okay, here's most of it....
Greetings from the deck 3 Prommenade Lounge internet cafe! We're currently on our way to
Castaway Cay having left St. Thomas LATE but more on that later.
This is our first-ever cruise and so far we're having a blast! (Except for the teenagers running around right now, don't they have their own club?) I won't go into all the usual minutia about the ship since that's been posted about plenty of times. So I'll just give you information I thought was novel or important as a cruse newbie and one traveling with an infant. (((5J, amI going to have to deal with this in 15 years? There a boy of about 15 trying to chat up some 14 year old girl...ahh young love
She doesn't seem to mind as she isn't blowing him off yet, they are playing an online computer game and she's talking about back home. OMG Where is her father!!!)))
Got up on time Saturday but left a tad late. Stayed at the Rennaissance Orlando Airport and wasn't too thrilled about a few things. But this is a cruise chat board so I won't go into too many details...except one: the "business center" is a bunch of machines (fax, computers, printers) that ALL have are pay as you go! c'mon people! $1.00/page for a laser printout! So I went across the street to Courtyard and printed the cruise boarding docs that I left at home for free (I emailed PDF copies to myself
). We hit the road to the port about 1015. Cruised along about 80-90mph and passed 4
DCL buses on the way! Had to beat all those people to the terminal
We used
Avis so I dropped everyone and the luggage off and then took the car back. And waited....and waited....the Avis shuttle driver evidently wanted a butt in every seat befor leaving for the terminals! Dammit man I have a VACATION waiting for me!!!! Anyway we got to the terminal (thankfully he went to Disney and then Carnival) and I then languished in the massive line to get through security. I later found out from DW that they sent all bags through the x-ray but they just rolled the stroller and car seat around the WTMD (unlike the airport). Even though I dropped them off about 1050, they still got boarding group #10! No matter because they called our number while I was still in the security line! When I finally got upstais and met with them, they were chomping at the bit! LOL It only took us 20 minutes to get into the line, have our KTTW cards scanned, have our photos taken and our name annouced as we boarded!
They of course went to the pool. *I* had to go to Flounders to book DS (5 months) in for the night since we had Palo reservations. BZZZZTTT!!!! No Flounder's on day 1!!! They sent me to the Rockin' D bar where they were making adjustments to meal rotations and Palo reservations. We had the PLAP rotation so I got Palo for our secound Parrot Cay night (Tuesday). Got the Flounder's ressie and all was set.'
Hit the Mickey pool and DS enjoyed the fountain ear immensely. So much so he injested a little of the water--he's fine. We were a late for the DIS meet so we only got a few magnets but we met some really nice people! DW commented that whilst I was running around getting the ressies squared away, there were kids running amok and there were several "adults" who were already plastered!!! Some were working on their 3rd or 4th beer!
They said our rooms would be ready at 1330 so at 1338 I went down to see. The rooms were ready and the luggage had arrived! When I was pulling some bags into our room, this little waif of a girl stops to say hi! Turns out she's our cabin attendant and wanted to introduce herself! So let's see, she's all of 105lbs soaking wet, she's wearing longshoreman's gloves, has a luggage cart with 5 BIG bags on it and she stops to say hi and even knows my name already!!?!?!? wow!
Formal night was great! DS decided to have a meltdown upon seeing Captain Tom! ROFL I don't think the captain knew what to do with himself! DS later calmed down enough for pictures in front of the Mickey wheel. Everyone loved his little baby tuxedo! Palo was awesome! Let me just say this: 4 chocolate soufflés!!
ST. MAARTEN
We didn't go to the French side. There is a place to get you passport stamped if you wish but we missed it as they close at 4pm. DW and DF did some damage at the jewelry shops...DW got DF a really good deal on some tanzanite. The hair braiding sharks weren't nearly as bad as other islands we've been to! Water taxi was only $5 for unlimited trips to uptown, downtown and the pier. We ever saw our asst dining room attendant who was doing some shopping. She got a Nikon camera. DW approves as she's a Nikon & Leica snob. The water taxi accomodated the stroller and since we had the full sized Graco, we had a much better time with the rocky streets and uneven sidewalks compared to the people who brought an umbrella stroller. And don't get me started on the lady in the BIG personal scooter trying unsucessfully to negotiate the tiny aisles of some shops! She was knocking things over and ignoring the pleas of the shopkeepers to not go any further--they offered to bring her anything she wanted to see! uggghh! At a souvenier shop right by the ships, this older (read 60s) couple comes in, butts in line and the hubby complains to the shopkeep that they can't take their liquor on board! Evidently they were on the Celebrity ship across from us and if they take alcohol on board (unlike Disney) it will be confiscated until the end of their cruise! The shopkeep said yes that's right and that's why he asked the missus if she wanted extra wrapping paper...well the DH wasn't happy and demanded a refund if they weren't going to pack things in a box properly since the bottles would get broken in the hold of the ship! It's times like these I wish I had some "You'r beeing an Ugly American" stickers!!
(((UPDATE: the girl is snuggling into Romeo's arm and she's telling him about how she's not happy that her boyfriend because he "hooked up" with a girl she knows. Not sure if that's what it means but really, where IS her father?)))
ST. THOMAS
We stepped off the ship and into the shark tank!!!! The safaru bus drivers and their minions were swirling about licking their chops!!! We docked at Crown Bay instead of the other pier by the Havensight (sp?) Mall because there were ships from Carnival,
Royal Caribbean and Holland America already docked there. So since there was nothing within walking distance (there's a little mall under construction at Crown Bay) we had to take our chances with the safari buses. Boy you should have heard the people on the verandahs afterwards...they were complaining that the prices Disney printed in the St. Thomas info sheet were way off! That's because those prices were based on the other pier! So we paid $5/person to go to Charlotte Amalie. They didn't charge for the baby but they driver grumbled about having to do something with the stoller. DW got a camera lens...60% less than back home! woo hoo
Then they wanted to go to the beach so we got another safari bus from the post office. That was $10/person for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and the Wednesday afternoon smackdown!!! OMG we almost had 2 accidents! And there's no seatbelts, and I'm holding the baby in my arms in this death trap that would never be allowed to operate in the mainland USA! $7 of the $10 was for the fare and the other $3 was the admission fee for Megans Bay. The driver got our beach tickets, pulled in and blew off this guy handing out taxi passes. The next thing we know, there's a bike cop pulling up telling the driver he needed to get a ticket. The driver then starts yelling, "I don't need no stinkin' ticket! This is a PUBLIC beach and I drive a PUBLIC taxi! You can't make me get no ticket! We drivers are sick of it and were not going to take this harrassment any more!!!" Of course it sounded much more pleasant with an island accent! LOL Then Mr. Ticket comes up and tells the driver to take a ticket and they get into another argument about tickets and passenger pickup etc...We heeded the advice of the drivers to leave the beach by 1430 because the streets get gridlocked about 1500 because school lets out!!!! I wanted a covered van but the van driver wasn't interested in going to Crown Bay and pushed us off onto another safari bush. But this driver was MUCH safer amd a better driver even though he went through town to try and grab more passengers! We made it back with plenty of time but not all were as prompt...I was up on deck 10 watching the dock crew unhook the mooring lines. As they were being winched in, up pulls a safari van! Our friend heard that they had to lower the forward gangway to get them aboard!!!! They must have got caught in the traffic!
Well that's it for now! If I think of more I'll be sure to post.
PS I said maybe they're green because the seas leaving St. Thomas have been rather rough tonight! So far we've seen about 5 people hurl!
Hope you all are having such a great time you can't post. 
