I'm baaaa-aaaack!! Aw crap. Just
I'm baaaa-aaaack!!
Aw crap. Just wrote an entire entry and hit SOMETHING on my keyboard by mistake that made it go POOF! Gone. =( Hmmm. Do I have it in me to start over? Maybe at least some of it. I'm exhausted, but kind of on that "overtired energy" thing. We got up at 6:00 this morning, and it is now 2:13 a.m. Caribbean time. So after spending 16 hours either in an airport or on a plane... yeah. That's another story though. Well, I may as well start over. Ugh. Why are computers so mean?
Let me first tell you who all went. It was my family (Mom, Dad, Jessica and myself), Meghan, and my godfather's family (Larry, who is my godfather, Adrienne, who is his wife Lisa, who is his 25-year-old daughter, Ryan, who is Lisa's soon-to-be fiance, and Jeff, Larry's 19-year-old son).
Saturday, Dec 29, 2001
Day started out fabulously. Limo was 25 minutes late. There was an hour and a half line just to check our baggage at American, and a 30-min line to get through security. They stopped and swabbed my dad. He looks real scary, apparently. By that point it was 10:08 and we had a 10:24 flight. My mother was a nervous wreck, to say the least. Well, there was a problem with the plane (which should have been a through flight to San Juan, PR) so they moved us all to a 12:30 flight. But that plane couldn't fly over water, so we had to stop in Miami. We got there about 5. Ugh. In Miami they didn't run our boarding passes through the machine and we were missing 2 people, so they had to take inventory to find out who they were, then get their bags off the plane. We left a little after 6 (7 Caribbean time) for a 2-hour flight to catch the boat before 11. We got to PR around 9:45 and were the last to get our luggage. We got thrown onto a bus with the command "Rapido, RAPIDO!" yelled at the driver, and boy did he go "rapido"!!! Wow. We felt like we were on Rockin Roller Coaster. He even turned RIGHT INTO TRAFFIC to get us onto the dock (which was about 10:30).
So all the ship's officers are out there waiting for us. When we get out of the bus, there is a HUGE cheer. Everyone is up on the pool deck cheering and clapping for us. Yeah, we were the LAST to board the ship. Turns out it was set to sail at TEN o'clock, not 11:00, and they were holding the boat for us. Woops! Nothing like a dramatic entrance. <.g>
But the drama did not end there. Oh, no. We were in our state rooms unpacking when the power went out, plunging us into complete darkness. Meghan was in the bathroom. Lol. So we had to go up and get some FOOD (we were STARVING) in the pitch black. Lol. THAT was interesting!! The captain came on the intercom telling us not to worry, the ship had only lost its main power and we were running on the emergency reserves. I think we're bad luck. Dinner was exciting... my dad found a tray that claimed to be cheese and turkey, but when he got his plate underneath an emergency light, he had two pieces of cheese, no turkey and a plate full of olives. Oops. Lol. That was enough excitement for us, so we went to bed.
Sunday, Dec 30, 2001
We were woken up at noon. Woops! When there is no window and no clock in your room, it's hard to judge the time. We basically laid out all day after that (although did NOT get tans... hmmmm) and had our first formal evening. We met our waiters, Gyula (Joo-la) and Kriztina, both Hungarian, both REALLY adorable and so, so nice.
Monday, Dec 31, 2001
Got up a bit earlier and hit Barbados. It was actually kinda icky. We went shopping in Bridgetown, which seemed very... I don't know. A bit dirty, a bit run down. Ah well. Then we went back and had our SECOND formal night (two in a row... how's that for planning?). We had a champagne waterfall, which was pretty cool, a massive balloon drop, and then we went to Jammers, the night club, and danced. Three drinks was enough to make us all a bit tipsy... put that on top of a moving boat that makes you feel drunk ANYWAY, and dancing was quite an experience. Lol.
Tuesday, Jan 1, 2002
Saint Lucia day. Oh, my FAVORITE island. It was GORGEOUS. We found a taxi driver, Ben, to take us all around the island. He was great. He drove us up, down, all around, letting us get out and take pictures (we got some really, really breathtaking ones, if they turn out... crossing fingers). Their biggest export on St. Lucia is bananas, and Ben stopped along the side of the road in a banana... grove? Orchard? Lol, whatever... and gave us the entire process a banana tree goes through, from planting through harvesting. Quite interesting. He was a cool, cool guy. He took us to a botanical garden to see a waterfall. We had to bypass the volcano because of time, which is sad, but ah well. Can't do it all. On the way back to the boat we came upon a car accident... the roads are NARROW, NARROW, NARROW with hairpin turns and zigzags every half mile around steep mountains, and this woman had taken the turn too quickly and sent her car rolling over the side. People were hurt BAD and Lisa is a nurse, so she got out to see if she could help. Ultimately there was nothing that could be done without the ambulence, so we left... and passed the ambulence heading to the accident about 10 minutes later. I hope everyone was okay. =(
Wednesday, Jan 2, 2002
Saint Kitts. Our favorite excursion! Princess Cruises sets up planned excursions you can go on, so this one was Snorkeling in Shitten Bay. Heehee. We took a catamaran out there and snorkeled for about an hour. SO PRETTY. WHY do I live in Illinois??? Why? Tell me this. Or WHY did I choose to go to school in Illinois? We asked ourselves this every day.
Back on the catamaran, we got the party started. Adrienne, my mom, Lisa, Meghan, Jess and I started dancing to the music they had playing. Three of the boat workers really got into it, and in no time we had quite a party going. It was SO MUCH FUN. People stopped us on the ship the rest of the week to tell us they'd seen us dancing on the catamaran on St. Kitts and how much fun it had been. Lol. We learned the "Dollar" song.. "cent, five cent, ten cent, dollar" which I am going to look for on Kazaa. ONe of the guys who worked the boat taught me the "cha-cha slide," which I don't really remember... lol. He kept his hands on my hips and guided me cuz I couldn't remember which way to go. Ha ha. I bet they were thinking "Boy, these white people CAN'T dance!" Lol. Oh well, we had a GREAT time.
Then that night was Island Night on the boat and we had a party after dinner up on the pool deck. We did the "Dollar" song again (which we were all pros at), learned the Dawn Princess Macarena (much cooler than the real Macarena... lol) and relearned the Hookie Lau (which I'm probably butchering... we'd learned it on our last cruise 8 years ago).
Thursday, Jan 3, 2002
St. Maarten/St. Martin. The island is half owned by the dutch (St. Maarten) and half-owend by the French (St. Martin). We were on the Dutch half and didn't make it over to the French side. We did some shopping, which was cool... VERY cute island, shopping-wise. We were harassed by women wanting to braid our hair, though. By the end of the day, we all wanted to wear hats that said "No Braids, Please" on them.
We ended up going to the beach. BEAUTIFUL beach. If we stood in water up to our chins, we could still see our toes. So, so clear. <.sigh>
After dinner that night, Meghan and I went to the casino with $10 each. I won 12 credits on my second pull on the slot machine, then didn't win anything else until the last two tokens I put in. I won 240 credits on that last pull!!! That translated into $63!! WOOHOO!!! The guy at the Casino Cage was laughing at us because we obviously had had NO idea whatsoever what we were doing, and with dumb luck, I won. ha ha.
(What the HELL am I watching on MTV??? These people are dressed up in animal costumes and are having sex! EWWWWW!!!!)
Friday, Jan 4, 2002
LAST DAY. =( We were on St. Thomas. We went shopping in town in the morning and got eaten alive by bugs. First ones we encountered all week. Meghan tried calling her mom, and Jessica ended up putting her finger into the coin return on the payphone and coming out smelling like urine. GROSS. Someone had peed on the payphone. So then it became a mad search for a washroom. Yucky. But St. Thomas was also gorgeous, with all these cute alleyways.
Jess got sick in the afternoon (not from the pee, but that may have contributed) and couldn't come on our final excursion. We (everyone minus Mom and Jess) took a ferry over to St. John's Trunk Bay. Also a GORGEOUS beach. We snorkeled again, and it rained. =( Ah well. We saw Michael Jordan's MANSION on St. Thomas, David Letterman's humble abode, Madonna's house, and the owner of White Castle's castle. Yes, his house looks like a castle.
It was our last evening with Gyula and Kriztina. SADNESS!! We took pictures with them and gave them hugs and made Kriztina point out her boyfriend, thoroughly embarrassing her. Lol. She's so cute. Both Gyula and Kriztina were 24, but Gyula could have easily passed for 32, and I wouldn't have guessed Kriztina was a day over 20. Lol. They were so sweet and so cool. We will miss them.
That brings us to today, Saturday, Jan 5, 2002
The most fitting end to our trip, I guess, judging by the way it began. My dad had his holiday party tonight, at which he was supposed to present 10th anniversary gifts to the people celebrating their 10th anniversaries with the company. We had originally been booked on a 1:00 flight out of San Juan with a layover in Atlanta. The day before we left (so a week ago Friday), Delta called and told us they had cancelled that flight on September 11th and 12 days earlier (than the day they were calling us) had reinstated the flight, but on a smaller plane, so we had to take a 5:00 pm flight, also with a layover in Atlanta. Well, Dad was NOT happy.
We had to leave the ship at 8:30, so we went to the airport in hopes of getting on an earlier flight standby. The STUPID people at the desk told us there was a good chance we'd get on. HA!!! They had overbooked EVERY flight all the way through to Wednesday. So basically, because of them, we sat in the airport from 9:00 until 5:45 when our flight actually left, instead of spending the day on the beach or on a tour of San Juan. I got stopped by security and they made me empty my carry-on. Since the ship had had us set our bags out last night, I had a full set of clothes, underwear and all, in my bag. Yeah, that all got set out for the world to see. What fun. Our flight was late leaving, of course, and we got into Atlanta with 30 minutes to get from A5 to D35. We basically sprinted all the way there. Dude, Carolyn, you have a bigass airport. Lol. At our gate, Meghan got stopped by security. Three out of five of us, at one point or another on this trip, got thoroughly checked and completely embarrassed in front of an airport full of people. Lol. Do we look that scary? Yeesh!
So that was my trip. We made it home (snow and all... ugh), and I want to go back NOW. SO much fun. Wow, this was one gigantoid post. Lol. Woops!! I'm still not really sleepy.... 3 more hours and I'll have been up for 24 hours. I might have to drive my sister to Michigan tomorrow, so I better go to bed. And STOP watching this animal sex thing on MTV. Yuck. G'night everyone!