Caribbean Cruise

Now for the highlight of winter! Our cruise!!! We went on this cruise with three other couples. The first was Josh's cousin, Devin, and his wife, Charm, who we also went to Hawaii with in 2017 and to Disney World in 2015. We are kind of on an every other year vacation schedule with them. Then there was also Scott and Tiffany Clifford and Vince and Tanya Calkins. All of these people we have known since like 2004 when Josh did the summer sales job for home security systems. Tiffany and Charm are also sisters. So it was a fun group and we all got along well!

I made a shutterfly book so I'm basically going to just copy and paste my writing sections here. So grandpa, get your McDonald's coffee and get ready to read for the next three days of reading because here it goes!

Our Caribbean adventure began on Friday, February 1st, 2019 when Josh and I drove down to Salt Lake City for our flight. My mom had flown into Idaho Falls the night before so we got to spend about 24 hours with her before we left. Burton school had been cancelled on Thursday and Friday due to an influenza illness, so Avery got to come with us to get grandma from the airport on Thursday at about 1:00. Then we all went out to lunch at Chick Fil A and came back to Rexburg to pick up the boys from school. Everyone was excited to see grandma!

The next day (Friday) we got the kids all to school and then Josh and I finished packing our bags and getting everything ready for our trip. The kids got home from school a little early on Friday, so at about 3:00 Josh and I said our goodbye's to the kids and grandma Sue and headed out on our adventure! Devin had asked if he could catch a ride down to SLC with us for Cash's basketball tournament, so he ended up riding with us too. We had rented a car from enterprise so that my mom could have our Buick for the week to drive our kids around in. (I also left her a 12 page letter to keep track of all their activities.)

Once in SLC, we dropped Devin with his group of people and then had some time to kill. We shopped at a couple places (Ross, Marshall's, Home Goods) and then headed to the airport. Our flight took off at 12:30 am and transferred in Charlotte, NC at about 4 am. Then it was off to San Juan, Puerto Rico where we landed at 12:30pm (Saturday) their time (about 9:30am our time). Luckily I was able to sleep on the airplane. The flight seemed short because I slept the whole time! Josh, however, said he did not sleep at all so he was pretty tired when we arrived in Puerto Rico. I was so excited when we arrived in San Juan and stepped off the airplane and walked into the airport and I could feel the warm sun! It was such a nice change to actually feel WARM! Then we went and got our bags (they both made it!) and our rental car. We were ready to explore Puerto Rico!

We promptly got lost as soon as we left the airport. 

We ended up taking a wrong turn immediately and going through a toll twice (about $8) within the first five minutes. But then we got our phones figured out and plugged in a certain beach road that we wanted to get to and we were just fine! What did people ever do before phones having step by step navigational systems?! We headed east on this road from San Juan that went through lots of little beachy towns. To be honest, a lot of them seemed pretty sketchy. I wouldn't have wanted to be driving through them at night. But in the day time they were bustling with busy little food stands and people walking to the beach. We had to stop frequently for traffic hold ups. But it was a warm, sunny day and we were enjoying the drive with the windows down. 

After about 30 minutes, we were almost to a beach that we had plugged into our phones but we kept seeing these little pull outs on the sides of the road that looked sandy. There was a little mound so we couldn't ever see over it past the trees, but we decided to take a chance and just pull out and see what was over there. It was somewhere right before Vacia Talega beach (which we had plugged into our phones but didn't actually get to yet.) We were pleasantly surprised to discover a nice empty stretch of beach! There was literally just one small family with two little boys playing in the sand and even they were quote a ways down the beach. We decided to change into our swimsuits and lay out on our towels for a little bit. Josh even jumped in the water for a minute. It was a nice welcome to Puerto Rico! After we got back in the car and drove about five minutes up the road, we did see that beach we had originally plugged into our phone and there were TONS of people and no place to park even! So I was glad we had stopped where we did! 

After we had spent about an hour on that first beach, we got back into our car and drove towards Laquillo where I had reserved an Airbnb. I had never used Airbnb before so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. But I had found this little old lady named Ada who had great reviews so I decided to take a chance. I was glad I did! Her home was in a nice gated community and the bedroom/bath she had for us was very nice. It had it's own entrance on the side of the house and was better than a hotel would have been! And for $90 it was cheaper than the hotels were! Here is a picture of our little white rental car in front of her house.

We arrived at Ada's house and she met us outside and showed us how to get into the side entrance. She was very sweet and accommodating. She had her little six year old granddaughter there with her and she looked a lot like Avery (but Puerto Rican). Josh took a little nap from about 4-5:30 and then we went and found a restaurant on the beach where we had tacos for dinner. Then we took some sunset pictures and headed on to Fajardo for our Bioluminescent Bay Kayaking experience! 

Our Kayak tour was scheduled to start at 8:30pm, which  I was told would be best because it would be fully dark outside. This was something my brother and his family had done last year in Puerto Rico and loved it. I have to say, it was fun and all but I think Josh enjoyed it even more than I did! We were paddling in the pitch black (barely any moon light) and I was just struggling to follow the light of the kayak in front of me with my post-LASIK night vision! 

The most exciting part of the kayaking was when we got to the big open bay area. We would put our hands or our paddles in the water and as we would move them around, the water around us would glow like blue sparkles! This was because of the bioluminescent microorganisms in the water. I honestly was struggling to see it very clearly. Maybe I should have brought my night driving glasses! But Josh said it was awesome! Unfortunately we didn't get any great pictures of it. Just the one picture that the tour guide took of me and Josh in the kayak. The video that I took just looks black. So I guess it will just live in our memories!

The next morning (Sunday) we woke up and got ready by about 9am and left Ada's house. We drove through town and stopped at a Walmart and got some trail mix and snacks. After that, we drove to El Yunque rainforest and did a little self-guided driving tour. There are lots of hikes we could have done if we had more time, but we just did the easy driving method. We drove up to where there is a waterfall off the side of the road and took a picture. Then we drove up to this tower where we walked up and saw some great views of the rainforest. At about 12:00 we left the rainforest and we drove to the San Juan airport so we could return our rental car by 1:00. 

After we returned our car, we had to take a cab to the cruise ship. It was about $20 to get me and Josh there and took about 10-15 minutes. By this time it was about 2:00pm and we were excited to meet up with our friends on the boat who had all flown in at about 10am.

We found our friends on the top deck of the cruise ship playing mini golf! We were all so excited to start our vacation! We decided to wait until we all got our bags delivered to our staterooms so they could change out of jeans and into more comfy clothes. Luckily that only took about half hour. So by about 3:30 we got off the boat again and walked around San Juan. Devin's main goal was to find some energy drinks, which he did at the Walgreen's so he was happy. Its amazing how there is a Walgreen's almost everywhere in the world. 

In Old San Juan, all of the buildings were so colorful and cute! It reminded me of Italy with a Spanish flair. One of my favorite things we saw was the old fort. (Officially it was called Castillo San Felipe de Morro and it was completed around 1780.) It was on the very tip of the peninsula in San Juan and right on the ocean.  There was this little side trail that went along the ocean and it was just such a beautiful walk! I am also throwing in this photo of the fort from google just so you can see how it looks from an aerial view. 

And now her is me in front of it from the big lawn space....

And some more random shots of buildings in San Juan...

We also found this cool cemetery that we could only look down on. I don't know how you actually even would get to it. 

Another favorite was La Calle de Fortaleza (Fortaleza street) with all of the umbrellas hanging above. Also, there was a beautiful old cathedral that we walked into (see ceiling picture). By about 6:00 we walked back to the boat and snapped a picture by the I love PR sign. Then it was time to sail away!

                                      

That Sunday night just so happened to be the Super Bowl! Let me tell you... it was pretty nice to just put our boys in front of a big screen TV in this theater room with a buffet full of food just steps away for them! The only sad thing was, we didn't get to see the commercials or the half time show. The ship was doing their safety thing at half time. The other sad thing was the Patriots beat the Rams. Oh well. Maybe now Tom Brady will retire.

We went to bed about 10:30 and were excited to wake up on St. Thomas!

At about 8:00 the next morning we all met for breakfast on the Lido deck. I was kind of afraid to ever eat breakfast (stomach issues) so I usually just took trail mix and snacks along for about 10am when I got hungry. 

We all got off the boat at about 9:00. We didn't have ay solid plans so we decided to just take a cab to Coki Beach. It was this open air taxi that could fit about 16 passengers. In retrospect, I kind of wish we would have rented a van this first day so we could've explored a few different beaches. But at that point we didn't really know what we were doing. So we went to this Coki Beach and it cost like $9 per person each way. So we basically spent almost $40 for me and Josh to just get to and from this one beach. It was a really pretty beach and the water was actually some of the clearest, most turquoise water of the whole trip. But there were TONS of people there. The beach/sand area was really not that large. Maybe just a quarter-half mile stretch. And it seemed like everyone on the cruise had come there. Some local island guys had taken up a lot of the beach with their chairs, which they wanted people to pay them $10 to use for the day. It honestly probably wouldn't have seemed as crowded if their chairs wouldn't have been everywhere. We did do some snorkeling and I had fun laying out in the water on my donut floatie. But I wish we could've also gone someplace less crowded after an hour or two. We decided to try and rent a vehicle on future beach days so we could explore more than one beach instead of just getting dropped in one place for the day. If I ever go back there, I also want to go over on the ferry to the nearby island of St John.

One more thing about St. Thomas... we saw these iguanas on some rocks at the beach that ate red peppers from my salad right out of my hand! I was feeling brave but then as it kind of snapped it's mouth right by my hand I jumped back like, "Eeek!" That was a funny experience!

The next day (Tuesday) was our only full day at sea. We spent time laying out on the top deck, eating yummy food, playing mini golf, sitting in the sauna at the spa, and playing cards. That evening was our "elegant night" so we all dressed up for dinner in the dining room. The service was a little bit better but still not great. We gave it one more night and then we ate in the buffet for the rest of the trip. We loved playing cards almost every night though and there was a pizza station where the little guy got to know our group and would keep the cheese pizzas coming! So we always had lots of late night food!

Day three of our cruise (Wednesday) was spent on the island of Barbados. We decided to take a cab to Carlisle Bay, which we had heard was nice. It really turned out to be a great place! The size of the beach was HUGE compared to Coki on St. Thomas. It was more like 2 miles of white sand beach and so even though there were other people there it didn't feel crowded because everyone was so spread out. Immediately we were approached by a guy who wanted to take us on his boat to see sea turtles and a shipwreck. We paid him $20 per person. He drove us about 1/4 mile out into the water and said "Here we are!" lol We felt kind of stupid because we probably could've swam that. At least the guys could have. I was glad to have the lifejacket though. 

So we jumped off the boat and into the water and there were lots of other boat groups nearby doing the same thing. Right away I saw a sea turtle near me and reached out to touch it's shell as it swam by. One of the guides from a different group kind of scolded me for that because I would scare it away, but I didn't regret it. lol After that we got back on the boat and went a little farther to see the shipwreck. It was cool but it wasn't like a genuine old pirate ship or anything. After a little while we got back on the boat and he took us back to shore. Then we walked down the beach and got some lawn chairs and laid out. 

The boys snorkeled some more. At about 1:00 we decided to rent jet skis. I rode on the back with Josh and it was a WILD ride! The sea was pretty rough as we got farther out! Josh thought it was really fun. Devin and Vince said they were surprised I didn't fly off with how much air Josh was getting. At about 3:00 we walked back to the boat through Bridgetown. It was about a 2 mile walk and we were HUNGRY when we got back. We scarfed down burgers and fries and ice cream!

Day four of the cruise (Thursday) was the place I was most excited about when we booked this whole thing: St. Lucia. I had seen pictures on instagram from the Sugar Beach Viceroy resort and it looked absolutely beautiful. I was wondering if it would make Kauai become my second place for favorite spot in the whole world. Well guess what... it WAS beautiful. But Kauai still holds my top spot as overall favorite place in the world! 

We got off the boat and were immediately greeted with a guy holding a "Solomon boat tours" sign. We had reserved a tour with him about a month earlier so we approached him and got on our boat right away with him and his "first mate" Titus. We rode down the west coast of St. Lucia, checking out the amazing cliffsides and coastal towns from a distance. 

We wanted to get down to the southern most point quickly so we could do the Tet Paul Nature Trail before it got too busy. In Soufriere, we got off the boat and took a van up to the trail. It was an easy trail with some fantastic views of the island and the Pitons. There was unfortunately a guide and an older couple in our group so we had to move really slow, but it was fine. We saw some pineapples growing from bushes on the ground. We also walked up this "stairway to heaven" to where we could overlook all of St. Lucia and the Pitons.

After the trail, we headed back down to Solomon's boat again where he took us to Sugar Beach. Right away I could tell that the resort kind of "owned" that beach. (Technically all the beaches are public, but they had all their nice chairs out under their tiki huts and those were off-limits to people not staying at the resort.) Solomon had a little area off to the other side of the dock with some beach chairs. They weren't as nice, but it was okay. We snorkeled there for a while and then they served us lunch. The lunch was local creole/french food of rice, chicken, taro root, and more. I was treading lightly due to my crazy stomach but I ate some of it and it was good. Everyone else in our group ate all of it. 

After a couple hours there, we got on the boat and went to Anse Chastenet. The water was really good for snorkeling there, but we only were there for about 30 minutes.  

On our way back we boated over to some coastal towns like Marigot Bay (which had homes to many celebrities such as Oprah, Sophia Vergara, and Nicholas Cage) and Canaries. St. Lucia is very mountainous and beautiful. It would be interesting to be able to spend a week there and see what else there was and how the east coast compared. We got back to the cruise port at about 2:30 and got off Solomon's boat then walked through some little shops before getting back on our ship. As usual, we ate our 3:30 meal and then relaxed on the deck. That night we ate dinner in the buffet and went to one of the evening shows. Our typical night was eating dinner around 6:30, attending a show from 7-8:30 and then playing cards and eating pizza from about 9-10:00. Oh and I have to throw in a few pictures of "drunk Charm". Haha No she was not really drunk. The boat guys went to the trouble of getting us nonalcoholic champagne since I had told them we didn't drink alcohol. But don't worry. We still acted like idiots. lol

Friday was St. Kitts! This day was such a fun surprise. We woke up that morning not really having a plan, except for that Josh and I had a reservation to swim with the dolphins at Dolphin Discovery Center from about 10-12:00. So we met Charm and Devin for breakfast at about 8:30 and then us four got off the boat and went over to Avis to try and rent a van for the day. We were able to find one and we hurried to get all the paperwork done but by the time we got in the car and Devin drove us over to the dolphin place it was about 10:05. We had just barely missed the 10:00 appointment so they bumped us to the 11:00 one, which was fine because then we actually got to watch the group in front of us and see what we would be doing. 

Meanwhile, Devin drove the van back to the cruise port and picked up the rest of our group. They came back to check on us at about 10:45 and Tanya decided she wanted to do the dolphin swim adventure with us too. So she stayed and the rest of the group went to a nearby beach to spend some time. They ended up having a little excitement when they got the van stuck in the sand! I guess they had to use a floor mat to put under the wheel and get some traction. They may have burned a hole in that floor mat... haha

Anyways, I LOVED swimming with the dolphins. I have wanted to swim with a dolphin since I was about 9 years old. I'm so glad we did this! Josh even admitted afterward he was glad too (even though it was about $225 for the two of us, including my picture package) We got to hold onto it's two fins and have it pull us across the water. Then we laid on a boogey board on our stomachs and it would push our foot as we glided. Then we took some pictures "kissing", "dancing", etc. Those dolphins were trained so well. And I didn't feel like they were unhappy or mistreated at all. At about 12:00 we were all done with our dolphin time and Charm and the group came to get us. We piled into the van and set off in search of some nice beaches!

The first beach that Charm, Devin, Vince, Tiff, and Scott had gone to while we were swimming with the dolphins had black sand and lots of big seashells. But everyone wanted to find a beach with calmer water for some snorkeling. So after about 30 minutes of driving (and barely making it up some hills with our very low-power van) we came across a little side road and it led down to a small, not very crowded beach (top right corner pic). It was kind of rocky, but the snorkeling was good and everyone went out for a little bit. I tried to look on a map to see where we were and I think it was in the White House Bay area. We saw a sign that said "Christophe" as we drove in. But we only stayed there for about an hour. Then we set off for a new beach.

The next beach we found was definitely the boys favorite of the entire trip. It was the most beautiful long stretch of empty sandy beach (big picture, left). It was called Turtle Beach and there were signs warning about rip tides! But that didn't stop the boys from getting out there and jumping in the waves!

Meanwhile, us girls all stayed on dry land and walked down to the end of the beach where the rocky section started and we took some silly pictures. I even took some Little Mermaid style ones on this big rock as the waves were crashing against it. 

After about an hour there, we decided it was time to head back to the ship. We were sad that day about not having until like 7:00 at night to explore because we would have loved to see more of St. Kitts and it's neighboring island, Nevis. Someday I would like to go back there and spend at least a few days. St. Kitts had a really unspoiled, natural appeal to it.

Also, on the way back to the ship, there was a local guy with monkeys and he set them on my shoulders hoping Josh would pay $10 to take my picture. He did take my picture when the guy wasn't watching. He did not pay the $10. Josh is very cheap.

The last island on our cruise to visit was St. Martin/St. Maarten. Apparently the south half of the island is Dutch and is spelled St. Maarten. The north side is French and is St. Martin. One of the big differences is that there are nude beaches on the north side... which we saw first hand. We began our day by renting a Durango from some shady guys. It started raining right as we were renting it and about half hour into the drive, we realized it was leaking onto us INSIDE the car. Definitely high-class. As we drove around the island, we could see how hard Hurricane Irma had hit the island in Sept. of 2017. Over a year later and there were still houses in ruins everywhere. We stopped at Maho beach first to try and see airplanes fly over us. Only a couple small ones came while we were there. Then we continued heading west and then north around the island. We stopped at Happy Bay beach, which was my favorite, but as we walked the pathway there we saw so many formerly nice beach villas in ruins. We also saw some naked old men on the beach. 

After a little while there we continued our drive and stopped at a nice French Bakery and I got an eclair. The day went too fast and we weren't able to get to Orient Bay, which I heard was nice. Of all the islands, this was my least favorite and seemed the most trashy. It also was the worst weather this day so I guess it made it easy to feel like, "Okay... we can go home now." We enjoyed our last night at the buffet and then got to bed early in preparation for debarkation the next morning.

Sunday morning we arrived back in San Juan by about 7am. Tiff and Scott had to get off the boat early to catch their flight, but the rest of us ate breakfast in the buffet area and then got off the boat by about 9:00. We took a cab to the airport and checked our big bags. Then we took a cab back into the Old San Juan area to walk around, since our flight didn't leave until 2:30. I REALLY liked Old San Juan. It's just a really cool, cute, colorful little city. There's lots of shops and restaurants and it just has a really unique vibe to it. We went and saw the capitol building, which I would've loved to go inside of, but they wouldn't let us because it was Sunday and it was closed. The beach that is right next to the capitol is so beautiful. It reminded me of the movie The Little Mermaid.

Then we walked back into town and went to Fortaleza street again and took a few more pictures. The governor's mansion is at the end of that street (the blue house) and it looked really nice. We also went into a few gift shops and bought things for the kids: a chess set, a dream catcher, a t shirt. We had also gotten the boys some sling shots in St. Lucia and some shirts on the ship and a bracelet for Avery in Fajardo before our kayaking trip.

By about noon we decided we had better get back to the airport and get ready for our flight. We ate some lunch there and then flew to Orlando, then SLC. When we arrived in SLC at 10pm it was a full blown blizzard! Luckily, we were able to stay at Chris and Holly's house for the night and drive back on Monday morning. It was such a fun trip! We were not too excited to be welcomed home by snow. Hopefully we can go someplace warm again soon!

So there you have it! My VERY long description of our cruise! We were gone for about 10 days from our kids and I feel like that was a good length of vacation. I was ready to come home. But now after being home for five days.... I'm about ready to go someplace warm again. lol