perfect match

Thanks for your review, the info on the Ben & Jerry's, and for posting the Compasses.

St Kitts looks really beautiful! I can't wait to get there!

Note to self - DO NOT order eggs from room service! Those "eggs" did not look appetizing at all!

I loved the picture of the ship taken from between the 2 buildings. It looked like the ship was about to sail right down the walkway!

How did you like Cockleshell Beach? How deep did the water get as you went out from shore? Were the kayaks and wave runners I saw in your pics available for rent? Would you go back there?

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this review. It is very helpful to me in planning for our turn on the Indy

Sorry to hear your Mrs wasn't feeling well. Hopedully the last couple of days will be better for her.

I am enjoying your review and pictures very much. It is getting me really excited for my own turn on the Indy. :D

Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions.

 

I'm looking into sting ray excursion. Not sure she can handle that, but, still going to check it out.

 

Was thinking about doing messages ocean side (at Cozumel), in lieu of ship spa.

 

Also, still going to consider chefs table....dosen't sound like your typical 'chefs table'. Went on RCI web site and read a bit on it.

 

The more people comment about this ship, the more I think I picked the right one! Many thanks for taking the time to respond!

If you decide to do Stingray City, be sure you choose a boat that will be easy for Mom to get off and back on if she should so choose. Many of the boats have ladders which she might find difficult to climb. Marineland Tours has a boat, the Cayman Explorer, they use for Stingray City with a wide stairway used to enter and exit the water, and is also wheelchair accessible if necessary. Cayman Explorer also has a large, flat deck area with regular tables and chairs so she might be more comfortable if she decides to stay on board.

A couple of other ideas for Grand Cayman are the Turtle Farm where Mom could see a turtle about the same age as she is. You can book directly with the Turtle Farm on their website, and it is easy to get to by taxi. The QE2 Botanical Garden is nice, but it is a little bit of a ride from port, and the Pedro St James castle is nice as well.

I am sure that you will have a great time whatever you decide to do. I hope your Mom has a very happy 80th birthday.

I had to laugh when I saw the picture of your furbaby, Porter! We have 2 who look exactly like him, same size and all! Our 2 love their cardboard boxes! :D

Great review! I am enjoying both the words and the pictures. Loved the sailaway pictures! Such a different view of PE than we had from the Princess ships we have sailed on. Can't wait to see it ourselves.

Since we're RCI novices, I'm wondering how to access the bow. What deck did you walk out there from? I think that is where we will want to be for sailaway, especially since we will have friends watching us on the webcams.

I showed some of your pics of the promenade to DH. He thought it looked beautiful, and we are both very excited about being able to explore a new ship!

I'll bet your new tux was a great surprise. You did look great in it.

Hmmmm... We have done most of our past cruises on Disney, and I've always decorated there. I'm thinking, though, that most of my Disney magnets would be a bit out if place on Indy.:eek: I hadn't thought about decorating this time, but maybe I will see what I can come up with. I have a couple of ideas already.

I usually personalize my magnets with my cabin number, my board name, or maybe our first names. That seems to help keep them where they belong, or at least make it a bit easier for them to find their way home if they get "lost".

Great start! I am loving the pics of the nearly empty ship! We are sailing the same 8 day itinerary in April, so I will be following along. It won't be our first cruise, but it will be our first on RCI. I am looking to learn as much as I can about Indy before we cruise on her. :D

Problems for me, too. Pages will not load.

Thanks for doing another review! I will definitely be following along since we are sailing the same itinerary in April. Besides, I have read your Disney and Princess reviews, so I know what a great job you do with them.

We never got that letter/email and we sail on IOS on 4-25. Should I be worried?! :eek: I just checked and they have our e-mail addresses on file correct.

We are on the same sailing as you. I did get the email only it went to my spam folder for some reason. You might want to check there. The most important thing is that you found out about the time change here, so you will get to the ship on time. :D

BTW, until I came here, I thought the email really was spam! We still would have gotten to the ship in plenty of time as we do not want to arrive at the last minute, but we will probably leave home earlier than I had originally planned.

I use this site all the time to check the time differences in most ports: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

 

I just checked and it says it is the same local time in San Juan as Barbados.

Thanks for the link to the time/date converter. I have bookmarked it and I am sure I will put it to good use! :cool:

Thanks, I will be checking in as well. We will also be on Indy in April, same cruise as Norwane.

Swimming with the sharks and rays was awesome. The only draw back was really not getting to touch or hold one and of course...getting that "picture" of it. I know this wouldn't have been the case if we were on a private tour. So, hopefully when we go again, we might get to try this again...if we don't decide to go to Goffs instead to try it out.

 

After reading your rewiew about your shark dive I decided to google it and what I found was more infoon whale sharks than shark dives like you did. I would actually love to do both! We have no plans at present to cruise the western caribbean any time soon, but I may have to add it back into my priority list. I'm right there with you about private tours as being the way to go.

 

 

What are the 5 flags you are referring to at Blue Kay? I'm not sure I noticed that. LOL I'm not sure if they have a dive site or not. I looked on their website and it just mentions snorkeling, but yet they have a picture of diving??? :confused:

Not 5 flags, DIVE flags. They are red rectangular flags with a white diagonal stripe across them. I'm not sure if I saw actual flags, or pictures of them on some of the signs you took pictures of there, like the one of Sakari under the sign with the "leaves"on it. Usually when you see a dive flag, there's divers around somewhere. They are actually used out on the water when one is diving or snorkeling to let boaters know you're there so they won't run over you. Keeps you safer.

I don't know if you have got to my Passion Island review part yet. But if you haven't, you won't find me trying to convince you to go there. ;)

I read that section tonight. You're right, I am not likely to be going there. It is beautiful, though. I was sorry to see that Sakari got bit. She was very brave. It's amazing what a little bit of vinegar will do. I can't say I've ever heard of using a tomato, though. I'll have to remember that one.

We do door decorations on our Disney cruises. They require them to be magnets. I have heard of a number of people who have had theirs stolen. I always personalize ours with our names or board name and cabin number and I've not had a problem yet. I was glad you got your door decoration back. Wonder what the people whose door you found it on thought when they saw it was gone.

I was sorry to hear about the lost stone from your ring. I was sure you were going to say it was the one you got on the Getaway. I hope you are able to get it fixed. You handled it far better than I think I would have.

DH and I are both wondering why you decided to fly from Tampa to FLL. It would be pretty easy to rent a car in Tampa, drive down I75 across Alligator Alley. just a couple of hours and you're there. Plus, you would have the use of the car for any stops you might want to make. Knowing your tendency to try new things you probably won't be cruising from those same 2 ports again "back to belly" like you did this time, but you might want to consider it if you do.

Now that I'm done here, it's time to move on to the Sky. Not tonight though. Time to ring in the New Year! I hope your New Years is a happy one!

Today I got as far as you boarding the boat to Passion Island. Forced myself to stop reading so I can go get some sleep since it is now after 3AM.

I really love your detailed excursion reviews! I want to go swim with the sharks! Those looked to be some pretty good size sharks you had there! I have actually seen a few either snorkeling or on scuba dives, but it seemed like at least some of the people on your tour had some pretty good interaction with them. There is no way I would have left there without petting a shark. I am sorry you and Sakari didn't get the interaction you wanted with them.

Blue Kay looked pretty nice. I'm not sure DH would like it as much as I would though. He is not the beach person I am. I did notice dive flags in some of your pictures. Did you happen to notice if they had a dive shop there, or if they ran dive trips?

Sounds to me like Sakari had a pretty good Christmas. Santa knew just what to bring her. Besides being an artist, she's quite the swimmer, too!

I will be interested to hear what you thought of Passion Island. I had considered going there, but I'm afraid that after the awesome scuba dives I did there this past October, it will take a lot to get me to consider doing anything else. Maybe you will convince me. I still want to get to Chankanaab based on your reviews. I guess I need to schedule more cruises that go to Cozumel! What the heck, I just need to schedule more cruises! :D

Kim, your reviews are addictive! And I mean that in a good way! :D

I had planned to stop reading after your tour of the ship - but then I saw you were heading to Little French Key! I kept reading until my tablet was down to 15% battery left and it kept beeping at me that it was going to shut off if I didn't go find my charger and plug it in.

When you said that the Sun was one of the oldest in the NCL fleet, I have to say that I wasn't expecting to be impressed by the tour. I was very pleasantly surprised to see what a beautiful ship she is! I showed DH the artwork going around the outside of the ship and he loved it. The Sun looks like she has been very well maintained. I even went back to the start of your TR to see how old she is. Good job, NCL!

Little French Key looks even more beautiful than it did the last time you were there. I hope I will be able to go there at some point. I may have to plan a cruise that stops in Roatan. :D

Sakari really is quite the artist. Her drawings that you posted had a lot of detail in them and are far better than any I might do. :eek:

I am very much looking forward to the rest of your report.

Since I am playing catch-up here, I'm just going to go ahead and comment on what I've read so far. I've finished page 4, so I can say I'm glad you're on board the ship. Based on what I've read, I'm thinking this is not going to be your favorite ship. Certainly doesn't sound like your demographic, but having read your previous reviews I know you will have a good time anyway.

Your hotel looked nice in your pictures, but based on that not so nice shower and the party crowd I would not want to stay there.

Yes, Sakari has grown up some since your last review. I think she will be even more fun to have along with you on cruises. She should be able to do some of the "big girl" stuff now!

Since you're taking a break in writing, I think this is a good time for me to break, too. I need to go get some sleep, but I have bookmarked where I am in your thread and I will be back!

Ugh! I knew I should have come looking for your review(s) sooner! I guess I'm back to playing catch-up again! Actually, since I see that this is part 2, I'm going to head on over to part 1 and start there. I want to follow your review in order. I saw how many posts part 1 has already, so I'm afraid that catching up is gonna take a while. :eek:

I do want to say congrats on passing your nursing boards! I knew you could do it! :D

Nice poem, baronessk!

Our pre cruise ritual is to take our 2 cats to "cat camp", also known as our friend's house. We get the little campers settled in, then we take the camp counselors out to dinner. Once we get home, we do our final packing check and get the car loaded for the next morning. Then comes the hard part - trying to sleep! We can't wait until it's time to drive to port!

Looks like you made your mind up. Check out my Zip Lining Video to see if it can tempt you to change your mind?

 

 

 

Regards,

Kevin Reid

Great video, Kevin! I don't know about anyone else, but you sure have me thinking! We have done a number of zipline tours on other islands and have always had a great time doing them. This one does look like fun.

One thing I was wondering is how much walking was required between the actual zips? Are there long trails or climbs between them or are they fairly close together? It wouldn't prevent us from doing the tour by any means, we just like to know what to expect before we go.

Great pic! Thanks for sharing! :cool:

Norris, I hope you and Carol had a very Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone else here did as well.

I've been a bit of a slacker, but I have finally made it back here and have caught up with your and Carol's adventures in Rome. You really managed to fit a lot into the short time you had there! As always, I loved your pictures and videos. I have enjoyed every minute of my journey with you and Carol and I will be looking forward to your review of your winter escape on the Ruby in Feb.

Nancy

Just watched you sail away! :cool: