Finale

This was one of our funniest times.  We went to lunch only once together in the dining room Debbie, Kay, Judy. Nancy Smith and I and the waiter we got was too funny for words.  We laughed and laughed at everything he did and then it dawned on me that I could video him with my camera and caught the last of his antics before we left to go into Bonaire.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I do..makes me laugh everytime I watch it.

Home



Suzy and Rita





Aruba PM before we left



I love this....thank you Carol!



Nancy Smith on "red" night



We would like to thank our travel agent Debbie for arrangeing this cruise...



Deb, Kay, Dee and Barbara


Our last night on board was quite the bumpy ride.  First we would hear the hangers in the closet hit the back wall then about 5 seconds later we would hit a "speed bump" and then roll.  Sometimes it hit so hard it sounded like the entire ship shuddered when we bottomed out.  The closer to Ft. Lauderdale the worse it seemed to get.  Then the safe door started to bang...everything was empty now since we had to put the luggage out so the hangers and the safe were empty.  We really spent the last day packing, running around getting pictures, envelopes for tips, filling out customs forms, etc.  Debbie and I were going to go to the last bingo but never had time as we were meeting Kay and Judy at the wine bar before dinner.  Dinner was goodbye  night so after that we went to the casino for a short while then back to the cabin to finish and put the luggage out.  It was cold and looked like rain in Ft. Lauderdale.  Debbie and I were off the ship early and at the airport Crown room a short time later.  My Delta status at least gets Debbie access to the Crown room and early boarding when we travel together.  The flight was uneventful and Debbie and I said our goodbyes as she had to change concourses to B to go on to Memphis.

The day before was unevenful except that it was the first time ever that Debbie and I both won in the casino on the same tables at the same time.  We had a great time and lots of fun that night.  I had another straight flush that night which was 3 in one cruise (its rare to get one) and Debbie won as well on three card, then we played blackjack and roulette and back to three card.  It was a fun night which doesn't happen often but we enjoyed it while it lasted. 

Thanks to my friend Dave who always reads my blog when I travel.  I wasn't able to read many of the comments posted until tonight since the internet was so slow.  I'm sure the storm had something to do with it.  The Witch Doctor song was definitely used and heard a lot last week and the iguana/lizard was rather large.  We rounded this corner and there was a guy  coming the other way that saw it first.  We have seen them that big in Aruba all the time but not with the white coloring on the head like this one had.

Karen, the brain teasers hmmmmm, let me go get one to tell you.  Colt Jr. was one,  jus 144 tice
Have fun with those.  She would give us a paper each night that had the answers from the night  before and 16 new teasers.  Debbie and I decided we couldn't go to sleep until we had 8 or more but some nights they were so hard we gave in and went to sleep.  We missed you Karen.  It was great to see Nancy, Deb Ward, Carol Calvin, Carol Cayce, Patty, Diane, Judy B, Martha, Kay & Judy Lesley.  Barbara, Suzy, Rita, Dee & Nancy K I had not cruised with before.  Son of a gun and gross in justice are the answers to the above.  Most required bold and larger print combined with lines and such so difficult to recreate.  BTW I just read that the Splendor had an engine fire at about 6 AM Pacific time today which took about 3 hours to contain and then they had another flare up an hour later.  Current cruise is cancelled and they were without power off the coast of Mexico with all passengers on Lido.  I haven't heard anymore and since I have to work tomorrow, I am heading to bed but it sure made me feel sad...we spent 31 days on that ship together getting it to California.



Carol Calvin and Deb Ward




Our cabin is second balcony with glass rail from bottom and the second in from the end.





Do you think they understand these photos?



Aruba, Friday November 5, 2010

We arrived this morning to terribly gray skies so we went back to sleep until 9 AM. We went to breakfast and came back to decide what to do since it was pouring rain. We decided not to get off yet. In all the years that I have been coming here I have never seen it rain this hard here. The surf was rough and the wind blew and it was a driving rain. It was an hour of this before it began to let up. Debbie and I decided not to take a cab out to Palm Beach after see Carol Calvin. She has just come back drenched and said the streets were horribly flooded and cars were stalled. We did get our umbrellas and walked into town and as you will see from the pictures, it was still flooded . We went to the Casino at the downtown Marriott Renaissance and played there for several hours on the penny machines and had fun. When we came out it was sunny but still flooded. We walked through the flea market area and back to the ship. We have decided not to go to dinner tonight and just to veg in the cabin and watch a movie. The next two days are sea days heading back to Ft. Lauderdale. The TV is showing the storm over Haiti now although what is happening here is from that storm as well. Sounds like the cruise back will be a bit rough.

It’s hard to believe that this cruise is almost over already. Time on the ship goes by very fast. Flat Karen (for those of you that don’t get this term, it’s when a favored member of our group is not able to cruise with us on the group cruise. We take their picture and put it in a chair at dinner and at the activities we do so that they will not be forgotten.) your pants should be getting a bit tight after all the dinners and desserts we have ordered for you.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at home in a couple days. If there is anything noteworthy, I will post before we get back. Thanks for following.

PS  Kay says it's Judy's fault that it rained here today.  Kay says the sunshine does follow her everywhere she goes but it doesn't for Judy or at least when Judy visits Aruba.  I'm just saying.

Bonaire, Netherland Antilles



Deb Ward, Nancy Smith & Judy Lesley



We had a great day here and lots of fun with the girls laughing.  I will tell you more later as I just wanted to see if I could upload some pictures since the weather has cleared. 

It had been raining rather hard and we were not able to see a lot until we actually got very close. Kay, Judy, Nancy, Debbie and I went to lunch in the dining room. We got this waiter who was so funny that we were there for the entire hour and a half that they were open for lunch. His name was Lime which was pronounced Leemay. He was so funny that we couldn’t stop laughing and I took a video of him trying to feed Judy her lunch. That was the most we have laughed since we have been on the ship. He told us he day name was Emil (Lime backwards) and dinner name was Lime and his evening name was Jessica…what a hoot he was.

We all met on the pier and walked into the downtown area. Everything was quite flooded and wet but at least it had quit raining. There were lots of places that had really nice crafts to look at and I think we all came back to the ship with a few purchases. This was a short stay for us so there really wasn’t time to go anywhere else and it was so humid and hot we headed back to the ship. The heat just makes you tired. We ran into almost all the girls from the group at one point..Suzy and Rita had gone snorkeling and saw seas snakes and several varieties of eel (yuck) but they loved it and said they had a great time. Deb was with us and we saw Judy B and Martha while out as well. We had a nice day and the people on Bonaire were very nice. This is a tiny island that looks like Aruba. As of January they will no longer be part of Netherland Antilles but will be owned by Holland. The natives are not very happy about the change. They say they will get all the problems with none of the benefits.

We went to dinner and on to the casino and neither of us did well so we came back to wait for Carol Calvin to bring us the evening brain teaser.



Lime with Judy



November 3, 2010 Grenada, West Indies

Well we had decided to take the Spice Island tour because Kay and Judy were doing it and it turned out they forgot to book it and the tour was sold out. They swore they were going to follow our bus in a taxi but then they backed out since it was changed to an earlier time since our schedule had changed and we had to be on the pier at 8:50 AM. It was tough but we drug ourselves out of bed and got ready to go. There were 4 bus loads of people doing this tour. The Celebrity Summit is here today as well and that is a lot of people filtering into this small island. We wait in line about 15 minutes and were on the last bus. It feels like 100 degree in the shade. We head off up the hill to go to the Rum factory first and he stops for a few scenic photos from the top of the mountain. It is quite the drop off the mountain side if you are not a careful driver. By the time we arrived at the “former” rum factory the sun was really beginning to scorch everything. The grounds and plantation were beautiful but it was a been there-done that in other aspects as tasting their aged rums that I wasn’t going to do at 9:45 AM. Of course they want you to do it so you will buy it. No thanks. Debbie got a taste and brought it to me..I put it to my lips and immediately had to wash it off with water. Yuck. Next we went to the Spice Garden so it took about 30 minutes for us to get up there. By the time we are required to vacate the bus again and join the narrated tour of the garden, it was now at least 150 degrees in the shade and the humidity was rapidly catching up to the temperature. I was cussing Kay pretty good by then. It was another hour of pure torture walking up and down paths and smelling and tasting leaves and guessing what they were…damned that Kay. By the time we were headed back up the hill for the big sales pitch I was exceptionally thirsty and Debbie and I had about polished off the one bottle of water we brought when the girl tour guide handed us something she said we should chew or suck on…..it was so hot and nasty I spit it out while choking and had to drink the rest of the water to stop choking. Dammit Kay! I have yet to see her today but she will pay…it was ginger root and was so nasty. We also tasted cocoa which looked less than appealing but we popped it in our mouths and spit it back into nature for another tree to grow. The next stop was a jelly-syrup shop? Dammit Kay! We left there and then went to a flea market type place and then back to the ship. We had to wait in a line for about ½ hour to get through security to get back to the ship so while I waited in line Debbie went and got us two Caribe beers that we downed in seconds. It was so hot that we drank two glasses each of iced tea and two more of ice water and are still dehydrated….dammit Kay! Debbie says she lost her ankles somewhere in Grenada and I told her that we should make Kay and Judy go find them. We are having dinner with Kay and Judy tonight at Sabatini’s which is the Italian specialty restaurant. I will catch you up on the rest of the today in the morning before we arrive in Bonaire at noon. 

Karen...we have been ordering things for you at dinner and moving your photo from table to table...we miss you.  We are arriving in Bonaire as I write this and it it raining.  It appears that Tomas is affecting everything.  We will take our umbrellas and head to shore soon.  I tried to upload photos but the storm must be interfering since it gives me an error so will try again tonight.

November 2nd St. Kitts (replacement for Dominica)

The last time I was in St. Kitts was 6 years ago on the Golden Princess with Lois. There was NOTHING here but the pier and the cruise terminal. You walked through the terminal to nothing but two buses that had obviously been shipped here to carry cruise passengers. Now it is covered over with buildings selling everything from jewelry to booze. It is truly amazing the change here in just 6 short years. If you build it, they will come. We walked through the shops and then decided we were going to get a cab to the Marriott to check it out as a possible future timeshare swap. The property was gorgous and the beach there was beautiful. It is on The Atlantic Ocean and there were a lot of breakers and rough surf there while the port is on the Caribbean Sea and it is calm although very windy today. There were permanent cabanas in the sand there and restaurants on the water and of course there was a casino. We played for about an hour and Debbie won about $60…yours truly lost but we had fun and got a cab back to the port. We bought a bottle of wine and went back to the ship to meet the girls for sail away at the aft pool. It was fun. We have been trying to switch between 3 tables to spend time with all the girls at dinner. Debbie sat at a different table last night. It seems we have a couple girls in the group who are bringing their own wine to dinner in cups they are keeping under the table so they can refill them during dinner and not have to buy wine. Besides the situation not having a lot of class, if I needed to do that to cruise, I would rather not go. Having it in your cabin is one thing but the dining room thing is a bit over the top IMHO. Kay wasn’t feeling well last night and I was tired so we came back to the cabin after dinner. Debbie said we were really getting boring going to bed at 9. We got our things together for our early tour in Grenada and watched the early election returns then went to sleep. The conversation turned to politics at dinner last night which is something you are never supposed to discuss and it is true…everyone was arguing when we left. Oh well. By the way, Debbie and I both had a great night in the casino the night we left St. Thomas with me getting another straight flush and Debbie winning at Roulette of all things. Carol Calvin joined us and we all had a great time laughing and drank a bit more than we should have I believe. And Nancy Smith is one of our group who always dresses in red. The group photo was arranged for before dinner last night so Diane Weber asked for all of us to wear red (months ago through emails) to surprise Nancy. It was quite the surprise and it was fun. People keep coming by and asking if we were a choral group and were we going to sing or were we part of the Red Hat ladies.

I'll post photos tomorrow since the internet is sooooooooo slow today.

St. Thomas November 1, 2010 All Saints Day

We were awake early as they were using the thrusters to maneuver us into the dock in beautiful St. Thomas this morning. Charlotte Amalie is one of the most picturesque you will see in the Caribbean.  Debbie and I got up and took some photos and then went back to bed and laughed about Kay staring at us all last night while we were singing the Witch Doctor song. After we had breakfast in the dining room today with some lovely elders who discussed their medical conditions, doctors, procedures and drugs we politely excused ourselves and came back to the cabin to get our things to get off. Before doing so we called and left Kay a message….well we sang it…you get the idea..oooo, eeee, oooo, ah, ah, ting-tang, walla-walla-bing-bang. I was still laughing when I got off the ship. It is extremely humid as well as hot and didn’t take long before we were soaked. The Carnival Victory is docked in front of us but we are in the last berth so it was quite the hike to the shops. We were grateful however that we did dock in Havensight instead of at Crown Bay. We found a pharmacy and they were out of Pepcid, they sent us to the grocery store where we did find it, looked through a few shops, I bought a pair of earrings and we came back to the ship. While cutting through an alley behind the shopping center look at the size of the iguana we ran into.  He appears to be fed well.  We had lunch and came back to the cabin so I could write the blog and Debbie needed to make some phone calls. I will write after our surprise visit to St. Kitts tomorrow and catch you up then.