Well, hello my friends! I am happy to announce that we are back from our cruise. We had a great time this past week partying and hanging out with the extended family. We did so much that I feel like I need to take another vacation to rest from this one.
We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving on the cruise but it was not the same as being home. On Thursday evening the dining room gave us the option of ordering turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie but it was not as good as my family’s home cooking. We decided that we are going to cook a belated Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday night. We also got a watch a little bit of the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade, which is a tradition for our family.
Our cruise took us to Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Marteen. Our first stop was Nassau. Most of you already know how I feel about disgusting, overcrowded, and touristy Nassau so I will skip my commentary on it. Next stop was St. Thomas. When we got off the ship we immediately caught a 15 minute ferry to St. John and spent the day there. I highly recommend visiting St. John. It was one the most beautiful islands I had ever visited. It was quaint, clean, and the beaches took my breath away. We rented jeeps and drove around the island but ended up spending most of the day in Trunk Bay playing in the ocean. I could have not asked for a better day.
Our travels then took us to St. Marteen. I had never been there before and do not recommend it. You are not missing anything, trust me. The island is split in half with one side being owned by France and the other side by Holland. We stayed on the Dutch side because we were told the French side was dirty and rude. Needless to say, the island was overcrowded and the only thing it had to offer was tacky tourist stores. The beaches were packed wall-to- wall with people and chairs. We ended up parking ourselves on a bench for a few hours to people watch then ended up moseying back to the ship around lunch time.
Overall it was good trip. A few highlights for me were celebrating my grandparents 63rd wedding anniversary, Brittany playing in a game show, and Scott singing karaoke (he was a big hit, and all the ladies loved him). I didn’t bring my camera so I have to wait to get pictures from Boyd before I can post any.
9 responses so far ↓
kristajean // November 30, 2008 at 3:20 am
Im glad you are back!, well, not really since I still cant see you !
boo hoo
But I am glad you had a good time. Sounds like a blast- especially the part about Scott singing Karaoke. PLEASE tell me you got video? That is Youtube worthy.
Miss ya!
Cassidy // December 1, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I didn’t know you guys were going to St. Maarten on your cruise. Josh and I really enjoyed St. Maarten! Probably because it was our honeymoon!
It was not crowded at all while we were there and there were some AWESOME reefs off-the-island to snorkel and scuba dive at. Josh even found a reef to surf off of.
But then again, we did have 7 days to explore the island and our cozy suite was a bonus.
sacul1959 // December 8, 2008 at 6:20 pm
cassidy,
I guess we did not venture far enough away from the cruise ship terminal. I would have loved to had enough time to fully explore the island, but the ship was only docked for 6 hours and that is not enough time to get a good feel for any place. Oh well…
MELISSA // December 9, 2008 at 3:58 pm
We went to St. Marteen and apparently we went to the bad part of town to shop, the people at our table went to the beach which they said was really nice, but the area we shopped at was gross and smelly. Worse than the Nassau straw market. (where i got a fake Coach purse so I actually want to go back there to get more!!)
MELISSA // December 10, 2008 at 2:40 pm
hey erica, what was your opinion of this cruise compared to the one last year on Royal Caribbean? we are planning another one in Feb for our anniversary, but RC does not have any 7 days going out of Canaveral after Dec., so I thought I would get your opinion of the Carnival Glory
MELISSA // December 10, 2008 at 2:51 pm
oh and especially the food, the food is important!!
sacul1959 // December 10, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Melissa,
We did not like the ship. Everything about it was inferior to RC: food, service, staff, decor…
Scott and I ordered room service and so did my aunt and uncle and neither of ours ever came. The ship always smelled like cigarette smoke because you could smoke almost anywhere.
After you have been on Royal Caribbean it is hard to enjoy Carnival because they are so different. We kept saying that Carnival was the Walmart of cruises. haha
sacul1959 // December 10, 2008 at 9:07 pm
p.s. food was gross. The only decent food was stuff you had to pay for like at the cafe or the extra expensive restaurant.
MELISSA // December 11, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Wow, thanks for letting me know! We will just have to deal with driving or paying extra to fly to Ft Lauderdale or Miami.