Cruise! 
Wednesday, March 21, 2007, 08:24 PM
Cruise...

My parents and Karla had been planning on going on a Royal Caribbean Cruise since last fall. Since it was cheapish to just add someone to the room i decided I would join them as well. After i decided to cruise with them, my older sister, Erica, and her husband, Arno, decided to join us on the cruise as well, so they booked their own airlines/room on the cruise.


The boat we were sailing on was the Adventure of the Seas, which left for a 7 night cruise out of San Juan, Puerto Rico on Sunday March 4, 2007. My parents had already booked a direct flight out of Hartford, so i decided to fly out of there as well to avoid any parking costs. My flight had a layover in DC.

We all left Saturday March 3, early in the morning, and were scheduled to meet up in Puerto Rico at the baggage area, as our flights arrived at close-enough times. Unfortunately my parents flight was delays. My flight (United) was the only flight to make it out on time. My parents were delayed until much later in the afternoon, leaving Hartford around 5pm, arriving in San Juan at about 11 or so. Erica and Arno were delayed a few hours, and arrived a bit later than scheduled.

When i arrived, i immediately got a rental car, which I had told my parents that it was a Toyota Camery.... Knowing full well that we had 6 people coming, i rented a Jeep Commander, which was quite possibly the largest passenger vehicle on the island. I went and checked into the hotel while i was waiting for Erica and Arno to land, then played "cut off the taxi" in and around San Juan. It's a fun game where you drive around and cut taxi drivers off... takes a bit of practice to get used to, but ends up being very entertaining.

I picked up Erica and Arno at the airport:



They checked themselves into their hotel room, then we went out for a drive around sunset... We headed east on rt 187 along the North Shore of Puerto Rico. This road really gives a nice flavor of the island, there are open fire pits and beach-bars along the whole way. We took that road east to Loiza, then headed south on 188 back to Rt 3. We took 3 back into San Juan, where we were amused the whole way at how the police drive with their blue lights flashing constantly. There was an amazing number of police out... In the parking lot of a K-Mart we saw at least 100 police cars with the officers gathered outside in a big meeting. On the roads we couldn't drive half a mile without seeing at least 5-10 police cars with their lights blazing. An odd experience for anyone not used to this much police prescence. We went over into Old San Juan for a quick tour, then proceeded to a nice dinner at Uno.

We headed back to the hotel as it was dark out, and planned to surprise my parents with the fact that Arno + Erica were there. I drove over to the airport around 10:30 to get them, the first question my Dad asked when he landed was what happened to the Camry. Luckily I had already made up a story that the Camry wouldn't shift out of 3rd gear, and the Commander was all that Hertz had left (we needed 6 passenger seating). I believe they bought it... Upon arriving back in the hotel, Erica and Arno were staged in the lobby reading a map. As my mom rounded the corner she did quite the double-take then let out a yelp of excitement/surprise which definitely surprised the front desk attendant.

After everyone settled down, we decided to go to El Yunque, in the Carribean National Forest the next morning before we boarded the cruise ship. A quick breakfast in the morning and we were off on the road. I took everyone down Rt 187 again, which wasn't quite as scenic or festive at 8am as it was at 6pm, mostly due to the fact that there were no bars open or food cooking.

Arriving in the rainforest was quite fun, we saw some waterfalls, the Yokahu Tower, and some pretty cool rainforest terrain.








After leaving the rainforest, we headed West of San Juan, and drove over behind the Bacardi Factory to a small park on the west side of the San Juan Harbor called Isla de Cabras. Looking east across the harbor provides spectacular views of El Morro, the fort in Old San Juan, as well as the cruise ship we were due to embark on later that day.



We then headed back to San Juan to do a quit complicated process of luggage/people movement. I'll spare the details and leave it at the fact that i drove the stretch of Rt 26 between Old San Juan an the airport at least 5 times before the day was over.

Boarding the ship was easy, our room was a beautiful inside room, which was a handicap room, which made it much larger than normal rooms, which was a definite plus. I spent most of the first afternoon exploring the ship, which had decks 1-15, most of my time was spent on the upper decks, 11 and 12.


Our first day was a sea day, spent sailing from San Juan, across the north and western sides of Puerto Rico, then southwest to Aruba. I spent most of the day swimming on the deck, planying mini-golf, and just watching the ocean go by... quite relaxing! At dinner, we were seated at an 8-person table. This left 2 seats unfilled by our group. Paul and Miranda out of Massachusetts filled those seats, both of whom were very fun people to have dinner with. Paul was a State Police Officer for Massachusetts, who had a ton of interesting stories to tell, and Miranda was working as a bar tender... Both had some very interesting stories to tell, and it was great to have them there, they were the perfect addition to our table!

The next morning we arrived in Aruba, i woke up before we arrived at the island to watch the approach and dock, got some nice shots of the area:







Once on the island, we found the car rental place, and rented cars. Erica and Arno ended up with a small Suzuki Jimmy, possibly the smallest, crapiest rental car i've ever seen. We got a Jeep Wrangler. Started the tour by headed to the northwest corner of the island, where we saw the California Lighthouse which was overly crowded with jeep tours:



We took a side road meant for the jeep tours along the north coast over varied terrain from had packed sand, to soft sand, at one point i think we were driving on coral and rock... It was a bumpy ride, and surprisingly both cars made it. We came upon some wierd rock formation, people had made hundreds of small piles of rocks, and they were everywhere, right along the north coast...



We then stopped by a small tourist trap of a church right along the north shore, it was a pretty cool looking church, once again we met up with a jeep tour here, so there were a number of people.



After the church, we went to some cool rock formations. My mom had this photo hanging in our house that i looked at nearly everyday growing up, of a mountain with some rock formations in front of it. We managed to find the exact spot (bit tourist trap), and took some photos. Here's my rendition of the photo that had been hanging in my house all my life:



and a picture of all of us on top of the rock formation:



We then proceeded to the Natural Bridge, unfortunately we got a bit lost on the way, and ended up in some rich fellows front yard, where a dog proceeded to block Erica and Arno's path... Eventually they made it around that and we asked directions to the natural bridge... Yet another one of these islands ridiculos tourist traps... the "natural bridge" had apparently fallen

This is what it looks like now:


and this is what it used to look like:


Yet they still had this marked as a major attraction...

We then headed straight to the southwest corner of the island where Baby Beach is located for some snorkeling. The whole island is basically owned by Valero, since they have a big oil factory there... Here's a picture of the Valero refinery, overshadowing some of the most beautiful scenery i've seen:



Baby Beach was amazing, we spent the afternoon snorkeling, had a bit of a close call where Arno lost his wedding ring, luckily someone else who was snorkeling found it...



We all headed back to the boat, after a search for some beer to sneak back on the boat, which we found, we headed back to town to return the car and grab a quick drink... After dinner on the boat, everyone else went to the ice show onboard, i went out alone to Carlos N Charlies, a popular bar, the same one that Natalie Hollaway was taken from a few years back... They had a beer drinking competition, which i won.. but the way they did it was kind of fun, they called 4 people up who "liked beer"... and gave each guy a beer. They then had us drink it through a straw as quickly as possible... which i did. The prize for winning this, was, you guessed it, another beer! so i ended up getting 2 free beers! Here's a picture of the outside of the bar:




I got back on the boat well before they took off at 1am, and headed to bed.


The next morning we arrived in Curacao, which was my favorite island we visited. We grabbed a rental car, and went into downtown Willemstad... It was a small town, with quaint cobblestone streets and open air markets, I would have liked a few hours to explore here, but we made the decision that we wanted to go to beaches. We headed around the "ring" which is a road that goes in a small loop around the city, then went to the northwest tip of the island. We saw a few random things along the way:








The "lighthouse" at the far northwest corner ended up being just a small light on a hill, rather disapointing, but it was worth the drive up there.

We stopped at a few random beaches on the southwest side of the island on the way back to the ship, which were absolutely incredible-- The best beaches i've ever been to. Here are a few pics of these beaches:











We then headed back to the ship.. I have to say, it was really nice to be able to tour all these islands, but always have a nice dinner and bed waiting for me... i'm definitely taking a cruise again...

We found out upon boarding the ship that there was a leak in our room from the shower. They upgraded us from this small inside room, to this amazing suite with 2 windows looking directly forward. This was the view out of our window:




It also allowed Dad and I to be the "captain"... We had to keep watch in shifts:




After leaving Curacao, we had a day at sea, which i spent relaxing on the deck, getting too much sun, and drinking a few beers... very relaxing. This allows me to show a few photos of the boat:

Docked in Curacao:


Royal Promenade:


The pool:


We arrived in St. Martin, or St. Marteen, depending on which side you are on, the french or the dutch, early the next morning, which was 9th of March, 2007. We rented a car (toyota corrola) and did a loop of the island. One of the first sights we saw was one that made me just very happy at heart. You always see those pictures of women in 3rd world nations bringing home food or water in a basket on top of their heads. It's a very traditional photograph, here is the version of that photo which makes me happy:



That's right, she's bringing home the coors. Go Caribbean!

Some of the other highlights included seeing the beach where all the planes land really low... to see an image of a plane landing, see here:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/548917/L/

A plane landed while we were there, but it wasn't a big plane, so it wasn't as spectacular.

We then went around the island, seeing some random sights:



Stopped in at Orient Beach, the nude beach on the island. I stayed at the non-nude half, yet there were plenty of topless women around, some who could pull it, some who definitely could not... The swimming here was incredible, crystal clear water and huge waves... so much fun!

We drove around up on the hills around Orient Beach, and stopped at a random pulloff where there was a taxi... sure enough Erica and Arno were in the taxi! Quite coincidental!

Here's a shot from that pulloff:




We headed back to the boat, and after a few wrong turns (into this place called middle territories... AKA the ghetto), we made it....

The next day we pulled into St. Thomas, took a taxi over to the other side of the island, and then took a ferry to St. John. From there we took another taxi to Trunk Bay, which was part of the Virgin Islands National Park (US)... Trunk bay was amazing, had this snorkel tour thing where it had underwater lables with the fish types and such... I swam about 3 feet from a barracuda, good times! Here's a few shots of Trunk Bay:





We then boarded an open air taxi back to the small town on St. John, he was kind enough to stop at the pulloffs so we could take pictures. Arriving back in town, we walked around for a bit, used the ATM, then found a small local vegetable stand which sold beer. Grabbed a beer and proceeded to chat it up with the locals. This really drunk local was talkative, and kind enough to pose for a photo (OK OK he didn't know i was taking this shot!)..



This is a pic of the vegetable stand which we bought the beer from:



We then headed back to St. Thomas on the ferry, where i was able to get a good shot of our boat, from the front:



That night, on the way back to San Juan, PR, i took a few outside long exposures of the boat, here is one of them:



After a disembarkation process in Puerto Rico on the morning of March 11, we rented a car and spent the afternoon touring around before our flight. We went out to some cliffs east of Arecibo, Susan had shown them to me last time i was in Puerto Rico... We got a nice tour from a gentleman who didn't speak english, i did the best i could to converse with him with my limited knowledge of spanish, it turned out fine. The cliffs were amazing, here are some photos:






We stopped at a beach in PR is well, didn't swim as our bathing suits were all packed, but it was nice to walk around on:



I then flew home, and took this shot of sunset as i was flying out:







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