Day 4: St. Lucia

Today was the day we went Zip-lining! We met in an area off the ship, again people holding signs and directing us where to go. Meeting time was 8:15am.

The drive to Dennery where the zip lines were took about an hour by bus. I had researched zip-lining a lot leading up to booking the tour through the ship for St. Lucia. I had wanted to do it in Antigua but I just read better reviews about the course in St. Lucia.

I was still feeling a little under the weather and I get car sick easily so on the bus I was feeling a little woozy. There was a bus driver and then a 'tour guide' of sorts. The gal spoke to us along the way about different things we passed. It was a nice touch for a long bus ride. Once on site I was feeling a little nervous. I should mention I am EXTREMELY afraid of heights. Like severly. We climbed diamond head in 2007 and I nearly passed out at the top. I also had trouble being on the 11th floor of a hotel...climbing ladders...eeeeeeeeeeeek BUT I have heard amazing things about zip-lining. I always say I would try anything once (not sure how true that would be if confronted with some other things, lol)...my hubby has always wanted to zip-line as well. Sooooo after much deliberation, reading reviews, reading about others afraid of heights, reading about different courses.....I just went ahead and booked it and figured I was stuck now! haha.

On the way to the zip-lining place the tour lady said that we might see boa-constricters on the course. I was a little more freaked out by this I think then than by the height situation but then at the same time I thought 'man if I see one I will have to be sure to somehow get a picture near it'. Wow that's crazy I thought that, but I did. We did not see any. haha.

The rainforest was lush and beautiful!!! We walked down a short steep road from the bus to the area where we would get ready for the adventure. They had many employees on hand. We had to put on hair nets, step into a garage like structure where they fitted you with all the gear and got you strapped in. There was then a very short line that one of the employees gave you a brief explanation on what to do. You do NOT practice yourselves. I thought we got to practice but oh well...off we go. We walked to the first zip line...there were 9 or 11 I can't remember. Anyways...I was pretty nervous although I didn't want to admit it. I was goin to feel real stupid if i passed out!!! A few others went before it was our turn and dh went before me. I cannot believe I did. It was not so bad. As we kept going and walking I was LOVING it. I would reccommend this to ANYONE wether afraid of heights or not. You really cannot even tell how high up you are until you are out on the zip itself and then it's so sad too bad cause you can't do nothing while your flying along on the line! lol. On the platforms before they hook you onto the line to zip, you are not like teetering over the edge of 1000's of feet below. I suppose that's how I pictured it. I was loving it. DH loved it. In fact everyone in our group loved it. It took probably an hour -hour 1/2 total to get through all the zip lines. You can take a camera with you. The employees were using others cameras to take videos or pics. they were all very nice and fun. The lady behind me as we ventured on from zip to zip was real sweet and we were talking with her a lot, she also had a fear of heights. At the end of the adventure she gave me a seahorse charm that says 'courage' on it. She said she carries them with her and likes to give them to people who have showed strength and courage in something and she wanted to give me one for showing my courage today by doing something I was afraid of. I thought it was such a sweet gesture.

I should say I was more afraid of the suspension bridges than the actual zips! I hate suspension bridges. They were a challenge for me. eww scary.

There was a photo op on the way back and so the bus stopped for us.

After the hour drive back and being car sick again I was just exhausted and went back to the room and slept the day away. I think I was finally getting over sickness but still not quite there. There was lots of shopping right off the ship in St. Lucia but I never got back off as I just couldn't muster up the energy.

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I forgot to mention that on Day 3 in Barbados that hubby and I had our caricature down that night by the caricature artist in the Promenade. It was $73. You can also take a picture with you of your pet/pets or of yourselves and leave with the artist to do so you don't have to sit and wait. It was fun. Hubby and I have one from when we were in Disney in 2004 right before we were married, so we decided since it's 5 years it'd be fun to get another.

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more zip-lining pics

job

feeling a little blue that I can't seem to get interviewed for any jobs I apply for. :(

Day 3: Barbados

Day 3: Barbados

September 15, 2009

Today we needed to meet I believe at 8:30 for our swim with turtles and shipwreck snorkel. I got a couple donuts at the Promenade cafe before we left.

We had prebooked this excursion pre-cruise through the royal caribbean website. Our tickets for this excursion were waiting in our room the day we boarded the ship. We took our tickets and as instructed on the ticket it told us we would be meeting at the building at the pier. I think this could be a little confusing, however we just followed the crowd of people getting off the ship and we were fine. We met off of the building the shops were in. There were lines for each excursion and the people were holding signs for the line you needed to be in. Have your ticket checked if you are not sure. We boarded a bus which took us to the dock where the boat was that would be taking us on our excursion. It was a very short ride. However I will say we felt that the driver of the bus and also the taxi drivers and bus drivers that helped us get from one place to the other on all of our trip were crazy. ahhaa. We thought were were gonna hit at least one pedestrian each time we were on a trip or get in an accident. Hell on wheels.

Once at the dock they had us board a boat. Not a large boat. It was raining a tad but it cleared up as we got out further. Yay! The excursion was to last around 4hrs if I remember correctly. We were going to swim with the turtles first. Along the way they issue you a life vest, and snorkel gear. They show you how to do everything if you don't know how.

Once at the site for the turtles we were near a beach and I had read before that some people just take a taxi to that beach and swim out to the turtles. I can see how this would possible but I have no idea what the name of the beach was. There were a couple other boats at this spot. One of the employees of the boat got off and started swimming around and dropping food. We soon saw turtles. We had an olympus underwater digital camera and unfortunately it broke about as soon as hubby took it in the water. I should have went with my gut feeling and bought a disposable digital just in case because the olympus had broke in Hawaii after a few days use. We never had a problem using it in a pool though. We sent it back the first time and they repaired it...worked fine up until this time. boo. We were pretty bummed. SO...if anyone out there as ever been on the swim with turtles excursion or even on the one we were on, if you could send me a couple pics of turtles I would REALLY appreciate it because it would be nice to have a picture of the turtles (email: trlybarger at yahoo.com). I really appreciate it. Thank you!

I couldn't guess how long we swam with the turtles. I got out of the water after I had seen a few because I was feeling motion sick. I sat on the boat and tried to calm down. We went to a shipwreck snorkel site next. I was feeling very motion sick and stayed on the boat the whole time. There were two different shipwrecks. This was also by a beach. We met a nice couple right after the shipwreck snorkel...Marcus and his wife. They were on their honeymoon. We regret not asking their room number as we thought later we could have hung out at some point. So if you two are reading this...HELLO! After snorkeling for a little the boat pulled up to the beach and you could get off at the beach for about a 1/2hr. I was happy. I love beaches. I set my towel out and laid down. Hubby went off to the shade and trees as he was SOOO Burnt. He waited there. Marcus took a picture for us though in the shade before we left the beach. :)

I did take a large beach bag with me on the excursion with water and towels and the camera and such. The towels you can get at the pool deck using your sea pass card to take with you. There is a 20$ fee for any unreturned towel. We had no problems in that area. I got the towels the night before so I wouldn't have to deal with it in the morning. After the time was up at the beach the boat employees let us know it was time to get back on. Not everyone chose to go back on. They did tell us if we wanted to stay longer we could but we'd have to get a taxi back. The boat also had rum punch after snorkeling and beach break and other drinks available at no cost. I would definately do another snorkel/swim with turtles.

Back at the pier hubby and I decided we would go to the room and change and then get off and go see the shops. There is a small building with some shops in it. Not a ton of shops but a small area of shops. There is also a post office in this building which I took the time to drop a postcard in the mail as I wasn't sure where else I might see one. It is 75cents to mail a postcard from there to the U.S.A. for anyone wondering.

We shopped around and went back to the boat and took a nap. We slept a lot on vacation. Rest indeed!!!

No plans for the evening. We always just wondered around the ship and we went to the sports bar.

Someone was asking if our ship had the 70's night in Royal Promenade and the cruise compass for this night does say 'dancing in the street -70's style for the Royal Promenade. That was at 10:45pm. We did not go.

We actually ate in the dining room tonight. Our waiter mentioned how he hadnt seen us for two nights. It was kinda funny because tonight was the only night we ate in the dining room and NONE of our tablemates showed up. I had a pasta which was DELICIOUS and hubby went for the steak. Normally I would go for steak but I really was craving pasta. The steak was good though I tasted it. I skipped dessert but hubby had some tiramisu.

The show tonight was a ballroom dance spectacular. We did not go. We didn't get into the shows till the end of the trip haha.

Ship docked in Barbados:

Snorkel over shipwreck.

Next up: Day 4 in St. Lucia and Zip-lining

Day 2: Day at sea

Monday, September 14th, 2009

I woke up around 8am. My plan today was to roll out of bed and get up to the pool deck and pick my chair and just laze around the rest of the day in the sun. I had read they are hard to get on sea days. However my plan changed because I was sick and I had to report to the medical facility at 9am. I showered instead and got ready and headed down there for 9am. It is on the first floor and I took the elevator to the first floor and I think they meant to have the elevator button blocked on the side of the ship I was using it on because I got down there and there were people like welding on the walls and working and I was lost. They directed me back up and then later the button for one was blocked so you could not go to that part of the floor via that elevator. I had to go midship I believe to get to 1 and then to the facility. There was a small waiting area with a tv and one other person in there. He offered to let me change the channel but I was fine. I checked in at the desk and was called back within 10minutes. The lady inserted a themometer in my ear and took my temp. She said I was fine and good to go. I went to the Promenade Cafe for breakfast.

By the time I was done in the cafe and such there wasn't too much time before my next stop...

Royal Bingo was today and I had read about Bingo and was excited to play. Carsds were going on sale at 10:30 am in the Imperial Lounge. I did not know how this worked. I thought I had to buy my cards today and use the same ones all week. Turns out it's just for that session. I would rather have played later in the week but since I was already in the Imperial Lounge and I wasn't up on the pool deck as planned I figured I might as well just do it. You could get three 'old school' cards where you had to punch out the numbers as they were called for 27$ or you could get an electronic handheld device that did all the work for you and had 18 cards in it per game. There were 4 games total in the session. I opted for the electronic one because for 10$ more I had a lot more chances to win. Most people in this Bingo group did this. The machine must be wirelessely hooked into the machine up front or something because anytime a number was called and entered it automatically shows up on your screen where it needs to be AND if you had a bingo the screen had fireworks and beeped so you knew you won. Might take the fun out of the old school version but I liked it. I however did not win. The RC employees made it fun though. Once you got to having one number left to a bingo they had you stand up. If you won bingo you had to dance in the asile. The Imperial Lounge was a nice area too. Bingo lasted from 10:30am when cards went on sale and then at 11am they started...and went until probably around noon if I had to guess maybe a little later, I dunno. They did raffles of random items like mousepads and stuff during the Bingo. I was still a little sick and had the sniffles and not enough kleenex. ugh. They were selling drinks too during bing but I did not have one. haha.

After Bingo I headed back to the room and got changed and went up to the pool deck. I figured I could hope for a chair but being it was around 1pm I didn't have high hopes. Well guess what...there were PLENTY. Yay! Found a chair and got myself situated and fell asleep off and on.

They had the men's sexy legs contest and belly flop contest. I could hear that going on while I was relaxing in my chair but I never got up to go look. I was content. Sounded like everyone was having a blast.

After laying out for a few hours I headed back to the room and on way ran into the hubby who was taking some pictures. He had been sunning earlier too but we didn't find each other on the pool deck. Turns out he didn't use any lotion...DUH...and thought he'd be ok for a couple hours. He was SO burnt by that evening he was hurting. NOT A GOOD IDEA and he really learned a big lesson. It hurt for him to bend over!!! We joked about it later, but UGH...use sunscreen folks!!! Save your skin!!

We went to Johnny Rockets I believe for a late lunch. There is a 4.95 cover charge per person. I had never ate at a Johnny Rockets before. The cover charge covers everything on the menu except the shakes. You choose your appetizer...we got fries and onion rings and then choose what to eat...we both had hamburgers of sorts...and then there were a couple desserts to choose from. I got a oreo sundae thing. It was good. You can eat as much of that stuff as you want. We didn't have room for anymore fries or burgers or dessert. DH had a chocolate milkshake. It was 5$ and some odd change for it. It was good. They had a few booths outside for seating and then some inside. Not a large place.

Windjammer again for dinner. haha. It was formal night and we didn't have the appropriate items for formal night. I had read ahead of time and knew what we needed, but we had decided we didn't think we were going to do formal night and I needed a fancier dress. I'm glad we did not try to go as we saw several men in tuxes (I did see you could rent tuxes on the ship) and the ladies were in gorgeous gowns!!! You all looked wonderful!!!!! We saw the photographers doing portraits outside the dining room entrances and there were some cute poses going on.

Not too much for the Sea Day...just relax! There were MANY things going on though today listed in the compass...just a few:
All skate (need long pants and socks)
singles and traveling solo lunch
pool games
movie playing was body of lies and Nick and Noras playlist. (high school musical 3 was playing a lot as well during our week on board)
adult voleyball tournament
royal bingo again at 4:30pm
wine tasting seminar (9.95 charge)
karaoke
towel folding
team trivia
champagne art preview and auction
cosmetics and make-up seminar
suduko challenge
royal texas hold em tournament
power wheels for royal tots

Next UP: Barbados
Swim with Turtles and Shipwreck snorkel

Relay for Life

A quick post for my few readers! My relay team 'Pink Heat' is turning up the heat to find a cure! Please support us! You can donate here:


http://relay.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY10SA?fr_id=24869&pg=entry



Also I'm in a contest until Oct. 8th. you can vote once a day. It is 'show your pink pride for breast cancer awareness' at the breast cancer site. I think you can only vote if you have facebook.
http://apps.facebook.com/promotionshq/contests/7465/voteable_entries?_fb_fromhash=9d9fdc27f2491230ad97d01f96432cd5

We're on the ship!

Day 1: September 13, 2009

We have boarded and we're on the ship!!!!

We had balcony cabin # 6568. I booked directly through Royal Caribbean via phone and downloaded cruise shark eventually to watch for a price drop. I also had higher decks and suites in cruise shark just in case there was a price drop worth jumping on. Cruise shark found price drops for me a couple times on the different decks but never in my category. That's ok, I was willing to pay what I paid for it and that is fine by me, but hey...if I could get a price drop I wasn't gonna complain either. :)

We milled around for the 15minutes till 2pm when the rooms were ready. There were a few others waiting around but not too many. The RC employee checked a couple times and finally opened the doors for us to go down the hall to our rooms. :) Yay!!!

Inserted our sea pass card into the slot and waaahhhh laaa we were in our room!!!

I was satisfied with the room. A little couch and coffee table, queen bed, a closet with PLENTY of hangers. There were at least 20 hangers + in our closet. Plus there was a vanity by the tv where you could get ready and FYI the hairdryer was in the drawer of the vanity...I was looking in the bathroom for it. Also there were no outlets in our bathroom. I did take an extension cord with me for anyone that had read the thread on things you might want. I agree...very handy. I could see if you were charging camera batteries, cell phones, how you would need it. There were only about two plugs available near the vanity and I was using one for an alarm clock I took. There are no alarm clocks in the room. I do not like to wake up and not be able to know the time or not have a clock to see time (don't wear watch) so I took an alarm clock with me. I was VERY glad I did. Definately something I'll take again. Also for those that ask, tv is not flat screen but that doesn't make difference to me. They had a neat channel on the tv that dh would turn on ALL the time...showed where you were at on the map, depth of the water at that time, speed the ship was going...etc. Ok...getting off topic hahaha...back to the room... The bathroom was small...however I wasn't hanging out in the bathroom the whole cruise so that didn't bother me. Someone who is VERY large might have issues in the shower...just a speculation...not positive on that...just sayin'. :)The balcony was nice too. Originally we worried it would be too small but it was fine. It had two chairs and a little table. Perfect. Plus there was still room for us to stand out there. I thought I would be ok with an inside room but hubby insisted on balcony. I wouldn't go any other way now. We loved going out on the balcony and just looking and watching and it was just something for us that was nice. I don't think if I had an interior room that the cruise would have been any less fun, I'm just sayin'....LOVED THE BALCONY. Nice being in your own space enjoying the cruise and not up on a deck with everyone else at points. :)

While out on our balcony we were facing the peir where people were boarding on the walkway and the line was LOOOOONG. (A couple we rode on the taxi with back to airport after the cruise mentioned they waited a couple hours in line!!) Again...glad we got there early.

We decided to go explore the ship and grab a bite to eat.

I had read a lot about the Royal Promenade. WOW...hard to believe you are even on a ship when you are here. Seriously...by looking at your surroundings and walking along...it was beautiful and amazing!

We ate at the cafe promenade and had Pizza. I think we had pizza almost every day at some point. The Cafe Promenade is open 24hrs, there is a bar too which I believe was open till 3am. The Cafe had pizza, sandwhiches and cookies/treats. Pizza was average and good and sandwhiches average and good. In the morning I went once and there were donuts and muffins. They also have cold water, hot chocolate, tea, coffee and etc. available here 24hrs. Also this is where you get the Ben and Jerry's ice cream. DH got a Ben and Jerry's at some point during the cruise and my receipt shows a medium waffle cone was $4.00. With the gratuity that they automatically add in, it came to $4.60.

Here is the guest relations desk (Just like you're at a hotel!):

Random picture:

I loved that they had a library. I left a book at the end of the cruise with a book ID in it from http://www.bookcrossing.com/. I hope someone picks it up. I saw the shelves where other cruisers had left books (I assume cause they didn't have library label on them) but I just dropped it in the book return since the library was closed when I went in. I hope it makes it on the shelf

After we ate and walked around the ship some, we decided we would go back to the room and see if our luggage was there. It was just after 3pm. We thought we'd go up to the top deck and get some sun. Hubby's swim trunks were in his luggage however I was smart and put a bikini in my carryon cause I knew the luggage might take hours as I had read on here. As we got to the room we saw our luggage in the hallway. HOORAY. We changed into our suits and went up to the top deck. On the deck there is another small deck you can take the stairs too with about 15 chairs probably up there and we loved being up there. Not many people! In fact that first day we were the only ones. Hubby thought the sun would help clear up my sinus's too. We laid out for about two hours.

The picture below is NOT from the first day, but a pic of some of the pool area.

After we got some sun we headed back to the room. We thought it appropriate to take a picture of our first day on the ship out on our balcony. We set the camera up on self timer and took a picture of us before we sail off from Puerto Rico!

The nurse called me this evening and asked me to come to the medical facility at 9am the next morning to have my temperature taken. Bummer I wanted to get up at 8am and get to the top deck and lay out as I had read chairs are hard to find on a sea day, but health first and of course I was gonna go!

We looked at the cruise compass for the day 1 just briefly. Sadly now that I see it laying here in front of me we missed a comedy show that evening. We should have paid attention more to the shows, we finally went to one like three days before the cruise ended and we loved going to them. lol. Something learned for next time! It's all what you make it though!

We saw there was a raffle at 7:30 in the fitness center for the spa so we headed to that. We had stopped by the spa earlier and got prices on massages as we really wanted to book us each one during the week. Prices were as follows:

Teeth Whitening: 199$ or 149 for the voyage special

Acupuncture: 150$ for 50minutes

Ionithermie Algae-Detox 159$ for 50minutes

Micro-Dermabrasion 169$ for 50minutes

La Therapie Oxygen Lifting Facial 119$ for 50minutes

Lime and Ginger Body Massage 196$ for 75minutes

Aromapure Seaweed Massage 195$ for 75minutes or 259$ for 105minutes

Couples Massage 269$ per couple for 50minutes

Asian Spa Ritual 265$ for 100minutes

Hot Stones Massage 165$ for 50minutesor 195$ for 75minutes

Sweedish Massage 119$ for 50minutes

Deep Tissue Massage 129$ for 50minutes

At the raffle there were about 15-20 of us that showed up. The guy was really personable and fun. He gave each person a blue ticket and then pulled them out of the bag. everytime he called a number out if you had the number you would say 'wooh' so it was like 'wooh' 'wooh' 'wooh' from everyone till the last number and only one 'wooh' from the winner. haha. cute. We didn't win anything BUT he said no one goes home a loser in his gym (he was the personal trainer) and he handed everyone a piece of paper and for that night only if you went and booked right now at the spa you got:

"4 steps to Heave"
muscle melting 20min back, neck and shoulders massage
heat treatment for back aches
luxurious 25min anti-aging colagen facial"
deeply relaxing scalp massage
This was all for $79.00. We went ahead and each booked one for Thursday night at 8:45pm. Yay!

I will say throughout the week they will have specials in the compass. One was for $89 and you chose two out of these: 25min massage, 25min facial, 25min exotic cleopatra milk wrap or a 25min exotic lime and ginger salt glow. for 99$ you could get a hot stone massage and one of the treatments above.....so worth not booking on the first day to me if you wanna watch for a deal in the next couple days.

After we booked our spa appointments we headed to the Windjammer to eat. We had 8:30pm main seating in the dining room but really we are just not dining room folks I guess. We prefered eating in the windjammer or promenade. That is just our personal preference and it's all about what makes YOU happy. Everyone is different. (we ate in the dining room once for anyone wondering at this point in time, haha).

The windjammer was big. Ronald usually greeted us at the door and was so kind. We found Janelle to be the best assistant waiter. She was the only one that really served us, got us drink refills, checked on us...the other two people we tried just let us fend for ourselves. Didn't bother me, I can self serve myself, it was just odd at the difference in service. You don't need much catering anyways in the windjammer cause it is a buffet anyways!

Hubby had a corona durring dinner in the windjammer and the cost was: $4.76, with the gratuity they automatically add in it was $5.71. (I know lots of people have asked before on cost of drinks therefore posting to hopefully help another person wondering!)

After the windjammer we went to the sports bar in the cafe promendate:

Many tv's here (flatscreen lol). And yes they had football and tennis I saw at some point. Also we were able to watch football games in our room while on the ship for anyone wondernig about missing games. A couple times they went out of service but only for a few minutes. DH got to watch his college football and on Monday night we watched Monday night football at the sports bar. I got a screwdriver with Absolut Vodka and dh got a Michelob Ultra (aluminum bottle) at the sports bar. My screwdriver was $6.00 and his beer was $4.95. With gratuity the total was $12.59.

We went to the casino after this and spent some money, not a ton but some. Hubby won 12$ on a slot and then spent it again. Walked out losers. lol

I believe after the casino we just walked around the ship more and eventually went to bed.

Off to wake up for Day 2: Day at Sea.

(this next installment might be a couple days before I get it posted, but probably won't be as long as the inital first too! thanks for everyone who read this far!)

To be continued.....