Well....
ON St Thomas "I" want to hop a taxi to catch a ferry to St John... where I'll rent a center counsel boat to motor around St John to isolated beaches for a picnic... plus see the island from the unusal vantage point from the water. The boats are 6-10 person depending on size and half day rate runs only about $75 versus $140 for a full day. I saw a thread with great links on this last year - but I was not feeling so hot on last septembers' Magic cruise when we were in St Thomas... so I stayed aboard to look after our two ailing kids. We all had some sort of wierd delibiltating eye discomfort. Alicia went ashore alone to power shop for a few hours. She's pretty good at that (power shopping) and we'd been to St thomas maybe 5 or 6 times so she knew her way around. She is amazin at sorting through the deals... and uncovering good finds... my only problem was that I was her porter when we had no actual porters... so my back and our stuffed luggage sufferred.
On St Martin we're just gonna try to hit the butterfly farm and the public beach by Coral World. Maybe we'll even go into coral world if it looks worth while from the outside. Last year we rented a van and split it with another family. We ended up just wandering completely around the island... so this tiime we'll be a little more direct about where we'll go I think... but in the end we could just switch verything aroufd for objectives as we get into our rental car/van.
In Castaway Caye we'll just relax at length. Play in the sand, relax in the shade, swim and eat. No odd adventures planned.
So... it's pretty obvious we will not be needing the
DCL shore services. We pretty much might do ANYTHING if we discover something hot and unusal on the DIS or the other cruise forums I lurk through. Frankly, I am game for anything that can be done with an almost 3 and 5.5 year old in tow. As such my kids are pretty tolerant of adventure... but NOT excessive HEAT. As in the mexican or tropical cruises/vacations. Eastern Carib and Hawaii have been the ideal environments to play in for us.
Ginger.... I thought your questions were pretty good (constructive).... thanks for the Q
SO.... as for MY next question... How about something other then a cruise related thing ... (part 1) like... HOW many people were at your last wedding reception? Part 2... where did you have the reception? And for part 3.... How many grooms and maids (is that what they are called) did you have?
My answer.... We had 2 receptions... one in California at a golf country club with about 120 people and the 2nd reception was in Hawaii at a Chinese Restuarant with about 130. And if you think that's of any interest... consider this... my brother in law (Alicia's brother) had two receptions... one in Hawaii with approximately 135 and another reception in Bangkok Thailand with well in excess of 1500... if not 2000! He married the daughter of a government minister.... and these folks were pretty well connected obviously. They had a TOUR BUS load of guests from Thailand wheel up to the church in Hawaii (Sacred Heart) - and for their travel to the wedding they obviously all spent more than what the average Thai makes in a YEAR (for their trip?). Half were going on from Hawaii to visit Las Vegas while the other half were organized into a group visiting Tokyo. Really huge dollar visits by Thai standards.
Oh well.... contract that against Alicia's sister who almost did NOT have a fromal reception at all. Well... actually they had just a small dinner for immediate family (about 15-20 of us) after the service at the same place Bill Gates ot married at ... but then I think they gave in to some complaints from the expanded family about the lack of a reception ... so they threw together a reception in a hand full of days for maybe 100 or so. It was very very abrupt yet tolerably nice considering how quickly it was created. I got to be their MC and I did not humiliate them contrary to their probable fears.

Well... actually here was that instance when I....
Oh yeah... we had 4 groomsmen and 4 maids. No ring bearing toddler... or maybe we did have one... I better go check my wedding photos... LOL!

If Alicia were here she would give me the traditional nastly look and slap or poke me in the side for not remembering this better. As if SHE could answer... and she probably could.
OK.... So ... step right up and share a little of your wedding stories... or what ever seems applicable!