Cruise Control

Brad and I went on a cruise to the western Caribbean last month.  It was a first for both of us and we weren't sure what to expect.  Our six night cruise started in Ft. Lauderdale on Sunday, April 29th (also Brad's birthday).  Our first stop was Key West on Monday.  We have been here a few times before and knew our way around a bit.  We decided to hop on a trolley ride to take a narrated tour of the city.  We stopped at Earnest Hemingway's home; the southernmost point of the United States buoy; we tried to take a tour of the local cemetery to find the tombstone that says, "I told you I was sick," but we got stuck in the rain and decided to walk back to Duval Street to get a bite to eat.  We were soaked by this time.  No fun walking around in wet clothes.

We had a full 1 1/2 days at sea until our next stop on Wednesday in the Grand Cayman.  We rented a private luxury yacht in the Grand Cayman that took us to a reef a few miles off of shore to go snorkeling near Sting Ray City. After snorkeling our guides provided us with lunch & rum punch, tequila & Jagermeister.  My first shot of Jagermeister EVER...yuck.  The guides then took us to a tiny island where we played with star fish for a while.  Then on our way back to town, we sailed through an iguana park.
We had a few minutes before our bus came back to pick us up, so we got a chance to meet some people from our ship that were on our same excursion.  We ended up going to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville with two other couples to get a drink before getting back on the ship.  Our two drinks cost us $50...OUCH!  But they were really good!

We set sail again heading for Jamaica on Thursday.  We booked a couple of excursions in Jamaica.  Our first was zip lining through the jungle.  Neither of us had done it before.  It was fun but it started pouring rain again during our tour.  Another day of wet clothes...it didn't matter much because our next excursion was hiking up the Dunn's River Falls.  I was really nervous about this tour because of my back & knee problems...but I did it just fine.

Our days at sea were spent either eating, drinking, gambling, lounging by the pool or taking in a few shows.  I only got sea sick once.  Our first day was pretty rough.  We had bad weather in Ft. Lauderdale which resulted in 6-10 ft waves.  The ship was rocking back and forth.  I took dramamine and wore sea bands around my wrists which helped a lot.

The food was pretty good on the ship.  We were seated with the nicest couples during dinner.  We sat at the same table each night.  I was talking with one of the ladies at our table the first night...We talked about where we were from, etc.  Come to find out, her mother was from Atwater, MN and they come up to Green Lake in Spicer ever summer.  Talk about small world!!

Funny story...When we first stepped onto the ship, we went to our room to check it out.  Then decided to get a cocktail at the bar in the main lobby.  We're on vacation right?  Let the fun begin!   The drinks were a little spendy...they ranged from $5.95 - $12.95.  The drinks were really small so Brad asked for a double shot which was why it cost $12.95...After getting our drinks, it was time to go to our "Muster Station" to get our emergency evacuation drills. (Don't worry, we were sober for the drill)  We were standing in our designated area when one of the ship crew told us to put down our drinks.  By the time all the passengers were filing in and the drill was done, we headed back over to pick up our drinks that were sitting patiently for us on the ledge.  Someone had thrown a napkin in Brad's $13 drink.  Crap!!  We immediately went back to the bar to get a refill.  Thank God the bartender ended up refilling it for free.  That was about the only thing that was free the entire week.

All in all we had a good time.