Welcome Back, Kathy!!

[MandyGirl]

I just realized it's Saturday and that your ship should be back in Fort Lauderdale! Normally a sad time to disembark :( but are you a very happy bride? :)

 

I checked out the Harbor Master's page and realized my next cruise (HAL Zuiderdam) was also there as well!!

 

Berth Vessel Agent Purpose MM DD ETA MM DD EDT Length -----------------

(IN PORT)

 

33C MAR CARIBE CROWLEY LINER SERVIC CONTAINER 9 / 19 11:35 10 / 9 15:30 527

 

30 CMA CGM CARIBBEAN STRACHAN SHIPPING AG CONTAINER 10 / 9 07:30 10 / 9 15:30 381

 

13 SEABULK TRADER STRACHAN SHIPPING AG PETROLEUM 10 / 8 15:40 10 / 9 16:00 629

 

18 CENTURY CELEBRITY CRUISES IN CRUISE - MULTI 10 / 9 06:45 10 / 9 16:30 809

 

2 CARIBBEAN PRINCESS PRINCESS CRUISES INC CRUISE - MULTI 10 / 9 07:10 10 / 9 17:00 935

 

26 ZUIDERDAM HOLLAND AMERICA LINE CRUISE - MULTI 10 / 9 06:55 10 / 9 17:00 936

[Soon2bMrs]

Yes ma'am I'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Oh my god! Can I tell you what a wonderful time we had???????????????

 

I see that Mary my wedding planner got on board this site. I kept telling her about it.

 

I don't know where to start....................

 

The cruise was amazing. The food, our room, the service ect, ect, ect!

We are having " cruise withdrawal"

 

OK, first of all , we got up at the buttcrack of dawn to catch our 8:30am flight. Since Derek used to work for SW, he ran into alot of his old co-workers who let me pre-board because of my dress. By the way I hate security! they gave me a hard time becuase of the dress, my purse and my carry on. Geez couldn't they see that I'm the bride? LOL

We pre-boarded and recieved a bottle of champange from his old co-workers and the flight attendants announced that we were about to be married and that D was an " alumni" He was really touched by that.

We got to Ft. Lauderdale and took the shuttle to our hotel. We stayed at the Springhill Suites/Marriot in Dania which is only about a 8 minute ride south of the airport. We checked in and found that my brother, his wife and 2 sons had also arrived from DC about the same time. Everyone else arrived about dinner time. Derek and I took my nephews to the Dave and Buster's that night to hang out. Eveyone else either partied or shopped in the nearby mall. I was already over my flipflop limit when I purchased 2 more pair at K-Mart! Hey they were cute and looked like the ones I wanted from J Crew, but refused to pay the $20 for one pair! This way I got 2 for the price of 1!

We boarded around 12:30ish Saturday and the woman checking us in recognized Derek's last name as someone she used to work w/ in Baltimore 20 years ago which was his late father! Small world huh? I met Amanda the cruise social events condinator. she was great and told me who to contact for the things I needed. On the way to the ship I met Brooke who was one of the ships hairdressers and asked how to set up my appt.

We all sat around the ship till our luggage arrived to our rooms which was only about 1-1:30. Our room or suite was SWEET! We had a deck, the room was about the size of a small hotel room including the deck. it was awesome!

I met w/ Maria who is the wedding event coordinator on the ship and she set the time that me and my guests were to meet. She typed up invitations and sent them to all of my guests!

Sunday we all hung out by the pool, ate, drank, ate. Danced. I had my trial hair appt. Brooke whom I met upon arrival saw my name under another hairdresser and stole me from her. She was such a sweetheart this girl!She offered to come in ON HER DAY OFF AT 6:45am! to do little ole me's hair! I LOVE this girl! So I had a nice updo while I laid out by the pool the rest of the day! LOL

Let's see............ Monday we arrived in San Juan. OK I had a problem w/ this................ we went out walking around w/ our friends and ended up at Senior Frogs. They had the Monday night football game of the Ravens vs. Kansas City. So we stayed. No dinner, but about 6 Baquardi breezes later. We were all dancing and singing and watching the Ravens get thier butt kicked! Then we go back to the ship to find a midnight buffet being set up and music. I swear this was a conspiracy against me. I was having way too much fun, but had to go to bed! URGH! I managed to get to sleep about 1am only to be woken up while we were getting into port at St. Thomas about 5:30-6am.

I woke up , showered, and ran down to the salon to find Brooke sitting in her chair waiting for me!

She did my hair like in 45 minutes. I literly ate half a muffin and ran down the hall to my room to fine my sister, cousin and a friend holding my dress so that I could jump into it! I touched up the make up, put on deoderant, brushed the teeth and we booked it to the 6th floor card room to meet up w/ our guests and my future husband so that we could disembark promptly at 7:45am! Maria managed to get a cab for us. I don't know who called this guy, I was supposed too but forgot, but he was there to take Derek and I to the courthouse while our guests took another cab to the ferry.

Ed was our driver from Christopher's Taxi's. He took us to the courthouse and walked us upstairs to get our licence! He waited for us and then took us the long way to Red Hook. I never told him where to go and that Mary had wanted us to take Charlotte Amalie ferry, but they got us and our guests to Red Hook w/ 10 mins to spare and what a view we saw getting up there!

There ferry ride was like a party boat! Eveyone seemed to have enjoyed it.

We arrived, Mary was waiting for us w/ a big open air taxi for our guests. She drove Derek and I and my parents in her air conditioned jeep.

We arrived and she wouldn't let me out till everyone was settled. It was pretty warm out.... I didn't really notice. HA HA

The ceremony started about 10ish. It was hot, sunny and absolutly breathtaking! I couldn't believe how amazing this place was and that Derek was down the beach waiting for me! The whole time thru the ceremony I kept digging my toes into the sand and I kept thinking " wow, this is sooo cool!". When Mary started the ceremony I looked down at the sheet she was reading and thinking " Geez this is going to take all day", then I realize Derek was leaning over to kiss me. It all went by in a flash! LOL

Our photographer Kelly was great , so was the video augrapher though I can't remember his name.

My only regret is that our best man and his girlfriend seemed to had been shuffled back on the taxi before we were done. His girlfriend Nicole takes nice photos and i would have loved more on the beach and then more as we had lunch at Caneel Bay. Then again it was nice to be alone to process the morning!

On the way back to Charlotte Amalia we could see this rain cloud. There were some sprinkles, but nothing else. That would have sucked to get thru the morning w/ this perfect weather and then get dumped on.

We just went back to the ship and crashed.

At 5 we hosted a cocktail hour for our guests. Maria also oversaw that. Our cake was beautiful. It wasn't what I ordered but was very tasty! So no big deal there. Everyone drank up as the booze was free. LOL I think we all went to dinner at 6 pretty hammered.

We arrived for dinner and our ass't. maitre' de Richard told me " NO! You have to go walk down the stairs and make a grand entrance!" "Go, go and meet me upstairs so we can do this right!". So we went upstairs to the grand stairs case and made our grand entrance to the " The wedding march song". It was sooo nice of him to do this! He also fought w/ the kitchen to find my wedding cake, not knowing that I had set it up to be cut at the cocktail hour. He pulled our best man aside to give him the bad news only the have our best mand tell him what we had planned. Poor guy alomost had a heartattack over this.

I have soo much more to tell, but my brain is thinking faster than my fingers can type!

Over all the cruise was just wonderful! Our butler was great and we couldn't have done this w/ out the help of Brooke who did my hair, Richard the ass't maitre' de, Paolo our waiter and so many others!

If you get the chance, go on a Celebrity Century cruise!

 

We're happy that we're home only becuase we have 3 kitties who missed us, but we are having serious cruise withdrawals! Waking up and knowing that we couldn't go to the buffet or order room service really sucked! The making the bed thing is already old to us as well. And where are the chocolates that they put on our pillows every night? LOL

 

I'll post a picture.

 

Talk to you soon

Kathy :)

[Soon2bMrs]

OK,

 

How do I post a picture on here??????????????????????/

 

 

Sorry I'm blonde! LOL

 

PS do you know the websites for the webcams?

 

http://www.celebrityatsea.com

 

Our ship is on a western caribbean cruise right now. She looks like she misses us!

[MandyGirl]

WooHoo!! Sounds like it went so awesome!! And were your family/guests just totally amazed with everything?!?!?! You'll be feeling that sand forever between your toes -just close your eyes, think of the crystal clear blue water, gorgeous green hills...

Yep, I was keeping an eye on the Celebrity webcam. :) And weather.com LOL!

I don't know how to post pics here on CC. BUT... there are some other places where you can do it for free. If you have a Yahoo email account you can do it on geocities.com (free) or I've seen others elsewhere. I've seen some people do attachments on here though.

Celebrity is definitely a great cruiseline - we enjoyed them in Dec 2001 on our cruise. I could totally see the maitre'd doing that at dinner on Celebrity. Weren't they just overly helpful?!? Did you ever try their AquaSpa?

Yep - that whole 'making the bed' thing, chocolate on pillow, etc - that's called WITHDRAWAL when you get back home. Totally sux. After our first cruise, we had #2 booked less than 2 months later (this time out of San Juan). Definitely addictive!! I remind Curt that when we met, we had never cruised. Took a cruise... and now almost four years later we're about to do #5. And we're starting to want to do longer than 7-night cruises. Don't think we could handle one shorter than 7-nights!

And how about Southwest! :D Nothing like flying the LUV airline for a wedding!! We downplayed it onboard, but since two had jumpset privileges up front (they were packed like sardines up there!!), they crew knew where we were all headed. When weather rerouted us on the way home causing a misconnect, things were taken care of before we ever knew we'd miss the connection! We just stayed on the plane to HOU and connected there (instead of New Orleans). And you're right about Security - that's the only wedding dress challenges I had.

Okay - gotta go - but I want to see your pics!!

And again, CONGRATS on a successful wedding on St John!!!

[Soon2bMrs]

What is your email adress again?

 

I'll email them to you.

 

I"m too lazy to do Shutterfly or Otophoto, then again let me work on this now. LOL

 

 

Talk to ya later

 

:)

[MandyGirl]

Hey Kathy! Try this. So you ended up taking everyone with you to the wedding, right? Were all the logistics okay for them? What did they decide to do afterwards - stick around on St John? That is still so great that everything worked out perfectly for you guys - you deserved it! I guess the only yucky thing about having a successful cruise wedding is that if you don't use a certain coordinator someone on these boards will slam you for posting positive wedding results - even if your posts generate tourism for the area.

 

We're trying to figure out a cruise to Alaska. Depends on Curt's work schedule, and we won't know that for next year until a few more weeks. But a lot who went on our wedding cruise have asked me to put together one for Alaska, so I am researching that now and think I have found the cruiseline/ship/itinerary that would fit our group and budget. That seems like it will be totally different from what we are used to! My mind equates cruising with beautiful beaches, great music, and yummy fruity drinks! :D