to wait in the hot sun for over an hour. I even got sun burnt just standing there. So moral of the story… don’t do drugs. J

TWO DAYS AT SEA

Once we were on the ship, everything was great. Our room was perfect - we were located on one of top floors with a balcony. I spent most of those days reading outside in the privacy and quiet of our balcony. The top deck was a little too crazy for me – everyone was fighting over sun bathing chairs and it was super windy so I stayed on our balcony.

ST THOMAS

Our first port of call was one of the US Virgin Islands, St Thomas. Jon and I didn’t plan any excursions for this island because all we really wanted to do was go lay on a beach somewhere and swim. We got a map, picked a beach and decided that we could probably walk there. We set out and soon we realized that the map didn’t match up with the streets and the streets didn’t have signs telling us which streets they were. We kinda got lost… and at one point a local stopped his car and told us to turn around because we were heading into a bad neighborhood. So we gave up on heading to the beach we had picked out. We walked into a tourist looking shop and the clerk told us a good beach we could get to easily and were we could pick up a bus. The buses were only a dollar and in a short amount of time we were sitting on a white sandy beach soaking up the sun. The beach was perfect. There were maybe 5 other people there and it was huge. So we basically had our own private beach for about 5 hours, just enough time for us to get burnt and really thirsty.

 ST MAARTEN

Last summer Jon was looking at pictures you wouldn’t believe are not photoshoped and saw one of people standing on a beach with a huge plane flying almost directly over their heads. cracked.com That beach is Maho Beach and it is located on St Maarten. When Jon found out that we would be going to St Maarten he was so excited because he really wanted to see that beach in person. So we made it our goal to get there and see the planes landing.

When we got off the ship and got a map we found out that it was 6 miles away. That was a little too far to walk in the short amount of time that we had and knowing us, we would probably get lost again. So we stopped and talked to a guy who was advertising taxis, the taxis was more than we wanted to spend and we told him that so he told us that he really wanted us to enjoy his island so he gave us information on where we could catch a bus. As we were waiting for the bus we met a Father/son duo who were heading to the same beach and helped us get there. The “bus” was just a van and it took us about 45 min to get to the beach. Who knew that for such a small island that traffic would be bad?

The beach was awesome. Not only did it have beautiful blue water and a white sandy beach but there were nice waves (Jon likes waves) and the planes were really cool to see flying right over your head.

SEA SICK

Friday was another day at sea. But this time the weather was really bad. I think they said the winds were about 50 to 60mph. In any case the water was rough, it was windy and I got sea sick. The boat was rocking really bad… and it was a really big boat so you know it towards the end of the day I managed to get up and get ready for the evening show and dinner but they ended up canceling the show because it was too rocky. Thankfully I have wonderful husband who wants to take care of me and he went and got me some motion sickness medicine which helped me feel well enough to go to dinner.

BAHAMAS

Our last port of call was to Nassau, Bahamas. The Bahamas are a very beautiful place and I was excited to go lay out on a beach again without being sea sick. From the boat we could see a couple of beaches that looked really nice so we decided to walk to them, they were close and we couldn’t get lost. But when we got to the beach, they were crappy. Full of rocks and no place you could swim… People were still laying out but it wasn’t a place that we wanted to stay at. So we decided to walk to Paradise Island. A guy Jon met at St Maarten said that is where we should go when we go to the Bahamas. It was about a 1.5 mile walk and when we got to that beach the weather was turning cold. So we ended up staying at the beach for about 30 min before heading back to our boat.

 HEADING HOME

Once we left the ship on Sunday morning we rented another car and spent the afternoon driving around Florida. We had practically the whole day because we had to be out of our room at 7:30am and our flight didn't leave until 6:00pm. So we drove to West Palm Beach and hung out by the ocean. We found a Starbucks so we could hop on the Internet and see if we could find something to do... We didn't find much so we walked around a really nice neighborhood near the ocean and than drove around and looked at all the huge (probably expensive) homes along the ocean shore.


We continued to drive around and we stumbled along the City Centre place again. Since we knew there were a ton of restaurants around that area we decided to check that out again. Parking was a lot easier since it was a Sunday afternoon. And it was free!


The restaurant we decided to try out is called Cheeburger Cheeburger (cheeburger.com) It was awesome! You could pick practically any topping you would like your burger and order it! And they also have a ton of flavors for their shakes too!

I couldn't wait for the picture to be taken before taking a bite out of mine

After lunch we walked around a bit and than headed to the airport


Jon was really tired and tried taking a nap at the airport... what a weirdo :-)