Cruise 2011

Well another adventure for us.

A few months ago I booked us on an Eastern Caribbean Cruise.

Our ports of call were Nassau, of the Bahamas, St. Thomas, of the US Virgin Islands, and St. Martin & St. Maartin of the Antilles.(look up)

We had some great and some stressful times on the cruise.

Our first task waking up at 3am to be at the airport by 5am. We flew down to Charlotte, NC, next onto Orlando Florida, where we waited about a half hour to get a bus to the cruise ship. Finally we got on board the Norwegian Sun. This was our first time on Norwegian Cruise Lines.

We went to our rooms first and then decided to try to find something for lunch. David found rice and such, I found some French fries. HA! We walked around the corner and there was another place to eat. So I tried to eat a hot dog. I believe the bun must have been setting out for a few days. (Just kidding) but it was not fresh.

We looked around the ship for a little bit and then found our room. The first thing I did was step out onto the balcony. Just like our last cruise, breathtaking.

We were off on our journey. First stop Nassau Bahamas. We went to Atlantis. David had been here before, but I hadn’t been so we went in to see it. Spectacular, some of the artwork was absolutely beautiful. The underwater aquarium was also cool, you walked under the fish. So very cool, we almost did not make it back to the ship on time, but with David having long legs, the ship waited for us. Mind you had the ferry boat riders not taken their sweet time to smoke the wacky weed we may have gotten back on time. Moving forward, we rested for awhile, then walked around down on the ship again. We decided to get a Bahama mama as we walked around it was ok but still not as good as Applebee’s back home.

We were at sea/ocean all day Monday and Monday night

So we decided to go see a lecture on art. And then the next day we went to an art auction. We did get a small art piece, but then we decided against it, because we happened to see 2 “Pino’s”, we truly loved. So we now own 2 of these, one of them will fit beautifully in our formal dining room, the other at the top of the stairs. I can’t believe we spent that much, but I guess as the art people say, if you like it and can afford it, buy it you’ll never tire of it.

Our new art pieces are called “Diva” and “Mysterious woman” The way the artist uses the appearance of light without light being shown onto the picture is amazing and it’s all hand done.

Beautiful, spectacular, breathtaking, you name it these pictures are, in a word, “Priceless”

We are now on our way to St. Thomas. We are scheduled to do a Sky ride to Paradise Point. This is where you go up in a tram 8 people per car 6 cars. 3 go up and 3 come down at the same time. The view is totally worth the ride to go to the top. We watched a man dance around on stilts, there were also many young girls dressed up and dancing with him, they were not on stilts. David had rum & coke & I had a drink called the Bushwhacker After drinking almost all of it, I felt tipsy, I’m a total light weight, however they do say if you want to forget the day just drink 2 of those drinks, so maybe it wasn’t me. We ate a little bit, a taco salad and some fries and cheese sticks. About an hour later we were headed back down the mountain. We ended up in a car with 5 women & a man and they had all been drinking since early morning, they were on a different cruise ship, although they were funny. So it was a good trip back down in the tram. We then needed to find our way back to the ship. We could see the ship, we just had no idea where in the world to get a taxi to get back there, I believe we were shell shocked from almost missing the boat in Nassau, so we rushed back to see the Iguana’s sitting on the rocks in front of the ships. It didn’t seem like much of an industry was there, mostly tourism. We puttered around the ship for a bit and then got all dressed up to go to dinner, where our waiter, Alfrefo, no that is not a typo, was absolutely great, we waited for absolutely nothing. Tonight I believe we will request to be seated at his table.

Off to our next port of call, St. Martin & St. Maartin. Yes these are the same island but they are owned by the French and the Dutch, the northern part is French and the southern half is Dutch, it’s split about 60/40. People there learn to speak 3 to 4 languages, French, Dutch, English and another I can’t remember but it’s a broken French language. We got a land tour and we also took an underwater tour, in a mini submarine. It was cool to see a diver get in the water and see the fish swarm around him. He also picked up a sea urchin to show us, it was black with very long spikes. David or I got pictures, which I hope to attach to this, although I always say that and never quite seem to get them on here. I must do better at that.

Once we were finally on our way back to the ship it seemed to take forever. We looked at jewelry and many other things in the shops, we saw a pair of blue diamond ear rings, but they just didn’t look right on me. We went to another shop and found a beautiful pair of blue Topaz ear rings, set in diamonds. They are beautiful in the light. I have only taken them off to sleep.

We are on our way home, it’s a 2 day cruise. There are many activities aboard the ship. David and I attended a comedy show, listened to a Jazz band, listened to a guitar player/singer and listened to a man of 22, play a grand piano, one of many on this ship. I have listened to many people play the piano in my life time, my grandmother toyed with it, my uncle plays wonderfully, my aunt also plays, David and I “Plunk” and try our best to play, but this man was like, wow, chills went down my spine, as they always do when I hear someone play the piano. We heard a group called Sol “Play” they were very good. We also heard some Karaoke singers, 3 of the 4 that we heard were nice. (One was Awful, but we gave him credit for getting up there.) Then we got to see the comedian again. Funny man, he’s been on HBO and MTV’s comedy hour. Buzz Sutherland. Our last day aboard, clothes are packed and ready to go. We tried to enjoy sitting on the deck a few times, unfortunately the people beside us were chimney smokers and it was awful.

We got off the ship first thing in the morning and we headed toward the busses as that’s what we were told would take us to the airport. Well we’re we wrong!!!!!!!!! 10 min of walking quickly to catch a bus that was not even ours. Then somehow no one really knew where we should go. David finally found someone that was pretty sure where to go. We rushed to the other bus, and finally got the correct one. We were both quite warm by this time. Finally a driver got on board, and off we went, only to be pulled back into another parking lot, awaiting people that missed the bus, which would have been fine, except that we sat there another almost half hour and we had a plane to catch. Getting quite frustrated, I called the transfer people and asked them what was up, and why were we sitting in a parking lot when many of the people had planes to catch. The woman was nice and said there was some security issue so the busses were grounded, but that she would call her dispatch and let him know people were in rushes to get to the airport. Within a few minutes she called me back and said the busses were released and we would be on our way. (we were) We got to the airport & what do you know, the bus driver like doesn’t even know where he is going. (have I mentioned my patience level was totally gone at this point) We arrive at the place where we began a week ago. We went into the airport and because of a Major screw up on NCL’s part they checked us in and they screwed up our seats. It was ridiculous. So off we rushed in search of a human. Found one!! Most of the time, that I have had to deal with humans at any airport, they have been well not so very nice. However we must have hit gold, this woman was great, not only did she change our seats to exit rows (best seats on the plane, other than business class) she let us know our plane to Philly was delayed by 15 min and she pre-booked us on a 9pm flight just in case we missed our connection home. Got to our gate, and now we are sitting in Philly and this flight is also delayed by a ½ hour. We hope our limo driver is watching our arrival times.

Our limo driver Rich was watching our arrival and he was right there as we walked out the door. (We love this limo company)

We are home and the kitty and ferrets are happy, now for our next ordeal we have another leak in the roof.. wonderful…. So another story for another day.

Until next time.

~Nancie~