Cruise: Day 6

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled Cruise Saga for this special report...

Last night, while wandering aimlessly through the mall, we stopped at a jewelry store that was going out of business, with huge signs boasting 50-70% off normal prices. I paused to glance at a display, the saleswoman came over and started chatting with us, and next thing I knew, I was trying on rings.

I tried on a lovely little ring that I adored on first sight. I suddenly have this thing for rubies--probably because they are Ari's birthstone. I asked the saleswoman how much it was, and was surprised to find the price was much lower than I thought. I glanced at Tony, and without a moment's hesitation, he said, "You want it? Get it."

I browsed a little more and found a ring with 2 pear-shaped stones--one blue topaz (my birthstone) and one peridot (the birthstone for August, the month we got married). I loved that one for the symbolism of the 2 stones, and its price was even lower than the first ring. Tony again shocked me when, with a casual shrug, he said, "Get them both."

"I can't do that," I replied. I paused, and selected the first ring--it was much more my style.

So I am now the proud owner of this (it's the one on my index finger, in case you're confused...):



He called it a belated anniversary gift. As if the cruise wasn't enough. :)

Anyway, on with what you came here for...

Day 6, Thursday, October 2: Labadee, Haiti

We were due to dock in Labadee, Haiti (Royal Caribbean's privately-owned beach) at 8 AM on Thursday. Feeling a bit lazy, we scheduled room service to bring our breakfast at 8:30, figuring we'd wait until after the mad rush of people got off the ship.

For some reason, though, room service never came. We woke on our own around 9:20, a little confused as to why it was so late. I called room service and explained the situation--they were highly apologetic as they retook our order, and promised to bring it right away. It arrived probably no more than 15 minutes later, and while we waited, I took my usual morning pictures from the balcony.





I surmised that the good view must have been off the port side, since I couldn't see any beaches from my vantage point. We ate our breakfast, got ready, and were heading off the boat by about 10:30. This was the first port we didn't dock at--instead, we anchored off-shore and had to take tender boats to get to land. I think there were 3 total--in this picture, you can see one pulled up to the ship, and another getting ready to.



We got right on the boat, but had to wait for it to fill up, so within minutes, we were sweating in the morning sun. Several crew members had warned us all that Labadee was always the hottest port day, and they weren't kidding. St. Maarten and San Juan had been pretty toasty, but Labadee had them both beat.

When we got off the boat at the dock, there was a huge sign welcoming us to Labadee, and so we took advantage of our first photo op.



And there was a local band greeting us with music.



There was a beach off to our right, but we headed left, skipped the first beach we found, and settled in at the 2nd one we came to, with a great view of our home-away-from-home.



It was a lovely little beach area. Off to the right were the ruins of some old stone buildings.



We searched for some empty lounge chairs, and the next thing we knew, someone who worked there was setting up 2 for us. He even took our towels and spread them on the chairs for us. We felt bad because we'd brought no cash with us and had nothing to tip him with. After he walked away, we decided we had to get in the water right away--it was just so hot. The water was amazing--the kind of water you could just dive right into, without having to work your way in slowly. After we cooled off, we decided to walk around and explore this place. The was the view facing inland from our spot on the beach.



See that big sign, right about in the center of the picture? That was a map, of sorts, with signs with arrows pointing which way to go. I'm not sure what I was expecting from Labadee, but it was much bigger than I thought. I guess I expected a couple different beaches (maybe an adults-only one, and a family one) and a place where they served lunch--and that would be about it. Instead, there were no less than 5 separate beaches, several bars, 3 different pavilions that served a BBQ lunch, full restrooms (as opposed to outhouses or something), a water park for kids, a Haitian marketplace (more about that later), all kinds of water sports (everything from floating water mats to jetskis and kayaks), beach volleyball courts, etc. The place was unbelievable. Here's a map of it...



You can see it was much more than just a private beach--they owned this entire peninsula.

When we reached another beach, we caught sight of the zip line. We knew that was there, since it was one of the excursions that RC offered. Tony wanted to do it so badly, but it was $80, and he didn't want to do it alone, and there was no way I was going to do it... and so we settled for watching it a little, knowing that our dinner friends Kyle and Amy were doing it and could tell us all about it later. In this picture, if you look at the top of the mountain on the right, you can see the tower where the zip line starts.



And here's a brave soul flying down the zip line... (And, again, check out the color of that water!)



Our wandering led us to a gorgeous little hammock, perfectly positioned in the shade. Now, if there was ever a picture in my mind of what paradise is, this is it--swinging lazily in a hammock on tropical shores. I took a quick picture of Tony before joining him myself.



Ahhh, bliss. We must have killed at least half an hour here.



Foot picture #2! (Last one, I promise.)



I was in love with all the palm trees. Tony pretended to be taking a coconut from this one (no, he didn't really do it).



There were also lots of baby palm trees, which I loved even more, because they were almost my size.



Then someone graciously offered to take a picture of both of us. Another one of my favorite pictures from the cruise.



Everywhere we went in Labadee, the view was amazing...





We had planned on going snorkeling, but by the time we got to the booth to rent our equipment, they were no longer renting it. They said the visibility underwater was too poor--people who had rented equipment were coming back complaining, wanting a refund. We were a bit disappointed, but glad we hadn't wasted our money. Instead, we rented a floating mat, and returned to our beach. We got right back in the water to cool off again.

After several minutes in the water, I decided to get out and read for a while on my chair. But I only lasted about 10 minutes or so before I was absolutely melting. Right about that time, Steve and Freyja showed up, and they stood in the water near us while we floated with our mat. They had taken a tour of the island, which they said was really fascinating. They shared some of the points with us--for example, their tour guide was a native, and the only one in his family to have gotten a formal education. (And, to do that, he had to travel across the bay by boat, and then walk 7 miles one way--every day.) He told us that a little village across the way (when Steve pointed it out, we realized it was the village we had seen from our balcony that morning) is where all the Labadee workers live--when they see the cruise ship pull in, they hop in their boats, travel across the bay, and get set to work. Steve and Freyja also told us they'd been to the Haitian marketplace--like I said before, we hadn't brought any cash with us, thinking there would be no shopping opportunities in Labadee. Steve graciously lent us $20, and after chatting with them for a few more minutes, we headed off to the marketplace.

Steve and Freyja warned us to be prepared for very high-pressure sales tactics, and they were not kidding. We were practically swarmed by sellers the moment we got in, each one asking, "Please, can I show you something?" and sometimes literally grabbing our arms to drag us over to their booths. And of course, if we said anything out loud about liking a certain piece, we'd have 3 or 4 different sellers waving their similar pieces in our faces.

We knew we wanted some artwork, and when we found a piece we liked, the man offered it to us for $40. Tony, the expert haggler, talked him down to $10. And, for our other $10, we got 2 metal lizard wall decorations and a set of maracas for Ari. All in all, I think we got some pretty good deals.



We returned to our beach chairs to set our treasures down, and got back in the water. A Royal Caribbean photographer was making the rounds, and she took our picture, which we later ended up buying. I love it because I think we look so peaceful and relaxed (and tan!). (It looks much better in person, I promise--a picture-of-a-picture never turns out well, but you get the idea.)



One of the last things we did was take a stroll through some of the old ruins. Here we are in front of the old bell tower.



We headed back to ship around 3, taking one last picture before we went got on the tender boat.


As we rode back to the ship, I took one last picture of the recreation area. You can't really see, but there are a ton of jetskis and even a water obstacle course.



When we got back, we had to shower--we had sand everywhere, and I do mean EVERYwhere (don't ask). We had somehow forgotten to eat lunch in Labadee (we were too busy exploring and then keeping cool in the water), so by dinnertime, we were starving. Dinner was great--Kyle and Amy told us all about their zip line adventure, and swore it was worth every penny. Our waiters did another performance for us--this time, all decked out in Hawaiian gear with crazy wigs and surfboards as props.



And we took yet another group picture--this time, including Davut (back left) and Jovenito (back right). Also, in this picture, Tony is sporting his very-Caribbean shirt that he bought in St. Maarten.



After dinner, we hung out with Kyle and Amy in the Olive or Twist Lounge on Deck 14. It was a very posh place--nice mood lighting, an awesome view of the pool decks (which we'd seen previously, in the daylight and which was even cooler at night), and a live jazz band. This picture sucks, but I had to take at least one.



After killing time there, we headed down for the show and saved seats for Steve and Freyja. Tonight's show was called "Somewhere in Time" (it was about a pair of lovers who keep running into each other through different historical time periods) and it featured an entirely new troupe of singers and dancers. This was only their 2nd live show (the previous one being the 7 PM pre-dinner show for the second-seating dinner guests). They absolutely blew us away. Not that the other group was bad or anything, but this new group was a whole different caliber. We gave them a well-deserved standing ovation at the end.

After the show, we headed to Studio B for the much-hyped "The Quest" (we went with Kyle and Amy, and saw Steve and Freyja come in later and sit across the room from us--we tried to wave them over, but they were happy where they were). Studio B is the ice rink (where they had the ice show, which we somehow never got around to seeing), but tonight they had the ice covered in preparation for this game. Basically, "The Quest" was a massive scavenger hunt. They divided the entire room up into 10 teams, and each team had to select one male and one female team captain. I've done group scavenger hunts like this before, but this one was a lot of fun, because they phrased some of the clues so that you actually had to think about them. For example, one of the first clues was, "I need 4 non-human hands." (Answer: 2 watches. Get it? Because watches have at least 2 hands.) Another was "A set of black teeth." Most people brought down men's black combs, but one team had a guy run down and show them the zipper on his pants (hey, the teeth WERE black) and another team had a black man run down and flash his smile at them. You definitely have to give people credit for creativity. (I'll let you imagine how a few women responded when they asked for "Something fake.")

We mostly just sat back and laughed and observed, but Tony got into it at one point when they asked for 8 team members to come to the floor and make a human pyramid. Tony's on the bottom right in this picture.



The grand finale of The Quest was to have each team captain don a woman's bra (being worn properly), women's shoes, a woman's purse, and women's lipstick (yes, it had to be on their lips). Then, of course, they made the poor guys parade around the floor. Our team captain is the one on the left, holding up the number "5." Two people down from him, the guy holding the "9"... man, I thought for sure this guy was going to injure himself--he was wearing wedges, and he could barely stand, let alone walk. But he was such a good sport--all the guys were, obviously.



After The Quest, they had an 80s Dance Party. We hung around for a few minutes, enjoying the blast from the past, but since we're not big dancers, we left shortly. When we got back to our room, we were shocked to find an apology note from room service, apologizing for the mix-up with breakfast that morning... and a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries to make up for it.

Before bed, I stepped out on the balcony--even though there's really nothing to see late at night, I just love being out there, and listening to the sound of the ship cutting through the water and feeling the ocean breeze in my hair. But this night, I was startled when a small bird swooped over my head. I called Tony out, and we saw at least 3 or 4 tiny birds fluttering about--they looked like some kind of sparrow or canary. We worried that maybe they were stuck or confused--they kept flittering around between balconies. And then we heard chirping--lots of chirping. I poked my head out and looked up... and, illuminated by the lights of the upper decks, there had to be close to 100 of these tiny birds darting about. I suppose we were close enough to land for them to congregate near the ship--either that, or maybe we interrupted their migration? Who knows. It was a pretty cool sight, though. We were tempted to walk to the upper decks to see what it all looked like from up there, but decided against it, since we were tired and it was almost 1 AM. So off to bed we went.



Next entry... our last day on the ship, at sea...

Cruise: Day 5 (Part 2)

I was just reviewing my old entries and I realized I completely missed a picture on the Day 3 entry. It's one of my favorite pictures of the whole cruise...



OK, now on to the rest of San Juan...

Day 5, Wednesday, October 1: San Juan, Puerto Rico (Part 2)

Well, we survived our walk through the "ghetto" of San Juan and arrived safe and sound at the second fort, Castillo de San Cristobal. Soon after we entered, we ran into Steve and Freyja, which was a pleasant surprise. We chatted for a few minutes--they were about done with sightseeing and wanted to do some shopping, so I gave Freyja the shopping map I had gotten at the shopping seminar, since I didn't need it anymore.

Both forts had 3 flags flying over them--I recognized the US flag and the Puerto Rican flag, but couldn't figure out what the third one meant. A quick look at my guide to the fort told me it was the Cross of Burgundy, an old Spanish military flag.



Both forts offered excellent views of the ocean. I loved the way the waves were breaking on the rocks near the shore.



Tony took this picture of a cemetery.



From the highest level of the fort, we had a good view of our ship.



Tony, ever the daredevil, insisted on climbing into one of the openings and standing as close to the outside edge as possible. I took the first picture and then handed him the camera. He took the 2nd picture--see how it's a straight drop down? I walked away, telling him, "If you're going to fall, I don't want to see it."



I have to admit, though, this is a nice shot. I love the waves.



Tony wanted a picture of me in the same spot he'd been standing in, so we compromised and I sat, safely on the inside edge.



Then we decided to have a little fun with our pictures. We found this stack of cannonballs, so I decided to pretend I was trying to take one out, and Tony struck a meditative pose on the top of the pile.



Then we took a normal picture. I was still standing on the ledge of the cannonball pile, which is why you don't see the typical me-straining-to-fit-in-the-picture-and-Tony-leaning-down pose.



After we left the fort, we decided to slowly make our way to the pier, since it was getting close to the time we had to get back on. On our way, we saw this massive, disgusting caterpillar, and like the tourists we were, we took a picture (Tony stuck his hand next to it for scale).



There was a huge monument to Christopher Columbus not far from the fort.



We browsed through some local vendors, and then came across a shop called the Haitian Gallery, which featured (among other things) arts and crafts made in Haiti. Since we didn't think there would be any shopping opportunities in Labadee the next day (we were wrong, but more on that later), we took the chance to buy a few Haitian items, as well as other souvenirs. A couple stops at a few street vendors completed our purchases for the day.

Here's a shot of a few of our souvenirs from San Juan. The big black bag in the background is the one I got for free at Del Sol (and it made a perfect beach bag in Labadee). The 2 cups on the left were made in Haiti. The small picture frame is made from real leaves (but I can't remember what kind). The print is a sketch of del Morro--we decided that it would be a good idea to get a small print from each place we visited, thinking that's a better and more visible souvenir than trinkets that sit on a shelf (unfortunately, we thought of this after we'd been to St. Maarten). The pack of rings and the keychains are the color-changing things we bought at Del Sol.



Our last stop before getting back on the ship was a pay phone near the pier. We got to talk to Mom and Ari again. I had to ask Mom if our talking to Ari the day before had been a good thing, or a bad thing (in other words, did it make her cry and miss us more?). Mom said it was definitely a good thing--she said Ari was "beaming" afterwards and excitedly told Grampa about it when he got home that evening. Tony made a couple more phone calls, and then we joined the herd getting back on the ship.

As we waited in line to board, I said to Tony, "You know, all these people are probably all going to be heading straight for the Windjammer to eat lunch. What do you think about ordering room service for lunch? It wouldn't take any longer than waiting in line at the Windjammer, and then we can watch the ship leave port from our balcony." He agreed that that was a great idea, and as soon as we got back to the room, we placed our order.

While we waited, Tony was on the balcony, and he soon poked his head back into our room and hissed, "Hey, come out here!" He pointed down to the pier, and told me what he'd just seen. There was a fairly large group of Asian tourists getting back on the boat, and when they got to this one lady, they stopped her. Apparently, she tried to just rush past the ship's security, but they grabbed her and literally hauled her off the boat. By the time I got out there, they were in the midst of a heated discussion--lots of arm-waving and angry gestures, mostly from the Asian woman. She had a companion with her too--a man in a wheelchair--and what appeared to be a couple pieces of luggage. We couldn't hear a word since we were too far away, but we had fun speculating what might be going on. Border patrol was there as well, and a few minutes later, the 3 or 4 ship security guards got back on the ship, and moments later, the gangway was pulled back in and we took off. We watched as the border patrol escorted the woman and the man off the pier. We're still dying to know what happened there. Was she trying to sneak on the ship? Or was she a passenger who had lost her Sea Pass? But if so, why did she have luggage with her? Was she a passenger from another cruise ship who got left behind and thought she could just bum a ride with us? What on earth made her think she could take on several security guards? Or even sneak on a ship like this in the first place? I guess we'll never know.

And because we were being so nosy, we almost missed the room service delivery guy. After watching the scene for several minutes, it occurred to me that we probably wouldn't be able to hear a knock on our door from the balcony. I opened our door to check the hallway, and slightly startled the room service guy standint there, who smiled and told me he'd been knocking. Oops.

As we left port, we had an incredible view of the Puerto Rican coastline. Here's a good shot of La Forteleza.



Del Morro...



Another shot of del Morro... (and, in the water, our "escort" out of the port, fully equipped with a big ole' gun on the front)... I love the way the clouds are so perfectly centered behind the fort.



I love this coastline shot--the waves are amazing, and you can see all the colorful buildings (and also part of the 2nd fort, on the left).



I couldn't believe how quickly the island disappeared behind us...





After Puerto Rico was out of sight, and we were done our lunch, we decided to make it a lazy afternoon. We had done a LOT of walking in San Juan, and you know how being out in the sun just seems to drain your energy. Tony declared he was going to go get a soda, and I dozed off while he was gone. When he returned, he had Ben and Jerry's with him--the cone he'd gotten me was dripping all over the place. "Why didn't you just get it in a dish, silly?" I asked.

"Because I know you like it in a cone," he answered with a smile.

I ate the cone quickly, since it was such a gooey mess, and a little while later, we were both blissfully asleep in bed.

Tony set a wake-up call, and I'm pretty sure he answered it, but he must have fallen back asleep. When we woke up, it was much later than we had intended, and we both had to take showers (since we were sweaty and gross from all the walking in San Juan). And of course, it was formal night, too, so we had to look presentable. We raced through our showers, and somehow made it to dinner only about 10 minutes late.

We were so much better coordinated on the first formal night. And I know, I could have re-worn the same dress, but I didn't feel like it. And I didn't feel too bad for my less-than-formal outfit, because I quickly learned on this cruise that they don't really force people to abide by these "dress codes." There were plenty of people in jeans on "smart casual" nights, and plenty of people in just pants and nice blouses (like me) for formal night.



We had a great time at dinner--I don't remember what we talked about, but I know we all laughed a lot. We were so fortunate to have such great companions for dinner. I remember, before we left for the cruise, thinking how we could probably skip dinner once or twice--like if we didn't feel like getting dressed up, or we wanted to be lazy in the room. But we found ourselves looking forward to dinner each night, knowing we would miss our new friends if we skipped out.

As the meal ended, we all asked each other who was going to the show that evening, and it turned out that all of us were planning to. Nothing else was said, so we all went our separate ways. We returned to our room, got changed, chilled for a while, then headed out for the show. We decided to look around and see if we could find any of our tablemates, and to our delight, we saw Steve, Freyja, Kyle and Amy all sitting in a row, waving us down--they had saved us seats. We thought that was so sweet--especially since we hadn't all specifically planned to sit together (unless the 4 of them talked after Tony and I left dinner).

The show was excellent--it was a one-man show, featuring Paul Boland, the "Man of 1,000 Voices." I wasn't keeping count, but let's just say that I have never seen any one person tackle so many impressions, one right after the other, all packed into a less-than-one-hour show. He was fantastic, and he really knew how to play to the audience.

For his grand finale, he did an Elvis impersonation. He started singing to a lady in the audience and she reached out and grabbed at his hips as he gyrated in front of her. When she stood up, Steve and Freyja leaned over and hissed, "That's HER!" They had gone to a game show a few nights previous called "Love and Marriage"--basically the same idea as The Newlywed Game, but not strictly newlyweds. There was, of course, a honeymooning couple, then a couple who'd been married 18 years... and then Neil and Joan, married 57 years. According to Steve and Freyja, they really stole the show--they got every answer right, almost word-for-word sometimes, and they were witty, spirited, and hilarious. (They replayed the show on one of the many Royal Caribbean channels on the TV, and Tony and I had caught bits and pieces through the past couple days. Steve and Freyja were right--they were hysterical.) Anyway, once Joan started dancing with him, Paul Boland just went with it, and before we knew it, Paul Boland had her dancing for another guy a little further back in the audience. Then Paul Boland decided Neil was getting jealous, and had Neil get up and do a dance for that other man's girlfriend/wife. The audience was roaring, and it was the perfect end to an already-hilarious show. I almost felt bad for the people who were going to be catching the 11 PM show--without those same people in the audience, there was no way the ending could be that funny.

After the show, we walked Deck 12 for a little while, enjoying the fact that, now that we were going in the opposite direction, the wind was almost non-existent. We played ping-pong--I held my own through the first several points, and then somehow lost miserably.

A little after 11, we headed to the On Air Club for karaoke--not that we intended to sing, but we wanted to watch and listen. Kyle and Amy joined us. Tony kept bugging me to get up and sing (especially after a couple particularly awful people), but I said, "No way." It was a nice way to kill a little time--there was no one who was great, but most people were tolerable, and even the really bad ones were at least entertaining, for that reason alone.

Our towel animal that night was this stingray (with our pillow chocolates for eyes). Tony loved this one, because the mascot of his collegian (kind of like a fraternity) in college was a stingray.



Next entry... Labadee, Haiti!