Another 3 Generations report: 8 day Eastern Liberty, Sept 13-21, 2014

[anolebody]

NEWS BULLETIN----------------------------

 

DB here ...

 

While Scotty did mention what a close call DSIL had in getting back on Liberty, he caught the full story only afterwards. We discovered we were missing our medicine bag a few minutes after 3 p.m., after all our bags had been delivered to the room and we started putting things in drawers, etc. Normally, as we are locking our front door to go somewhere, I say, "If we forgot it, we don't need it, or we can buy more of it," but with many prescriptions that cannot be ignored for eight days, and the possibility of hitting a Walgreens in San Juan many days off, we had try to get the med bag. Our parking garage, luckily, was right there next to the terminal, but it was on the third level. DSI, Thing 1 or 2 (I always get those two confused) and I head to see what we could do to get off the ship. Carnival says you have to have both S&S card AND driver's license and she was the only one to have both with her. So she hurried off and Thing 1 or 2 and I were in panic mode as we heard one officer ask if he could close up that gangway and another said give it a few more minutes. I stood as near the doorway as I could because if DSIL did not return when they pulled up the gangway, I was going to get off because I wasn't going to let her be stranded there alone. Luckily, she made it and I think one other person came up behind her. She said everyone on the ground was very kind and waved her back through and the guy literally had his hand on the switch to turn off the escalator in the terminal when she ran up and he waved her on.

Needless to say, we will always check the back seat again!

But it's not the first time we had a close call. Forty (40) years ago next August, DSIL and I wed and went on a honeymoon cruise on the Angelina Lauro and when we got off a pay road north of Fort Lauderdale (our port), I asked the toll person how to get to the cruise ships .... he/she pointed us towards MIAMI. After a short bit of driving, we realized the mistake and saw a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper sitting to the side, stopped and explained our dilemma. He escorted us across the divided Interstate and got us going. We were the next-to-last two on board and the main gangway had been pulled and we boarded on the employee's plank.

So it only happens to us every 39 years or so!

 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog!

[CruzinScotty]

Hey, DB!

 

Glad to have you join the conversation. Thanks for painting an even more vivid picture of the "Run DSIL Run" story. :D

 

When I started having trouble posting pictures, I went thru the last part of the trip more quickly than anticipated.

 

Since the trip report is "in tact" again;I don't want to tempt the "Photobucket gods" by posting more pictures. But, I'm going to review my notes from the trip.

 

I think I've got a few more stories to tell if there's interest. Let me know if you wanna hear more.

 

I'm sure DB can chime in as well as we did some different activites. For example, you are the first one I asked "where were you when the lights went out" and you said, "what are you talking about". ;) So.....I don't remember what you told me. Do you remember?

Edited November 18, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[SenatorsFan]

I'd be interested in more of your stories. :)

Heather

[CruzinScotty]

I'd be interested in more of your stories. :)

Heather

 

OK, it doesn’t take much to keep me talking. :D

So, let’s re-visit our day in San Juan.

Edited November 19, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[CruzinScotty]

Earlier in the report, I mentioned we had lunch before getting off the ship. Back in 2012, we had no plans and found an air-conditioned 2hr city tour that we really enjoyed. This year, some of us planned on doing a walking tour, but DB wanted to go to the Bacardi Factory; DSIL was going to go with him. They had a Carnival excursion; but I assured him that 2 years ago they had Bacardi Tours off the ship that would be much cheaper.

That didn’t work out as planned. It turns out that because we got to port around lunch time, and then got off the ship after lunch – it was now too late in the day to do a Bacardi Tour. You could only get there if you had taken the Carnival tour. Oops.....

So, I owe DB/DSIL a trip to the Bacardi Factory if we’re in San Juan together the next time. I did see in another report just a day or so ago that you can take a ferry over to Cantino (?), and then it's only a $3 cab ride from there. I don't know if we'll be that adventurous, but you never know.

DB, living in Florida, didn’t want to get more sun on a walking tour, so his visit in port was short-lived. That’s what next times are for.

Next, details of our walking tour of Old San Juan

[CruzinScotty]

In reviewing already downloaded pics; I have a few that I hadn't posted yet. So, there will be a few new ones along the way.

In addition, I may re-post a few photos with further explanation.

Like this:

 

When discussing these desserts earlier at lunch before touring San Juan, I couldn’t remember for sure what the cream cheese topped cake was. In reviewing my notes – it was Raspberry Cheesecake. Isn’t that awful when you eat something really good and then can’t remember what it was. Such is the life when you’re on a cruise…. ;)

Edited November 20, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[CruzinScotty]

DSIL decided to join the walkers, so we’re up to 7. We left with the intent that you could stick with the pack as long as you want and then head off on your own or back to the ship.

Our first destination was Plaza de Colon. I knew how to get here because this is where our tour 2 years ago ended. You go down one block from the ship and then up 2-3 blocks. It is a bit of an uphill walk. We stopped to relax for a bit. Ma and Pa decided this was going to be as far as they went with us. They did a little shopping and then headed back to the ship.

The rest of us looked around the Plaza a little bit. My intended destination was Castillo de San Cristóbal, anything else I saw after that was icing on the cake. I knew it shouldn’t be too far away, but, I didn’t realize just how close it was. One corner of the fort is adjacent to a corner of the Plaza! The way our tour bus dropped us off 2 years ago, I hadn’t looked that way and didn’t realize how close I was then. So, off we go.

My, it's quite a steep walk up the side street; we sure got our exercise in on this walking tour! It was $5 to enter, we decided to give it a go. I kept teasing everyone we needed to get our $5 "money shot":

 

 

Gosh I wish I could post more pics. You see the pic of the ship from the fort; but not of “us” and the beauty of this fort. We probably spent 45 minutes here and could have easily spent another hour or so. We went in and out and up and down and every view outside the fort was photo-worthy: either of the ocean or Old San Juan.

So, where should we go now? No one really wanted to do any shopping, so EC2 said she and EC1 usually walk all the way around the perimeter of Old San Juan. The only difference is they start in the other direction. We decided to start heading to El Morro. That’s where this picture came from:

 

 

 

I just LOVE this photo. The architecture of Old San Juan reminds me of a lot of southern cities like Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans. The vibrant colors just give it that Caribbean flair!

We walked past a San Juan museum which looked like a great place to visit on another trip. Then, we passed the cemetery and approached El Morro. Next, we headed over to the harbor side for our walk back. Such a tranquil walk, there are times where we were the only ones in sight. There were also lots of banyan trees, and landscape so lush, you couldn’t even tell you were in a city.

Here’s a view looking out over the harbor:

 

 

 

Then, we approached the area with the fountains and we were back into the city.

 

 

I think others have mentioned it’s about a mile from the ship to El Morro, so we figured we walked over 3 miles, including our adventure at San Cristobal.

Coming next: It’s Four O’Clock Somewhere….or is it?

 

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Edited November 20, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[CruzinScotty]

So, as we’re heading back to the ship, it’s about 3:45pm. Everyone wants to get back by 4PM. Hmmm – what’s going on a 4PM, I ask. It turns out the Alchemy Bar is having their Martini Tasting where you can purchase a taste of 4 martinis and it starts at 4PM. Oh, OK – alcohol – yes – let’s get back on the ship!

So, we arrive to an empty Alchemy Bar right at 4PM. One of the bartenders is there. He said he came early so he could let people know there was a typo in the Fun Times – it turns out this event doesn’t start until 5 O’clock. We decided this was a little too late for us today. With all the walking, we needed to get refreshed for dinner. I believe they may have done this more than once and I’ve seen pictures from other trip reports. It looks fun, but we only made it back for a single drink, not the Martini Tasting.

Dinner is fully covered a few pages back, so onward to tonight’s activities.

Let’s see….umm….

Tonight wasn’t the greatest in the way of Carnival entertainment. No big show or comedians. Tonight was audience participation: Then Gender Game, followed by Bingo and then The Game of Love. We did attend these as they are usually fun – you never know what will happen, particularly at The Marriage Game. I took a walk thru the Lido Deck at the beginning of the Caribbean Beach Party. There was lots of fun to be had for those in the party mood. I didn’t stick around, instead heading to my room for my evening ritual of journaling and enjoying the balcony before calling it a night.

Bye for now, everybody.

[CruzinScotty]

One more story from our San Juan day.

We had a noon arrival in San Juan. I posted sunrise and breakfast pictures and explained we had family and pool time before we got to San Juan.

I can’t believe I forgot to tell this story!

During my morning walk, I saw some people had stopped and were looking at something in the water. Is it dolphins, jumping fish, or maybe a whale (it is the season for this????). No one could tell, but it didn’t look to be a sea creature. It was a “white dot”. It was hard to tell how far away it was – there was no land in sight to give us any type of perspective. It looked to be maybe a mile away? It looked like it could have been a large cooler or life preserver; it appeared too small to be a boat. I continued on my walk and said to those still there, “if you figure out what it is, let me know”.

Anyways, some of us decided to head to breakfast in the Main Dining Room this morning. We met right when they opened at 8AM so we could have that family time on deck before our San Juan arrival.

Time for a u-turn. The MDR doesn’t open from breakfast until 8:30 today. Well, we were hungry now, so changing to the buffet was not a problem. It’s things like this that people complain about that sometimes bother me. I enjoy cruising on Carnival; but I’m not so blinded by the fact that there have been some cut backs over the years. On the other hand, us not reading the Fun-Times closely enough to realize the time change is not Carnival’s fault. I compare this to deciding to go out to breakfast at home. You decide to go to IHOP and see it’s so busy that people are lined up outside. So, you make a change in plans and head on over to Perkin’s instead. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. IMHO

So, later in the morning, the Captain made an announcement, as Captain’s occasionally do – especially as we are approaching a port. He discussed the “white dot”. Apparently, it WAS large enough to be a boat. It had two people on it and the engine wasn’t working. The ship made contact with the Coast Guard to ask what it needed to do. It turns out the ship was not running, but it was not in distress (taking on water, in danger of sinking). The Coast Guard had time to get to the boat, so the services of the Liberty were not needed.

It’s nice to know that everyone was fine on the boat and that the Liberty did the right thing in this situation; as you hope every ship would.

[CruzinScotty]

So, there’s been much discussion on Cruise Critic about “The great mattress turnover” on Carnival. They used to have these wonderful mattresses with pillow tops on them. In general; I think most people really, really liked them. I know I did. A few years ago, there started to be complaints about harder, firmer mattresses being on board. But, there was no consistency on any given ship.

I understand that pillow top mattresses can’t be flipped and won’t have as long of a life; but I really did prefer them. I guess they’ve been changing them out as they feel each individual mattress needs it – or maybe a few at a time no matter what?

On the Liberty (2008 and 2012) and on the Dream on 2013; I slept on these wonderful mattresses. This year on the Liberty (with no dry dock in between for a massive mattress swap since 2012); I was on the newer, harder, firmer, less popular mattress.

Since, I don’t sleep on a pillow top at home; the conversion to the newer mattress was not as hard as it seems to be for some. But, it is worth noting.

While I’m filling in missing information, I did want to reassure you that DW continued to improve while I was on the cruise. I was able to call her a couple of times from San Juan and St. Thomas. The added cost on our phone bill was more than worth it to make sure she was OK. She ended up on a different antibiotic; but all was well in the end.

So, I showed pictures of the first morning I had an omelet (the day we docked in San Juan discussed above). There are the omelet makers, and then another server there with breakfast meats and potatoes so you don’t have to go thru the hot buffet line. I always like to look at the names and countries of the staff. The woman serving the hot food was from Lithuania. This is a very small country, one of “The Baltic States”, on the Baltic Sea that was part of The Soviet Union for a long time. I mentioned to her that I have some Lithuania heritage in my background.

The gleam in her eye and the smile on her face were…..priceless.

The crew spends so much time away from home, trying their best that we have a wonderful vacation. I think the thought that someone took the time to notice where she was from and to speak with someone that knows ANYTHING about her home country was a nice perk for her that day.

Next, let’s see what we did in St. St. Thomas – other than eat. :D

Edited November 20, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[CruzinScotty]

So, I showed a few random pics of St. Thomas; let’s go back and see what really happened this day.

I was up early, as usual, getting my morning walk in as we approached St. Thomas. I saw another beautiful sunrise and could see a ship heading to port ahead of us. After being the only ship in our first two ports, we knew it was going to be a bit more crowded in St. Thomas with five ships today, including that behemoth Allure ship.

I’ll try to stop saying it: there’s so many more pics I wish I could post… So, a lesson learned if I have the chance to do another trip report using the “free” portion of Photobucket: download ALL of the pics you intend to post for the entire report to make sure you don’t run out of space! I’ve been too cheap and don’t have another use to pay to store my pics there……

I love approaching the dock in St. Thomas; there’s so much to see on both sides of the port. We docked at Havensight, like we were 2 years ago. But, we’re the 3rd ship in line, behind the Caribbean Princess and Norwegian something-or-other. It was the Norwegian ship I had seen ahead of us while I was on the jogging track.

From the Lido deck and higher, you could see over to Crown Bay to see the top of the other 2 ships in port.

On cruises that stop in St. Thomas, you are allowed to bring back more liquor. EC, having been to St. Thomas on numerous occasions; has a favorite store here and wanted to beat the rush. So, I decide to head off with him. Since we were so far down the dock, I wanted to see how long of a walk was in line for those of us wanting to do an island tour.

It was nice being off the ship early, with no crowds around considering there were 3 ships right there. With our purchase quickly made, on the way back I could look to see how things were set up for tours. Where the Liberty was docked, there was open water on both sides, so you had to walk a little bit to get to land. But, at that point, they had tour operators and buses ready to go. It was nice to know that after breakfast, with the tropical heat, we wouldn’t have to walk too far to get a tour.

Coming up: Tour operators – please keep track of your vans, the “silent” tour guide, and Jammin’ at Mountain at Top!

[CruzinScotty]

After breakfast, we had a group of six that wanted to do an island tour that included Mountain Top. We wanted to try to get a private tour that we could personalize to our needs. We didn’t book ahead of time because we weren’t sure until the day-of exactly how many people were going. We had some people that decided to go on the tour that weren’t sure how they would handle the roads and/or altitude.

We had a little trouble with the tour operator. She had a van with 6 spots left, but it wouldn’t be personalized. They had no vans for just six people left. I had spoken earlier to a driver that had a small van; but I knew he would be long gone by the time we got back – I was right.

So, if we couldn’t have a personalized tour, maybe I could haggle with the price. She wanted to charge me the same price for a private tour of 6 that she was charging for a standard tour with 10. Really? The same price? No haggling allowed for the difference? After about 10 minutes and standing in the tropical sun – we decided to get on the van that already had 4 people on it and off we went.

So, we start heading thru town enjoying the views and up the mountain we go.

Hey – where’s the audio? This is supposed to be a “guided tour”, not a look out the window – there’s St. Thomas – figure out what everything is on your own - kind of tour. The driver spoke – not – a – word.

Our driver 2 years ago was great; sometimes when you go out on your own at the last minute you win, sometimes – not so much.

So, again, we’re heading up the mountain. I’ve been to Mountain Top before, but I don’t remember the exact route. However, when we’re half way up and start heading back down, I know something is amiss.

Well…………………… it turns out that the other four people on the van are just going to Magen’s Bay. I previously posted this pic from the van:

 

 

So, at this point, we now have an entire van with just the six of us. Gosh – NOW – we have our “private tour” that we asked for to begin with. Hey Faye, I think that was her name -we’ll just go with that: I know it’s busy at the port; but please keep better track of who is going where. If we knew the people on the van were getting off soon – we’ve wouldn't have stood in the heat for 10 minutes and wouldn’t have tried for a price reduction.

So, we leave Megan’s Bay and…. It happens…..

HE SPEAKS!

The driver/tour guide starts chatting things up, telling us all about the island, foliage, etc.

What the heck? We asked him and he said, “the other people were paying for a cab ride to the beach; not a guided tour”. I guess he wasn’t giving out information for free. LOL But, those of us that DID pay for a guided tour – especially those of us in St. Thomas for the first time – did miss out on information about Charlotte Amalie, though we did get some of that on the way back.

So, we head back up the mountain, making a stop at Drake’s Seat where you can check out other trip reports to see the beautiful of the water. ;-)

 

In my desire to show “different” pictures from the ports, I DID post a picture from Drake’s Seat. I believe this is a Formosa tree?

 

So, we make our way up to Mountain Top.

Our driver parked above the main entrance giving us about two stories worth of stairs to walk down. It was quiet, with lots of lush foliage; it is quite beautiful.

But, as it turns out; one of our gang was having some slight motion problems. Medication wasn’t going to kick in fast enough – walking up those stairs was not an option. We needed the driver to come down to the entrance to pick us up. I went up to let the driver know this and to tell him we wanted extra time at Mountain Top for shopping. We had some things to buy and instead of going from tourist trap to tourist trap and in and out of the heat down at Havensight; we decided that this would be our main souvenir stop today.

I’ll re-post this picture of Megan’s Bay that is a standard:

 

 

 

So, we played the part of “happy tourist” and enjoyed the view, had a banana daiquiri and got some shopping done with the extra time we requested and could have since we now had our “private tour”.

And, now on to the “Jammin’ at Mountain Top” portion of the story. I think they play music in the store/warehouse; but I’m not sure. If they do, that is NOT what I’m talking about.

Nope, I’m talking about “Traffic Jammin’ at Mountain Top”. You see, when we were ready, we couldn’t find our van or driver at the entrance. So, I went up the stairs and….. Oh My….. what a traffic jam! With five ships in port, there’s only so many places the people and vans can go. I can only imagine what it’s like with more ships in port during the winter months.

I got more exercise going down and up the stairs. I needed to let everyone know it would be awhile before we could get down to them. Then, back to the driver. I even got to be the “traffic police” a bit. I stood in the middle of the road behind our van because our driver couldn’t get out. Then, it was a mess getting down the hill to the entrance because a couple of vans had pulled over (and left their vans) and hadn’t left enough room for two way traffic. Talk about Grid-lock in St. Thomas…

Anyways, once we got to the entrance, heading back up the hill went a little better and soon enough we were on our way.

With our extra time at Mountain Top, plus the time getting in and out – we didn’t get a full island tour. But, we were ready to head back to the ship and our time was about up anyways.

This pic came from the intersection of the road that came down the mountain the most direct way to the ship:

 

 

I think we all caught up for lunch. We still have a few hours left in port and some of us that had such a wonderful walk in Old San Juan decided to venture out again. First, we headed out on the main road. We walked past the Tram to Paradise Point, it was good to have that as a point of reference as we kept going. There was a nice sidewalk, but it was rather noisy next to a four lane road. We decided to start heading back when I saw a walkway towards the water. We ended up in Yacht Haven Grande Mall. This is an upscale shopping area that is next to Havensight.

Yacht Haven is where this pic came from:

 

 

So, we enjoyed the quiet by the water and the lush foliage on our walk back to the ship. There was even a small bar there that I teased DSIL about. It was called “Lime and the Coconut” which I had teased/sung to her when she ordered that dessert at dinner a few nights earlier. It wasn't "Old San Juan"; but we still had a grand time.

 

 

We split up for a bit after re-boarding. I headed to the aft pool, but only stayed a minute because it was too warm for a pool. So, instead I got in the hot tub. LOL Hey, if I’m gonna be in warm water, it might as well be WARM water.

Along the way, I watched the Crown Princess and then the Norwegian Getaway both leave before it was time for our normal dinner time. Departure would be during dinner.

Coming next: A story about..........Rhubarb Pie!

 

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[CruzinScotty]

So, here’s the picture to go with our Rhubarb Pie Story:

 

 

 

During dinner conversation, we would talk about pie ala mode. Mile told us it was the Chef’s choice and they never knew what it would be from day to day. Ma kept hoping for Rhubarb pie. We had much discussion about this. What’s a Rhubarb and why would anyone make a pie from it? She had childhood memories of pulling it from the ground, dipping it in sugar and eating it raw. Dipping a raw vegetable (or is it a fruit?) in sugar to make it edible wasn’t helping her story much. ;)

My Pop doesn’t like Rhubarb, so it was never in our house as I was growing up. As an adult, when I finally tried it….it's not on my taste palate at all.

So, Ma is the ONLY person in our group hoping to see Rhubarb pie on the menu and each night, she had been disappointed.

Two years ago, DW and I decided to skip dinner in St. Thomas because we wanted to see Sail Away.

You’ve already seen the picture, so you know TONIGHT is THE NIGHT of the Rhubarb Pie.

Can you tell where I’m going with this?

Guess who decided to skip dinner in the MDR tonight so they could see Sail Away. Yep – Ma and Pa!

So, of course, we had some fun conversation tonight at when we saw the dessert menu. We again discussed our dislike for rhubarb and how the chef probably wanted the night off from pie duty so he offered up the Rhubarb! We said this way, he’d only need TWO pies for the entire night – one for each dining room. And there would probably STILL be left overs. :eek:

But, being the nice family we are; we explained our Rhubarb dilemma to Mile. He graciously got a piece plated “to go” which made it’s way to Ma. She also thought it quite funny that she missed Rhubarb Pie night.

The moral of the story is: sometimes you get to have your Sail Away AND eat Rhubarb, too.

 

Here's a pic I took when I took the pie to Ma's room:

 

So, do YOU like Rhubarb Pie?

 

And, if so - what part of the country are you from? Ma and my Pop are originally from the Northeast. Is it a New England thing?

[SenatorsFan]

No, I don't like rhubarb pie! But my DH who has a Danish background cooks rhubarb and strawberries together and that is good! Sometimes he makes juice, which is really good. :) There's rhubarb from our garden in the freezer now so I should get him to make me some. :D

Heather

[CruzinScotty]

No, I don't like rhubarb pie! But my DH who has a Danish background cooks rhubarb and strawberries together and that is good! Sometimes he makes juice, which is really good. :) There's rhubarb from our garden in the freezer now so I should get him to make me some. :D

Heather

 

Now that you mention it, I think Ma said it was Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie. Maybe that would be better.

 

Anyone else want to weigh in on "The Great Rhubarb Debate"? :)

[CruzinScotty]

Evening entertainment after leaving St. Thomas

After our Rhubarb Pie fun, I headed out to catch the last part of “Cory’s 80’s Music Trivia Party”. I had missed the trivia question part; but the answer portion was a sing-along. Being an 80’s fan, I enjoyed hearing: Jesse’s Girl, Take On Me, Footloose and Don’t Stop Believin’. I can assure you, no one heard ME singing. :eek:

Today is the first day I saw info in the Fun Times about Cory’s “Selfie Challenge” in the Atrium Lobby. I had just started taking selfies during my morning walk – for no particular reason. Now, I had a reason. At the end, I caught Cory to get my selfie with him in his 80’s garb complete with long black hair. Sorry, no pic. I said Cory wears “many hats”; you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Next, I met a few of our gang in the Venetian for this evening’s show, “Swingin’ with the Big Band starring Christopher Alan Graves. From the 80’s to Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. in a matter of a vew steps.

There were still a few of us up to giving the “Open Mike” a try for the first time. I think this might be a “once and done” thing for me. It was only OK. There were a few good jokes from some of the passengers. But, overall, the funniest part of the entire show was having every single passengers comment, “Gosh, the lights are bright up here”. J

Then for me, it’s rinse and repeat time for me: see who my towel animal roommate is, journaling and enjoying the balcony before bed.

Next, it’s time to re-visit St. Maarten

Bye for now everybody.

[CruzinScotty]

Here are a few re-posted pictures of the towel animal convention at the Lido Pool the morning we arrived in Sint Maarten:

 

 

 

 

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You can tell we had a little rain before we arrived.

But.....would this have any effect on our day?

[CruzinScotty]

Well, I started having camera battery problems this morning. Not a good start. J

DW had worried that my batteries would wear out. Though they were disposable lithium batteries, of course she was right! I was going to have to find a store where the ship is docked before we could try to take our island tour. But, being the EC she is, EC2 quickly showed up with some regular batteries so I wouldn’t have to delay our tour. Thanks, EC2! I eventually did buy more regular batteries and went into one set of those as well before the cruise was over.

When I went to change after breakfast; I ran into John, my Room Steward. Some of my clan had been able to keep some of their towel animals for multiple nights creating a menagerie (see a couple of posts above). I asked him if he would just start leaving the animals in the room for the last few nights. He said he would.

The EC’s have been to St. Maarten many times and enjoy Phillipsburg, so they decided to head their own way. Most of us haven’t been here before, so the nine of us decided to take an island tour. I didn’t remember Sint Maarten having mountains like going to Mountain Top in St. Thomas. So, when we saw the mountains, I was concerned for our person with problems yesterday. I was assured we had medicated earlier today. Most tours don’t go up in the mountains, just all around the island. That’s probably why I don’t remember them.

At breakfast, we got a good view of the Allure of the Seas. You could tell it was a little longer and a few decks higher. But, this thing is TWICE the weight of the Liberty. It didn’t seem that much bigger. But, it’s the WIDTH of the ship. WOW – I’d seen pictures and it was almost like “two towering hotels” with all that space in between. But, until you see it. WOW. I’m not sure I want to go on a ship this big. But I will admit that I have a better understanding of those that do after having seen it in person.

 

 

 

 

So, on to the port. There’s a nice shopping area here; but we’re looking for the taxi stand.

I will say, in my limited cruising experience; St. Maarten – by far – has had the best set up for planning your own tours. They had covered huts (so you could be out of the sun), that showed four different touring options. With beaches, without beaches, some beach time, etc. We quickly found the one we wanted and tried to get a private tour.

With nine of us; a private van was no problem. And, we’ve got a van with a tour operator named:

CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT!

WOW – With a name like this, we should have a GRAND tour of St. Martin/Sint Maarten. A little rain and battery problems are not going to ruin our day.

I’m so excited to see the island again. Only a few of us have been here and it’s been awhile.

***Time to indulge my memory for a moment to understand my expectations***

So, here we are in St. Martin. It’s June of 1978 and we’re on the Carnivale, one of handful of ships with this new cruise ship company called, Carnival. I was a teenager tagging along on with my POP and my darling mother, who has since passed on.

The Carnivale is a behemoth of a ship, weighing a whopping 25,516 tons (that's less than 1/8th the weight of the Allure)! The thought of being in port with another ship was unheard of, especially since there is only one dock near Phillipsburg.

We took a tour of the island; enjoying the fact that we were visiting two completely different cultures in one location. There’s the Dutch side of Sint Maarten where I remember stopping in Phillipsburg to shop. They even had real wooden shoes for sale. We also meandered over to the French side, called St. Martin, which was just beautiful. We went thru a gorgeous resort where you went by the golf course and visited the charming capital of Marigot. I remember lots of locals there, doing some shopping and being on the waterfront.

 

 

Next, it’s back to reality. Dun, dun, dun……..

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Edited November 22, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[CruzinScotty]

Capt. Midnight is from Sint Maarten. He is Dutch and proud of it. He happily showed off Phillipsburg and the Dutch side of the island. Here was our first photo stop:

 

 

 

The advantage of a personal tour is being able to personalize it. There were only two of us that wanted to get into the ocean; but for a few minutes. This tour stopped at two beaches for twenty minutes each. That didn’t make much sense to any of us. We asked to have one beach be a 10 minute photo-op and then spend 20-30 minutes at the other one. Capt. Midnight was quite agreeable. He asked which beach to spend more time? We told him to pick. Initially, we thought he chose well.

 

Our photo op beach was Maho Beach:

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As you can see, there’s not much “beach” here. I did go down the rocks to put my feet in the water; it felt GREAT! But, after some photos and a bathroom break, we were on our way.

As enthusiastic as Capt. Midnight was about the Dutch side, he was quite “anti-French”. For example, he could speak 4 or 5 languages: English, Spanish, and some island languages. He did NOT speak French! He also seemed to be putting down the French side of the island, though we were going to be spending a lot of our touring time on that side of the island.

Hey – Capt. Midnight – Don’t be a buzz-kill! I have all these wonderful memories – I want my family to see the beauty of the French side!

Then…..dun, dun, dun……

We get to the French side……

He mentioned to us – look how small the “Welcome to St. Martin” sign is. Wait until we get back to the Dutch side and look at how large our sign is.

Next, before we got there; he mentioned the beautiful resort that I remembered. And he talked about Hurricane Lenny. In 1999, this Category 4 hurricane whipped up on St. Maarten for 36 hours. It was unusual because this storm came from the west, causing devastation everywhere. After this storm, the Dutch put all of their power lines underground, while the French did not. The French resort I remembered from my youth, was COMPLETELY destroyed. The owner took the insurance money and ran. He chose not to rebuild, and it was quite obvious…..

My beautiful French St. Martin is now but a distant memory. Reality was staring me squarely in the face – and it ain’t a pretty sight.

OK, so, we are heading to Marigot – maybe there’s hope for my memories here.

Well….Yeah….dun, dun, dun……

it’s raining again in St. Martin. Well, it’s raining in ONE single part on the entire island. Yep – it’s raining in Marigot as we approach. Not a good omen……

Hmmmmph…..

Pastry. There WILL be Pastry. Even Capt. Midnight admitted the French did have good pastry. There’s still hope!

So, there’s a 45 minute shopping stop in Marigot. We get dropped off in town and – dun, dun, dun….

We get dropped off about a mile or so from two yummy looking pastry shops we had passed along the way. But IN town – ummm…. Capt. Midnight’s version of St. Martin wins out again.

Where are the local people I remember? Where are the shops? Where is the waterfront? I guess you could see it if you wanted to spend your time in the taxi/van parking lot….???

WHERE is the PASTRY shop?

Oh my….. Downtown Marigot is really run down. And, it consisted of a whopping ONE souvenir shop. That’s it. I bought a t-shirt here because our tour didn’t stop in Phillipsburg and I wasn’t sure I’d have time later to look at the shops near the ship. But, the shirt I bought was my “third choice” because they didn’t have my size in my first two choices. There were a couple of patio restaurants, but we just wanted a place to grab a quick goodie and there was no time for that. In retrospect, when we saw the town, we should have told the driver to turn around and take us back to one of the pastry shops outside of town..

Upon our return to the van, Capt. Midnight just shrugged his shoulders and said, “that’s how the French are. They don’t care about the tourists”.

Got that right.

So, we head out of town and see a very depressed area. Now, you see these sights on parts of many of the islands; it just wasn’t helping our impression of French St. Martin.

Orient Beach – that’s our 2nd beach. This will be our saving grace! This will leave at least ONE good memory of modern day French St. Martin.

Unfortunately…… not so much. We stopped at a restaurant that had seating for our non-swimmers – if you ordered something to eat. Not that we’re opposed to trying the local flavor. Though, I wouldn’t consider bar food at Orient Beach to be local flavor. But, a quickie 20-30 minute lunch wasn’t our intent. In retrospect, if we had swam at Maho Beach, it would have been a similar situation. The family would have needed to at least order a drink to get a seat and wait for us. So, us two swimmers quickly decided to forgo our swim. We were all ready to head back to the ship.

The French side of St. Martin really was a bust for us. I’m glad I got to see both sides of the island. But I felt bad that I had subjected my family to this tour when just going to Phillipsburg would have been a much better choice for us.

I will say, if you are looking for a great beach day; Orient Beach will work for you:

 

 

Anyways, we couldn’t get back to the nice large “Welcome to Sint Maarten” sign fast enough. That’s why I call this island, “Sint Maarten”, after the Dutch side. The cruise ships dock there, more of the people live there, the casinos are there, the airport is there. And, I hear Phillipsburg has great shopping and a beach right on the harbor.

If I make it back to Sint Maarten – Phillipsburg will be my destination for the day!

Bye for now, everybody.

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Edited November 22, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[Butterbean1000]

Thank you for review. We will be experiencing the new American Table menu for the first time on our upcoming cruise. Thanks to your in-depth review, we are looking forward to it.

 

It looked like you had a wonderful time with your family. We hope to take a family cruise one day.

[CruzinScotty]

Thank you for review. We will be experiencing the new American Table menu for the first time on our upcoming cruise. Thanks to your in-depth review, we are looking forward to it.

 

It looked like you had a wonderful time with your family. We hope to take a family cruise one day.

 

Thanks for the positive feedback; I hope others are still enjoying the review as well.

 

When there are menu changes, there will always be some new things that are great; but some things are removed and missed. But, then again - some people complain if the menu stays the same and never changes. ;) As I said, overall; we liked the new menus. I do hope they decide to keep the table cloths like the Liberty currently has when they expand the new menus.

 

We've really enjoyed our family cruises. It's a great way to get together and create great memories!

Edited November 22, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[CruzinScotty]

After returning to the ship for lunch, we still have some time left. A few of use decided to go for another a little walk and this time do some shopping near the pier.

Today, as in San Juan and St. Thomas; when we went walking, I took lots of pictures. I would often fall behind; but could easily catch up with everyone. Well today, we’re actually looking for souvenirs as well. So, when I stopped to get a pic or two of the foliage and the water – everyone disappeared! I looked for a few minutes; but I knew they were shopping somewhere. Instead of looking thru each store trying to find my clan; I just started my own shopping. I tried samples of an alcoholic guava-berry frozen concoction and a non-alcoholic coconut smoothie. Both were great. I wish I had found that smoothie place sooner; I would definitely get one of those on a return trip.

When I returned to the ship; I went to my room. Remember when I mentioned to John that I’d like him to start saving my towel animals? Well…………he EXCEEDED my expectations. He had left me THREE animals!

I saved the rest of them and that’s how I ended up with so many the last night:

 

 

 

Next, I headed up to the Serenity Area and enjoyed one of the hot tubs. I had the place to myself and had a beautiful view of Sint Marteen: the mountains, the harbor, and Phillipsburg.

Soon, it was time for Sail Away. I will give the Allure some credit. Towards the bow, they had a crew door open that had a 5 foot “hand” that was waving goodbye to us. Our Captain and the Allure’s Captain also had fun playing the “who can blow the horn the last” game. I think they won. ;)

It was quite a fun and interesting Sail Away; especially since it’s our last one this trip.

Time to get ready for dinner.

Coming up: Family Feud – Part I

Edited November 22, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[CruzinScotty]

First, let’s jump back to dinner last night in St. Thomas. I noticed someone at the next table had gotten an interesting drink. It was a fruity fru- fru drink. But hey, most of the drinks at The Alchemy Bar could be considered non-manly; yet there are just as many men as women there. I was really intrigued by the blue color of the drink. I thought it might be a Blue Hawaiian, but one of our servers said it was the Deep Blue from the Port of Call menu. Hmmm, sorry I missed it.

So, imagine my surprise when tonight’s Port of Call menu also had the Deep Blue. I decided to order it.

I’ll repost the picture of the drink called, “Deep Blue”:

 

 

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And, thus ensued: Family Feud – Part I (Blue vs Green)

When I mentioned I was going to order this drink, since we hadn’t used the bar staff much on the trip; a few others decided to order this as well.

Obviously, the drink is green and not blue. But, it was quite interesting that every one of us that ordered the drink had also noticed it at the next table the night before. We all would have bet a LOT of money that it was blue….. The rest of the table of course thought we needed to have our heads, make that our eyes, examined. ;) There was no one at the table next to us where we had seen it, so someone even took the drink and placed it there. Those of us in the “but it was BLUE last night section” could see it had more of a blue hue in that lighting; but it wasn’t as “blue” as the night before. The “it’s green, and always was” gang didn’t give us much sympathy. :p

We contended that the drink had been made differently and whatever made it green had more of that in it tonight. Yep, that was our story and we stuck to it. Especially, as we really enjoyed our Deep Blue/Green drinks. :D

As a refresher of tonight, this was the night we had planned our surprise party for Pop. Some of us ordered from the Specialty Menu and we had that wonderful chocolate birthday cake.

Tomorrow is also our next sea day. This is the day Cory said the Veteran’s Meet and Harry Potter Trivia would be scheduled. We need to coordinate those with the ever important Sea Day Brunch! So, after we ordered our dinner, I went to see if tomorrow’s Fun Times had been delivered. It had and, as Cory thought, the Veteran’s Meet was at 10am. This allowed us to go to brunch afterwards. Yeah. So, what time was the Harry Potter Trivia????

It wasn’t….. :eek:

instead…..there was a Star Wars Trivia slated for noon. Well…..we like Star Wars, but we’re more partial to the Wizarding World.

We weren’t going to let that ruin things for us. We would have attended this if was later, but decided we didn’t want to rush through brunch. So maybe it’s for the best.

This was also the night “the lights went out” for a few minutes at the front of the ship. I attended part of the Stevie Wonder Tribute Show. In retrospect, this would have been a great night to seek out more of the live music they have throughout the ship. I’ve done this on past cruises and have enjoyed it immensely.

I also made a trip to Guest Services. More on that later.

Coming soon:, a new picture you’re not likely to see anywhere else. :)

Edited November 22, 2014 by CruzinScotty

[h-sar]

Excellent review! Thank you for the time and effort you have taken with this. It's great to see a multigenerational family having a great time together. We will be in St. Maarten on Christmas Day on the Regal Princess. Do you recall how much the island tour cost? Thank you

Edited November 23, 2014 by h-sar

[h-sar]

I live on the Prairies of western Canada and rhubarb grows almost wild here! It's a pretty hardy plant, so can tolerate our climate. Rhubarb-strawberry pies/jams/etc are very popular here and many people in the rural areas will have rhubarb growing somewhere on their property.