July 18 Tortola cruise part 3

[BomaGreg]

We just got back home (yay for living close to the ports!)... I'll share more stories and pictures later, but I just wanted to thank everyone here for all the fun we had with the FEs, meets, and bump-into's that we had throughout the entire cruise. It was absolutely the best Disney cruise we've ever had, and a good portion of that were the people we met from here!

Looking forward to hearing everyone's stories!!!

 

[BomaGreg]

I have something like 12 gigs of pictures, but here's a few random ones from the cruise for anyone interested!


From the first night's storm with Carnival's ship sailing alongside us. If you look real closely, there are cruisers in the dining room wishing they were eating on a Disney Cruise right then.

Nice little sunrise on our way to dock in Tortola!

A shot from the Lion King piece from the Golden Mickeys (if I remember correctly)

Taken in the morning on the beach at Tortola. It stayed this empty for about an hour, and at its busiest only had about twenty people, about half of which spent time oo'ing and ah'ing over the wall of fish and coral found to snorkel around.

...and this STILL makes me laugh.

 

[ibouncetoo]

Greg, which beach in Tortola was that?

LOVE the storm photo.

.

 

[BomaGreg]

Greg, which beach in Tortola was that?

LOVE the storm photo.

.

That's Brewer's Bay... The trip started off a little shaky because my first steps onto the beach were on a large pile of sand that turned out to be a present from the nearby cows buried a tiny bit under the blowing sands. It was already about 85 degrees, and I was wearing my brand new sneakers. The shoes ended up spending a day or two out on the veranda as soon as we got back...

But the snorkeling and beach was fantastic. The snorkeling was right along the left hand side of the beach, along a wall that harbored a massive number of fish and coral. And since nobody was around, we didn't have a problem with sand being kicked up, or getting kicked in the face by less-observing snorkelers.

I'll say this, though... I used to own a nice, inexpensive Olympus underwater camera that did a great job on our last cruise, and I'm still beating myself for not getting another one before this trip. Between Tortola and St. Johns (we ferried from St. Thomas), they were some of the best underwater views I've ever had. If you're a snorkeler, I HIGHLY recommend bringing along a waterproof camera!!!!!

And thanks! That's just one of the lightning pictures I was able to snag, and I'll put some more later after I've sorted through all the shots. Some of the other pictures I have include a quick driving tour that our taxi driver gave us at Tortola, including a trip to one of the highest points on the island, if you want to see them.

 

[ibouncetoo]

That's Brewer's Bay...

And thanks! That's just one of the lightning pictures I was able to snag, and I'll put some more later after I've sorted through all the shots. Some of the other pictures I have include a quick driving tour that our taxi driver gave us at Tortola, including a trip to one of the highest points on the island, if you want to see them.

please. I'll post a link to this thread over on the Sept Tortola thread, so we can hear/see all your stories/photos. OR.....are you going to do a trip report on that forum? Hmmmmmmmm????

.

 

[ibouncetoo]

Did anybody do the DOLPHIN excursion in Tortola?

Was the alge still a problem like it was in June? People were getting itching rashes from touching it and they couldn't stand back against the fence during the excursion.

Thanks!

 

[BomaGreg]

please. I'll post a link to this thread over on the Sept Tortola thread, so we can hear/see all your stories/photos. OR.....are you going to do a trip report on that forum? Hmmmmmmmm????

.

I dug out a few more for you in general. I'm not familiar enough with the board etiquette, here, to know about posting trip reports, so Marcy (my wife) might be better at it than me. But I'll look into it, and see what I can do!

Another shot of the storm...

And another...

And another...

A view of the Magic from the hills of Tortola...

A view from Sky World in Tortola (yes... it was overcast most of the day, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing)...

And a high view of Trunk Bay at St. John. Some of the best (and easiest) snorkeling I've ever done was here. And this is one of the few islands I've visited that I'd ever consider visiting for an extended amount of time.

Hopefully, when the forum clan gets back, we can organize some way to put up all our pictures in a nice, neat place.

 

[BomaGreg]

Did anybody do the DOLPHIN excursion in Tortola?

Was the alge still a problem like it was in June? People were getting itching rashes from touching it and they couldn't stand back against the fence during the excursion.

Thanks!

I'm not sure I've talked to anybody who went, so you might have to wait a day or two for a report. But if it makes you feel any better, I haven't heard of anybody who DID have a problem, and usually that's the sort of thing you hear on a cruise, eventually.

 

[jlawall]

Hey all.......we're home with mostly no problems.......Joann #2 did the dolphin discovery so when she's sees this question, she can answer it!

Jenny can share her fiasco on the way home today!!

My only calamity was that I LEFT MY WALLET AT BEACH CLUB before we drove to the port. Although, I know it has been delivered to my DH's POB, I can't get it until Monday!!!

I plan to do a report with pics when I get them uploaded, too tired right now, but overall, what a trip!

I loved doing the FEs and receiving them was AMAZING!! I really didn't know what to expect and I PROFUSELY THANK ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTFULNESS and creativity! It was so fun and my family ate most of the candy before we got home!!

It was so nice meeting all of you and sailing again with Jenny, Lucy, Maryann and Wendy! Everyone was so sweet and poor Becky and family spent the day with us in Tortola! We had a blast with Jenny & co, Bob & Tyler and Becky's family but in the end we had a little more excitement than we planned....... but it was a very funny ride back. Wine tasting with Joann, Aaron, Chip, Nancy (ramule), Virgil and all of my dinner partners was "excellent" and it was fun touching base there. Thx to Darthvader for organizing our meet and to Lissa for the GG experience!!

As Greg indicated, even though some of our weather was "exciting" we still had an awesome week.........

We did book onboard, but I am salivating for the new ship in 2011.....it sounds fantastic!!

Can't wait to hear everyone share their stories.........

Was anyone in Rockin' Bar D on 70s night? Did they happen to notice Gloria Gaynor or John Travolta?

Also, did anyone attend Match Your Mate? If you did, you saw the "Rents" sharing their secrets with everyone as couple #3.

 

[lwilliam]

back in PA...not too happy about that.
Our flights went perfect today....flight left early, flight was only 2 hours (instead of 2-1/2 hours), our luggage was the first off the plane (a first for us)...and home in no time.


I just wanted to tell you I enjoyed meeting each and every one of you. The FEs were amazing - i'm going thru each one tomorrow.

BomaGreg, I love those pictures of the lightening...I will never forget it...what great memories we have from this cruise!

Lucy

 

[BomaGreg]

back in PA...not too happy about that.
Our flights went perfect today....flight left early, flight was only 2 hours (instead of 2-1/2 hours), our luggage was the first off the plane (a first for us)...and home in no time.


I just wanted to tell you I enjoyed meeting each and every one of you. The FEs were amazing - i'm going thru each one tomorrow.

BomaGreg, I love those pictures of the lightening...I will never forget it...what great memories we have from this cruise!

Lucy

Thanks! I was a bit upset because I had a couple of great shots of the lightning, but because I didn't have a tripod, they turned out too blurry to be worth much. Still, I have a ton more shots that I'll post when we all get organized, and I have a ton of personal shots to share with the permission of those in them! My only regret is that I didn't take more shots of people we met on the board... Oh, well. Next round!

Glad you made it home safe and sound, and without incident! We had the most streamlined morning we've ever had on a cruise. We got up, got dressed, went up to a nearly-empty Topsiders to have breakfast (where we got to say goodbye to most of our servers), literally walked out of the boat without a single elbow to the spleen, went in and had a guy pick up our luggage, and wheeled everything out to the van. From the moment we left the exit of the ship to the moment we were in the van driving off couldn't have been more than five minutes!

We're already talking about another cruise, but for Floridians is always more of a matter of waiting for a spur of the moment Resident Rate. We are keeping a special eye out for dates to share with people we met on the board, though!

Also, thanks so much to everyone for the work that went into all the FE's! Some of your work has already found its place on my collector's shelf, and others have found their way into my already-bloated stomach.

 

[BomaGreg]

As anyone who was there will attest (SC Minnie/Duckman, if I remember correctly! ), we won the whole thing, but not without a little bit of help from an overly vocal audience. To be fair, I was pretty confident about the final answer, but it was definitely secured by the ten or so people more than will to share their opinions.

 

[mickeymo]

Gee Greg, you may not have scored too many pirates, but you take the prize for the first post-cruise post. Great photos!!! DS14 said "woah!" Great compliment from a teenage boy...

Hmm, for all of the talk of how Greg loves Museli (sp) I didn't see him with any at Palo... I even went over to say hi to him and Marcy to check

I must have brought Tinkerbell's clothes home, everything shrunk! I'll have to organize my thoughts and photos to post of our excursions later. John took some photos of our Raddison meet.

I appreciate the time and effort of everyone's fish extender gifts. This was our first experience participating, I had no clue what to expect, you went all out - we will definitely pay it forward on our next cruise. (Joanne #1 - Maggie dd12, immediately appropriated the necklace and wore it for the rest of the cruise...)

Big thanks to Darthvader (and a belated happy birthday) for organizing our on board meet - what a wealth of Disney Trivia! Good job on announcing the GForce prem-ear!

John Travolta and Gloria Gaynor were great! Way to show off those moves!

 

[BomaGreg]

Gee Greg, you may not have scored too many pirates, but you take the prize for the first post-cruise post. Great photos!!! DS14 said "woah!" Great compliment from a teenage boy...

Hmm, for all of the talk of how Greg loves Museli (sp) I didn't see him with any at Palo... I even went over to say hi to him and Marcy to check

Heh heh! I figured that, if I posted pictures right away, people might start commenting again as soon as they got home (we live just a short ride from port, so I had an advantage). It's awfully boring now that I don't have a schedule to tell me what fun stuff I'm going to do next. I keep waiting for Brent to pop up on the intercom and tell me that I can go see a character in the atrium.

And I only didn't eat it at Palo because I ate it every morning for breakfast! I wanted to eat all the stuff that I COULDN'T normally get. To be honest, though, it wasn't quite as good as it used to be. It was still good, but without the berries going on in there, it was almost a completely different bowl of goodness. I was a little miffed when Topsiders didn't have it this morning. I almost asked Sasha (our waiter in Palo every year for the past four cruises or so) when I bumped into him if he'd run up and sneak me a bowl somehow. It just didn't seem right leaving the ship with a stomach filled with still-frozen Krispy Kremes and a half pound of sausage. That was a long 45 minute drive home, I can assure you.

 

[mickeymo]

It just didn't seem right leaving the ship with a stomach filled with still-frozen Krispy Kremes and a half pound of sausage. That was a long 45 minute drive home, I can assure you.

Ah ha, So you ate all of the donuts - we had our choice of white or wheat toast in the 7:45 Parrot Cay Breakfast.

 

[BomaGreg]

Ah ha, So you ate all of the donuts - we had our choice of white or wheat toast in the 7:45 Parrot Cay Breakfast.

I like donuts.

 

[BomaGreg]

Ah ha, So you ate all of the donuts - we had our choice of white or wheat toast in the 7:45 Parrot Cay Breakfast.

The first seating time was something like 6:30, which is just too early for anything, let alone breakfast. Besides, I always like going to Topsiders on the last day because you can take your time, and wait for the crowds to clear out. It's actually pretty much the ONLY time I like Topsiders, though. I try to stick to the dining room because I'm too embarrassed to ask for the six plates I would normally grab when up at the buffet... It saves money on Weight Watchers membership renewals.

Well, in theory, anyway.

 

[mickeymo]

Working my way through laundry, the rest of the family is catching up on their practicing. I have two trombones and a bagpipe playing in the house. I'm sure the neighbors really missed us

We never made it to the dining room for breakfast - I kept trying to look for the Museli at topsiders, but only saw Cream of Wheat and Oatmeal. Couldn't bear to give up any precious room at Palo to try the Museli - besides, I have to save a new experience for our next cruise!

The new experience for this cruise - I actually worked out (once) in the fitness center. It happened to be the day we were rocking and rolling - I didn't last long on the treadmill - that was a wild run!

Kids left their dinner dishes piled on the counter - I'm not Sergio. Take care of your own dishes!

 

[mickeymo]

Quick photo I snapped with my phone while waiting in the airplane for passengers from a connecting flight to arrive. The kids fell asleep even before we pulled back from the gate. John will have to load the rest on the computer tomorrow.

 

[SC Minnie]

As anyone who was there will attest (SC Minnie/Duckman, if I remember correctly! ), we won the whole thing, but not without a little bit of help from an overly vocal audience. To be fair, I was pretty confident about the final answer, but it was definitely secured by the ten or so people more than will to share their opinions.

Yes! That was us! You guys did a great job and your questions were harder than the first couple of people that played.

We had a great cruise and didn't want to leave. It was wonderful meeting so many of you and we enjoyed doing the FE too. Still have to unpack and really go through them again.

I am trying to get pics uploaded and will try to post some later.

Hope everyone had safe travels back home.