On the way home

Morning dawned bright and early (as it usually does) and we got up about 7am, took a quick shower and finished shoving things into our carry on bags.   Then headed downstairs to our final breakfast at Luminae about 745am - we finished up about 830am and headed to deck 5, where the Suite waiting lounge was.  About 915am we decided to get off......the line off the ship was nothing, the line waiting for customs!!!!  Lucky we didn't have to claim our bags as they were already headed for the airport via the luggage valet system (best $20 you can spend if you are flying)  so we just stood in line with the rest of the sheep until we cleared customs.

Once outside - OMG, what a disaster.   Since most of the people seem to have purchased the Celebrity transfers to the airport, the lines are crazy and they don't seem to have enough busses.....so we use our new favorite mode of transport - Uber.  About 10 minutes later our driver shows up (with 2 other passengers, we were sharing the cab since we didn't have luggage) and 20 minutes later, we're at the airport for a total cost of $11.58.

We head through security, and then up to the Delta Sky lounge to hang out for a few hours until our plane leaves - and so I can use the wifi to get caught up on the blog (since I did get a bit behind)

Last Day

Breakfast at Luminae was great and after we went back to the room I decided it was nice enough to keep myself in our room today - or out on our balcony - once the sun moved high enough in the sky, we had some nice shade and a great view, so I stayed there most of the day.  We even decided to order room service lunch, which was pretty good.

We finished packing (note to self, don't bring so much crap next time, you don't wear half of it anyway and they have laundry service....!) and went to check out the status of the Martini Bar - where they were pouring fancy multiples like it was going out of style (where has this been the whole cruise?) they poured a 12 when we showed up, and about 30 minutes later (after getting run over by an old lady who decided that SHE should sit in the seat I was just pulling out to sit down) they poured a 36 (2x18) which got mostly in the glasses.    So that's pretty good.

Headed down for our last dinner at Luminae (sad) but ended the evening with a birthday cake for Chris - yes, it's not until Tuesday, but I went to ask for the Black Forest cake recipe from the previous night (since he at it all) they offered to make him a cake (awesome)

WOW.  That was the cake.  We each had a piece and then asked the staff to eat the rest of it, because I'm not taking it home!!!   I have the recipe too, so I'll try and figure out how to make it....

The one odd thing was we weren't switching our clocks back to EST until this last night, which I thought was weird but now think was brilliant - it give you one more hour to sleep before you get off.  We went to bed about 11 (so really, 10) and didn't have to be out of the room until 8am!!!

Almost the last sea day

One thing I will say about this cruise - I've NEVER been on a ship with this much movement as last night and today- I'm sure some of it was related to the fact we were in the open Atlantic and going 20 knots, and our room was so far back (and up!) on the ship, but it was really interesting when we go to the pool deck after breakfast in Luminae, jammy packed with people AND you'd think there was a wave machine in the pool.....!   This reminds me of 2 other previous trips - one on Mariner of the Seas with my sister and family (they closed the pool it was so bad, but not after we had some good fun in the pool!). And my favorite memory, when on our transatlantic cruise on Adventure of the Seas, and some pompous old lady in the pool is informing everyone in the pool "that the ship has a wave generator" and that's why the pool is so splashy.   ?????????  When I asked her why she thought they had a wave generator, she pointed to the drain (!) at the bottom of the pool and informed me that was it.  I asked where she had heard it, and she claimed "she just knew one when she saw it".   Umm, okay crazy lady.......

We left the pool area again when the bad music started (3pm!) and had some snacks in the room - tonight was the 2nd "evening chic" night and we were hitting the show afterwards (ROCK CITY) as it was new.   Dinner was quite good in Luminae (duh) and about 830pm we headed to the show, where our butler Cesar, seated us in the reserved suite section.  The show was....interesting.  Not bad, but I'm not raving about it either.  Not as weird as Topper was earlier in the week, but listening to U2 and Nirvana being sung poorly (the girls were good, the guys weren't) was pretty odd.  And, the music selection was squarely targeting the 40-50 demographic....with most of the ship being 70+ - so I'm not sure how that's going to work out for them.  I liked their previous show "Eclipse" better, but since I'm not running Celebrity Productions, I don't think they care either.  It was definitely not as expensive to produce either, the sets never changed.   I did also find out that the blonde girl singer is the staff captain's girlfriend.....

After the show was over, stopped by the Martini Bar and then headed upstairs to bed.

St Maarten, and the big surprise!

Our final port stop had arrived - then 2 days at sea to home.  This was going to be a big day in port - with 6 ships total (and 5 at 8am)   We were scheduled to meet the taxi driver at 1030am, figuring that would give us enough time to have the crowds die down a bit - and boy, were we wrong!  The whole taxi process was a complete cluster......there were way too many people for such a small space, and it wasn't set up particularly clearly on where to get a taxi to a specific location - lots of shouting, people waving their hands and whistles from directing traffic.  We weren't able to find our scheduled driver, so we finally just hopped in a cab with 2 open seats to downtown for $6.   Made our way over to Shoppers Haven and look who we found........!

Such a wonderful surprise - Pam and Michael had flown to St Maarten for a few days (it was her birthday after all) and were meeting us there for the day.  We had some cake and got serious about our shopping expedition.  After picking out a few pieces and wanting to take a quick lunch break, we headed over to the Blue Bitch Bar to grab some sandwiches and a few drinks.  It was a beautiful day, we had a nice view and the company was outstanding!

After lunch, we headed back to make our final decisions and get everything squared away payment wise - I did come home with a pretty new bracelet, so ask to see it!  Pam and Michael had a rental car, so they drove us back to the port where we said our goodbyes and promised to get together again soon.  We got back onboard with about 20 minutes to spare - we were the first ship to leave at 5pm - which was interesting since 2 of the ships would be back in Florida with us on Sunday......

Dinner was very good - we ate in Tuscan Grille for the 2nd time this trip - it was very good and I'd recommend it. The Martini bar was fun as always and then off to bed!

St Kitts

St Lucia is a nice island - there's a really well preserved British fort (Fort Brimstone)  and the batik factory (at Romney Manor) and some really nice beaches.  But I've been here more times than I can count and we weren't feeling beachy so we decided to get off and walk around before settling in at the pool.  We walked out to the port area and it was pretty slow at 915am - unless you wanted a tour, then it was hopping!  After a bit of a walkabout in the sun, we wanted to get back on the ship - you'd think this would be easy, but the Carnival Breeze was docking, and with only 1 small narrow dock, they were keeping everyone off until the ship was tied down.  So we watched - interesting perspective, since everyone usually docks around the same time in the morning so you are usually on your own ship waiting.

It was really freaking hot - but after about 45 minutes they were tied up enough to let us walk down the pier to our ship and get on.  We then went upstairs and headed for the pool - it was a pretty nice day, with a few showers but nothing to get excited about.  Everyone started coming back to the ship in the early afternoon, and the place filled up pretty quickly.  Once the bad live music started, I headed back for the room...I'd learned that lesson already - when the music starts, run!

Dinner was as usual in Luminae, excellent. We seem to have a large number of liquids every night....

Where am I again?

Antigua.....so funny story, our first stop in Antigua,  was in 2004 and not planned,   We had scheduled a 7 day cruise (our second!) and we were on Navigator of the Seas out of Miami.  Eastern Caribbean, St Thomas, San Juan and some other place that escapes me right now.  Nassau maybe?  We left on Saturday August 24and were scheduled to return the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, September 4. The weather was Ok in Miami, but not looking good, and this is why.......Hurricane Francis!

So, our whole trip was basically scrapped.....we had no idea where we were going or when we'd get home, but we had a whole cruise ship at our disposal.  Our 7 day cruise became 9 days, and because of the holiday weekend, we didn't miss any work.   Biggest benefit was that Royal Caribbean had booked our plane tickets so we didn't have to worry how to get home.   We first ported in Antigua on Tuesday, August 31, and St Thomas on Wed, sept 1.

Back to Antigua, this was 11-12 years ago and things have really changed.....they used to get maybe one or 2 ships a week, and now they have 2 docks and there were 4 ships in the day we were there.  So we decided not to get off this time, the town isn't really big enough for 12,000 extra people.

Unfortunately, it was also somewhat of a washout at the pool, we got multiple torrential downpours and it was cloudy....so I headed for the future cruise booking desk and booked some future cruises for my friend Pam, who wasn't even on the ship!  She and her friends got some extra on board credit to spend because I was checking with her on my iMessage on the iPad.  Too funny.

Dinner at Luminae was great and we did some people watching later at the Martini Bar.  You can tell people are starting to get tired, the bar is less crowded the later it gets every night.....

We also walked by the pool deck, and they had pulled all the chairs off and stacked them, which makes the pool deck look huge.  I will try to get a daytime shot to show the difference.

And St Lucia....

This was another stellar pool day, quiet and generally not many people until mid afternoon.  A little rain, but nothing to get excited about.  I was reading a book, and every time I pulled it out of my bag, it started to rain again.  Chris called me the rain whisperer.  So I finally gave up and read a magazine.

We had been invited to the sail away on the helipad for the suite guests, it's a little warmer than our last trip in Alaska.

We also had the opportunity to meet Simona, the guest relations manager, and friend of our other friend Tom.

The sailaway was awesome, and then we headed for dinner, which was excellent as usual, and had a few laughs in the Martini Bar.  Tomorrow, Antigua!