Cool Breeze Cruiser

The Pirate Boat might not have been the perfect choice for me since I was on crutches & the Jolly Roger 1 has two floors. The activities moved up & down the stairs & of course the restroom was down even more stairs & I was about hopped out!

I still had a great time though & love Barbados & we made more new friends! :)

Heading back to the 'real' ship!

The only time we were harrassed the whole week was right after this picture was taken. A man came up & put a necklace on me & said it was a 'gift' & he wished me a speedy recovery. This had happened before & I am not that gullible so I knew he wanted money but I did not 'get away' fast enough! We were trying to take another pic though so J.R. just handed him $5 but the guy got pretty aggressive & said he wanted $20! Really? J.R. was getting pretty ticked at that point & told the guy in no uncertain terms to take his necklace back & give back the $5 so the guy did & we resumed picture taking. :)

In the meanwhile we missed the free shuttle back to the ship that came with our excursion. Robin & John decided to do some shopping so they walked back to port & J.R. & I caught a cab. I do not remember how much it was but it was not very much.

J.R., John & Robin walked the plank & swung off the rope swing. Robin & John even managed to swing together! John went 1st & Robin caught him as he came back to the boat & grabbed hold! We saw a youtube video that had five people on the rope swing at one time! That takes co-ordination (and a little craziness)!!

Walk the plank Matey! Arrgh!

In my 'spot' watching. No way could I have made it down that ladder!

J.R. loved swimming with the turtles which he had never done before.

A self portrait! :D

The scenery was beautiful as we sailed along the coast of Barbados.

We decided not to go to the Production Show in the Lyric Theatre after our day in St. Lucia but I am so glad we went to the Quest. It was held at 10:45 that night in Studio B.

We laughed hysterically. I think our team did really well! Thanks again for your ‘contribution’ Robin! :D

Barbados

Last time we went to Barbados we hung out all day at Lobster Alive. It was paradise!

This time we booked the Barbadian Buccaneers excursion through RCCL on the Black Pearl Party Cruise aboard the Jolly Roger 1.

We rarely do ship sponsored excursions but it was actually cheaper to book through RCCL. Booking through the Black Pearl the cost was $87.50. We only paid $52 pp through RCCL & the only difference was ours did not include lunch but lunch was available to purchase for $20 pp.

We decided to book the ‘Pirate Boat’ after checking out their website & youtube videos of the Jolly Roger 1.

This is from their website & RCCLs description…

This is the original pirate party cruise that shan't be missed with the pirates from the Black Pearl Party Cruises and their Jolly Roger 1! After a brief transfer to the dock side, it's time for a 4 hour voyage of never ending fun, music and drinks as the pirates take you along the coastline of Barbados. Take the time out to tan or party while you tan on the top deck as the pirates dock for a while; take a swim or muster that courage and take a chance at the rope-swing and don't dare the pirates, you may just have to walk that plank!

Barbados Black Pearl Party Cruises aboard the Jolly Roger 1

As we leave from the heart of Bridgetown our Capital we travel along the outside wall of the Barbados Bridgetown Harbour. Sail along the picturesque West coast of Barbados with the occasional dolphin escort. At our lunch stop in one of our favourite bays, turtles swim amongst you.

4 hour cruise allowing you to sightsee as you tour along the south and west coasts of Barbados

- Open and fully stocked bar included for the duration of your cruise

- Famous Rope Swinging

- Walking the Plank if you so dare.

- Swimming with the turtles in the crystal clear waters when they are swimming by our mooring

- Music and dancing to vibrant calypsos and much more ensuring you party on the boat and for hours after

I think everyone had a great time walking the plank, swinging off the rope swing, snorkeling, swimming with the turtles, dancing & drinking plenty of the unlimited rum punch. They also have other drinks available free of charge & I switched to spiced rum & coke (my drink of choice) after a couple of rum punches because they were pretty sweet.

J.R. & John on-board the 'Pirate Ship'!

The 1st stop was for snorkeling.

Did you notice a juice bar on board? If so where was it?

 

Thank you......for sharing all of your amazing photo's

 

 

Angela

Sorry I did not notice a lot of things on this cruise. :eek: We usually check out the ship & take photos of EVERYTHING! :D I am sure someone else can answer your question though.

You are welcome. I will add photos from our day on the 'Pirate Ship' in Barbados tomorrow.

Juli

We did Alaska for our 25th. We decided to go with Celebrity for the first time as we were celebrating. After we did the first week inland tour and boarded the ship we really wished we had gone with an RCCL ship. We love RCCL and it was just different. I know people will say it's because it's a different kind of place we were going to but it just wasn't the same. The ship was more reserved. From your previous posts I see that you hadn't been on RCCL for awhile. What other lines have you gone with? We went there over the 4th of July and we were there for the longest day of the year and got to go to the Famous Midnight Baseball game in Fairbanks. It was a blast and there were so many things we were glad we got to experience. We were some of the fortunate who got to see Mt. Mckinley open up and it was certainly a sight to be remembered forever. Have fun planning it! :)

 

Yes, Wendell has been awesome and so prompt already and I'm sure it will be an amazing time! Thanks again for reliving your cruise on here!

 

Happy Weekend!

Robin :)

My 25 year old daughter & her hubby are both engineers & they did a 15 day Panama Canal cruise (chosen for the itinerary) on Celebrity in December. She loves to cruise but said Celebrity was not for them. Good thing there are so many cruise-lines so people can find the one that works for them.

J.R. & I actually love Carnival! :eek::eek::eek: You will notice in my signature line several reviews from Carnival cruises we have done.

RCCL & Carnival are more alike than different though & there are things I like better about each of them but we will probably cruise Carnival over RCCL in the future unless we find an RCCL cruise we want to do based on itinerary & or to cruise with friends. Any cruise is a good cruise!

An Alaskan cruise is on J.R.'s bucketlist. I got him the book 'Alaska by Cruiseship' for Christmas & told him he has to plan it since I am always the 'planner'! We are probably going to try Princess for our Alaskan cruise.

I will try to finish adding Barbados & our the rest of our trip tomorrow. Still sorting through pictures!

Juli

Simply beautiful!!!! St Lucia is my most favorite Caribbean island, too!!! Your pictures have reminded me why!!! ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!

We are going to Hawaii next year for our 30th anniversary but I can not imagine that I will enjoy Hawaii more than I do St. Lucia!

Hello! Thanks for all the info.!

I was so impressed with your pictures and writings of your St. Lucia day that I've already contacted him and I'm working on our private booking with them. It sounds to be an exciting day! Can't wait!!!!!! Thanks so much for sharing with all of us! This has to be one of the best reviews I've read in a long time!!!!!

Thanks for all of the ideas to do on ship for our group. Beings our group is made up of mostly balcony rooms with a few Promenades I think we'll do the Poker Run but do it at 7 different bars. I'll need to see how you do the slot pull. I think that would be fun also.

Thanks for the website you told me about. I went and took a look around yesterday. My most favorite scrapbooking projects are my Granddaughter and vacations!

Take Care!

Robin

You are welcome. Wendell at Mystic Man Tours was great to work with & I am sure you can customize your day however you want since you have a larger group. We only ended up with 13 of us plus the four crew members so it was like having our own private catamaran! :):):)

Enjoy your planning! Wish we were going back. I love the Southern Caribbean!

I am not sure where our next journey will take us. We did four cruises last year that were all beachy plus we went to Destin & San Diego so we might try some different trips this year, possibly Alaska.

Juli

Wow.....St. Lucia looks beautiful!!!! I'm loving the picture of the "high up" island with the remnants of a building on it! Amazing!

Did you gather from my posts that I LOVE St. Lucia? :D That is a neat pic. I believe it is one of Robin's so I will give her your compliments!

Gorgeous pictures ! Do you think Robin would mind if I used some of her pics from the Ice Show and from St.Lucia to put in my photo book ?

Robin said feel free to use any you want. I have mixed all of our pics up so I am not sure whose are whose anymore but the photos from the Ice Skating Show are definitely hers. They turned out great!

I can not even begin to tell you how much I love St. Lucia & how majestic it truly is! It does not have the beautiful white beaches of some islands because it is a volcanic island so the sand is a different color & the water is not that gorgeous turquoise but it is my favorite island by far. If you have never been to St. Lucia you will see what I mean the first time you get a glimpse of the Pitons! Majestic does not even describe them!!! We have LOVED all three of our visits there & hope to go back soon!

And look what was waiting on us when we got back on the ship! :)

And then there were TWO!

And then Robin & John captured this beautiful sunset!

What a PERFECT end to a PERFECT day in St. Lucia!!!

We had so much fun but it was also an extremely relaxing day!

Fun in the sun with good friends!

Again all good things must come to an end & it our day with Mystic Man Tours was almost over.

After a WONDERFUL day we 'had' to go back to the ship! But we stopped for one more photo op with our new good friend & great 1st mate, Nick.

As much as we hated to leave the Mystic this is what was awaiting us! Not so bad!

Hope I am not posting to many pics but we I am having a hard time choosing which ones to show off how wonderful our day in St. Lucia really was!

Where we stopped for a snorkeling/beach break.

J.R. about ready to snorkel.

Unfortunately this is the point where the battery died on my new water camera. I usually keep up with those things but this cruise all the details were left up to J.R. & he 'mostly' did pretty well! :D So I had to 'borrow' more pics!

Heading back to the ship.

Patrice & Manon

And J.R. & I having the 'greatest' day!!!

Gorgeous scenery!

St. Lucia

On-board the Mystic in St. Lucia (in my new bathing suit cover-up from Rima's in St. Maarten)

J.R. found his 'perfect spot'!

So did I!

Group shot!

John & Robin

Up next...

Our FAVORITE day on my FAVORITE Island...

St. Lucia

We LOVE St. Lucia. This was our third visit to this wonderful island, the first time we did an ALL day island tour & the second time we went zip-lining & to Rodney Bay. This time we REALLY wanted to do a whale watching tour but the only ones I could find only offered a ‘three hour tour’ (sounded ominous) from 9AM until 12 PM. We wanted to enjoy St. Lucia for longer than three hours & a private tour was not cost effective since there were only four of us (at the time).

I E-mailed most of the tour operators in St. Lucia that had access to a boat to see what alternatives there were. I got some crazy responses!

I contacted Wendell Richards with Mystic Man Tours & he seemed to offer the best option for us with his Eco Adventure Tour.

This is from his website…

Cruise Ship Specials; Mystic Man’s Eco Adventure

The Eco Adventure tours depart from the ferry dock at Pointe Seraphine and La Place Carenage, a two minute walk from the cruise ship terminals. This 5 hour excursion sails south towards Soufriere and the Piton mountains with a chance to encounter wild dolphins along the way. The captain and guide will be happy to share their knowledge of the different species of dolphins spotted during the cruise.

With the Majestic Piton Mountains in sight, the sails roll in and it’s time to step into the crystal clear waters of the Soufriere Marine Reserve. Snorkel over a live tropical reef viewing sponges, sea fans, and a wide variety of reef fish with our snorkel guides close by to offer tips and information.

On the way back, cruise past the fishing villages of Canaries and Anse La Raye and circle historic Marigot Bay.

Come join us on the “Mystic” a spacious 52’ sailing catamaran with ample deck space to top up your tan or you can choose to enjoy a few cocktails in the shaded area.

• Tour: 8:30 am to 1:30 pm

• Snorkel equipment provided

• Complimentary: water, sodas, rum-punch, local beer

Light snacks and fresh fruits

This was my first (of many) E-mails from Wendell…

"Thank you for contacting us. We have an Eco Adventure tour that would probably fit best with what you are interested in. It includes Whale Watching down the Soufriere, snorkeling and also beach time. It costs only US$65 per person and we require a minimum of 8 persons. We use a 52ft sailing catamaran licensed for 55 passengers. We start off around 8:30am – 9am until 2 pm, roughly 5 hours. We provide snorkel gear, beverages, fruits, sandwiches, bbq wings and other light lunch items. Pick up would be from the cruise ship dock."

He had a family of 5 that was interested in going the same day we did but they never came through so Robin & I posted on our roll call about this tour trying to meet the minimum of 8 & a wonderful couple from our roll call, Manon & Patrice, decided to join us. In the meantime Wendell found enough people to meet his minimum.

This was BY FAR the best day of our cruise!!! :):):) A representative from Mystic Man Tours was waiting on us inside the terminal with a sign with my name on it & took us to the catamaran that was docked very close to the cruise terminal & it was GORGEOUS!

The six of us from our roll call were joined by two women from the Victory. We waited a few minutes for a family of five that was late but had called to let the crew know they were coming. We finally had to leave them since they did not show up.

About 20 minutes later the crew got a call that the family of five were at the dock. They left it up to us whether to go back & get them or not. We all voted to go back since we were not that far out & they told us they would add time on to the end of our day. We did give the five of them a standing ovation when they finally boarded! :p They all apologized & no harm was done.

We had the MOST amazing crew of four! Nick the first mate was incredible. J.R. & I went on three catamarans/boats during our cruise & this was by far the best & most attentive crew. I was on crutches & every time I stood up one of them had a hand out to help!

They had rum punch (yummy), beer, cokes & bottled water. They served light snacks later in the day that consisted of small cheese sandwiches, fruit on a stick & some of the best barbecue wings I have ever had. It was not a full lunch by any means but was just the right amount of food and all of it was so tasty!

The scenic view from the catamaran was gorgeous. Unfortunately we did not see whales or dolphins but we had such a great day I don’t think any of us were too disappointed! We did see a lot of flying fish.

We stopped by the Pitons for beach/snorkel time & a nice young man came in by boat to take those that wanted to go snorkeling.

I put a towel down in the sand & Nick (the first mate) came & sat with me while the others snorkeled. What a delightful young man! I really enjoyed getting to know him & hearing about his wife & two year old daughter that obviously has him wrapped around her little finger! Another unexpected blessing, if I had been able to walk & swim I would not have had the opportunity to visit with Nick!

We got back on-board & took a different scenic route. I cannot even begin to tell you how enjoyable our day in St. Lucia was with Mystic Man Tours. I would highly recommend them!!! INCREDIBLE & I am soooo ready to go back to St. Lucia soon! :D

This day was just what the doctor ordered! Thanks so much to Robin & John and Manon & Patrice for sharing it with us!

St. Lucia pics coming soon!

We went to the Love & Marriage Show at 10:30 after the Ice Skating Show. It is always hilarious & one of our favorite things to do on a cruise! This one was no different & we laughed so hard at the reply the 'senior' man gave when asked what size bra his wife wore. He replied a 34 Long. The crazy part is she also replied a 34 Long. Maybe she just knew how her husband thinks! :confused:

J.R. & I got 'stuck' being in the show as the 'Midlyweds' on our Victory cruise 2 & 1/2 years ago so I can REALLY appreciate those couples that make total fools out of themselves for our entertainment. We bought the CD of 'our' moment in the spotlight on the Love & Marriage Show & I still cringe in embarrassment when I watch it especially when people all around the ship approached us the next day teasing us! :eek:

I guess at this point I have to tell an even more embarrassing story about myself. During the second half of the Love & Marriage Show I could feel myself about to nod off! I thought I would just close my eyes for a minute. J.R. & John will probably never let me live this down because they looked over & I was SOUND asleep sitting in my wheelchair! :eek: Even more embarrassing was when the show was over & everybody started clapping I woke up & started clapping too! :D J.R. & John were laughing hysterically at me at that point & I did not even realize I had been asleep! Hopefully I did not drool or anything :p & I am so happy they did not have a camera available!

I would like to attribute my 'little nap' to my injury but it was probably due to all the rum punch we had in Antigua that day! :D

Our M&M was scheduled for 4:45 & unfortunately we did not make it. We were really looking forward to putting names with faces of the people we had been chatting with on our roll call. Luckily we did meet a lot of them throughout the week & it was a great group!

Robin & John had been able to get us tickets to the Ice Skating Show on the last day of their B2B so we were set! Unfortunately we had a different waitstaff (the only time of the whole cruise) & dinner took much longer than it previously had so we arrived at the Ice Show at 9:02 for the 9:00 show time & they had already given away our spots & they said the show was full. The Cruise Compass does say 'Tickets required and valid until showtime'. Luckily they were able to find us a few empty spots especially since I already had a 'seat'!

The Ice Skating Show was FABULOUS!!! I 'borrowed' these pics from Robin since we did not take a camera.

Well, looks like you has a lot of fun ! Antigua and rum punch go hand in hand, well it did for us, too, even if we weren't on the same tour.

We did! I absolutely loved Antigua & can not wait to go back!

The ship's doctor (he was a hoot) told me whiskey was the best medicine. I do not like whiskey so I had to make due with rum punch! :p

I wish y'all had joined us in Antigua too. It was amazing & we made so many great new friends! Glad you had fun on your tour though! Antigua is AWESOME!

Goodmorning! Hope it's warmer where you are today! -22 right now! Wish I was headed somewhere warm! At least the sun is shining!

I'm loving looking at all of your excursions. Other then booking the Private tour with Bernard we are just looking around right now. We just wanted Bernard or Mailman so I secured it already.

I'm sure we'll be having a blast on the cruise. I am curious as to how the Poker run works. I was also thinking a slot pull. We are definately Sea Day people and I almost always book so as to have a few of those. Unfortunately, to visit these awesome ports we only have the first one the first day but I'm sure we'll have a blast anyway! We have been to SJ and loved it and I'm glad to be going a couple of days early. We always go in before and have some fun.

It's kind of fun to hear you talk about scrapbooking as it's my love. Unfortunately, I don't get to do as much of it these days but I love it just the same. I'm starting Project Life this year and hoping to be a bit better about keeping up with the year. Wish me luck!

Well, looking forward to continueing on in your journey and "Thanks" so very much for taking the time to post about your trip! I love it and it makes the days a bit more doable this winter!

Robin

It has been craziness warm here but a cold front just came through. Guess that is why we had storms & tornadoes come through night before last. Sirens went off all night! Luckily we escaped unharmed. I have not been out to see the damage anyone else incurred.

I think you will enjoy your tour with Bernard. Wish we had been able to get the Mailman. One in our group had requested him & even had an Email to that affect but ended up with Sexy. Sexy was nice & was very knowledgeable about St. Maarten & was an excellent driver but he kind of reminded me of one of those tram drivers that used to work at Opryland that showed no excitement & was hard to follow after awhile. I met David too & he seemed great & gets really good reviews. He came up & talked to us when we were at Marigot. Very personable!

We did the poker run during our cabin crawl. It is very easy. Here is the info that was sent out from our group organizer.

"It's a hand of poker (although this isn't about cards really)

We all go to 7 cabins, one cabin at a time. That host cabin will have a deck of cards spread out on the bed, face down. Everyone will come in, one at a time and pick a card. The host cabin can provide a shot of some tasty drink if they wish" (we did this on Carnival & were able to order bottles of liquor from Bon Voyage)

"Once everyone is done with that cabin, we all move on to the next cabin. So on and so forth.

The first 5 cabins are draw cabins, meaning you pick up a card. The last 2 cabins are discard cabins. Meaning you can discard 1 card at each of the last 2 cabins if you wish. Best hand of 5 cards at the end wins the pot.

It is $5 per person to enter. We will be limited to a total of 35 people, so the pot will be $175 to the winner.

So, all you really have to do is have a deck of cards. Write down what cards people draw and that's it. No one cares if your cabin is clean or not. And it's a great way to see other cabin types!"

It was an absolute blast & it was a great way to check out other cabins for future cruises. Ideally you will have a lot of different cabin types.

We are not gamblers so have never done a slot pull. A lot of people love them though!

I love to scrapbook (hard to imagine with my Type A personality) but have not had time to lately. I guess I will now! J.R. is going to get out all my 'stuff' when he gets home from Gatlinburg so that will be my next project.

We were lucky enough to go on four cruises in the last year & I have only 'scrapped' one of them. This review will be very helpful for me when I do this cruise! I usually make a door sign for our cabin & use it as my 1st page for that cruise. I also love Christmas & have tons of Christmas scrapbooks! I found a great scrapbooking site that has a ton of travel/cruise things. You can even customize a cruiseship with your cruises name, etc. It is called Scrap Your Trip. Great things & good prices! Good luck keeping up with yours!

You are welcome. I think this review is keeping me sane right now! :D I was not even going to do one because I did not think I had enough pics & info to make it interesting since this was such a 'different' cruise for us so I am glad you are enjoying it.

Wow! What great pictures and thank you for sharing them. I'm admiring them and pretending I am there! Ahhhhh! Isn't it funny how we drink & swim? Something our mothers would have warned us not to do! Antigua looks stunning and that water is gorgeous! St. Maarten has always been favorite as far as water color goes and just in general...but after looking at these....Antigua looks divine!

Antigua was STUNNING & one of my new favorite places! It does not replace St. Lucia as #1 in my eyes though but we did like it better than St. Maarten (although St. Maarten is beautiful too).

Actually I did not really get to 'swim'. I stood & balanced on one foot! :eek: This is a photo our new friends from London just sent me of my husband & our friend, John helping me into the water.

Notice they did not spill their drinks! :D Hopefully they would have dropped them before they dropped me! :p Our new friend Loius was keeping an eye on them!

Juli

Everyone (obviously not me) had a ton of fun dancing & doing the limbo. It was a blast! Of course I was just a ‘watcher’ but I had a great time too!

Louis came out of his scarf to get the limbo going.

My only problem of the day was that I had to ‘try’ to limit the rum punch (I was not very successful though) because the restroom was down some pretty steep stairs. It took JR, John & Robin all to help me to the restroom on the fast moving catamaran! I am very thankful for good friends! :)

It was sad to see the day coming to an end & we had to say goodbye to our new friends Michael & Sunshine because they were staying in Antigua.

We did not get to make the full circumnavigation of Antigua on the Excellence because of the mechanical problems so we were pleasantly surprised when RCCL refunded 25% of the amount we paid to our onboard account. We were totally not expecting the refund because we felt the trip was worth every penny!

The crew even lowered trays of drinks out into the water to us. Fun times!

I think we are 'begging' here! You get thirsty playing in the ocean after all!

And this crew member came to our 'rescue'! Luckily John has really long arms & was able to reach up & get the tray of drinks!

Back on-board J.R., Robin & I posed with one of the crew members (I have no idea why I have my hand on his leg :eek:) & our new friends Louis from Portugal & Michael & Sunshine from the UK.

Then the crew served lunch on-board. The lunch was yummy & then we cruised along Antigua’s stunning coastlines some more.

Check out the color of this water!!! Stunning!

Next we stopped at a beach area where we got off (fun for me going down the steps in to the water) & played around in the water. It was a GREAT day & the only time I was able to get in the water all week!!!

I have no idea why we were all in such a little huddle. We were having a rather large time at this point!

About an hour in to our trip the Excellence broke down. Since we were ‘stranded’ at sea they started pouring the rum punch early & very freely while they waited on a mechanic to reach us. Oh well, it had to be 5 o’clock somewhere! :D

The mechanic was able to get it running again but we broke down again a short time later. They were able to fix it quickly that time & in no way did the mechanical problems hinder us from having a good time.

We made a snorkeling stop & Robin & John took advantage of one of their favorite things to do. I could not snorkel but I don't like 'fishies' anyway so I was good with staying onboard! :D

Antigua

We had never been to Antigua before either & we were really looking forward to our day there. It was probably our most ‘fun’ day.

We booked the See Antigua by Sea on the Excellence catamaran through RCCL. We rarely book excursions through the ship but Robin & John had done this excursion on the Excellence before & they raved about it so we booked it.

We departed at 9:30 & it lasted approximately six hours. The cost was $94 pp. & included lunch, drinks & snorkel gear. It was well worth the price!

The cat was beautiful, the scenery was majestic & we made a lot of new friends!

We thought Bernard's Tour was well worth the $40 pp & it gave us a good overview of St. Maarten. The cab fares alone to Orient & Maho would have been pricey & Bernard had a cooler full of water, soft drinks, beer & rum punch in the van. They poured the rum punch in little cups that were about the size of a shot glass. It was good though & packed a 'punch'! :D

More pics from our tour in St. Maarten

We had a great day in St. Maarten!

Sorry you're not feeling well! Hope you're feeling much better tomorrow!

Thanks for the info! I'm putting together a newsletter for our group of 50+ and I wanted to write about this. I'm trying to cover most everything I can think of as most of the people going have never cruised before. We're having our first meeting in a couple of weeks and I wanted to cover this so they knew what to expect. I guess when a friend asked me to organize this for her I should have gone with a cruise from Florida but the reviews of Adventure and having cruised on her Sister ship the Explorer and loving it and the ports on this itinerary swept me to SJ. Hope it all works out well in the end!

I have loved looking through some of the excursions you mentioned and now I've just got to make up my mind. This beach you guys visited seems to be calling my name! That just might be the port we relax in.

Robin

Thanks! I woke up feeling like a new woman (well a new woman with a damaged knee)! It is amazing how fast a steroid shot can work for a cold! :)

How much fun to be cruising with such a large group especially with some first time cruisers! I am sure it will turn out great! Just don't sweat the small stuff! :D

I am sure we will cruise from San Juan again 9the itinerary is hard to turn down) especially now that Southwest will be flying there but we like to cruise from different ports & fly in a few days early & experience the port area. We love port days but we also love sea days & usually end up doing a lot of activities with friends we meet from our roll call & otherwise on sea days. We have had a blast doing cabin crawls, poker runs, scavenger hunts, etc. Maybe some of those things would be fun for your group.

Rainbow Beach was a fun place to hang out for the day. It is not the largest or the nicest beach we have ever been to but we enjoyed it! The chairs & umbrellas were nice & new. My chair still had the tags on it. They also rented kayaks & jet skis, not sure if they had anything else. The food looked yummy & obviously that rum drink with the seven kinds of rum was INCREDIBLE!

I think the unplanned stop in Montreal at -15F and no winter coats has everything to do with my cold.

I used to scrapbook but I did not make enough pages vs the amount of money I spent on stuff lol. It would be a great opportunity to reunite with this hobby, though ! It's just so hard to say no to all the new stuff that comes out !

You sure will a a lot to say about this particular trip !

Glad you don't think you got your 'cooties' from me! :D Hope you feel better soon.

Please get your scrapbooks back out. You will be so thankful later especially as young as your kids are! We pour over mine all the time & I have a lot of cruise scrapbooks among others.

I rarely follow the fads anymore so I do not buy a lot of supplies. The most important thing to me is the documentation.

Wish you lived a 'little' closer! We could scrapbook together!

We were on the Adventure last March - one of our most favorite cruises and we also had a Promenade room - LOVED IT!!! Thanks so much for taking the time and sharing your review - pictures are great!!! Hope you are well on your way to recovery, too ;)

I would definitely book a promenade cabin again especially if the price was right. J.R. does love his balconies but I could care less. Put me on a cruiseship & I could sleep in a deck chair! :p

Thanks. Maybe all these well wishes have healed my cold! :D