For those who asked, our cruise pictures are available now online. The summary of the photos is: I took a bunch in Puerto Rico, a few in St. Kitts and then stopped shooting for the rest of the trip. So I only captured 3 of the 7 days. Here’s the trip summary:
We started off by spending two days at the Westin in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We arrived on Sunday. The hotel was great. Our rooms were gigantic 3-room suites. I would say the suite was just a tad smaller than our entire house. It was truly amazing. The Westin was tucked away, though, from the rest of San Juan so we really didn’t get out to see much of the city. We spent our time at the resort ordering 8 dollar drinks and eating ridiculously priced food. The food was so ridiculous that on Monday night I got sick from some sushi (see prior journal entry). While I wallowed in pain on Tuesday Courtney enjoyed some jetskiing on the ocean. She also managed somehow to get me on the boat later in the day.
The boat was cool but small. We cruised on the Radisson Navigator. It is supposed to be the second best cruise ship in the world. I would give it 3 out of 5. Our rooms were nice, but because of it’s size and the amount of people on it there wasn’t much to do. We pulled up next to a Royal Carribean cruise liner in St. Maartan. Our ship was half as high and half as long as the Royal Carribean. The first night on board took a bit of getting used to. You could feel the boat listing from side-to-side. This wasn’t good for Courtney and her motion sickness. Combined with my sushi situation we decided to call the night early and hit the sack.
Our first port of entry was St. Kitts on Wednesday. We ventured off the boat and walked parts of the town. It felt and looked much like Ocho Rios in Jamaica. Streets were dirty. Animals were just out walking around. Everyone was trying to get a buck from you for some reason. At one point I actually wondered why we stuck out so much like tourists…*cough*. In the afternoon we had a tour of the island on ATVs. Let me just say that the ATV was one of the most fun things I’ve done in a long time. I’m now trying to figure out how I can get one of ‘em.
After having a so, so experience in St. Kitts we thought that maybe our best bet would be to make our own fun on the boat. So Wednesday night we hit the town!….on the boat. We found the only bar open at 1am and spent the evening drinking away the minutes. So many rediculous things occurred that I can’t even do them justice. Plus, what good are drunk stories if you weren’t there?
Our prior night’s escapades made for a very late morning on Thursday. So late that we didn’t even make it to shore on Thursday to see St. Barts. We had a good time, nonetheless, sleeping the day away.
Friday we docked in St. Maartan. St. Maartan was a 180-degree difference from St. Kitts. It was clean and beautiful. Also it was owned by the Dutch AND French. We took a catamaran to a deserted island. Well, the island turned out to be populated with a few naked people. But they moved out of the way when we pulled up. Courtney and I snorkeled for a bit until we saw a gigantic nasty looking fish with teeth. Then we were done snorkeling.
St. Thomas was our Saturday trip. It was much like St. Maartan. More commerical. More american. Except that they drove on the left-hand side of the road with steering wheels on the left-hand side of the car. What a bitch to drive. We went to Magan’s Bay which is supposed to be the 8th most beautiful beach in the world. It was beautiful but I had had enough of beaches by that point.
Sunday we disembarked from the ship in San Juan. We had a short and sweet tour of some old fort in San Juan. Our tour guide was friendly, intelligent, and helpful but unfortunately most of us just wanted to sleep.
I left out some details here and there, but I think you get the general gist of the trip. It was good, fun, and relaxing. I need one every month.
