Cruise Trip Awards

Over the course of our travels we have seen some really interesting sites--many of them being our fellow travelers! At the risk of being considered rude--we offer up some of our favorites. Viewer discretion advised!

Clearly we are not cut out to be Paparazzi as we often had a member of our party go and stand in the foreground or background in order to take these shots. Sooooo, take these with the humor intended---the 2012 Caribbean Cruise Awards!

The best wearing of a thong swimsuit--followed by the worst!






Next the award for the worst speedos--a tie--we weren't quick enough to get the guy wearing the white one! And really, isn't any Speedo "the worst"?







Here's the winner of the person we would like to put our towel next to on the beach!


We were unable to get a photo of the most drunk person who was still standing--but I refer you to the entry regarding the guys who shared our van in St Kitts.

The Award for the wrong sized swimsuit was also a tie. However, if we had stayed on-board for many more days we would easily have won this contest hands-down!





And because you can only look at so many bad swimsuit shots. This next award is a new one--for pouring nine Martinis at the same time without spilling a drop! We also have video of this if you can't believe it.




Isn't it amazing how travel broadens your horizons! Till next time--Happy Travels!

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Antigua & St. Martin

Antigua (An-tee-ga) has 365 beaches so we are curious why all four visiting cruise ships (us on Celebrity Summit, Caribbean Princess with newly restored engines, the Serenade of the Seas and the Carnival Valour) all sent their cruisers to Vally Church beach on Jolly Harbour. Or perhaps it just seemed that way.


The beach was beautiful and the water warm and waveless. We had our chairs, umbrellas and buckets of local beers so there really was nothing to complain about. We are just so used to being by ourselves, relatively speaking. However, having a bunch of people does make it easier to play beach games. One of our favorites is "who is wearing the most inappropriate swim wear". We will be judging the winners after our last port of call, so stay tuned for some fun photos (viewer discretion advised)!

The other night was the Deck Party and Fruit Event!


Curiuos combination, but it seemed to work. Pascal the Executive Chef was a big hit in the dancing.


We did hope that the ship's doctor was standing by--just in case!


St. Martin is 37 square miles divided into a French section (21 square miles) and the Dutch section (16 square miles). We docked in the heart of the Dutch section and took the water taxi to the town.


We probably could have walked, but with our recent experience, we decided to blow $6 each for an all day pass.

The men plopped themselves on the first batch of beach chairs we came to and Francie and I went shopping.


Conveniently the shopping street runs parallel to the beach just one block inland.


Without men dragging along we could be quite efficient and managed to boost the local economy and be back in time to have beer while it was still cold.

I know I speak for many when I say that it doesn't get much better than this--sitting on a chaise, cold beer in hand, looking at the blue water, eating a Brie and Bacon panini while having an Aloe leg and foot massage! Francie almost started a war when she agreed to have one woman do her massage and didn't realize that we had already been claimed by Keisha, who had seen us first! Once we got that sorted out, it was fine. We both loved it, but you do end up a bit sticky!






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St Lucia

This must be one of our favorite islands! The ships dock in a beautiful bay surrounded by volcanic peaks, covered in lush vegetation. There's a little airport just on the other side of the hill with little planes coming and going.

We hired a taxi driver, Earl, to give us a tour of the island including some time at a beach. After he got the beer truck to move so that we could get out of the alley we started up the hill to an overlook of the harbor. Ours is the Celebrity ship with the X on it-- the one on the right.


From there we wound around the steep roads, past the Governor's mansion to the site of the former British military barracks, now a Community College. There were great views from there too!





On the way we discovered that Earl only drove a taxi part time and that his regular job is that of policeman! As a result we got great parking spots and didn't have to worry about his driving! When we arrived in Marigot Bay (where they filmed the Dr Doolittle with Eddie Murphy) there was an animated, good natured exchange between Earl and another guy in Creole (the local language which is a combination of English, French and pidgin) the only word that we understood being "insurance". It turns out that Earl used to be assigned to the Marigot Bay station and he knew the guy--who was suggesting that Earl should just go ahead and run him over so they could collect the "insurance"! Never a dull moment!



Marigot Bay is beautiful and there were incredible yachts from all over the world--London, Australia, and curiously, Kentucky! I guess if I lived in Kentucky I just might want to keep my yacht in St Lucia too.


Earl dropped us at the beach and told us he would come back for us in two hours. Apparently he was called to go on duty because his buddy, Murphy, picked us up and delivered us back to the ship. No worries, just helpin' a buddy!

Leaving the harbor we had the battle of the ship's whistles (horns) between us and the Serenade of the Seas. They had to halt the air traffic for the little airport so the planes wouldn't run into the ships!


Tonight we will be enjoying our complimentary bottle of wine from the Captain! It was in our cabin when we got back today. Last week he had commented to us at one of the events that if we kept the weather nice this week, he would send us wine. I never dreamed that he actually would!


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Barbados

We had planned to walk to the beach as it looked very close to the ship, but when we ended up in an industrial area and guys were yelling at us from the bus that we were lost, we gave up, went to Plan B.

That involved flagging a car that said "taxi". We're not sure when it was last a taxi, but the Rastafarian driver with the impressive dreadlocks told us he would give us a ride, negotiated a fair price and, made a modicum of effort to move the stacks of styrofoam take-out boxes so that we could get into the back seat. Tom had to negotiate a pile of belongings to get into the front and commented that the entire seat moved as if it wasn't bolted down. Still, we made it in one piece and apart from him asking if we had any "Bill Clinton green" to which we just smiled--not having a clue until after we got out, we rode to the beach!

I had forgotten until we arrived at the beach that Malibu Beach, Barbados was the site of my infamous face plant in the sand last time we were here. According to Fritz I rolled off the beach chair face down in the sand--the result of too many rum punches and too much sun! Luckily Fritz was there to grab the back of my hair so that I didn't suffocate.

Today was much more mellow--for one, the price of rum punch had gone up from $5 to $10 and, the quantity and strength was significantly reduced. So, we limited ourselves to the one that came with admission and will use our rum punch allotment elsewhere! Since we were here last, about 5 years ago, the Malibu factory (for which the beach is still named) has been taken over by Cockspur Rum. They still make rum there, but no longer do any tours--or give out any samples!

The beach is still gorgeous and the water warm and turquoise and we had a lovely day bobbing in the surf and lounging under our umbrellas.





Fritz stayed on the ship because he wasn't completely up to snuff, but seems fully recovered this afternoon. Perhaps he overdid it last night!

And, speaking of last night, it was quite the event. We were invited to join the Chief Engineer, Konstantinos Zanikos, at the Captain's Table for dinner. There were the four of us, a couple from England, Nigel & Gillian--can you get more English? Plus a couple from Winnipeg, Canada.

We started in the wine bar with champagne and hors d'oevres. Then we moved to the dining room to the big round table in the circular overlook, on the mezzanine of the dining room. There we posed for photos which were presented to us at the end of the dinner. We had a fleet of waiters, hand lettered place cards, white wine with the first course, red wine with the second course and roses delivered to the ladies with our cherries jubilee!


We told the men that the bar has been set pretty high now--especially when the ladies all got the three kisses on the cheek, as is Greek tradition, when Konstantinos had to leave a bit early to go and get ready for the Captain's cocktail party. Oh, did I mention--more champagne at that event!

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San Juan, Puerto Rico

This was the turn around day for the ship, and the day that we were meeting Tom & Francie at the entrance to Fort San Cristobal at 9:30am. Enter Plan B! Just as we arrived at the Fort by taxi we received a text from Tom "At the hospital with an eye emergency, will contact you at 10:30".

Needless to say we spent an hour worrying while paging through Spanish language newspapers at a coffee shop. We did take advantage of the "Free Hugs" being offered in the main plaza!

Tom & Francie made it back at about 11:30 and then we heard about the horrors of their experiences since leaving home!

Tom had woken from a nap on the plane to no vision in one eye. Being a nurse, Francie flew into action at their first stop in Charlotte and started tracking their Opthalmologist. By the time their connection was boarding, as Tom was somewhat improved, they decided to continue on to San Juan.

However, just after checking into the hotel, it happened again prompting them to set off for the Emergency Room! At the advice of the hotel desk manager they went to a private hospital but, it turned out that they didn't have a specialist so they referred them to a specialty clinic--who sent them to the major trauma hospital. They spent the next 17 hours in what sounds like a bad movie: endless waits, a CT scan which irradiated half the corridor as well, hard flat gurneys without even a sheet---in a freezing cold cubicle, a guy across the aisle handcuffed on both sides to the gurney being guarded by two cops, endless people lined up in the corridors in various stages of distress. No food, no water, no pillows or blankets (the locals bring their own), not even a plastic chair, and no specialist until the morning!

Luckily it wasn't a detached retina which could have caused a permanent vision loss, but, they believe a mini-stroke which caused blood vessels to burst. After many texts and emails to his doctors at home Tom is set up with a follow up appointment when he gets home. In the mean time, we have offered to get him a white stick or dog. He is doing his best to look suave as he wears his sunglasses everywhere!


By the time we met up with them T & F had been up for three days and hadn't eaten in 24 hours. We were planning to go straight to eat, but we did meet them at their hotel armed with a cold beer and Twix bar--just to keep them from collapsing.

After some sustenance we spent a couple of hours wandering Old San Juan and marveling at the beautiful architecture.


It was nice and warm and I think T & F were just glad not to be in "a big concrete building".

Once on the ship we did our life boat drill. Not quite as useless as last week. We did know enough to get there early for a seat, but you would think that this was the first time that the ship had done this drill, not something they do week in, week out! In addition, we had the same screw up at dinner. Despite my having spoken to the Maitre D at dinner the night before, we arrived at our assigned table for 8 and it was set for 6--with 4 people already at it! The 4 of us said we would take any table, but it still took them 15 minutes to figure that out. To be fair, we did discover that 2 of the people at our table were friends of the other 2 who had decided to sit together even though they were not assigned to the table--plus, they didn't offer that up until the waiter started checking cabin #s against table assignments--good grief!

We will not have that problem tonight as we have been invited to sit at the Captains Table with some of the Senior Officers! Last week we got friendly with the woman who manages the Captain's Club and she called to invite us. When I said that our friends were now on board, she extended the invitation to all of us!

We should be bursting at the seams tomorrow as today is also the "at sea" brunch which we just munched our way through on Thursday! It consists of every food known to mankind---stations for pasta, omelets, fish, sushi, meats, cheeses, breads and of course desserts! They have two large chocolate waterfalls for swirling fruit under and, my personal favorite, a crepe Suzette station--with plenty of liqueur in the sauce!






We are trying to pace ourselves, so this morning we just ordered a light breakfast of fruit and pastries, accompanied by mimosas and coffee--served on our balcony. I know, I know---such restraint!!!



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