Honeymoon!

I made it back from Kuwait just fine.  :-)

Sharron and I left from Montgomery on 20 Jan for our Honeymoon.  In case you don’t know what we did, we went on an 8 day cruise to the eastern caribbean with stops at St. Thomas, St. Maarten and the Princess Kays.  We decided to drive down to save a few dollars and that turned out to be a lot of fun.  We really enjoy road trips (yes, we’re freaks) so that was the perfect choice for us as road trips in Japan just aren’t that fun (ask Sharron).

We boarded our ship, the Caribbean Princess, at around 1PM and headed up to our room.  The way it works is that you check your bags at the curb and they are delivered to your room later, so we had free reign over the ship since we didn’t have anything to unpack.  The ship was MUCH bigger than I expected with something like 16 levels.  Our room was on level 14 on the starboard side with a private balcony.  I really didn’t know what to expect, but after living in tiny rooms since moving to Japan, it sure felt like a large living space.  :-)  We were really close to the front of the ship.  Here’s a picture of Sharron with the bridge in the background (You can even see the captain!).  To get an idea of how big the ship is, here’s a look back along the ship as we pull away from Ft. Lauderdale.

Our first night we mostly just explored the ship and took it easy.  That really was the theme of our honeymoon, taking it easy.  I found that a cruise is the perfect way to do that, if you don’t take the shore excursions too seriously, but I’ll get to that.  Our first two cruise days were sea days where we were sailing for our first port.  I really didn’t know what to expect as far as what we’d be doing, and that was good as I was then open to anything.  We ended up sleeping in, and then heading up to the buffet for lunch.  Lunch was almost always at the buffet for us as that was pretty easy.  We then headed up on deck to get some reading done and sit in the sun.  That turned out to be very nice.  Since we were in motion, there was a nice breeze the whole time and that kept you a little more cool than you would normally be. 

Dinners on our cruise were at a scheduled time at the late dining.  This really turned out to be a lot of fun.  You still sit with other people, 4 others for us, but everybody is aware that they’re not trying to get out of there ASAP and you can just sit and relax and enjoy your 5 course meals.  :-)  Our tablemates really turned out to be great and we always had nice dinners with them.  Heck, we were usually one of the last tables out of the dining room as we’d stay late to talk with them.  The dress for dinner was mostly smart casual, but for two nights it was formal.  We had our waiter Jose take our picture on the first formal night.

Another thing we discovered onboard was the spa.  I know, all the guys out there are thinking Spa?  Patrick, where did you go wrong?  However, much to my surprise this spa  turned out to be very cool.  We purchased the unlimited pass to the sanctuary which had several steam rooms, a sauna a couple tropical showers and a heated table/bed.  The table/bed turned out to be the best as you could just lay down on it and its warmth would just relax you.  Totally worth it.  We made it there almost everyday before dinner and it made the day seem that much better.

Our first port was St. Maarten.  The ship had advertised awesome shopping opportunities and we had attended a seminar on where the best places to go were.  What we realized after planning out a tight itinerary was that it really wasn’t all that great.  They had some good deals on jewelry, but as always, you get what you pay for.  Great from far away, not so great up close.  If you wanted anything of quality, it was the same or more as in the US.  We did have a good time going from shop to shop and getting all of the freebies that were promised though.  :-)  One thing we realized was that this part of the world sure looks like a nice place to live.

We did the shopping in the morning and had scheduled a beginner’s scuba excursion for the afternoon.  Sharron had never been before and I hadn’t been since high school so we were geared up and ready to go.  However, since there were six cruise ships (see this picture) docked when we were there, the scuba company was running a little behind.  Like an hour or more.  This really didn’t make us happy as we’d paid for several hours of scuba and really only had around 20 minutes.  After we’d gotten into the water, one of the ladies who came with decided she didn’t want to do it and so that delayed us further.  All said and done, Sharron and I had a great time, even if it was short.  Sharron took this funny picture of me while we were waiting.  The dive site was at the base of a hill that has an old fort on top.  Several of the cannons had ended up in the harbor and one was in the dive site.  There were also several ship wrecks in the area and a sunken submarine for us to explore (if we’d had time).  I really wish we’d had more time to explore this area as it really was a fun place to scuba dive.  As we were pulling away, I snapped this picture of the dive site.

By the next morning we were in our next port, St. Thomas.  This time our excursion was first thing in the morning.  We were booked for snorkeling with Capt Nautica for a half day.  We weren’t sure what to expect, but knew we could be heading for turtle cove and that sounded totally cool.  Turtle cove was everything we hoped it would be as we were the first boat into the area.  We saw at least 3 different turtles and Sharron even swam along with one for awhile.  We had a lot of fun with our underwater cameras.  :-)  Turtle cove ended up being my favorite part of the shore excursions as the turtles were just too cool.  We then headed for our second dive spot which was a reef.  When we arrived, our tour guide told us that we could cut our time there short and have time at a third location if we wanted to.  We took a vote and everyone was for it.  The reef was interesting, but not quite as much fun as the turtles.  We did see some cool sea life though such as this ray and this barracuda.  The barracuda is really small in the picture, but he was pretty large up close.  Our third dive spot was another reef, but this one was more out in the middle of nowhere.  That turned out to be really fun as the dive instructor got in the water with us and led us around.  I totally enjoyed this spot as it was much deeper and there was a little more to see.  On my way back to the boat I dove as deep as I could and snapped this picture of the boat.  I said as deep as I could and I am serious.  Normally I’m a sinker, but this water has some seriously high salinity.  Never in my life have I been able to float in the water until here.  It made it a little difficult to dive, but nice to snorkel on the surface.  For Sharron, a natural floater, it was really hard to get underwater.

After our shore excursion, we headed in to town to see what the shopping was like.  There wasn’t much difference so we found a nice place to eat and had lunch.  We’d seen signs for a gondola that went up into the hills, so we caught a taxi and headed for that.  It turned out to be pretty cool, but the sun was in our eyes so our pictures came our a little washed out.  We had a great view of our ship (on the left) though.  :-)  The gondola was a little silly, but we had a good time.

As we were leaving St. Thomas for another day at sea, I snapped this picture of the sunset.  I like it.

We had one more day at sea before our final port.  It wasn’t a real port like the first two, but instead was an island owned by Princess which they named the Princess Kays.  The only thing to do there is play in the water or sit on the beach.  Normally that would be ok, but we were a lot farther north than the other ports and it was still January so…we went out for awhile, but ended up coming back pretty quick to the ship.  I did manage to take a picture of our ship from the beach before leaving though.

We spent the rest of our final day wandering the ship and taking some more pictures.  Here’s Sharron and I in the “King of the world” spot.  We also walked around to the back where I took this picture of Sharron.  On our way back to our room, and after we’d set sail, we noticed that the water was a lot rougher than it had been.  It made for some awesome splashes off the side of the ship.

When it was over we both agreed that we’re cruise people and that we’ll definitely be going on one again in the future.  As far as honeymoons go, I can’t think of a better way to spend time with my Special One.  After what amounted to 6 months apart in our first year of marriage, this was a great way to get to know each other again.  I love you Sharron Todd!

We’re back in Japan now and doing well.  I’m currently in the middle of a wing inspection so it’s long crappy hours this week.  Oh well, at least it’s not Kuwait.  :-)