Caribbean Cruise May 2011

Goodbye New York! See ya in nine days! A few pictures of the sailaway...

Welcome to the Caribbean Princess cruise ship!

Last view of the New York skyscrapers.

The Brooklyn Bridge with another of the many bridges.

I like the sails of the ship in front of the Statue of Liberty.

We sailed under the massive Verazzano Bridge to get out into the open ocean. 

And we are officially out to sea!

Day 2: The next day was the first formal night on the ship.

I got to wear my new dress and jacket I had tailor-made in Qatar, not to mention the GORGEOUS pearls Rob got for me.  And Rob got to wear his new cuff links!

 Day 3: Sea Day--
We went swimming, hung out, played games, and ate at one of the the specialty restaurants on the ship for dinner.

We had incredibly good steak and lobster at the Crown Grill, one of the two extra-cost restaurants onboard.

Day 4: Grand Turk.  So I had never heard of Grand Turk or the Caicos Islands before this cruise.  Grand Turk reminded me a lot of Grand Cayman: both are tiny islands with not a whole lot to do, although Grand Cayman was more developed than Grand Turk.  However, there was a perfect beach and the snorkeling wasn't half bad either.  We saw some fun things in the water.  I love the warm Caribbean water, it's so easy to go swimming in it.  It was so good to be on the beach again! Oh how I miss the beach.

Look at the color of the water! Gorgeous.

It was a bit cloudy, but still a nice temperature.

Later that day--Playing games together was one of our favorite activities on the ship.  The game of the week was 10,000.  It's a dice game, and we played it just about every day. 

Brian and Jenny, our friends from England, stayed in this awesome suite on the back of the ship.  In the evening after our visit to Grand Turk, we went and watched the sunset from their balcony.  It was a stunning sunset.

 Day 5: San Juan, Puerto Rico!  Rob and I loved our visit to Puerto Rico.  It is an exotic island covered in jungle, but it has the safety and infrastructure of the US.

The streetside jewelry maker.  She is making my earrings and necklace.  It was pretty amazing to watch her work.

Time for our Puerto Rican jungle adventure! We went on a canopy zipline ride.  So basically, you hike to the top of the course with your harness and all your equipment.  Then they secure you on the double zipline with carabiners and lots of straps, and off you go! You get to ride on 8 or 9 different ziplines, some longer than others and some steeper than others.  It was a pretty amazing experience to fly through the jungle.  We loved it and definitely would have done it again!

It is so lush there.  All over the island the greenery looks like this.

You can't see him very well, but here's one of our numerous lizard friends.  We didn't see any other exotic wildlife while in the jungle, but the lizards were everywhere.  This one had a cool expandable neck flap that he inflated, but I didn't get the camera out quickly enough to catch it.

Rob was the first one in our group to go on the zipline.

There he goes!

You can barely even see me, that's how far away I am! And I'm on a zipline.

Rob just happened to snap this one as I landed on the platform.

We did it!

So much fun! What a rush!

We fully enjoyed our visit to the rainforest! And we didn't even get rained on.  It rained a tiny bit while we were waiting in the bus, but everyone that stayed in the city that day said that it poured on them! Guess we missed it.  After the zipline, our bus driver gave us a brief tour of the city.  Here are a few highlights.

The capitol building from the back.  You can see the US flag flying alongside the Puerto Rican flag here.

I know it's not a great shot of it, but here is the fort dating from the 1500s.  It sits on a peninsula and there is now a lighthouse on it.  It is so cool and old.

The front of the capitol.

We got pina coladas at this cute outdoor cafe.

Rob with the statue of Columbus.  He's holding his brand-new sword souvenir.

And finally back to the cruise ship.  What an awesome day!

That evening we went dancing at the club on the ship.  It was really fun to dance together again.

And then we waved goodbye to Puerto Rico from the deck of the ship.

The lighthouse on the fort.

A cool castle-like structure and the ancient seawall.

Bright and early the next morning (Day 6), we arrived at St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands.  These first few pictures were taken before 7 AM, so I apologize if we look like we have sleepy faces.

And then it was time for our excursion.  We rode on a catamaran called the Castaway Cat.  Our three crewmen took us out to Turtle Cove to swim with the turtles and see some great snorkeling reefs.  It was so fun to be so close to the turtles and experience the beautiful underwater life.  We saw sea turtles, manta rays, crabs, barracudas, and about a hundred different kinds of fish, some plain and some brightly colored.  We saw striped fish, polka dot fish, streaked fish, fluorescent fish, all kinds.  I loved the coral and the anemones and the sea urchins and all the stationary fixtures of the reef as well.  It was very cool. 

Rob raised the sail for us.  He did it so fast that the rope got caught and he had to do it again.  My macho man!

Just after snorkeling.  It was so fun!  Hopefully the pictures from our underwater camera turned out.  I haven't developed them yet. 

Pirates!  At least they're American.

Right after snorkeling.  It rained in the morning on our boat ride out to Turtle Cove, but then it cleared up and it was nice for the rest of the day. 

Great picture! As you look in the background, you can see the small island that we went to for lunch.

This is the private beach where we had lunch and relaxed on the beach.  It was gorgeous. And completely empty! We were the only ones there, which was so nice.

Look how close the jungle comes to the beach! Crazy beautiful paradise.

There were wild roosters and chickens all over the place. 

We went swimming and had a relaxing time at the beach.

I collected some small seashells for the girls. 

Goodbye beach!  Back on the catamaran to the harbor.

All around the harbor there were tons of iguanas sunning themselves on the rocks.  They were not in the slightest bit afraid of people.  There was even one lady feeding them pieces of popcorn, and she had about 5 iguanas gathered around her. 

St. Thomas has a strong Dutch history and influence.  Hence the windmill.

 Our excursion took up about all the time we had in St. Thomas, so we didn't do any sightseeing on the island itself.  But it was a fabulous day, and I wouldn't trade it for any sightseeing! Once back onboard, we ate dinner that evening at Sabatini's, the Italian specialty restaurant on the ship.  It was EXCELLENT! I think it was the best food I had all cruise. 

Day 7: At Sea. This was our final sea day.   
It was also the second formal night of the cruise.  People get way more dressed up for formal nights on Princess cruises than they did on Carnival cruises. We also got to do a bit more dancing that night.

Me and the manatee--we've got a thing.

Formal night #2

Rob's awesome parents lookin' good!

Everybody say "we love cruising!"

 Day 8: Bermuda.  I definitely know why so many ships have sunk in the Bermuda Triangle.  The entire island is surrounded by reefs! If you weren't familiar with the area, it's about a 95% chance that your ship will hit a reef.  Our cruise ship had to follow a channel marked by buoys on either side of the ship in order to safely navigate through the shallow spots.  And it took a really long time because of the preciseness of the route.  Also, I never knew that Bermuda isn't really part of the Caribbean.  It's much farther north, about on the same latitude as North Carolina, I think (maybe it's South Carolina--I don't remember).  It still felt like a Caribbean island: beautiful, nice weather, tropical. 

Our ship was too large to take us right into the main part of Bermuda, so it dropped us off at the dockyard.

 We didn't have an excursion planned for the day, so we decided to get off the ship and make our own adventure.  We found transportation information and took a ferry, walked a few blocks to the bus station, and then took a bus to see the Crystal Caves.  It was fun, and we got to drive through a good amount of the island on our way.  It is a very beautiful place. 

Our first view of Hamilton, the main city on Bermuda, from the ferry dock.

They were having a bike race the day we were there.  It was pretty funny watching all the tourists running out of the way of the speeding bicyclists.

Sorry if the pictures are a little skewed, they were all taken from inside a moving bus.

Look at the house on the hilltop.  All the houses in Bermuda are just picture-perfect.

Everything is very well-manicured and well taken care of there.

At the Crystal Caves

I wish it hadn't been folding its wings right when I snapped the picture.

 Down we go into the cave...

The skinny ones are called soda straws.

Look at the size of this formation! It is ancient to be this big.

I like the spiky one.

 A few pictures of the picturesque Bermudian homes on our ferry ride back to the ship.

Then it was back to the cruise ship for our last night. 

Sunset on our last night on the cruise.

Goodbye paradise! We will miss you!

Day 9: Debarkation in NYC. Since we were off the cruise ship by about 10 AM and our flight didn't leave the airport until 8 PM, we did a day tour of New York. It was all on a bus, so the pictures may be less than stellar, but since the weather was so cold and rainy, I'm kind of glad we didn't do too much walking around in it.

Rob with the Freedom Tower in the background.  They are reinforcing the new towers with a much thicker steel framework.  It will have the approximate strength of a bunker.

The only picture I got of the Chrysler Building.  And ya can't even see the top!

It was an amazing trip!! We flew home, arriving in Salt Lake City after midnight.  We ended up getting home to Green River around 4 AM.  Crazy stuff.  But it was so worth it! The worst part about the trip was missing my kids.  I missed them so much every day, and it was really hard for me to be away from them for so long.  But they did great with Tim and Tam for the first seven days, and Devin and Laurie for the last five.  They were happy to see us and we were very happy and relieved to see them.  It made me love and appreciate them so much more to be away from them like that. 

We have had so many wonderful traveling opportunities this year, I feel so blessed! A big thank you to Mark and Kelly for this awesome New York/cruise trip.  It was incredible!