The short version

[moonwise]

Cruise was very fun. We were supposed to visit St. Thomas, St. Maarten, San Juan, and Haiti, but thanks to Tropical Storm Chris, we were diverted after St. Maarten and went to Nassau, Bahamas instead. I was very disappointed to miss the last two ports, but whatcha gonna do. Five days at sea is way, way too many, though I do have a very nice tan now.

We got our most basic cert for scuba diving, w00t. Pity we didn't get into the Bahamas a tich earlier, b/c the staff had offered to complete our Open Water cert if the opportunity arose. Scuba is much fun and we are definitely going to do it again - we're already considering another cruise that hits better scuba areas like Cozumel and Belize. Sadly, we had our open water dive in St. Maarten, and the dive site there wasn't as good as the snorkeling site we went to in St. Thomas, where we saw a lot more fish and green sea turtles.

Shopping in St. Maarten rox0rs if you are a jewelry h0r like me. Got a pair of very nice tanzanite earrings for a rockbottom price, plus a full set of fire opals. My SIL and I bought liquor for prices that would make you cry - $11 for a liter of Tanqueray, $7 for a bottle of Malibu rum. We also bought some of the local poison, Guavaberry liqueur, since you can't get it in the States and it did make a nice colada.

Best drink of the trip: Frozen Banana Bailey's Colada (aka BBC.) Just sit me in the sun and bring me these all day long, and I will be happy.

Boat was huuuuuuuumungous, lots of places to go and see, but the flip side is that there were a LOT of people, and a startling number of the morbidly obese. The ship's pools resembled photos I've seen of public pools in Tokyo at about 1 PM on a hot day. We tended to take the water either early in the morning or at about 5 PM, when people seemed to wander off to get washed up for dinner.

We had the late seating at 8:30, which I would not do again. We were usually so deep in a food coma by the time we left (and our waiter Ismet kept bringing us extra food) that we rarely did much besides go to bed. The people at our table were very nice; there was a pair of honeymooners from Barcelona, Spain, and another pair from Delaware.

Our stateroom was very spacious. The Q's treated us to a balcony, which was nice for drinking champagne at sunset and for drying bathing suits and wet clothing at the end of the day. One cute touch was the appearance of towel animals on the bed when the attendant came to turn down the bed for the night - we got a stingray, a dog, a bunny, a monkey, and a manta ray. I learned to fold some of them on our last day.

Getting off the boat was relatively painless, though we had a short tussle with some of the customs staff (to sum it up, people are stupid, and stupid people like quoting rules at you just to see you try to deal with an impossible situation, like that you obviously cannot lift all the bags at your feet when your husband has just crossed the Line of No Return to find your SIL, and then you are told you can't leave your bags there, and you can't lift them all, and you can't leave your bags unattended to find a porter, but your husband Is Not Allowed to walk back ten feet to help you. Thankfully, one of the staff had a brain and escorted my husband back over No Man's Land to help me with the goddamned bags, and now we have learned a lesson.) We were home by 11 AM, and husband had two F1 races to watch, and soon we will go out for Japanese.

Looking forward to all the Otakon reports.

Comments

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Scuba diving really is fantastic - glad you enjoyed it and plan to do more. One of these holidays we must do our 3-day advanced diving course. Sorry about the storm - that must have been a bit of a bummer all round :-( But overall, it sounds like you had a good break!

[arafel.livejournal.com]

3-day advanced diving? What level does that get you? You should come with us if we cruise to the good dive sites; it would be a blast and the guys could talk about cars! XD

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

If you're following the PADI system, it's the next step after Open Water basic qualification. It includes deep diving, that qualifies you up to 30m, and you have a choice of other sections you can include, such as underwater photography.

The guys can talk about cars? Why can't I?!

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

Welcome back!

What? No visit to the voodoo priestess on Haiti??? :) Bahamas sounds mighty great too!

The trip sounds great and with some good underwater adventure! Scuba diving certificate, congratulations!

The food sounds scrumptious and the bath towel manta ray sounds cool! I dreamed of manta rays the other day. Now that would have been something to dive with.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I was SO disappointed that I couldn't go looking for something neat for you in Haiti! We were so busy with the scuba course that I didn't get a chance to do a lot of shopping before the damned hurricane came along, and there wasn't anything interesting to buy in the Bahamas besides tourist crap like keychains and t-shirts (and jewelry that we could get for less in St. Maarten.)

We did see a huge manta ray in the aquarium at Atlantis, which is an enormous hotel in the Bahamas. We also saw a 3-4 foot long southern stingray while scuba diving, and our divemaster petted its fin. Apparently they're quite friendly if you don't touch their heads or tails, and they like to be fed and have their bellies rubbed.

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

:) No problem, of course! Just too bad you didn't get to see Haiti or something equally interesting.

Cool to hear that you got a jewelry bargain at St Maarten. I don't think I would have had the presence of mind to compare the prices.

The stingray must have looked cool from under water!

You didn't get a lot of pain in the ears when equalizing the pressure under water?

[arafel.livejournal.com]

When you equalize your ears under water, you relieve the pain, just like you do in an airplane. It's the same idea, it's just that you have to pop your ears every couple meters under water instead of every few tens of meters in an airplane. You know very quickly if you're incapable of equalizing your ears, and then you abort your dive for the day. The risk with not being able to equalize your ears in an airplane is that you can't tell the pilot to stop ascending! XD

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

Right!

For some reason I can always equalize in the air, because the difference in air pressure isn't that great. But in water, I usually have big problems.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I was worried about that too, but it turned out not to be a big deal. Have you tried scuba and found the pressure to be a problem?

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

Just free diving, holding the breath and trying to equalize is a pain, literally.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Absolutely it hurts, and half your concentration is on holding your breath anyway, not on pinching your nose and blowing! :)

Free divers are craaaaaaazy, it's astonishing how long they can hold their breath. Have you ever seen The Big Blue?

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

I guess it is easier to equalize when you can draw your breath and don't need to worry about swallowing water.

I have seen the Big Blue and the version with the craaaazy ending. :) and I loved it.

I love the idea of free diving like that, it's amazing, but yeah, deeply crazy. Although I sometimes wish I could have done it myself.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I did take photos of the towel animals - I'll try to post them this week once I can get them cropped etc. :D

[arafel.livejournal.com]

It's a good time, but it can get expensive. We racked up quite a few purchases on the boat, and you can get quite a bar bill if you're not paying attention.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

Sounds fabulous! Glad y'all had a good time :)