I couldn’t figure out my photo issue that I mentioned in yesterday’s post so I’m just going to have to omit some photos I was going to share. It’s still a super heavy photo post so don’t even try it if you’ve got a weak signal.
I thought I would try to cram all of our ports into this post and then do one final post about the ship itself. This post will mostly be pictures because we didn’t do any excursions or anything, just walked around each port for a little bit and then went back to the ship.
Originally, we were supposed to stop in Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten but with Hurricane Nicole coming in right behind Matthew, our itinerary was changed a bit and we ended up going to St. Maarten, Puerto Rico, and Haiti.
St. Maarten:
Oh man, St. Maarten. This place is so freakin’ pretty. We spent most of the day on the boat but we did get off long enough to walk around a little bit and pick up a couple of souvenirs. I’ve never been to any beach that’s not in South Carolina, Georgia, or Florida so I could not get over how blue the water was or how soft the sand was.
San Juan, Puerto Rico:
We spent a little more time off the boat in San Juan but still all we did was walk around which was just fine with me. It was also our 4th wedding anniversary so doing nothing in Puerto Rico was a lot more exciting than doing anything back home. We walked up to Castillo San Cristobal which was really neat and the views were gorgeous. We saw a ton of crab, lizards, and an iguana. We also saw approximately a billion cats. In fact, I’m pretty sure between the Puerto Rico cats and the St. Maarten cat I can print a “Cats of the Caribbean” calendar.
Labadee, Haiti:
Labadee is Royal Caribbean’s privately owned area of Haiti and it was probably the prettiest port we went to. It felt a little odd to be vacationing in Haiti just a week after so many people lost their lives and their homes there and I still feel kind of weird about it. It felt kind of wrong, I guess? That aside, it was my favorite port and I’m not even that much of a beach person. The beaches were super gorgeous and the artisan market had a ton of beautifully made items. We ended up buying a few different pieces including a stone bowl that looks like a leaf (maybe my favorite souvenir ever), a wooden pineapple, and a couple of bottles of rum. I even got in the water here which anyone who knows me knows is huge. Sharks are in the ocean which means I am not but the water was so pretty so I chanced it for 5 minutes and got in maybe up to my waist.
Ft. Lauderdale:
We stayed an extra night in Ft. Lauderdale so that we wouldn’t have to worry about rushing to the airport or flying out with the thousands of other cruisers disembarking that day. Flying is stressful enough without dealing with a bunch of other people not ready to go back to their normal lives.
We stayed at the Atlantic which was basically right on the beach and it was gorgeous. We had a partial ocean view from our room and the room itself had one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in. We dropped our stuff at the front desk since it was too early to check-in and then we grabbed lunch at a place called Kisses from Italy which was insanely good. After lunch we walked along the beach back to the hotel and then hung out by the pool for a couple of hours until our room was ready. We spent the rest of the day napping and watching football only leaving the room to walk down to grab a very exotic dinner from this great local place called Subway.
The next day we grabbed a cab to the airport, only stressed slightly when our flight got delayed and then changed to a different plane all together, and drove home from Atlanta with relatively little incident.
Next week I’ll post about the ship!
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