Friday, February 7
After yesterday’s super-fun day in St. Lucia (which may have been the overall favorite day of the cruise), we were looking forward to a nice, relaxing day on the ship with very little itinerary.
Unfortunately, our day started off too early. Room service came by and woke us up before we were ready to get out of bed. Usually, that’s the kids’ job. But, after eating a little bit, we lounged around for a couple hours. Manina read her book and I took some time to record down all the goings on of the previous days.
It felt great to just take it easy, but Manina was feeling a bit guilty about not leaving our room until 10am. But then, just as we were shutting our door to head up to the gym, out walk the Mr. and Mrs. Denney. Manina assumed they had already worked out, eaten, and gotten dressed, but it turned out they were on the same schedule we were. That made Manina feel a little better. Then, just as we got to the gym in walked Penny Bergeron who was just getting going too. Seems we were all on the same easy-going wavelength for the first time on the cruise. So much so, in fact, that all of the girls were even wearing the same outfit—it was cute for them to all be on the same team.
Manina and I did a quick workout warmup and then she ran while I did some weight lifting and yoga, much like the morning of St. Croix.
After everyone finished working out, we headed to the dining room to a special at-sea brunch. Then we headed back to our rooms to get ready for the day.
Manina wanted to finish her book, Glimmer of Hope
I ran into Tony and Emily, who had a pretty good spot up above the pool, but there wasn’t enough room for Manina and me. If you’ve ever been on a cruise ship on an at-sea day, good spots and deck chairs are not easy to find. So, off I went to go find a couple chairs. After several miles of walking, I finally found a pretty good spot near the front of the ship. It wasn’t near all the action like Tony and Emily’s spot, but I’d had enough of cruise director Dennis anyway.
Manina found me, and eventually the Denneys and Bergerons did too. We had to move some things around, but were all able to sit near each other. The girls gabbed away the afternoon. I listened to some podcasts, napped, and enjoyed the sunshine.
By 4pm we’d had enough sun, so we went back down to our room to pack our suitcases and get ready for dinner. The reality of the cruise coming to an end started to set in.
We enjoyed our last dinner as a group and then hustled down to the farewell show. Cruise director Dennis went on way too long, but the final act was performed by a married acrobat couple. They’d performed with Cirque du Soleil, and some of their routines were pretty impressive. Definitely the best cruise ship entertainment of the trip.
The group went together to one last game show called majority rules which was pretty forgettable. Not all that exciting.
After that, everyone went their own separate ways for the night. Manina and I went to Starbucks to get her a vanilla steamed milk. We found a comfortable spot overlooking the atrium and sat for 30 minutes while we talked about our cruise.
We agreed on a couple things:
- Starting a Caribbean cruise out of Puerto Rico was a good call—we didn’t have the weather concerns of our first cruise, it meant one less day at sea, and it was another very cool place to visit.
- Going to church on St. Thomas was a great experience. It was well worth the extra time to hang with the local people for a while before doing tourist stuff.
- If you’re going to spend an hour doing stand-up paddleboarding in St. Croix, don’t wear yourself out in the gym beforehand.
- Antigua was amazing, but we would have been just as happy chilling on Jolly Beach.
- The whole day on Martinique could have been accomplished in an hour or two off the boat, then heading back onto the boat for meals and sunbathing.
- The blend of activities on St. Lucia was perfect. Well worth the money.
- We both could have packed better: more semi-casual clothes, less formal dresses and shoes.
- We needed better balance of group activities and quality time together.
- We should have brought along a Frisbee.
- Taking time to journal and record each day was a worthwhile activity, even though it wasn’t easy.
- We needed to take more pictures
So, despite a couple minor setbacks, we had an amazing vacation. We went to bed that night not knowing the nightmare scenario that awaited us on the flights home. Our 2014 cruise was definitely one we will remember forever. We love the Caribbean and can’t wait to head back.
MightyJohnsons 