MightyJohnsons

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, so I headed to the upper decks to find a chair and some sun.

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.

Thursday, February 6

Manina and I were in charge activities on St. Lucia. We had booked a speedboat with Exodus charters who would take us down the west coast of St. Lucia. We had done a similar trip when we had visited this lovely isle before several years ago when Manina’s brother Derek got married, and we hoped it would be just as fun this time.

Unfortunately, when we disembarked from the Jewel of the Seas we were greeted to St. Lucia by a torrential downpour. We all ran into the nearest shelter, but were already soaked through. We found our chartered boat nearby and climbed in, hoping to get out of the rain. Captain Jeremy manned the wheel and Rasta Dave was our tour guide.

We headed south, each of us huddled up and cold. But, the closer we got to the town of Soufriere the more the rain eased up—it was going to be a nice day.

We stopped by a few attractions before making it to the dock in Soufriere: a cleft in a cliff that was full of bats, a cliff-jumping young man who got very well compensated for his daring feat.

We got into a taxi and headed up into the mountains. We had the option to either take a scientific tour of the volcano or hang out in the volcanic mud baths. Rasta Dave promised the magic mud would make you look 15 years younger, so the girls made a quick decision. To the mud baths we went.

Our next stop was a nearby waterfall, Piton Falls. We had to hike a little way through the jungle to get to our destination, but Rasta Dave pointed out all the cool flora and fauna native to St. Lucia. When we got to the falls, the water was still warm as it poured over us and into these natural mineral pools. The water was clear and refreshing and helped to wash off some of the mud from our earlier stop.

Our next stop was back in the city of Soufriere for a buffet creole lunch. They had rice, beans, chicken, macaroni and cheese, tuna, and a salad. All of it was pretty good, and all had a bit of a kick, all being local creole dishes. We were on the banks of the river, the majestic Pitons looming in the background.

Rasta Dave then walked us to a souvenir shop, where Manina finally got a chance to buy some fun stuff for the kids. She was relieved to find something for all the kids since our shopping in Martinique the previous day had been less than productive.

We walked back to the boat with Captain Jeremy who took us a little further south down to Sugar Beach. I snorkeled for a bit, but the water was pretty murky from the rain earlier in the day. So, after a quick dip I went back up onto the beach.

One of the coolest things about St. Lucia is that all of the beaches are public property. So while Sugar Beach Resort is usually reserved for the rich and famous, we could enjoy the same sand and surf as long as we didn’t touch resort beach chairs or umbrellas. So, we put down our towels and enjoyed beach. Rasta Dave hung out with us for a while, telling us stories and pointed out the haunts of movie stars and yachts of rich folks.

After about an hour on Sugar Beach we got back on the boat and Captain Jeremy drove us up to Marigot Bay. We cruised around the bay looking at cool boats, restaurants, with Rasta Dave telling us, “Marigot Bay is the place they filmed Doctor Doolittle. Not the Eddie Murphy Doctor Doolittle, but your mama’s Doctor Doolittle.”

Our last stop was a cool arch he called the Tunnel of Love. This was also used in a famous movie, The Pirates of the Caribbean, but in a much darker way. In one of the opening scenes of the first movie Captain Jack Sparrow looks up to see several skeletons hanging from this same arch.

A couple of us jumped in and swam over to where a young man was showing us good spots to jump. On the climb up, I managed to miss some nasty sea urchins lurking just underneath the surface, unlike Mike and Ben, who weren’t as lucky. It was pretty high up, much higher than the cliff jump in Antigua, but the water was clear and I could easily spot the trouble areas. I jumped out and away from those spots, and didn’t even hit the bottom. No trouble at all.

 

Manina swam out to join me and we took a picture of us kissing underneath the Tunnel of Love, mainly so we could send it back home and make Katelyn and Megan squirm—they had made the mistake of telling us how gross they think those kinds of pictures are.

Back in Castries it started raining again as we walked back to the Jewel of the Seas. We boarded for the last time. Like the night of St. Croix, we got dressed up in our fancy clothes for another formal evening. Manina looked gorgeous. Again.

The evening was pretty uneventful. Everyone hung out in the Bergeron’s suite for a bit, we went to go get hot chocolate, and then went upstairs to go dancing. We only stayed for a few minutes, but Penny danced for a few minutes with the Crazy Dancing Argentine, which probably made his cruise. I could devote a whole post to that guy, but his name tells you all you need to know.

We spent a few minutes in the hot tub before retiring for the night, ready to have a nice relaxing day at sea for our final day of the cruise.

Our day in St. Lucia hadn’t started off very well, but it ended up being a giant success. We had a fabulous day.

Wednesday, February 5

It wasn’t easy, but I convinced Manina to hang out with me on Martinique. She was disappointed to miss our planned hike, as was I. But, based on the insider information I’d received the previous night, I doubted we would be able to make that happen.

So, she called our friends and told them not to wait around for us—we were going to do our own thing that day. About an hour later, we got a text from our friends saying that they couldn’t get either a cab or a rental car due to some gasoline strike on the island. They were going to take a ferry to a beach and just hang out.

Manina and I took our time getting off the ship. We had breakfast together, talked a lot, and then went out to explore Fort de France, the bustling capital city of Martinique.

We started walking through the city together, with no major agenda or goals for the day. It was kind of nice at first, but we quickly realized a couple things about Martinique:

1. Everyone dressed very nicely
2. No one spoke English
3. No one accepted US dollars

This was very different to the other Caribbean islands we’ve visited. Martinique felt much more foreign and inaccessible.

We went into a couple shops, mostly looking for souvenirs and treats for the kids back home. We didn’t find anything. We walked through an open-air market and watched people barter in French over fruits and vegetables setup on the wooden tables. We went into a popular grocery store but didn’t buy anything.

We went into a little pastry shop attached to the store. The clerk was nice and tried to help us in English, but the language barrier was too much, nor had we converted our money into Euros, so we were stuck.

We walked back toward the city center and found a nice cafe which had a sign that had some English words on it. Hopeful, we entered and asked if they accepted US dollars. The owner was Italian, but had very good English. We ordered two Oranginas (one of Manina’s favorite foreign treats) and sat outside under a couple umbrellas and just people watched for a while.

Both Manina and I commented on how attractive all of the people were. It was strange. Even people obviously just running errands or shopping were all dressed to the nines.

We went to St. Louis Cathedral and sat down for a little while, enjoying the architecture and stained glass windows.

We hiked around the city, taking pictures, trying to find something to do. We found a geocache (GCD469), went into another pastry shop and dropped $10US on a bland sweetbread pastry and some gross fruit juices because the clerk couldn’t make change or understand our French (nor could we understand her English).

We headed back to the ship a little earlier than we’d originally planned, but we quickly wondered why we hadn’t come back even sooner. We ate a quick lunch, went back to our room for a quick nap, and then went up onto the top deck and sunbathed until the late afternoon.

The group got together for more sunset pictures, then went down to dinner.

None of the evening plans sounded super-exciting to us. Most of the group went to go see a musical impressionist show, but Mike and Penny invited us to come hang out on their balcony, so we opted to do that instead. We ended up spending the evening with the Bergerons: first on their balcony, then down to the hot tubs, and finally culminating in a midnight run to the cafe where we ordered a fruit plate and some nachos.

It was a fun evening. A great way to end what had been a pretty rough day in Martinique.

Tuesday, February 4

I awoke early and went out to watch the sunrise. Caribbean sunrises don’t come along very often in my life, so I was determined to enjoy it. We were heading almost directly East, toward the island of Antigua, so I made my way to the very front of the ship and simply took it all in. It was spectacular.

Manina had stayed in bed, and I had forgotten all of my mounting equipment, which made taking some photos more work than it should have been. Still, it was well worth all the trouble.

During the Battle of the Sexes game the previous night, the assistant cruise director Jeremy had given us a tip to take the public transport bus to Jolly Harbour or Valley Church beach for $1 instead of hiring a taxi. That was the plan when we walked onto the island of Antigua, but we were almost immediately accosted by taxi drivers.

They split up our group, each driver pitching a sweeter deal as we neared the end of the cruise port. We managed to stay strong until about 10 feet to the gate, when Ben’s guy got him to commit. We had ourselves a driver. He drove us to Jolly Beach for $5 each.

It is hard to describe the experience of walking out onto Jolly Beach. The first thing I noticed was the color of the water. Where the sun was shining the water almost glowed. It was an iridescent turquoise color that I’ve never seen before. The deeper waters were a much darker blue, and the contrast was striking. It was one of those “wow” moments just seeing the water.

When we reached the beach we felt smooth, white sand under our bare feet. The sand was unbelievably soft, like walking on butter almost. We set up chairs and umbrellas and enjoyed the beach. Manina and I took pictures, went for a walk, and watched the jet-skis and sailboats cruise around the bay. I swam for a bit too, but I could have used more time on Jolly Beach. It was a little piece of heaven.

I don’t think anyone was in a hurry to leave that beach, but we were all looking forward to our afternoon excursion with WCT Antigua and their “Reef Riders” (just little two-man dingys with a 25hp outboard). We walked a short distance from the beach and met Jan, a nice lady from England who gave us a quick safety briefing and introduced us to our guides who would be leading us out and giving us a couple easy instructions.

We threw our gear into the reef riders and cruised out of Jolly Harbour. When we got to open water, we opened them up and cruised along at a pretty good clip. The little boats beat us up pretty good, but it was cool cruising along the coast of Antigua. We followed our guides to a reef where they had us come in single-file because the reef was dangerously close to surface of the water. We tied up to the guide boat, got out our snorkel gear and jumped in.

The guides had us go check out a shipwreck, which was pretty cool, but we spent more time exploring the reef looking for cool creatures. We saw lobsters, lots of different kinds of fish, a turtle, and one of our group even saw a shark. It was good snorkeling, but my snorkel gear wasn’t very good, and a leaky mask makes snorkeling much less fun.

We got back on the boats and went to a small site where we could do a bit of cliff jumping. Everybody got their GoPro cameras and we messed around for a bit trying to get some good shots.

Manina captained the reef rider on the way back as we headed toward Jolly Harbour. I spotted two pelicans diving after some fish. We pointed out some houses along the hillsides that we’d like to purchase. We’d fallen in love with Antigua. We eventually made our way back to Jolly Harbour and then back to the capital city of St. John’s where the Jewel of the Seas was docked.

Our group had a few problems during this leg of our journey: the Bergerons misplaced their new GoPro camera (it wasn’t recovered), and the Denneys bought something at a store which only gave change in Eastern Caribbean dollars (which would be useless on our next leg of the journey). But, even these setbacks didn’t make Antigua any less awesome. We boarded the boat and went back to the Windjammer cafe and ate a little snack (OK, it was more like a pre-dinner) as the boat departed St. John’s. We met before dinner to take some group pictures and enjoy the sunset.

The after-dinner entertainment plan looked like this:

• 8pm: 80’s music trivia contest
• 9pm: “West End to Broadway” singing and dancing spectacular !!!
• 10:15pm: The Love and Marriage game show (the Newlywed game with cruise ship folks)

None of these things held the slightest interest to me, but Manina wanted to stick with the group so we agreed to divide and conquer, and arranged to meet at 10:15 for the game show. I went back to the room to watch TV and do some laundry (yes, to me, even doing laundry is better than suffering through cruise ship entertainment). But I quickly grew bored with that so I put on my swimming trunks and went to find a hot tub instead.

In the hot tub I met a very nice young couple and chatted with them for a while. They were from Vermont and were a group of ten all on a company-sponsored trip they’d earned as a job-completion bonus. We talked about our Antigua experiences (they had taken a booze-cruise) and then started talking about our next port, Martinique. When they told me they tried to rent cars and were having all sort of problem getting something for their group, I started to get concerned about our plans for Martinique. We’d planned on renting a car (but we didn’t have one reserved) and driving quite some distance to hike les Gorges de la falaise, a scenic rain forest hike along a river bed. But if this couple and their corporate-sponsored group was having problems, what chance did we have?

I met Manina and the others for the game show, which Ben and Marianne got suckered into doing. They were good sports, but cruise director Dennis was at his cheesiest.

When we got back to our room, I told Manina about my concerns about Martinique. But, when trying to coordinate a meeting spot, she didn’t relay those concerns to the rest of the group. Unfortunately, that would lead to some logistical problems the next day.

 

Monday, February 3

We were roused from our solid slumber by room service bringing our eggs and fruit that we’d ordered the previous night. Waking to breakfast being delivered is something that I could really get used to.

We ate the breakfast quickly and went to work out. Manina and I did a high-intensity 7-minute workout as a warmup, and then she ran on the treadmill while I did some weights. We walked a couple laps around the outdoor walking track to cool down. It felt good to get the blood pumping after yesterday’s relaxing day on the beach in St. Thomas.

On our way to breakfast at the Windjammer Cafe, we walked by the basketball court and Manina challenged me to a game of PIG. I don’t lose often at PIG, but she killed me the first game, PIG to nothing. I asked for best out of three, but that didn’t help much because the second game was nearly as quick: P to PIG. I made up some lame excuse about having worked my arms too much lifting weights, but the truth is Manina was just on fire. She rarely missed a shot. Even though I got thoroughly trounced, it was a fun few minutes together.

The Forstners and Francises had a scuba dive excursion booked for the day, so the Denneys, Bergerons and we had a flexible schedule. As we walked off the pier and into Frederiksted we had a few options. We looked at renting bikes, but they were all booked up by cruise ship excursions. We looked at renting a car and driving to Christiansted, but nothing was available. So, we decided to walk down the beach and see what jumped out at us.

One of the first places we came to was the Freedom City Surf Shop. They offered Wi-Fi, chairs and drinks, and had a couple guys out on the water on Stand-Up Paddle (SUP) boards. We’d looked into doing this, but hadn’t found this one in our online research. We negotiated (maybe a little too aggressively) for an hour of SUP board time for about $20 each. Pi was a hard-core surfer and SUP enthusiast and gave us about 20 minutes of expert instruction.

Then we went out onto the water. The boards were surprisingly stable. We all quickly got comfortable on the boards and started paddling North toward Rainbow Beach. We had a lot of fun out on the water, taking lots of pictures and goofing around. I tried doing some SUP yoga. I pulled off a sweet side crow pose (that no one got a picture of), and managed to do a few other poses before ultimately losing my balance and splashing into the water.

We continued paddling, looking down into the clear waters. A sting ray swam underneath me. The water was smooth and clear, it was a perfect paddling session. Several people along the beach waved me down, asking if it was easy and where they could come rent it.

But, after traveling some distance, we started getting tired, and I wished we hadn’t worked out quite so hard in the morning. Paddling was enough of an workout itself. On the way back, I pulled up alongside Manina and asked her how she was doing. I offered to tug her home for a while. I took off my ankle leash, threw it to her, and made her lay down on her board while I paddled her back to the start. She objected at first, but soon relaxed and enjoyed the ride. It was another nice few moments to steal away together.

When we got back, Pi was waiting for us and took some pictures of all of us holding our boards.

After our paddleboard adventure we rented a couple beach chairs for an hour and Manina sipped on a Diet Coke while we sat and figured out what to do next. The chair rental guy was a likeable chap from Seattle who worked in Alaska on a boat in the summers, then beach bummed with his girlfriend in St. Croix all winter. After an hour, he came and harassed us about our chairs, and gave us a couple recommendations on what to do next.

We walked back into town to see if there were bikes available (nope, another cruise excursion), but ended up getting a ride from Matthew the taxi driver down to the Sand Castle on the Beach resort for $4 each.

At the resort, we could rent chairs and umbrellas for $20 a person. Instead of doing that, we decided to investigate the beach-side cafe. We ordered a smoothie and a beach burger with pulled pork as a topping and shared it. We had all gotten a little tired after paddling all morning, so we needed the calories.

We spent about $25, but were able to sit in the shade of the cafe for several hours eating good food, and alternating some time heading out into the water for a swim. Much better than dropping $40 on chairs and an umbrella and no food.

Matthew picked us up and brought us back to the ship by 4:30pm. It was formal night on the ship, so everyone took time getting ready and I must say we were a pretty good-looking crew. Mostly it was the ladies, but us guys weren’t looking too shabby either.

After-dinner entertainment was headlined by a guy named El Goucho. We got to the 9pm event early so we could sit right in the front row, but not by my choice. When it started, annoying cruise director Dennis eventually yielded the spotlight to El Goucho, who was a pretty talented guy in his first 10 minutes. However, sitting right up front was way too loud for me.

Our next event was a “Battle of the Sexes” game show at 10:15pm. Several from our group played and the girls won, of course. But, things did get pretty interesting. Our group was very good at the sing-a-song game, but a few nursery songs and LDS hymns got thrown out there. Then, Manina tried to tackle Brett Denney during a stuff-as-many-balloons-as-possible-into-a-shirt game, but other than those embarrassing moments everyone had a good time.

We retired to our room following the game show, and I spent some time writing down the happenings of the day while Manina read her book.

Sunday, February 2

After a great day in Puerto Rico, we woke up excited to head to St. Thomas. Ben Forstner had rented a couple cars for us so he, Manina, and I took off early on foot to go get the cars. After completing the paperwork we walked back to the ship and met up with the Denneys and Bergerons who would be riding with Manina and me in the minivan.

The six of us decided to try to make it to church at the St. Thomas branch, which started at 10am. Mike Bergeron navigated and we got to church a few minutes before the service started. We were a little under dressed since we were planning on meeting up with the Forstners and Francises after sacrament meeting, but we were made to feel welcome.

Seeing a small branch reminded me a lot of my mission, but there were some obvious stalwarts there. It was a fast and testimony meeting, so it was fun to hear from the local members. A few visitors also contributed, but one in particular drove me nuts. He mentioned several times how quaint and humble the St. Thomas branch was, and mentioned the size of the stake centers back home. I’m sure he meant well, but it’s those kinds of Utah Mormons that drive me nuts.

The Utah Mormon kept going on and on about the “humble circumstances” of the St. Thomas members, but instead of jabbing a thumb into my left eye, I decided to distract myself by playing with a young boy who had started being a little rambunctious for his mom. He was captivated by my iPhone. I showed him how to play the matching game, but he didn’t quite get it. He kept saying, “perro” (dog in Spanish) and tapping the card with the dog.

When I showed him how my phone could take pictures too (by snapping this photo of him), he put down his backpack, took my iPhone to his chair by his mom, sat down and hugged it to his chest. He was keeping it. I grabbed his backpack and sippy cup and hugged it to my chest and he seemed to understand that if he was keeping the iPhone, I was going to keep his stuff. He quickly thought his sippy cup was more important, so he came back over and we worked out a trade. And much to my relief, because that trade would not have been in my favor.

When we left church, Ben had left me a text to come find them at Coki beach. So, we got in the minivan and I drove us there. In St. Thomas they drive on the left-hand side of the road, but the car setup is American rather than British. So, it was a little confusing. But, we make it to Coki beach without incident.

We rented a chair and some snorkel gear and set ourselves up for the next few hours to chill at the beach.

I grabbed the GoPro camera I borrowed from my dad (thanks, Pops!) and went out to snorkel. After a while Manina came out to join me and look at some fish and coral. Back on the beach, we ordered some smoothies and food, Manina read, and I went out to swim and snorkel some more. Coki beach was a very cool spot; definitely worth it.

Mid-afternoon we packed up into the cars and went to find Drake’s Seat. We stopped at Walgreens to get Manina some hair spray on the way over, and eventually found a nice overlook where we took some photos. We had a few navigational issues, and I don’t think we stopped at the actual location known as Drake’s Seat, but it was a pretty view nonetheless.

When we got back on board the Jewel of the Seas, we got ready for dinner. I managed to talk Manina into coming out on deck with me to watch some of the sunset and take a couple pictures. Our dinner time started at 6:00pm and sunset was at about 6:15pm, so we were a little late. Manina doesn’t like being late, nor does she like what the humidity and wind do to her hairdo, so it was a small miracle I talked her into joining me. However, we got some good shots out of it.

We enjoyed ourselves at dinner. We started a tradition of ordering two starters, two main courses, and two desserts — the triple-double! But, we didn’t drink sodas or have any rolls or breads, so it wasn’t like we were totally gorging ourselves.

 

That night was the Super Bowl, so after dinner the on-board activities all centered around the game. We walked to the front of the ship with the Denneys and the Bergerons and chatted for a bit before trying to find everyone else. When we joined everyone else for the game, it was pretty much over already. The Seahawks blew out the Broncos; it wasn’t ever close. So, we sat around and talked and Manina left with some of the girls to go grab a hot chocolate and shop around. We called it a night.

I’m not a fan of travelogues, but I don’t write this blog for the benefit of the world. MightyJohnsons.com is a small, intimate, family-centered blog, mainly to record and journal our own memories. I love that family and close friends also read it, but the next several posts are mainly for me to look back upon and remember fondly rather than to brag about all the cool places we’ve been. You’ve been warned. If you read my previous post, you know that our vacation ended on a bad note. So, let me explain how it all began.

We’ve been looking forward to this vacation for more than a year. We planned it with some of our closest friends and neighbors, and were excited that most of them came along. We did, however, miss out on several others who just couldn’t make it work.

For months leading up to this we would have “Cruise Planning Meetings” and discuss details of the trip. We practiced Eating Clean with our neighbors in hopes of being more comfortable in our swimming suits. Manina started a cruise planning custom Voxer group, and the girls even had another private group to discuss good deals on new outfits, coordinate hair and nail appointments, plan dresses for each night of the cruise, and heaven knows what else. Preparing for the cruise dominated this winter season. To say that we were super-crazy-excited for this trip is a huge understatement.

Friday, January 31

We left home at about 8:00pm. Grandma Jan came down to hang out with our kids for a week. What a brave soul. Even though we were excited to be on our way, it was hard leaving the kids. There were a few tears, but we knew they were in good hands.

We met all of our friends at the airport. Brett and Kristy Denney were going on their first “real” vacation and were almost giddy. Mike and Penny Bergeron had done lots of cruises before, but seemed excited about our itinerary. Both Tony and Emily Francis and Ben and Marianne Forstner knew what they were in for, having joined us on our 2012 cruise along with the Rowberrys. An intrepid group of ten, we set out on our vacation.

The first leg of our flight took us to Charlotte, North Carolina. I don’t sleep well on flights, so I was pretty tired when we landed in Charlotte and waited a few hours for our next flight to San Juan. I tried to get some sleep, but airport floors aren’t very comfortable.

Saturday, February 1

When our flight landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico we got our bags, the girls went and changed out of their pajamas and into their first cute outfits of the trip. When we walked out of the airport doors to get a taxi to the cruise port, I could immediately feel the heat and humidity. It felt great.

The check-in process was extremely easy. We didn’t have to wait in line much at all, and Royal Caribbean made the whole process easy. It went so fast that we had plenty of time to board our home for the next week, the Jewel of the Seas, eat a quick meal, and then have a few hours to go explore San Juan.

We took a taxi to Castillo de San Cristóbal, part of the San Juan National Historic site and started looking around. We goofed around, took a lot of pictures, and started walking the streets of Old San Juan.

When we got to the giant park at Castillo San Felipe del Morro we found a great place to chill. Manina and I sat on the steps overlooking the park, just watching the people and kites while some of the other couples went out to explore El Morro or some old graveyards they had seen.

When we all regrouped, we walked the cobbled streets of Old San Juan. We walked by an old cathedral where a wedding was finishing up, and fun music was playing. We tucked into souvenir shops, purchased street food, and bummed around the city for a few hours. We found a guy harvesting mangoes from a tree and had a few bites. Then, it was time to head back to the ship.

Back aboard the Jewel of the Seas, we unpacked a little bit, rested for a few minutes, and then headed up to our first of many dinners together. We met our wait staff, Lilibeth and Alexis, and enjoyed our first meal together.

After dinner, the group wanted to attend the All-Aboard Show. Our cruise director was over-the-top cheesy (even for a cruise director). I’m not usually a fan of cruise-ship entertainment anyway, and this guy made me cringe at the thought of suffering through future events.

We escaped the All-Aboard show and decided to explore the ship and find some hot tubs. We joined a really nice couple from Charlotte in the hot tubs and started chatting all together. We found out they were fellow Mormons, but were struggling with their faith a little bit. But, when they started talking about their son who recently returned from a mission, they couldn’t stop talking.

After our full day traveling and then exploring San Juan we were very tired, so we retired to our rooms and planned to meet in the morning.