Our Caribbean Vacation 2009

1st stop....San Juan, Puerto Rico

After a red-eye flight, we arrived in Puerto Rico around 10:45am. We went to get our bags and one of my bags was missing. Of course. I was told that it was still in Miami. Why? TSA decided to search it and didn't bother getting it back on the right airplane. I was told that it might get there by that evening otherwise they would forward it on to me in St. Thomas the next day. I was like, "Hello! I need my clothes and toiletries and EVERYTHING IN THAT BAG TONIGHT!!!" Luckily enough, it came in and was delivered to the ship about a half an hour before we set sail (which was at 10pm so you can see the Puerto Rico efficiency). Anyway, that's why I look so bedraggled in these first pics.

Above is a picture of the lido deck on the way out of port as well as Jeremy and I with our lovely life vests. We had to do a safety drill so every person on the ship had to go to one of the decks and stand around. It may have been 9:15 at night but it was about 89 degrees and totally humid so it was not comfortable. We were standing in the back by the wall and Jeremy was in front of a giant vent that was blowing hot air right on him. He got tired of standing so he squatted down for a minute and when he stood up.....He passed out. Yup, right there surrounded by EVERYBODY! The bad thing? I FREAKED out (thinking it was another brain tumor or something). The good thing? We got to go inside into the nice air conditioned dining room with glasses of water while everyone else had to wait for that stupid drill to finish. Don't worry, he was ok.

Here's the monkey I made for our cabin steward (cute, huh?) and here's Jeremy being eaten by one of the arcade deocrations. Anyone in need of a giant fish for their living room? Contact Carnival.

Day 2 - St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

Here I am waiting to go parasailing which Jeremy really wanted to do, so we did it and it was super fun. We got up to about 400 feet in the air above the water and it was amazing how quiet it was and how light we felt.

Here we are way up above the boat. After our turn was over there were two other couples so we just enjoyed the boat ride. Ok, I should say that Jeremy enjoyed the boat ride while I continued to get increasingly more and more seasick. About the time the last couple was being pulled back into the boat, I was losing my breakfast over the side of the boat. The picture above is shortly after and I felt MUCH better. Needless to say, we tipped the boat operators very well.

Day 3 - Dominica (pronounced Doh-min-EE-kuh)

This was probably Jeremy and my least favorite stop on this cruise. We spent part of the day on this black sand beach. About 5 minutes after arriving at the beach, we were bombarded with people trying to sell us crappy jewelry, mangos and one guy even offered me some reefer. Nice. We quickly got in the water and stayed there so they would leave us along. One girl kept taking her bikini top off and seemed surprised by all the attention she was getting from the locals. Shocker.

Here's a picture of a man who obviously doesn't care that his bathing suit doesn't fit. Yuck. Anyway, our beach outing was cut short due to the fact that Jeremy stepped on sea urchin which caused a bit of pain in his foot. Above, he's pointing to his temporary tattoo where he was stung. Apparantly it will be there for a few weeks. We had formal night this night but I was so seasick I didn't want to eat anything (which was too bad because I didn't get to try lobster like I wanted to). Our friend, Shane, gave me a motion sick patch to put on and it proved to be the biggest lifesaver EVER! I would highly recommend those to anyone prone to motion sickness. I was fine for the rest of the trip, even on the super choppy catamaran ride in Antigua.

Day 4 - Barbados

By far the prettiest water of all the stops we made. Crystal clear and nice white powder beaches. Jeremy and I and our friends that we went with, Dani and Shane, decided to do a Pirate Party Cruise. Check out Jeremy going down the 70 foot water slide. It was quite the drop.

Here's our friend Dani with Jeremy showing us a sample of the sushi that was available every night. Is it sad that our evenings consisted of eating sushi as an appetizer, then we would go to our actual dinner and order 3-4 appetizers each as well as 1 or 2 entrees and a dessert or two? Now add the fact that we would get ice cream later in the evening. Ahhhhh, the life. Luckily with me being sick the first couple days I didn't gain a million pounds!

Day 5 - St. Lucia

ZIPLINING!!!!!

No need to explain much here but here we are with our friends and here are pictures of Jeremy and in the act. Below is a little video footage of Jeremy's last zipline. It was a blast!

Here we are with our zipline guides, Alcess and Nathan. They were pros!

Day 6 - Antigua (I was told by a local that it is pronounced Antigah and then she said "the G is silent". I'm still trying to figure that one out)

We went sailing on a catamaran and went out to a reef for some snorkeling. Here's Shane in his snorkel gear and the other picture looks like a bunch of dead bodies in the water.

We went to a little private cove and played in the water for awhile. Very relaxing but I totally burnt!!! Despite applying multiple layers of SPF 50. Grrrr. I didn't realize quite how badly I had burnt until.....

Day 7 - St. Kitt's

I woke up with a giant swollen forehead. This completely freaked me out because I had never had that happen before. I went to see the ship's nurse who said it was from sun exposure. Wait a minute....I was in the sun so my forehead swelled up???!!! Crazy. It was pretty bad and didn't go down for about 2 days. Then the peeling began and that's always attractive. Gross. Moving on...

We actually didn't do much this day other than call the girls at home. It was nice to hear their happy voices! Ok the girl in the above picture was nicknamed "Naked, Stashy Freida" because every outfit that she wore to dinner was missing giant pieces of fabric so that she might as well have been wearing nothing. She also had GIANT eyebrows (they had actually been trimmed down in the picture above) and she had a nice mustache... hence "Naked, stashy Freida"

Day 8 - Back to San Juan, Puerto Rico

Our cruise ended this day so we said goodbye to Dani and Shane who were flying home after debarking and we toured the city since we weren't leaving until the next day. We actually had no choice but the tour the city since we debarked at 11:00am and couldn't check into our hotel until 3:00pm. Bad planning on our part.

Here is a picture of the fortress that goes around old San Juan. The giant spikes definitely say "Visitors Welcome". Can you see me in front of them?

Jeremy and I got a coconut and drank the water our of it. Not so good. I had had it before so I knew what to expect. You just keep drinking and drinking and drinking and you think "Why do I keep drinking this? It's not good!" We finally threw it away. Here we are in front of a fountain in the city. Why don't we have fountains like this here? Day 9 - Flying home We were happy to come home but I was not happy to find out that my bags had been gone through AGAIN and this time some rat-bastard (excuse my french) stole my gold charm bracelet! I had forgotten to put it in my carry-on bag so I was so sad to see that it had been stolen. I have filed a complaint with Continental so stand by for further updates on the case of the continental creep who swiped my bracelet.

Well, that's about it. We're home, healthy and happy to have had this experience. It was really nice to be able to spend 9 days without having to feed someone while my dinner got cold or to be told "no, no, NO!" when I tried to hold my husbands hand. Now, back to reality. Sigh...