I put up the rest of the pictures (though there are several hundred more, these are just the highlights.) and I'm considering putting up a video of the whales and dolphins at Miami Seaquarium... we'll see!
Our last couple of days involved a day at sea, and taking lots of pictures around the ship so we can remember what everything looked like...
Great Stirrup Cay was beautiful, we lounged around on the beach and drank under our big blue umbrellas, then took a walk to the lighthouse. There are some old abandoned buildings and stuff that has been destroyed by hurricanes scattered around and provided some pretty cool photo ops. I think the color of the water was captured the best on this day... Saw a cat that must live on the island, after we had been joking about moving there and bringing Katsumoto. He'd have so much fun wandering the island, and I wouldn't have to worry about vehicular traffic, he could roam outside and hunt like he so desires...
We watched the sunset on the boat and saw a sea turtle come up for air right next to the ship... really neat. We were trying to see the "green flash," a phenomenon that only happens at sea and if the conditions are just right, the sunset will have a greenish blobby type thing appear at the top. We think we saw something greenish, but it wasn't a "flash" per say, but definitely green. They say those who witness it are guaranteed everlasting love! Woohoo!!
After Disembarkation (debark for short) we got a shuttle to the airport, where our hotel was for that night. After waiting around a bit we got checked in and stowed our stuff, and then hopped in a cab to the Miami Seaquarium, home of the real true superstar dolphin, Flipper!!! We had a fun day, and it was surprisingly dead there even though it was a Saturday... Dan got a mold-o-rama of a killer whale, mostly just because you don't see mold-o-rama's anywhere anymore... We saw 2 dolphin shows, a sea lion show, and a killer whale/dolphin show. It was great, and I really should have become a dolphin trainer. :D Still my dream to this day!! lol
Cabs are too expensive, so we took the bus to the train station on the way back, where we waited over an hour for the train. ugh. Was exhausted, sunburnt, sore, and fibro-ey and in pain the rest of the night, ready for some rest.
Homecoming is bittersweet. It's not fun coming back to the friggin arctic, where we have jobs and bills to pay and taxes to be done, but on the other hand, it's really nice to have my own bed. And my cat. And taco bell. :D
They call him flipper, flipper... faster than liiiiighhhhhttning!
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Teh Intarwebs go BaiBai
Well kids that’ll be my last cruiseblog post, because, one: it’s really annoying to upload all those photos on extremely slow satellite internet and my flickr keeps crashing and two: I’ve run out of internet time!
I’ll be putting up videos and stuff after we get home so check back in a couple of days/weeks!
I’ll be putting up videos and stuff after we get home so check back in a couple of days/weeks!
Summary of Days 4-9 -- January 17 - 21
((in paragraphs for the old people, lol))
**click the link over --> there for new pics!**
Wow, time really flies. It doesn’t seem like it’s been so long since I wrote a blog! Our first sea day was pretty relaxed, we wandered around the ship some more, lost at bingo, and got addicted to the quarter-drop game in the casino, and Dan continued to win on the slot machines repeatedly.
Made some friends sitting at the quarter machine that we keep bumping into on the ship… it’s funny how you get to know random people completely by coincidence without even trying. There are a lot of people from Wisconsin here, apparently. That’s what everyone keeps telling us, though we have not met any.
The next day was Samana (pronounced saman-AH), in the Dominican Republic. The joke on the ship about that port is “I’ve never seen so many people get on and off on the same tender boat!” (there’s no port so we have to drop anchor and take little boats in, called tender boats.)
We did not book a shore excursion, which was apparently a mistake, but even people who did take them were also not thrilled with Samana. It was advertised as underdeveloped, but put in a positive light “it retains its original island charm, unspoiled and remote,” well we found out the hard way that this means “ghetto.” It was filthy, extremely poor, and generally annoying.
It was hot. It was smelly. There was garbage on the sidewalks, dirty chickens clucking around eating it, mangy flea-ridden stray dogs laying asleep (or dead) on the pavement or chewing on themselves in the cracked, dirty roads.
We bought postcards and some gifty things at the one tourist friendly mall, which is still under development, contains only souvenir shops and bar, and is only accessible by walking down a boardwalk littered with Dominican children selling shells for $1, and cab drivers hustling you to get a ride to the beach—which is on the other side of the island, and costs $100 to get to. (I did hear a woman say she talked a guy down to $10 each person but her friends were leery… rightfully so.)
There is a resort on an island nearby and one of the shore excursions took you there, which probably would have been the only good way to go. On the post card to my parents I wrote “We came, we saw, and then we decided to leave!” Of course, we tried to find a post office, asked a bartender if he spoke English (which nobody did at all, even though the brochure on the ship says most of them do *cough*lie*cough*) and he said he did but did not understand us when we asked where the post office is.
So we followed our crappy map and ended up in a completely run-down residential neighborhood where there was a horse eating tall grass in someone’s yard, and everyone staring at us. Obviously we were out of place, so we just said “you know what, we’ll just mail these in St. Thomas." We got back on the ship, showered, because I felt so dirty just from being in that country. The good news is, tourism will help bring them out of poverty and someday Samana will be another thriving Caribbean tourist trap, with diamond jewelry shops as far as the eye can see.
That night we ate at Aqua, which was free, and just as fancy as Salsa. I had some fruity chilled soup and tortellini, and Dan had Salisbury steak and fries. We saw a Magic show that was cute and funny but pretty average and easy to figure out (the chick he cut in half was obviously a contortionist) except for the last vanishing-girl act, that one blew us both away.
Dan bought a watch he was scoping out the night before, and I told him if he won $90 at the casino the night before he could get it. So he got it! Then it was Monte Carlo night at the casino, where Dan got picked to help pour the champagne fountain along with about a dozen other people, including 70-year-old ladies that scared me because it looked like they were going to knock all of the glasses over with their unsteady hands! I was glued to the addicting quarter-drop game, and Dan was back on his favorite slot machine for much of the night, until we decided that we were not making money anymore, and that was depressing, so no more casino for us.
The next day was much better. That was St Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands. After another awesome omelet for breakfast, (I’m telling you, I could live like this…)we did a little shopping at the mall (jewelry, liquor, jewelry, tee-shirts, jewelry, liquor, perfume, jewelry) right off the port before we had a shore excursion that mom and dad bought us for xmas, called The Best of St. Thomas. Which is less ghetto than Samana by a long shot, but still slightly run-down and crowded.
We stopped at a lookout point photo-op and they had a little flea-market type deal with people pushing $5 tee-shirts at you, and you could get your picture taken with the old donkey for $5. Then it was up to the Great House and Gardens, which was a beautiful manor up on the top of the mountain overlooking Magen’s Bay—which has been called one of the world’s top 10 beaches of all time), really great pictures of the garden and the aqua-turquoise-and-navy-blue sea. The house was destroyed by a hurricane in the past and was completely reconstructed out of what they could find and new materials, and it was an OK house tour, but no history or interesting stories were to be found.
Then the open-air bus took us up to Mountain Top, a bar and shopping center at 1,550 feet, the highest point of St. Thomas, providing more panoramic views of the Caribbean islands and ocean… and also the home of Banana Daiquiris! Quite tasty.
Hopped back on the bus and back down through Charlotte Amalie, the main city, to the port. We had about an hour and a half before we had to be back on the ship, so we went to a place called the Butterfly Farm that we spotted on the way back (less than 5 minutes to walk from the port) and it was adorable. The floor in the gift shop was made of sand.
We got a little tour and learned about butterflies in their little atrium—(did you know that a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly involves dissolving into a complete primordial goo and then a butterfly forms from that? Really cool.) and then they let you wander around and take pictures of all the butterflies and of course I harassed a few into getting off their leaf or flower and onto my finger. My favorite, the Blue Morpho, was abundant, but they didn’t open their wings up for any good pictures, so those are the ugly brown ones with circles on their wings. :P
Then back on the ship for some dinner at the Venetian (the only other free restaurant), where I went out on a limb and had stuffed cabbage which was their only advertised vegetarian meal, and it was actually pretty good, though I could not bring myself to eat the whole thing.
Our bad experience at Samana led us to the Shore Excursions desk when they opened at 6 to book something. Our first pick, snorkeling at Virgin Gorda, had two spots left! We booked it for basically free because we each got a $77 credit because the gas prices went down since we booked our trip. (In addition to the $100 mom and dad gave us, and $50 each for booking during their promotional thingy… wooo free booze money!)
We hung out by the pool at the bar until it was time for “Who wants to be a Bazillionaire,” a fake game show they were having. There was literally nobody there, and the first woman who got picked did not want to be on stage and was not a very good contestant, so I signed both me and Dan up. And Dan got picked. Dan always gets picked. He won the “fake million dollars that you can buy nothing with,” but did get an NCL beach bag. LOL! The host of the show was extremely helpful on the questions Dan didn’t know “I’ll guess C,” “Ummmm maybe you should guess again,” so it was pretty much guaranteed that both contestants “won.” Still entertaining, however lame and cheesy.
Then back up to the pool bar for the Caribbean party night, which was our obnoxious Australian cruise director leading about 5 line dances (Macarena, Electric Slide, etc) and then the music cut off and the party kind of fizzled, which is what happened the night before at Monte Carlo night.
I wanted to post this blog last night but there was drinking to be done! Made friends with a poolside bartender from the Philippines, he said working on a cruise ship was basically his only option to bring home enough money for his family to buy a house and have a future, which are back at home.
Dan wants to look into getting a job on the fire department on board (ideal dream firefighting job) and is still attempting to hunt down the cruise director to see if he can get a tour of the facilities “behind the scenes,” neato. That means I would either stay at home (boo) or have to try to get a job on board, which is probably very competitive, and is all apparently paid by commission. Something to consider…
Friday was Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. The name of the city we dock in is Road Town, which was much cuter than what we saw of Charlotte Amalie, as far as the shops near the port go. We parked right next to another NCL ship, our sister ship, the Norwegian Gem (which has waterslides and a rock climbing wall!)
We looked out our porthole this morning and saw big green gems and guessed that it was the Gem! We found a post office first thing, mailed our post cards in Tortola because we ran out of time in St Thomas, then went to a cute shop called Sunny Caribee Spices and Art Gallery, and got some more gifty things. Tortola is our favorite port of call because it’s so cute. There’s a law that states none of the buildings can rise higher than the palm trees, so its tightly packed streets and colorful buildings make it much more charming.
Then we headed back to the ship to get ready for snorkeling! After a catamaran ride out to the Virgin Gorda Baths, which are boulders that have been carved out by the sea to make caves and bowls , we hopped out of the boat. I hyperventilated for a few minutes, which was expected—because I’ve snorkeled before I knew how I would react at first, but after getting used to it we had fun.
We saw a stingray, which was huge, a good 4 feet long (but for all I knew it could have been 20 feet long it looked so huge) and a flat fish (or a stone fish we are not sure what they are called) which are the ones that are completely flat and swim sideways, and are camouflaged so they just look like part of the sand. I spotted him because I saw him move, if he didn’t we would have no idea he was there.
Then we got to the beach and hiked through the caves, which was interesting because Dan barely fit through some of the crevices, and out the other side to snorkel our way back to the boat. We got some use of our camera underwater because it’s waterproof to 3 meters, which was fun. Dan did some free diving to get some close-ups of coral and fish.
Then we got some free rum punches on the way back to the port, and then it was time to get back on board. We had a quick lunch, and then watched as we undocked and waved goodbye to the cruise ship parked next to us, it was cute. It rained a little bit as we were taking off, but as soon as we got out to sea it cleared up, and we playing shuffleboard with another older couple (the guy has gigantic white eyebrows and a waxed mustache, quite a character) on the promenade, and then watched the sunset up on the 13th deck. (I think there’s 14 or 15 midship, but they are all fancy schmancy suites that we can’t go to)
Then we came back to the stateroom to blog and ordered room service—which we discovered is FREE—and now it’s off to the internet café to post pictures and blogs. There’s a choco-holic buffet at 10pm that we are going to check out. Tomorrow is another day at sea before we get to the Great Stirrup Cay—NCL’s privately owned resort island—where we will relax on the beach and hike around the island most likely.
**click the link over --> there for new pics!**
Wow, time really flies. It doesn’t seem like it’s been so long since I wrote a blog! Our first sea day was pretty relaxed, we wandered around the ship some more, lost at bingo, and got addicted to the quarter-drop game in the casino, and Dan continued to win on the slot machines repeatedly.
Made some friends sitting at the quarter machine that we keep bumping into on the ship… it’s funny how you get to know random people completely by coincidence without even trying. There are a lot of people from Wisconsin here, apparently. That’s what everyone keeps telling us, though we have not met any.
The next day was Samana (pronounced saman-AH), in the Dominican Republic. The joke on the ship about that port is “I’ve never seen so many people get on and off on the same tender boat!” (there’s no port so we have to drop anchor and take little boats in, called tender boats.)
We did not book a shore excursion, which was apparently a mistake, but even people who did take them were also not thrilled with Samana. It was advertised as underdeveloped, but put in a positive light “it retains its original island charm, unspoiled and remote,” well we found out the hard way that this means “ghetto.” It was filthy, extremely poor, and generally annoying.
It was hot. It was smelly. There was garbage on the sidewalks, dirty chickens clucking around eating it, mangy flea-ridden stray dogs laying asleep (or dead) on the pavement or chewing on themselves in the cracked, dirty roads.
We bought postcards and some gifty things at the one tourist friendly mall, which is still under development, contains only souvenir shops and bar, and is only accessible by walking down a boardwalk littered with Dominican children selling shells for $1, and cab drivers hustling you to get a ride to the beach—which is on the other side of the island, and costs $100 to get to. (I did hear a woman say she talked a guy down to $10 each person but her friends were leery… rightfully so.)
There is a resort on an island nearby and one of the shore excursions took you there, which probably would have been the only good way to go. On the post card to my parents I wrote “We came, we saw, and then we decided to leave!” Of course, we tried to find a post office, asked a bartender if he spoke English (which nobody did at all, even though the brochure on the ship says most of them do *cough*lie*cough*) and he said he did but did not understand us when we asked where the post office is.
So we followed our crappy map and ended up in a completely run-down residential neighborhood where there was a horse eating tall grass in someone’s yard, and everyone staring at us. Obviously we were out of place, so we just said “you know what, we’ll just mail these in St. Thomas." We got back on the ship, showered, because I felt so dirty just from being in that country. The good news is, tourism will help bring them out of poverty and someday Samana will be another thriving Caribbean tourist trap, with diamond jewelry shops as far as the eye can see.
That night we ate at Aqua, which was free, and just as fancy as Salsa. I had some fruity chilled soup and tortellini, and Dan had Salisbury steak and fries. We saw a Magic show that was cute and funny but pretty average and easy to figure out (the chick he cut in half was obviously a contortionist) except for the last vanishing-girl act, that one blew us both away.
Dan bought a watch he was scoping out the night before, and I told him if he won $90 at the casino the night before he could get it. So he got it! Then it was Monte Carlo night at the casino, where Dan got picked to help pour the champagne fountain along with about a dozen other people, including 70-year-old ladies that scared me because it looked like they were going to knock all of the glasses over with their unsteady hands! I was glued to the addicting quarter-drop game, and Dan was back on his favorite slot machine for much of the night, until we decided that we were not making money anymore, and that was depressing, so no more casino for us.
The next day was much better. That was St Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands. After another awesome omelet for breakfast, (I’m telling you, I could live like this…)we did a little shopping at the mall (jewelry, liquor, jewelry, tee-shirts, jewelry, liquor, perfume, jewelry) right off the port before we had a shore excursion that mom and dad bought us for xmas, called The Best of St. Thomas. Which is less ghetto than Samana by a long shot, but still slightly run-down and crowded.
We stopped at a lookout point photo-op and they had a little flea-market type deal with people pushing $5 tee-shirts at you, and you could get your picture taken with the old donkey for $5. Then it was up to the Great House and Gardens, which was a beautiful manor up on the top of the mountain overlooking Magen’s Bay—which has been called one of the world’s top 10 beaches of all time), really great pictures of the garden and the aqua-turquoise-and-navy-blue sea. The house was destroyed by a hurricane in the past and was completely reconstructed out of what they could find and new materials, and it was an OK house tour, but no history or interesting stories were to be found.
Then the open-air bus took us up to Mountain Top, a bar and shopping center at 1,550 feet, the highest point of St. Thomas, providing more panoramic views of the Caribbean islands and ocean… and also the home of Banana Daiquiris! Quite tasty.
Hopped back on the bus and back down through Charlotte Amalie, the main city, to the port. We had about an hour and a half before we had to be back on the ship, so we went to a place called the Butterfly Farm that we spotted on the way back (less than 5 minutes to walk from the port) and it was adorable. The floor in the gift shop was made of sand.
We got a little tour and learned about butterflies in their little atrium—(did you know that a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly involves dissolving into a complete primordial goo and then a butterfly forms from that? Really cool.) and then they let you wander around and take pictures of all the butterflies and of course I harassed a few into getting off their leaf or flower and onto my finger. My favorite, the Blue Morpho, was abundant, but they didn’t open their wings up for any good pictures, so those are the ugly brown ones with circles on their wings. :P
Then back on the ship for some dinner at the Venetian (the only other free restaurant), where I went out on a limb and had stuffed cabbage which was their only advertised vegetarian meal, and it was actually pretty good, though I could not bring myself to eat the whole thing.
Our bad experience at Samana led us to the Shore Excursions desk when they opened at 6 to book something. Our first pick, snorkeling at Virgin Gorda, had two spots left! We booked it for basically free because we each got a $77 credit because the gas prices went down since we booked our trip. (In addition to the $100 mom and dad gave us, and $50 each for booking during their promotional thingy… wooo free booze money!)
We hung out by the pool at the bar until it was time for “Who wants to be a Bazillionaire,” a fake game show they were having. There was literally nobody there, and the first woman who got picked did not want to be on stage and was not a very good contestant, so I signed both me and Dan up. And Dan got picked. Dan always gets picked. He won the “fake million dollars that you can buy nothing with,” but did get an NCL beach bag. LOL! The host of the show was extremely helpful on the questions Dan didn’t know “I’ll guess C,” “Ummmm maybe you should guess again,” so it was pretty much guaranteed that both contestants “won.” Still entertaining, however lame and cheesy.
Then back up to the pool bar for the Caribbean party night, which was our obnoxious Australian cruise director leading about 5 line dances (Macarena, Electric Slide, etc) and then the music cut off and the party kind of fizzled, which is what happened the night before at Monte Carlo night.
I wanted to post this blog last night but there was drinking to be done! Made friends with a poolside bartender from the Philippines, he said working on a cruise ship was basically his only option to bring home enough money for his family to buy a house and have a future, which are back at home.
Dan wants to look into getting a job on the fire department on board (ideal dream firefighting job) and is still attempting to hunt down the cruise director to see if he can get a tour of the facilities “behind the scenes,” neato. That means I would either stay at home (boo) or have to try to get a job on board, which is probably very competitive, and is all apparently paid by commission. Something to consider…
Friday was Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. The name of the city we dock in is Road Town, which was much cuter than what we saw of Charlotte Amalie, as far as the shops near the port go. We parked right next to another NCL ship, our sister ship, the Norwegian Gem (which has waterslides and a rock climbing wall!)
We looked out our porthole this morning and saw big green gems and guessed that it was the Gem! We found a post office first thing, mailed our post cards in Tortola because we ran out of time in St Thomas, then went to a cute shop called Sunny Caribee Spices and Art Gallery, and got some more gifty things. Tortola is our favorite port of call because it’s so cute. There’s a law that states none of the buildings can rise higher than the palm trees, so its tightly packed streets and colorful buildings make it much more charming.
Then we headed back to the ship to get ready for snorkeling! After a catamaran ride out to the Virgin Gorda Baths, which are boulders that have been carved out by the sea to make caves and bowls , we hopped out of the boat. I hyperventilated for a few minutes, which was expected—because I’ve snorkeled before I knew how I would react at first, but after getting used to it we had fun.
We saw a stingray, which was huge, a good 4 feet long (but for all I knew it could have been 20 feet long it looked so huge) and a flat fish (or a stone fish we are not sure what they are called) which are the ones that are completely flat and swim sideways, and are camouflaged so they just look like part of the sand. I spotted him because I saw him move, if he didn’t we would have no idea he was there.
Then we got to the beach and hiked through the caves, which was interesting because Dan barely fit through some of the crevices, and out the other side to snorkel our way back to the boat. We got some use of our camera underwater because it’s waterproof to 3 meters, which was fun. Dan did some free diving to get some close-ups of coral and fish.
Then we got some free rum punches on the way back to the port, and then it was time to get back on board. We had a quick lunch, and then watched as we undocked and waved goodbye to the cruise ship parked next to us, it was cute. It rained a little bit as we were taking off, but as soon as we got out to sea it cleared up, and we playing shuffleboard with another older couple (the guy has gigantic white eyebrows and a waxed mustache, quite a character) on the promenade, and then watched the sunset up on the 13th deck. (I think there’s 14 or 15 midship, but they are all fancy schmancy suites that we can’t go to)
Then we came back to the stateroom to blog and ordered room service—which we discovered is FREE—and now it’s off to the internet café to post pictures and blogs. There’s a choco-holic buffet at 10pm that we are going to check out. Tomorrow is another day at sea before we get to the Great Stirrup Cay—NCL’s privately owned resort island—where we will relax on the beach and hike around the island most likely.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
1/17/09 DAY THREE – EMBARKATION
Today we got up early again and had our free breakfast, got ready as quick as we could and packed up our stuff to get on our 10 o’clock shuttle to the port. Which came at 11. *sigh* more waiting… got to the port, got all checked in in about 20 minutes (the lines move pretty fast through there) and got onto the ship! They mixed up our pictures on our key cards, so my card had Dan’s picture and visa versa! “Why Meredith aren’t you handsome” the lady said when we went to get it fixed.
Got our free champagne and began our adventure on the Norwegian Dawn. We wandered around a bit, got a drink at the topsider’s bar next to the pool where they have a calypso band playing, and then grabbed lunch at the sweet buffet. The thing takes up 3 rooms, each about 20 feet long, with every kind of food you could possibly want. I had a little bit each of salad, bowtie pasta with alfredo sauce, a slice of some cheese I can’t pronounce, fried rice with eggplant, pizza, fries, and pineapple! Hehe!
After 2, we were able to get into our stateroom. It’s small, but not cramped, and quite comfortable. There’s two twin beds shoved together to make a nearly-king sized one, and there’s a little pull down bed against the wall that says it will hold 330 lbs, however, I don’t think we’ll be letting any 330 lb people sleep in our room 2 feet above our heads! We’re on the very bottom floor—which means that the other, what, 10 floors below us that go under the water are all service and mechanical crap. We can’t hear anything much like engines or anything, so I’m pleased about that. We did notice that the ventilation in the room sounds a bit like someone snoring in the other room... but that doesn’t bug me.
Our porthole is cute, and we can see water crashing up onto the ship when there are big waves. After exploring our room and wondering when our luggage was going to arrive, it was more wandering, hanging at the embarkation party, picture taking, a round of poorly-played cage golf, and a game of gigantic chess (it was REAL wizard’s chess!) Suddenly, we noticed that the cruise ship parked behind us was definitely moving away from us! So we jotted over to the side and took some more pictures and a video of us saying goodbye to the US of A!
Travelling on a cruise ship is weird. When we first got on, it felt like we were just in any other building, no movement whatsoever, and I was prepared to go “psh, I don’t know why everyone talks about motion sickness!” But then, as we pulled out of port, I realized that it does feel very weird.
We went back to our stateroom to see if they had delivered our luggage because my motion-sickness meds were in there and I wanted to take some just to be safe. It feels like you are getting heavier, then lighter, back and forth, and then sometimes, depending on which way you are standing, you have to constantly shift your weight from foot to foot with the waves or else you’ll fall over! It took us a few hours to get used to it and “get our sea legs” as it were, and I feel like I am always drunk, stumbling around.
The Bromine (supposedly less drowsy and lasts longer than Dramamine) kicked in about an hour later, and I was stoned for the rest of the night (but I never felt seasick!) and we found that it was hard to focus on any particular thing. We’d decide where we wanted to go, get up and leave, get to the elevator and go “durrrrrrrrrrrr what were we going to do??” “I don’t know I’m just staring at the words, I can’t read anything right now.”
Then, after more wandering, we ended up in the casino before getting ready for dinner. Went to “Salsa” which was advertised as Tex-Mex and has a $10 cover, but when we went to make our reservation, there’s a sign that says dress code: no tank tops, shorts, or cut-offs, so we figured we’d better dress up a little! For our $10 a piece—which at first I stuck my nose up at (this cruise cost how much???) we got an appetizer, two soups, an entrée, and a dessert! Drinks cost extra but I’d say $10 is quite a deal for all that we got, and the service was great.
The extremely cute waitress kept calling me “my lady,” and put my napkin in my lap for me and opened my menu for me! Dessert was accompanied by an auction on the floor below us in the big atrium, which was mildly entertaining.
Then it was some duty-free shopping (yeah, it’s mostly crap) and back to the casino!! I put $10 in a 2cent slot machine, played for a while and when I starting running out of money it occurred to me that if I bet more, I’d win more, and why shouldn’t I try? And then I won $60. Woohoooo!!! That paid for dinner and for both of us gambling so that is pretty darn sweet.
Then we came back to the stateroom and called it a night. The shower here is pretty good, about as big as any normal stand-up shower, and it has free shampoo and shower gel in a neato dispenser thing. I spent $50 for 100 minutes of internet (sheesh) so you guys better leave me comments and stuff!!
Got our free champagne and began our adventure on the Norwegian Dawn. We wandered around a bit, got a drink at the topsider’s bar next to the pool where they have a calypso band playing, and then grabbed lunch at the sweet buffet. The thing takes up 3 rooms, each about 20 feet long, with every kind of food you could possibly want. I had a little bit each of salad, bowtie pasta with alfredo sauce, a slice of some cheese I can’t pronounce, fried rice with eggplant, pizza, fries, and pineapple! Hehe!
After 2, we were able to get into our stateroom. It’s small, but not cramped, and quite comfortable. There’s two twin beds shoved together to make a nearly-king sized one, and there’s a little pull down bed against the wall that says it will hold 330 lbs, however, I don’t think we’ll be letting any 330 lb people sleep in our room 2 feet above our heads! We’re on the very bottom floor—which means that the other, what, 10 floors below us that go under the water are all service and mechanical crap. We can’t hear anything much like engines or anything, so I’m pleased about that. We did notice that the ventilation in the room sounds a bit like someone snoring in the other room... but that doesn’t bug me.
Our porthole is cute, and we can see water crashing up onto the ship when there are big waves. After exploring our room and wondering when our luggage was going to arrive, it was more wandering, hanging at the embarkation party, picture taking, a round of poorly-played cage golf, and a game of gigantic chess (it was REAL wizard’s chess!) Suddenly, we noticed that the cruise ship parked behind us was definitely moving away from us! So we jotted over to the side and took some more pictures and a video of us saying goodbye to the US of A!
Travelling on a cruise ship is weird. When we first got on, it felt like we were just in any other building, no movement whatsoever, and I was prepared to go “psh, I don’t know why everyone talks about motion sickness!” But then, as we pulled out of port, I realized that it does feel very weird.
We went back to our stateroom to see if they had delivered our luggage because my motion-sickness meds were in there and I wanted to take some just to be safe. It feels like you are getting heavier, then lighter, back and forth, and then sometimes, depending on which way you are standing, you have to constantly shift your weight from foot to foot with the waves or else you’ll fall over! It took us a few hours to get used to it and “get our sea legs” as it were, and I feel like I am always drunk, stumbling around.
The Bromine (supposedly less drowsy and lasts longer than Dramamine) kicked in about an hour later, and I was stoned for the rest of the night (but I never felt seasick!) and we found that it was hard to focus on any particular thing. We’d decide where we wanted to go, get up and leave, get to the elevator and go “durrrrrrrrrrrr what were we going to do??” “I don’t know I’m just staring at the words, I can’t read anything right now.”
Then, after more wandering, we ended up in the casino before getting ready for dinner. Went to “Salsa” which was advertised as Tex-Mex and has a $10 cover, but when we went to make our reservation, there’s a sign that says dress code: no tank tops, shorts, or cut-offs, so we figured we’d better dress up a little! For our $10 a piece—which at first I stuck my nose up at (this cruise cost how much???) we got an appetizer, two soups, an entrée, and a dessert! Drinks cost extra but I’d say $10 is quite a deal for all that we got, and the service was great.
The extremely cute waitress kept calling me “my lady,” and put my napkin in my lap for me and opened my menu for me! Dessert was accompanied by an auction on the floor below us in the big atrium, which was mildly entertaining.
Then it was some duty-free shopping (yeah, it’s mostly crap) and back to the casino!! I put $10 in a 2cent slot machine, played for a while and when I starting running out of money it occurred to me that if I bet more, I’d win more, and why shouldn’t I try? And then I won $60. Woohoooo!!! That paid for dinner and for both of us gambling so that is pretty darn sweet.
Then we came back to the stateroom and called it a night. The shower here is pretty good, about as big as any normal stand-up shower, and it has free shampoo and shower gel in a neato dispenser thing. I spent $50 for 100 minutes of internet (sheesh) so you guys better leave me comments and stuff!!
Friday, 1/16 DAY TWO
Got up at 8:30 to go down for our free breakfast, and there’s a newspaper on our stoop that tells of about a plane crash in New York yesterday. (#*%@*)!#*%) Breakfast was omelets cooked to order, fresh fruit, bagels, cereal, bacon, sausage, pancakes, French toast, ANYTHING you can think of!!
I ate my veggie omelet, melon, and bagel while Dan had his double death with cheese omelet, hash browns and muffin—I commented that breakfast should be like this every morning. Whatever the hell I want to eat, someone else making it for me, and I get to sit in a lush tropical atrium with koi fish and little sparrows begging for crumbs. Hung out in the hotel room until about 12 deciding what to do and how not to spend $30 to get there.
We took the free shuttle to the airport train station and caught a train to the Vizcaya Mansion and Gardens. Chose this spot because the pamphlet I found at the concierge looked really beautiful and it was on the train route (read: cheap)! We got there in the afternoon and it was absolutely gorgeous. Check out the pictures!!!
We used up our whole camera battery in the garden; they don’t even let you take pictures inside the house! Of course there were small annoyances like people crowding into small areas instead of waiting politely, like Dan and I could do if someone else was looking into a room… and then there was a group of photographers doing some sort of fashion shoot with some girl who was always wearing a different dress every time we came across them.
One thing I’ve noticed is feeling like a minority because we don’t speak Spanish. The signs at Vizcaya were in Spanish first, and in larger print!
Took the train back to the hotel, after we decided against taking a bus to Miami beach again, just in time to get 2 free drinks at the “managers reception” in the same area they served our free breakfast. Met a nice couple from Reno on the shuttle back from the train station and ended up bumping into them again at the reception thingie, and again when we were coming back after our 25 minute wait to get a table in the restaurant. They were going to wait another 25 minutes for their meal, after they had walked to bennigans to find it closed down, so we invited them to eat with us. It was nice to have a fluid conversation with nice people.
Then we had a few more drinks at the bar, which was understaffed (apparently some people called in sick) and they were struggling to keep up. People were bitching at the bartender about waiting, and then about the price of drinks… while Dan and I didn’t really care (what else do we have to do?) and I’m guessing the bartender appreciated that because he never charged us for our drinks!! :D I like to think that was my good karma paying off from this morning when the hotel desk guy almost gave me back $100 for my $50 traveler’s check I was cashing, and I corrected him.
Also discovered that while I’ve been up here typing these blogs in a word document, not wanting to pay $12.95 a day for internet in the room, there’s a room downstairs with computers with internet access that we apparently can use for free with our room key. Sigh!
Boat leaves tomorrow afternoon, we will be catching a shuttle to the docks at 10am. Looking forward to another free omelet breakfast tomorrow!
I ate my veggie omelet, melon, and bagel while Dan had his double death with cheese omelet, hash browns and muffin—I commented that breakfast should be like this every morning. Whatever the hell I want to eat, someone else making it for me, and I get to sit in a lush tropical atrium with koi fish and little sparrows begging for crumbs. Hung out in the hotel room until about 12 deciding what to do and how not to spend $30 to get there.
We took the free shuttle to the airport train station and caught a train to the Vizcaya Mansion and Gardens. Chose this spot because the pamphlet I found at the concierge looked really beautiful and it was on the train route (read: cheap)! We got there in the afternoon and it was absolutely gorgeous. Check out the pictures!!!
We used up our whole camera battery in the garden; they don’t even let you take pictures inside the house! Of course there were small annoyances like people crowding into small areas instead of waiting politely, like Dan and I could do if someone else was looking into a room… and then there was a group of photographers doing some sort of fashion shoot with some girl who was always wearing a different dress every time we came across them.
One thing I’ve noticed is feeling like a minority because we don’t speak Spanish. The signs at Vizcaya were in Spanish first, and in larger print!
Took the train back to the hotel, after we decided against taking a bus to Miami beach again, just in time to get 2 free drinks at the “managers reception” in the same area they served our free breakfast. Met a nice couple from Reno on the shuttle back from the train station and ended up bumping into them again at the reception thingie, and again when we were coming back after our 25 minute wait to get a table in the restaurant. They were going to wait another 25 minutes for their meal, after they had walked to bennigans to find it closed down, so we invited them to eat with us. It was nice to have a fluid conversation with nice people.
Then we had a few more drinks at the bar, which was understaffed (apparently some people called in sick) and they were struggling to keep up. People were bitching at the bartender about waiting, and then about the price of drinks… while Dan and I didn’t really care (what else do we have to do?) and I’m guessing the bartender appreciated that because he never charged us for our drinks!! :D I like to think that was my good karma paying off from this morning when the hotel desk guy almost gave me back $100 for my $50 traveler’s check I was cashing, and I corrected him.
Also discovered that while I’ve been up here typing these blogs in a word document, not wanting to pay $12.95 a day for internet in the room, there’s a room downstairs with computers with internet access that we apparently can use for free with our room key. Sigh!
Boat leaves tomorrow afternoon, we will be catching a shuttle to the docks at 10am. Looking forward to another free omelet breakfast tomorrow!
Thursday 1/15 DAY ONE
Going on 3 hours of sleep for the whole day! Got to Miami at about noon, when the temperature was about 68 degrees, quite the difference from the negative-teens temps back in Wisconsin… however still not quite warm enough. Good thing I brought sweaters, even though I thought “I’m never going to wear these,” as I packed them. But my luggage is large and I had extra room, and thankful now that I have them!
Took the shuttle to the hotel, which is awesome. It’s the Embassy Suites, and our room has a separated living/kitchenette area, huge (bigger than the one at home!) flat panel tvs in both the living room and the bedroom. The rooms are all centered aroung a big atrium area with an open hallway outside the doors, it’s pretty neat. I told mom that it’s probably the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in in my adult-ish life. We get free breakfast and two hours of free drinks at the bar downstairs every day. Everything is decorated in a modern dark wood and silver theme with olive and peach and it’s all very Mexicali-tropical-art-deco. It’s weird, elegant, fun, and I like it! There’s a rooster that lives at the car rental place across the street. You heard me right. There are so many yellow cars here that Colin would be having a heyday with his yellow car game. Everybody drives Lamborghinis, Mercedes, and BMWs here. My old car would be the laughing stock of Miami.
After lunch in the hotel restaurant, where the waiter (who was probably the manager, too) was not very friendly, and obviously hated his job, we decided what to do for the rest of the day. After trying to get internet on my laptop, which apparently costs $12.95 a day (RAPE!) we were using our iphones to do Miami-stuff research. We wanted to shop, and all of the malls in Miami have really bad reviews online, except for what they call the Lincoln Road Mall, which is basically like State Street in Madison, only a lot nicer and classier. Every city usually has one of these streets where cars can’t drive. In Denver it was the 16th street mall (I think that’s right). Our choices of transportation were a $2, 1.5hour bus ride, or a $30 cab ride… So off we went, in our $30 cab ride, to the Lincoln Road Mall, which is in Miami Beach/South Beach. It was really nice!! Things that we noticed were that about 75% of the dogs people had were all wearing clothes, including a pack of about 10 miniature greyhounds, all being led by two people!! Every other store was clothes, eyewear, clothes, swimsuits, eyewear, jewelry, clothes… and 2 restaurants between every 3 stores. We went into a beachy swimwear/clothes store, as I was looking to buy a swimsuit coverup and Dan some new shorts, and I found this awesome black and white paisley silk scarf sundress/coverup thing. I’m sure you’ll see pictures of me in it somewhere in this blog J Walked all the way to the end (it seems to be about as long, or maybe a little shorter than State Street) and came back up, and Dan bought some new shorts at the Quicksilver store. Then we decided to try to find Miami Ink -- which is now called Love Hate, and they have a tattoo parlor, a retail store, AND a bar, all on the same street—Washington Ave. So down we walked, coming to the tattoo parlor first, made a donation in the “photo jar” and took some pics, and on to the retail store a few doors down to buy some stickers, and asked the guy about the bar, and if it’s insanely expensive—to which he answered *shrug* “it’s about the same as any other bar,” So we hoofed it another mile or so down Washington, encountered a “local” who called himself Twilight, (who was hitting on me while Dan was inside a store, I didn’t go in because I had an iced tea from Starbucks) and a Vietnamese man yelled at me “it’s too cold to be drinking iced tea” and eventually we made out of the sex-shop-sushi-shop-waxing-and-tattoo-parlor area (there’s an erotic art museum and a restaurant called “Sum Yum Gai,” I shit you not) into the *really* fancy area with restaurants that have extremely grand entrances and art-deco condos that you can bet cost more a month to rent than I make in 6 months… to the Love Hate lounge. Which was closed. Until 9. It was 7. Shit.
However! There is a little local bus that toodles around South Beach for only 25cents! So we hopped that back up to the Lincoln Road Mall and looked at the menu to a place that we thought the outside furniture was really awesome, however, no vegetarian options and $35 a piece, we kept on going. Down to an Italian place called Rosinella, where we BOTH ate (and ate well, outside at little mosaic tile tables in brown wicker chairs under a white canopy with candlelight!) for about $35! (Because we didn’t order any of their $10 drinks.) It got down to about 61 by this point, and I was getting cold! Time to go warm up at the bar. So back to the 25cent bus (what a find!) to ride it all the way around the loop back down to the bottom of Washington Street again, where we caught it before. Well, it doesn’t make a loop. “This is the last stop,” the driver said in my favorite African accent, and when we told him we thought it went all the way around, he told us to wait at the bus stop on the other corner and he’d come back around in about 15 minutes. So we sat and people-watched: the most interesting person was a cat lady coming out of the grocery store (build into the bottom of a skyscraper) that the bus stop was in front of, who actually had a cat in a cat carrier in her cart, which also had a gigantic bag of cat food in it. I don’t know what happened, but suddenly there was a cat in the driveway near where we were sitting, who was heading right for the road. Yes, the cat got hit by a car. Right in front of us. But don’t worry, he’s OK. He went under the car, thrashed around a bit, and tore off to the other side of the road. Meanwhile I am fighting back tears and vomit and exploding in general, we see the cat in the flowers at more expensive condos (these ones had a gate with an attendee and everything) across the street, and he seems to be limping, but fine. Then another few minutes later, he was walking down the sidewalk, slowly, but normally. The cat lady-- who mysteriously came out of the same driveway that the poor cat had emerged from just a few moments later-- rode the bus with us, while I fought the urge to accuse her of setting that cat free to get run over in the F*#%ING road. Theories rumbled around in my head about her cat-collecting ways and what, does she set one free every time she comes to buy cat food, because she can’t afford to feed them all? She looked tired and kept her eyes closed with a look of peaceful serenity on her face the whole bus ride.
Now I really needed a drink. Got to Love Hate at about 9:15, and there were only 4 or 5 other people inside. The bar was really cool, with a lit up red plastic bar top with tattoo graphics printed onto it, cool stained glass windows on either side of the bar that say “love,” and “hate,” I ordered our drinks while Dan went to the bathroom, and informed him when he got back that indeed, it was not cheap, and I really hope he likes his $11 jack and coke. Two drinks, one beer, and $35 more later, we called a cab to spend another $30 just to get home. Fell asleep at about midnight and slept until 8:30AM.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Night Before
Hey!
Just testing this out and make sure I get everything set up. We leave tomorrow at 6am, and a big thanks to my sister L for dragging her ass out of bed at 5am to take us to the airport.
Tonight we are finishing packing, taking the cat to sissy's house, and hopefully getting some sleep.
We'll be bringing our camera and video camera so hopefully we'll have a moment to spare every other day or so to keep everybody updated and entertained.
Here's our itinerary:
Thurs 1/15 leave Madison at 6am arrive in Chicago at 6:55AM, layover involving breakfast and trying to keep our eyes open until 8:05AM - arrive in Miami at 12:10PM. On to our hotel and a couple of days in Miami for shopping and general fun-having.
Sat 1/17 ALL ABOARD our Norwegian Cruise Lines on the Norwegian Dawn Leaving from Miami.
Sunday 1/18 at sea
Mon 1/19 Samana, Dominican Republic
Tues 1/20 St Thomas!
Weds 1/21 Tortola!
Thurs 1/22 at sea
Friday 1/23 Great Stirrup Cay
Sat 1/24 Return to Miami
Sun 1/25 Headed back to Wisconsin. Boo.
Just dropped the cat off at my sister's house... we'll miss him!
Updates soon!!! check back daily!
Just testing this out and make sure I get everything set up. We leave tomorrow at 6am, and a big thanks to my sister L for dragging her ass out of bed at 5am to take us to the airport.
Tonight we are finishing packing, taking the cat to sissy's house, and hopefully getting some sleep.
We'll be bringing our camera and video camera so hopefully we'll have a moment to spare every other day or so to keep everybody updated and entertained.
Here's our itinerary:
Thurs 1/15 leave Madison at 6am arrive in Chicago at 6:55AM, layover involving breakfast and trying to keep our eyes open until 8:05AM - arrive in Miami at 12:10PM. On to our hotel and a couple of days in Miami for shopping and general fun-having.
Sat 1/17 ALL ABOARD our Norwegian Cruise Lines on the Norwegian Dawn Leaving from Miami.
Sunday 1/18 at sea
Mon 1/19 Samana, Dominican Republic
Tues 1/20 St Thomas!
Weds 1/21 Tortola!
Thurs 1/22 at sea
Friday 1/23 Great Stirrup Cay
Sat 1/24 Return to Miami
Sun 1/25 Headed back to Wisconsin. Boo.
Just dropped the cat off at my sister's house... we'll miss him!
Updates soon!!! check back daily!
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