Cast: Me (40), DH (47), DD (12 1/2), and DS (11 1/2), 3rd DCL cruise
Today was St. Martin day. After two sea days, I was ready to touch land again.
Another early wake up for me, but I skipped the morning walk. We had physical excursions booked for most of our ports, so if we were exercising during the day, I skipped the morning walk. I went up to the top decks to take some pictures of St. Martin. It was so beautiful! Lots of green everywhere, and the water was so pretty. We were booked on the afternoon shipwreck cove snorkling excursion, and since it said "all transportation included", I stopped by the excursion desk to see if that included the water taxi. It turned out that our excursion left right outside the ship, so we didn't use the water taxi. Info in hand, I gathered up DH and DD (DS wanted to stay in the lab), and we headed off to find the local Del Sol. DD wanted some color changing nail polish, and I assumed it would be cheaper in one of the islands than it had been on Key West. I was also looking for a couple of Christmas gifts for people back home, as well as my door magnet (my Key West one had disappeared overnight, but I had fond hopes that it might reappear).
A short walk to the water taxi, and $15 later we had our lovely arm bands and were headed across the beautiful harbor, with me snapping pictures right and left! We got off at the 2nd stop, since most of the crowd got off at the first stop, and from the map, it appeared that the 2nd stop was just at the end of the main drag from the 1st stop. I'll caveat this part with a warning: I am NOT a shopper. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in a mall this year, and they've all been while I've been on business travel looking for kid's presents. When I do shop, I'm the queen of commando. I know what I want, if the store doesn't have it, I'm out of there.
We headed down the shopping street, dodging many requests of "braid your hair pretty lady? Or your beautiful little girls?", and found a typical souvenier store. DD had 2 friends to buy for, so she found a 3 for $10 rack of lava rock necklaces, and picked out 3 in a few minutes. She then decided she wanted a tropical sarong thingie, and they were something like $8.50 apiece or 2 for $15. So I got one for me, and her total bill was $17.50 out of her allowance money. I grabbed a magnet, DH got a baseball hat, and we were off. DD had seen a sign from the water taxi that said something about pirates, so she and DH went looking for it so she could get something for pirate night. I ran into one of the million linen shops and bought 2 sets of Christmas placements and napkins for my presents back home. Back to the others to find out that the pirate place was a bar. Continued through the road construction back toward the first water taxi stop. We found del sol, and the nail polish was $8 or $9, same as it had been in Key West. DD thought that was more than she was willing to take out of her allowance money, so I bought it for her (DS got an arcade card when we got back to balance the books
). Then to the taxi stop and back on the ship. Total time elapsed? About an hour. Told you I'm a commando! Our excursion was meeting at 1:00, so we found DS and went looking for lunch. I know we had to wait for Topsiders to open at 11:45. WVMD (Virgil) and his family were eating lunch near us, and I heard about their neat morning excursion that they shared with Tom MacAlpin (VP of DCL) and his family.
We headed down to Rockin Bar D for our excursion meeting, and ran into a lot of DISers there! Mark and Mary, Paul and Pam, and Stacey (kpros wife) and their DD were on our excursion too! DJ Pike was our staff guy, and he and my DD (who prefers her nickname of Kit to her real name of Kaylie) started cutting up. He was reading off the list of standard disclaimers, and the word "boat" was said about 20 times in the first paragraph. Somehow, the subject of what Nemo calls a boat came up (the answer is "butt", and so "butt" it was. Pike kept laughing, and saying "I'm SOOO getting fired for this!" Pike gave DD the chip and dale sign to follow, and said "Kit and her family, come on up and lead us off the ship." Mary immediately said "The whole family? That's all of us too!" Pike quickly clarified that it was only the people with the same KTTW card as Kit!
Off to the "butt" we all went. We were joined by some people from another cruise ship, and there were probably 100 people on board the double decker boat. It was a short ride to the snorkle site (maybe 20 minutes), and we all had to get our snorkle gear on the way, so it seemed shorter. They told us that there were 3 wrecks, and they would be feeding the fish with each group. We had about 1 1/2 hours at the snorkling site. Some people were doing SNUBA too, but I don't know how they arranged for it, since it wasn't part of the DCL excursion list.
Our family had done a snorkle excursion on our first cruise, and DS got freaked out right away, and refused to even get in the water that time. One of our DISers (Kevin, tinksdad) had tried to set up a snorkle instruction time while we were at sea, but the staff wouldn't allow snorkles in the pool, and it was always crazy there anyway. DS said he'd be fine, so we were just hoping it would go okay. DD had done great our first cruise, so we weren't worried about her. At the wreck site, we asked DS which parent he wanted to go with, and he picked me. We made our way to the ramp, and slid in and paddled to the first wreck which was right by the boat. DS was doing great. As we followed the guide toward the 2nd wreck, I told DS to hold onto the strap from my vest so we didn't get separated while swimming. About 50 feet later, I felt this hard tug on the strap. He said "I'm scared Mom". Wouldn't tell my why because he said I'd just laugh at him. A few minutes of talking about it, and he still wasn't moving, so we went back to the ramp. DH was there, and he said that DD wouldn't stay in the water either. I went to talk to her, and DH talked to DS. Eventually DS decided he wanted to go back in, but with his snorkle, not the one they gave us. He wanted DH this time, so off they went. DD was busy watching the kids jump off the top of the boat into the water, and couldn't be convinced to head back in. DH and DS stayed out about 30 minutes, and when DH came back, DS wanted to stay, so he snorkled near the boat by himself for another 10 minutes or so. The crew called everyone back in to the boat, and off we went. Now that the snorkling was over, they broke out the "free" rum punch. They had coolers with water and lemonade available the whole time, and they sold sodas and candy bars as well. That rum punch was strong stuff. I got a glass of it, and nursed it for probably 1/2 an hour! We took a water tour of the island, and the crew was mingling with us while they played some island music. It was a really pleasant afternoon, but I was worried that we were going to be late for the DIS ornament exchange, which was scheduled for 4:15.
We made it back onboard the Magic about 4 oclock, and DD and I got a quick shower, grabbed our ornaments (we had 3, but DS didn't want to go, so I just had 2 numbers) and ran up to the promenade lounge. Mary did a great job of describing the ornament swap, so I won't try. I will say that I was eyeing the spinning Mickey ornament that Lisa (scuba families DD) had and clearly loved. DS had seen the light up toys at illuminations that were like that ornament, and he really liked them. Just before my 2nd number was called, Stace had to pick, and she stole the spinning light up one from little Lisa (must have been the evil twin Lisa that day)! So when my number was called, it was fair game, so I swiped it from Stace. Luckily for the real Lisa, her Mom's number came up next, so she got her ornament back. Our family ended up with two of the scuba families sand dollar ornaments, and a nice ceramic one with Mickey and Minnie ice skating. All were relatively small, and thanks to the Scuba's excellent use of bubble wrap and gladware, they packed pretty well too!
After the ornament fun, we were ready for the show that evening, which was the full performance of rhythm extreme. Remember that DH and I had done their workshop the day before, but they had 3 more members who had joined us in St. Martin. DS had an attitude and didn't want to go to the show. He and I sat up in the top part of the theater, and I told him that if he didn't like it after 1/2 an hour, he could leave. Of course, he loved it once it started. The group did a really great job, and DD was picked to be one of the audience participants. Again, there was no family cabaret show that night, and I think we ended up watching tv in the cabin until dinner. Both kids joined us, and since they were playing cartoons on the screen in Animator's Pallate, they stayed for most of dinner. The captain had announced that tomorrow they were going to try to have the ship just off the coast of St. Lucia so our sunrise would be over the Pitons (the islands beautiful mountains). They had also arranged for a rendevous with a pirate ship from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.
The kids headed off for something after dinner, and DH and I went to the Taylor Mason adult cabaret show. We were joined by Charlotte (glenelgmom) and her DH, and I think Therese (all-ears) and her DH and DS were there that night too. It was a really funny show. Continuing the trend for brushes with celebrity, Charlotte realized that she had gone to college with Taylor Mason. She told me that even then he wanted to be a comedian, but they never thought he'd make it. They made plans to get together with their families later in the cruise. Not sure if it happened or not. After the comedian, we headed off to bed.
Up tomorrow, St. Lucia. DD asked me to wake her up for the pirate ship encounter.
Today was St. Martin day. After two sea days, I was ready to touch land again.
Another early wake up for me, but I skipped the morning walk. We had physical excursions booked for most of our ports, so if we were exercising during the day, I skipped the morning walk. I went up to the top decks to take some pictures of St. Martin. It was so beautiful! Lots of green everywhere, and the water was so pretty. We were booked on the afternoon shipwreck cove snorkling excursion, and since it said "all transportation included", I stopped by the excursion desk to see if that included the water taxi. It turned out that our excursion left right outside the ship, so we didn't use the water taxi. Info in hand, I gathered up DH and DD (DS wanted to stay in the lab), and we headed off to find the local Del Sol. DD wanted some color changing nail polish, and I assumed it would be cheaper in one of the islands than it had been on Key West. I was also looking for a couple of Christmas gifts for people back home, as well as my door magnet (my Key West one had disappeared overnight, but I had fond hopes that it might reappear).
A short walk to the water taxi, and $15 later we had our lovely arm bands and were headed across the beautiful harbor, with me snapping pictures right and left! We got off at the 2nd stop, since most of the crowd got off at the first stop, and from the map, it appeared that the 2nd stop was just at the end of the main drag from the 1st stop. I'll caveat this part with a warning: I am NOT a shopper. I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in a mall this year, and they've all been while I've been on business travel looking for kid's presents. When I do shop, I'm the queen of commando. I know what I want, if the store doesn't have it, I'm out of there.
We headed down the shopping street, dodging many requests of "braid your hair pretty lady? Or your beautiful little girls?", and found a typical souvenier store. DD had 2 friends to buy for, so she found a 3 for $10 rack of lava rock necklaces, and picked out 3 in a few minutes. She then decided she wanted a tropical sarong thingie, and they were something like $8.50 apiece or 2 for $15. So I got one for me, and her total bill was $17.50 out of her allowance money. I grabbed a magnet, DH got a baseball hat, and we were off. DD had seen a sign from the water taxi that said something about pirates, so she and DH went looking for it so she could get something for pirate night. I ran into one of the million linen shops and bought 2 sets of Christmas placements and napkins for my presents back home. Back to the others to find out that the pirate place was a bar. Continued through the road construction back toward the first water taxi stop. We found del sol, and the nail polish was $8 or $9, same as it had been in Key West. DD thought that was more than she was willing to take out of her allowance money, so I bought it for her (DS got an arcade card when we got back to balance the books
). Then to the taxi stop and back on the ship. Total time elapsed? About an hour. Told you I'm a commando! Our excursion was meeting at 1:00, so we found DS and went looking for lunch. I know we had to wait for Topsiders to open at 11:45. WVMD (Virgil) and his family were eating lunch near us, and I heard about their neat morning excursion that they shared with Tom MacAlpin (VP of DCL) and his family.We headed down to Rockin Bar D for our excursion meeting, and ran into a lot of DISers there! Mark and Mary, Paul and Pam, and Stacey (kpros wife) and their DD were on our excursion too! DJ Pike was our staff guy, and he and my DD (who prefers her nickname of Kit to her real name of Kaylie) started cutting up. He was reading off the list of standard disclaimers, and the word "boat" was said about 20 times in the first paragraph. Somehow, the subject of what Nemo calls a boat came up (the answer is "butt", and so "butt" it was. Pike kept laughing, and saying "I'm SOOO getting fired for this!" Pike gave DD the chip and dale sign to follow, and said "Kit and her family, come on up and lead us off the ship." Mary immediately said "The whole family? That's all of us too!" Pike quickly clarified that it was only the people with the same KTTW card as Kit!
Off to the "butt" we all went. We were joined by some people from another cruise ship, and there were probably 100 people on board the double decker boat. It was a short ride to the snorkle site (maybe 20 minutes), and we all had to get our snorkle gear on the way, so it seemed shorter. They told us that there were 3 wrecks, and they would be feeding the fish with each group. We had about 1 1/2 hours at the snorkling site. Some people were doing SNUBA too, but I don't know how they arranged for it, since it wasn't part of the DCL excursion list.
Our family had done a snorkle excursion on our first cruise, and DS got freaked out right away, and refused to even get in the water that time. One of our DISers (Kevin, tinksdad) had tried to set up a snorkle instruction time while we were at sea, but the staff wouldn't allow snorkles in the pool, and it was always crazy there anyway. DS said he'd be fine, so we were just hoping it would go okay. DD had done great our first cruise, so we weren't worried about her. At the wreck site, we asked DS which parent he wanted to go with, and he picked me. We made our way to the ramp, and slid in and paddled to the first wreck which was right by the boat. DS was doing great. As we followed the guide toward the 2nd wreck, I told DS to hold onto the strap from my vest so we didn't get separated while swimming. About 50 feet later, I felt this hard tug on the strap. He said "I'm scared Mom". Wouldn't tell my why because he said I'd just laugh at him. A few minutes of talking about it, and he still wasn't moving, so we went back to the ramp. DH was there, and he said that DD wouldn't stay in the water either. I went to talk to her, and DH talked to DS. Eventually DS decided he wanted to go back in, but with his snorkle, not the one they gave us. He wanted DH this time, so off they went. DD was busy watching the kids jump off the top of the boat into the water, and couldn't be convinced to head back in. DH and DS stayed out about 30 minutes, and when DH came back, DS wanted to stay, so he snorkled near the boat by himself for another 10 minutes or so. The crew called everyone back in to the boat, and off we went. Now that the snorkling was over, they broke out the "free" rum punch. They had coolers with water and lemonade available the whole time, and they sold sodas and candy bars as well. That rum punch was strong stuff. I got a glass of it, and nursed it for probably 1/2 an hour! We took a water tour of the island, and the crew was mingling with us while they played some island music. It was a really pleasant afternoon, but I was worried that we were going to be late for the DIS ornament exchange, which was scheduled for 4:15.
We made it back onboard the Magic about 4 oclock, and DD and I got a quick shower, grabbed our ornaments (we had 3, but DS didn't want to go, so I just had 2 numbers) and ran up to the promenade lounge. Mary did a great job of describing the ornament swap, so I won't try. I will say that I was eyeing the spinning Mickey ornament that Lisa (scuba families DD) had and clearly loved. DS had seen the light up toys at illuminations that were like that ornament, and he really liked them. Just before my 2nd number was called, Stace had to pick, and she stole the spinning light up one from little Lisa (must have been the evil twin Lisa that day)! So when my number was called, it was fair game, so I swiped it from Stace. Luckily for the real Lisa, her Mom's number came up next, so she got her ornament back. Our family ended up with two of the scuba families sand dollar ornaments, and a nice ceramic one with Mickey and Minnie ice skating. All were relatively small, and thanks to the Scuba's excellent use of bubble wrap and gladware, they packed pretty well too!
After the ornament fun, we were ready for the show that evening, which was the full performance of rhythm extreme. Remember that DH and I had done their workshop the day before, but they had 3 more members who had joined us in St. Martin. DS had an attitude and didn't want to go to the show. He and I sat up in the top part of the theater, and I told him that if he didn't like it after 1/2 an hour, he could leave. Of course, he loved it once it started. The group did a really great job, and DD was picked to be one of the audience participants. Again, there was no family cabaret show that night, and I think we ended up watching tv in the cabin until dinner. Both kids joined us, and since they were playing cartoons on the screen in Animator's Pallate, they stayed for most of dinner. The captain had announced that tomorrow they were going to try to have the ship just off the coast of St. Lucia so our sunrise would be over the Pitons (the islands beautiful mountains). They had also arranged for a rendevous with a pirate ship from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.
The kids headed off for something after dinner, and DH and I went to the Taylor Mason adult cabaret show. We were joined by Charlotte (glenelgmom) and her DH, and I think Therese (all-ears) and her DH and DS were there that night too. It was a really funny show. Continuing the trend for brushes with celebrity, Charlotte realized that she had gone to college with Taylor Mason. She told me that even then he wanted to be a comedian, but they never thought he'd make it. They made plans to get together with their families later in the cruise. Not sure if it happened or not. After the comedian, we headed off to bed.
Up tomorrow, St. Lucia. DD asked me to wake her up for the pirate ship encounter.
