Cruisin' to the Caribbean

Going on a cruise has always been on my bucket list.  I knew I'd probably only get one shot at it, for the time being anyway, and thus wanted to go on the best possible cruise. And that best possible one was a 7 day Southern Caribbean cruise leaving form Puerto Rico and docking at 5 different islands - St. Thomas, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten - with only one day on the ship.  It was incredible.  Originally I had planned on going with my Utah roomies Amy & Allison.  Unfortunately that didn't work out so I got some other peeps together and there ended up being 8 of us total.  So much fun!

The best thing about a cruise is that is completely stress free.  You don't have to decide where to eat dinner, what to do that evening, where to stay, or how to get to the next island.  It's definitely the way to go for island hopping.  Although, it's probably not my favorite way to travel, it's something you gotta experience.  And it was exactly what I needed after an extremely stressful year of PA school.

Getting to Puerto Rico was a nightmare and I will never buy a cheap ticket again if it means this is the way I'll be traveling.  I flew from Portland to Los Angeles with a 4 hr. layover, then to New York where it was tightly scheduled with a 30 min. layover.  I even double checked with the airline and they said it was plenty of time as my gate was only 4 gates down.  HA!  Too bad we sat on the plane for at least 20 min. due to technical issues.  I didn't even land at JFK until after my flight was scheduled to leave.  That didn't stop me from pushing my way from the back of the plane to the front so I could be the first one off.  I got re-routed on a later flight so I got to have another 4 hr. layover.  By the time I got to Puerto Rico and met my friends on the ship I had been traveling for 24 hrs.  But hey, if that means a week of sunshine and warmth, I'm ok with it.

Here's the whole gang on one of the elegant dress up nights.....

Rob, Nicole, Danielle, Kristina, Candace, Lacee, Nate, Janelle

Our first stop was St. Thomas.  A friend recommended that we take a ferry over St. John since 2/3 of the island is a national park with some amazing beaches.  Between taxis and the ferry it probably cost about $25 each way, but it was totally worth it!  It was gorgeous.  Never have I seen such crystal clear water.  There was also some snorkeling we did around the huge rocks you can see in the water.  A few of my friends even saw a shark!  This was definitely my favorite beach out of all the islands.

Our CRAZY cab driver, but don't worry we left in one piece

The next day was a day at sea on the ship.  We mostly just lounged about in the sun, went down the slide a few times, and ate to our heart's content and then some.

Barbados was day 3 and probably my least favorite.  The people are pretty harsh, or at least that's how they come across.  Yelling at each other for taking their business (us).  At least we saw a pirate ship!

These next pictures I didn't actually take since I lost my camera that day.  It had fallen out of my pocket in the taxi on the way to the beach.  Fortunately, the same driver was planning on picking us up AND the guy selling us snorkeling gear knew the taxi driver so he called her and she found and held on to it until she came back to get it.  Whew!  That was scary to realize I had lost it!  We went snorkeling on a double decker boat (I really wish we had taken a picture of it!  There were a couple beach chairs upstairs to lounge on).  On the snorkel tour we saw a ship wreck (my excitement was dashed to pieces when I found out after asking how it wrecked, that it was placed intentionally.  Really??) and then we snorkeling with 5 or 6 sea turtles.  They were huge.  And they would swim right by you, touching as they passed.  Not to mention I touched them quite a few times.  Amazing!

Then we took a quick stroll through downtown and ran into a physician with his wife, a nurse, from Texas.  Danielle and I talked to them for quite a while.  The wife was concerned about Danielle's bright red sunburn.  Thus the conversation started.

Day 4's stop was St. Lucia, one of my favorite days, because..............we went zip lining!!  Another thing I've always wanted to do.  The adrenaline was pumping.  We weren't as high up as I thought we'd be from the ground, but it was high enough.  We went from line to line and zipped across the air.  There were a few surprises along the way.  At one point, we had to swing on a rope from one platform to another.  It was hilarious to watch the few people who missed and swung backward.  The second surprise was repelling, which was basically just dropping about 70 feet in mid air.  My favorite part!  I love that feeling!  I could be entertained there for hours listening to people's reactions - screaming, yelling, laughing, cursing.

St. Lucia has two very famous mountains, or twin peaks, called the Pitons.  I was disappointed we didn't get to see them while we were on the island, but.......I noticed them at the dinner table as our ship was cruising away, a breathtaking view of them.

St. Kitt's was our next stop, which was very similar to St. Lucia - both very mountainous and jungle-y.  We took an island tour, van style, of the town, some old sugar plantations, and botanical gardens with a monkey stop on the way.  This cute little guy came in our car (money making business you see) and wondered from person to person.

This is a unique view since the Atlantic Ocean is on the left and the Caribbean Sea on the right.

After our fun exploring, we went to the beach, a black sand beach with a cute little grill/shack selling jerk chicken and burgers and wondering wild monkeys everywhere.  Wish I could have enjoyed it more, but unfortunately the sun didn't want to come out that day.  Nicole ended up getting stung by a lion fish while snorkeling, which resulted in a sausage like giant swollen middle finger.  There was nothing much to do except ice and hope it wasn't poisonous.  We almost left early to take her to the hospital.  She's fine though.  We went to the medical center once we got back on the ship.

Our last stop and another one of my favorites was St. Maarten, a combination island, split between the Dutch and French.  The other islands weren't very developed and so this was a huge contrast to the previous 4 islands.  It almost felt like we were in California or something.  Most everyone had booked a snorkel trip, but $60 seemed like a lot to me, so Candace and I just went to the beach instead, where I met some older gentlemen who asked if I had a boyfriend.  Bahaha, no it wasn't like that, they were nice.

We then met back up with the rest of our group (and got a French chocolate filled croissant on the way).  Some of us then walked the full length of this beach and then some (prob like 3+ miles).....

....to end up here.  This was my absolute favorite!  It's called Maho Beach and has an airport with the run way literally coming right to the beach.  Watching planes come in to land is amazing and they are flying just above your head.  And then when the planes take off, they go in the opposite direction and blast this incredibly fast burst of wind towards the beach.  We're talking like immediately knock you over if you're not holding on to anything amount of wind.  In fact, it says, "Do not stand.  Danger.  Jet Blast."  So of course, I stood and held on to that fence for dear life.  What an experience!  I couldn't even open my eyes or put my head up.  I'm surprised my swimsuit even stayed on, it was trying to fly away too!

Then we ended with some tasty mango smoothies.  We had been looking all week for these.  You'd think they'd be easier to find while in the Caribbean.  Good timing finding them on the last day at the very end of the day - perfect ending to our cruise.

A few more pics of the last night of our cruise.  Our waiter at dinner was from the Philippines.

After getting off the ship from our 7 day cruise, I think the majority of us were just ready to head home, especially since we kept noticing the ground sway even when we were on land.  Gotta love those sea legs.  But we still had a full day ahead exploring Puerto Rico!  I was excited to finally have the opportunity to use my Spanish!  I spoke to a couple different cab drivers, all of whom were impressed that not only I spoke Spanish, but that I spoke it well.  It's great to receive compliments from the native speakers.  Nicole and I got off the ship early (since we only had carry ons) and took a taxi to church.  We stayed for the whole block to wait for the rest of our gang who were stuck on the ship until their number was called.  It was an English speaking ward, but fortunately there was also a Spanish speaking ward that I went to for sacrament meeting as well.  The ward was an interesting dynamic - it was mostly young couples.  Half of the ward were FBI or other government officials and the other half students (medical, dental, etc).  Looked like a fun ward to be in.

After dropping our stuff off at the hotel, meeting up with everyone else, and relaxing a little, we took off to explore Old San Juan.  I love the architecture with the bright colors - almost felt like I was back in Europe.

We spent a good chunk of time at El Morro, a fortress protecting the city.  As you can see, we had a good time exploring.  There were tons of people out flying their kites on the lawn in front of El Morro.  I loved it.

Saved the best for last....couldn't pass up this photo op!