August 27 - September 3, 2006
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What an interesting trip! It's always a test of friendships to spend a
vacation together. You can come back closer or very, very bitter. I think I came out of it roughly about the
same as I went into it. Everyone had some different expectations, but I think it worked out well
in the end.
We picked a time and a Cruise line and then started through the plans of getting to the boat, getting back from the boat and then spending time together here and there. The group for this trip consisted of Jenelle, Alan, Tara, Keith, Jason, Rebecca, Alecia and myself. Our destinations were Nassau, St. Thomas (St. John) and St. Maarten.
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The trip getting to Nassau was pretty quick. We were only at sea for a day, so we were not yet
bored of the ship. However, Carnival was a bit stingy with their rules about alcohol and hot tubs.
No alcohol or beverages in the hot tubs! What a bad rule! Royal Carribean had no issues with it (and actually encouraged it)!
Maybe it was just the policy on certain boats. Anyway, it put a damper on my "sit in the hot tub all day and drink until they
kick us out" plan.
Once at Nassau, we hitched a taxi ride over to the Ardastra Gardens. This stop was high on Alecia's list due to the famed Flamingo Show that happens several times a day at the Garden. We got tickets and wandered inside. The zoo has cages, but it also has many free-roaming animals. Like a pig that was hiding in the bushes... Pretty freaky. I'll get to the other animals later. For now, let's focus on the flamingos. Alecia has a fascination with flamingos. So a few times a day, the gardens puts on a show with the flamingos. They come into a small arena with a trainer. He leads them around and barks commands at them to stop and turn and such. Nothing fancy, just leading them in a circle. He gets volunteers to come out to the grass and the flamingos swarm around them for picture taking. Alecia was one of the volunteers and so we got some photos of hers. She got "kissed" by one of the animals.
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More photos from the Zoo.
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Panoramic #1 Panoramic #2 The next stop in the trip was St. Thomas. The first thing everyone did at St. Thomas was to vacate the island and get to St. John. This involved a pretty daring bus ride from one port to a ferry boat. The taxi ride was a test of faith and stomach calmness. We arrived at the ferry dock and there was a long line of folks since one of the ferry boats was out of service. We waited just over an hour and hopped onto the boat. The ferry ride was much fun and we arrived safely onto the isle of St. John. We decided to stick together as a group and go get gear and supplies needed for snorkeling. From there we took another bus ride (this one was much better) to the park for Trunk Bay. They had good facilities for lockers, showers & a snack bar. We suited up! and headed to the beach for some snorkeling fun. The original idea was to snorkel there for a while and then go to a different bay for a while, but most of us decided that we could not do much better than Trunk Bay (and we'd have to pay more to travel to a different bay and entrance fees). So we stayed where we were and had lunch and spent more time in the water. The water was perfect. Occasionally, you'd find some folks with treats to give to the fish. So you'd be snorkeling through a nice school of fish occasionally. Rebecca grabbed pictures of this fun, but my camera was not waterproof, so I kept it dry. After our fun swimming and snorkeling and just all out goodness, we showered and headed back to the ferry at St. John. We stopped for some snacks and beverages and then hitched the ferry ride back. From there we did the exciting roller coaster taxi ride back to the port. (It wasn't so bad after a nice cold beverage!)
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Panoramic #1 Panoramic #2 The next and final island stop on the trip was the island of St. Marteen. Everyone had their own plans for this place. Alan, Alecia and I decided to rent mopeds. They were pieces of crap, but they allowed us to move around. We took off on a counter-clockwise circle of the island. We made our own schedule on this trip and it worked out okay. We got to see some pretty back-country places (which was really the whole island) as well as the coastline on several different sides. We stopped for lunch at a little hotel & restaurant combination about halfway around the circuit. Everyone was a little sore from the ride at that point due to the road conditions, but we were enjoying the breeze. Lunch was nice and relaxing with some tasty sandwhiches and refreshing water. We were hoping to find an indoor place to eat, but this was shaded enough to count. After lunch we kept going around the island. There wasn't much else to see, so we stopped at the waterfront and took a few pictures of the boats. The water looked inviting, but we did not have any swimming gear. (And who knows if it was really clean enough or not.) There was a little mishap towards the end of the ride, but we made it back to the boat in one piece. I enjoyed just roaming around the countryside like that and I may do that again on a future cruise. (It does help to have more than one moped so you can help each other out if need be.)
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The trip was fun and worth the time and money to go. I got the chance to relax
and read a bit. It was mucho enjoyablo. Here are some final random pictures.
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