Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and Boats. A Non-Disney Trip Report

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Day 6: First Full Day at Sea

I don't know if its just me but sea days can be boring. Maybe its because I hate laying out in the sun for long periods of time when everyone else liked it. I don't know. These days just always seem to drag to me though. And because of that they tend to be the days I take the least amount of photos. So unfortunatly this won't be a huge picture recap of Day 5.

Finally our first Full day at sea came. We could FINALLY sleep in. I mean arn't you suppose to sleep in and relax and do nothing on vacations? I guess thats what they make sea days for. Today we slept in tell around 11ish. and man did it feel good. Tyler and Rachael also slept in so once we meet up we hurried up to Lido to catch breakfast before they put it all away. After breakfast we went back to the rooms where we would change into our swimming suits to go catch some sun.

We ended up finding some chairs along the side of the ship. Not ideally where we wanted to be but the pool area was so packed that you could barely move. I guess everyone on the ship likes laying out on sea days. As I said before I hate laying out in the sun. I can do it for like 45 minutes but thats it. However I hoped that with my ipod I would be able to fall asleep and be fine. Those plans went down hill though when My Ipod decided to take a dump on me. I knew it had been having battery problems for awhile (the thing is 4 years old) but once we were on the ship the battery lasted for about a whole 3 minutes before it was down for the count. So I tried to deal and fall asleep without it. Unfortunatlly it didn't work out to well.

I toughed it out for a while. But I couldn't take it any more. Plus I was getting hungry so I went back down to the Lido and grabbed me a burger and frys to keep me occupied for a while. It wasn't too long afterwards that everyone else was finally getting tired of laying out as well so we decided to go swimming and try out the waterslide. The waterslide is alot of fun. It seems like the girls and some other people were going down it way slow though. I kept pretty good speed down it but Tyler flew down. He said to get the best speed arch your back so your gliding down on your shoulderblades and ankles. Unfortunatly I never had a chance to try this out. But one word of advice. Try to keep you mouth closed. I didn't realize the waterslide and pools used salt water lol. I felt like I wanted to throw up after the slide from getting a mouth full.

After the slide we swam around the pool for a little and then spent some time in the hot tubs relaxing. It felt so good. Kiera was then getting hungry so we went and got her some food and headed back to our room to change and get ready for the rest of the evening. While there I think we took a small nap and Kiera demonstrated that the big blue Carnival towels make really good blankets for naps.

We meet back up with Tyler and Rachael a little bit before dinner. I saw in the Caper that the Sushi Bar would be open that evening so I really wanted to grab some before dinner. I love Sushi and the ones that had out tonight were pretty good. No one else wanted to try some though so they just sat there and Tyler and I tried playing along to the sports trivia game going on across the walking area.

After sushi we made our way to the Main Dining room for dinner. It was another excellent meal but once again I can't remember what I had this night. All I know was it was a starter, a ceaser saled, 2 main dishes, and desert lol. Pretty much the repeat of each night. We also made sure we stayed long enough again to catch the dinning room show.

After dinner we had time to kill before half price bingo that evening. I don't know why but we didn't go back to our rooms after dinner. We went up to deck 10 instead where we watched the ocean as we glided thru it. Ok maybe we weren't gliding because the ship was extremely rocky this night. we watched the main pool down on Lido as the water was overflowing the sides we were rocking so bad. The kids in the pool at that time seemed to be having a blast though as they had there own personal wave pool.

After relaxing on deck 10 we finally made our way back to our rooms to relax a little longer before bingo and to see what animal we got that evening.

We made our way down to the Amber Palace for bingo. The caper said that the Half price Bingo would take place for a half hour before the show began that evening. I figured that would be a pretty good deal then cause we'd probably get 2 maybe 3 games in. So I bought 2 3 game cards to up my chances. I was wrong. Bingo didn't start anywhere near the time it was suppose to. Infact it started 20 minutes late so we only played 1 game. This really irritated me cause it then dawned on me the exact same thing happened on our cruise on the Pride last year.

So heres my Bingo advice for you. Don't play the half price bingo. If you wanna play wait and watch your capers for when the do 5-10 game bingos. Your chances are much better buying 1 card at full price and playing lots of games then it is for buying 2 cards at half price and only playing 1 game. I will be doing this for sure on our next cruise.

The main show that evening didn't sound interesting to us. So we went and grabbed some ice cream and then went to wait in line for the Comedy Club to open for our show so we could get some good seats. The Comedian was funny this evening. However he was very preverted and talked about that type of stuff too much. Yeah I know its the R rated show. And i'm fine with the vulgarity and maybe a few jokes that are sex related. But when your whole act is based around Preverted jokes it just gets tired fast and isn't funny. This night we also decided to order some Virgin Dacariis. They taisted great. I'm happy we got one. Even if we didn't have our $200 credit from hotwire. We were pretty shocked to see though that they charge a 15% percent gretuity on these drinks. I mean it was like .70 cents. That didn't bother me. It just made me thankful I don't drink Alcohol like eveyone else on the ship who pays that gretuity for each drink.

Even though we slept in we decided to call it an early night after the comedy club and hitting up the midnight pizza/ice cream/grill. We would be in St. Thomas the next morning and we wanted to get up and get a nice breakfast in the Main Dinning room before heading out for the day.

 

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Day 7: St. Thomas U.S.V.I.

Day seven would bring us to the island of St. Thomas. And easily our favorite spot of the whole vacation. We were due to be in port at around 10am this morning. However due to the ruffness of the seas the night before the captain had to slow down our ship.

We still woke up early that morning though so we could get a good large breakfast before heading out. Once we heard we would be delayed with getting into port we decided to grab breakfast that morning in the main dining room instead of the typical Lido buffet. We were happy we tried the main dining room out for breakfast because it was really good. This was something we didn't try on our last cruise so i'm glad we did this time. I just wish it served breakfast tell later in the morning so when we sleep in we could still make it. If you can I recommed checking it out cause the food served there was much better then what they serve at the Lido buffets for breakfast.

After finishing breakfast we still weren't docked but we were pulling into the port. So we went on the top deck to watch us pull in. Here we finally got our first views of the beautiful Island of St. Thomas.

They soon announced that we had been cleared to unboard so we made our way to the gangway where eveyone on the ship seemed to be as well. So after seeming like being hurded like cattle we were off the ship. For our day in St. Thomas we would be taking a tour of the island with EEE Tours. Henry who does the tours was excellent and we would end up having an amazing day spent on the island with him. Once off the ship we made our way to the taxi areas and found Henry waiting for us. He then took us over to his truck where we could wait until the rest of the people joining us for the day got off the ship.

The rest of our group soon joined us and we were on our way for our tour of the island. My first thing I noticed here was how crazy the drivers were. Henry said you have to drive like that if you wanna stay safe while driving. And if anyone thought his driving was crazy then they could drive lol. After getting away from the pier we drove into town where he pulled over and explained what he hopes people get out of his tour.

After explaining the tour we drove thru the main city as Henry explained some of the history of the city and the island and the politics there. Henry was in law enforcement and because of such he knew many of the promanate political figures thruout the islands history.

After driving thru the city Henry then took us up into the mountains where we first got our overviews of the island. It was so pretty here. He pulled off where we had a nice view of the airport and many of the surrounding islands. It was also pretty cool to see the passing rain storms in the distance. Literally being able to see this has to be one of the most amazing things of nature i've ever seen. We were lucky enough though to never actually get rained on even though there were passing storms all around us.

 

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If I thought the drivers at the pier and city were bad then i was wrong. I couldn't belive how crazy they drove on the moutain passes. It was insain. They wouldn't slow for a corner. Instead the honk there horns and hope no one is there. It was crazy. Our next stop was off the side of the road where henry showed us some of the flowers and plant life that grows on the island. He showed us a Cinnemon bush which was really neat to see in person. He also showed us a termit nest and them eating a tree. He said that all the houses there are built out of cenderblocks due to the termites. It was also interesting to hear that they get there water from collecting the rain from there roofs. They don't have running water so if it doesn't rain they have to call people and pay for them to bring them water.

Our next stop was at the St. Peter Great House. I guess this portion of the tour use to stop at a place called Mountain Top which is at a higher point of the Island. But a few months prior that location was distroid by a fire so instead all the tours moved and started going to the St. Peter Great House for some views of the Island. The Great House is very pretty. There is an observation deck that looks out over Magens Bay and that side of the island. They also have a bitanicol garden there that you can walk thru. This is also the new home of the Banana Daquari for those of you who drink. The whole property is very pretty and we really enjoyed the views and the plant life there.

 

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After leaving the great house Henry drive us back to the other side of the Island where we would get some views of Charlotte Amalie. On the drive there we passed another point looking down on Magens Bay where you could see the heart shape that the beach has.

We didn't spend much time at the viewpoint overlooking Charlotte Amalie. But the views here were amazing and probably my favorite that we stopped at. This was a very packed location though at the time we were there.

At this point the island tour for the most part was done and it was time for the Beach portion of the tour. Henry gives you a choice of three beaches where he will drop you off at for over 2 hours. The choices are Magens Bay, Saphire Beach, and Coki Beach. We didn't want to pay the money at this time to go to Magens and my parents who have been to St. Thomas really recommend Coki cause the snorkling there they said was really good. So thats where we decided on. So we headed there first before he dropped off everyone else at the other beaches.

Once we were at Coki Beach Henry set us up with some of his friends there to take care of us. They found us a place on the beach to sit down and relax. They also grabbed our snorkling gear for us to use on the beach. It costs around 10 bucks each person to get all the necessary items you need to snorkal so keep that in mind. When we got to the beach it was very packed. I didn't realize how busy it would be but I figured that must be the really popular beach for tourist in St. Thomas. I was also suprised at how small it was. I was expecting it to be much larger. But we still had a great time there.

After getting our towels laid out we grabbed our snorkal gear and headed into the water. I had never snorkeled before so this would be interesting for me lol. We also borrowed a underwater digital camera from Kieras parents that all the following pictures in the water were taken with. They also give you dog treats to feed the fish once in the water. I don't recommend putting these in you pocket because thats what I did and I lost them. Snorkling was very fun and worth doing if your in St. Thomas. I couldn't belive how the fish were all around us and how beautiful the water is. I also didn't do too bad with the snorkling while taking pictures.

 

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After being in the water for just over an hour Kiera and I decided to get out for a minute so the camera could dry off. We got out of the water and started walking back to our spot on the beach when Kiera just started screaming Ouch!!!! it Burns!!!!! It Burns!!!!! I didn't know what happend i'm like what burns. She said her toe is burning badly. We walked back into the water to see if the would help but it didn't. She pulled her foot up and we pulled out what looked like a black sliver. We think she stepped on a Sea Urchin. I helped her hop back over to our towels so she could sit down. Luckly it did stop hurting before we left. But the swelling and itching would bug her untill after we were home.

Needless to say after her sting we were done with snorkling and just relaxed on the beach. By this time the beach was really clearing out of people. It became a hidden gem once the majority of the people were gone and only a few of us were left. The beach became absolutly beautiful.

 

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This following picture can only be discribbed as the Most Epic Photo of the trip. We love it. This was one of those pictures where it great that one of our traveling companions was a professional photographer.

The time soon quickly came for us to meet back up with Henry. We turned all of our snorkling gear back in and then made our way back to the parking lot to meet back up. We had a great time at Coki Beach and other then the Kieras sea urchin sting everything turned out great there. Especially after all the crowds left and you could see the true beauty of this beach. If we ever make it back to St. Thomas though we want to check out some of the other beaches though.

After loading back up into Henrys truck we were on our way to Magens Beach to pick up the rest of the people in our group. We enjoyed some more lovely scenery on the way there. Man St. Thomas is such a beautiful Island.

When I originally booked our tour with Henry I just chose his Site Seeing and Beach package. But we were having such a great time that we decided to change and do the shopping package as well. Yeah it costs more but it was worth it to spend more time with Henry and to do some shopping in St. Thomas. Henry took us to downtown where all the small shops are. We also found the flee market which is where the great bargins were. Kiera found herself quite a few jewlery items that she picked up. We found it pretty funny as well that chickens just roam freely all thruout the city. Sorry but there arn't really any pictures from our shopping.

After shopping in Downtown Henry then took us back to the port where we could continue to do some shopping of we pleased to. So we loaded back up into the truck and started heading back that way. Traffic seemed to be horrible at this time of day though. I guess all the tourest trying to get back to the three ships in St. Thomas that day. In adition to the Glory the Carnival Freedom and one of the Norwigein ships was also docked.

We were soon back to the Pier shops but we were so tired at this point after our long and eventful day in St. Thomas that we just decided to be dropped off back at the ship so we could reboard and get ready for the evening. We said our goodbyes to Henry and then headed back to the ship. I must say Henry was AMAZING. I highly recommend him to anyone looking into taking a tour of St. Thomas. He was extremly curtious and cattered to our every needs. He is very knowladgable and made sure we were taken care of and that we walked away from his tour with a little bit of knowladge to take home with us about the Island of St. Thomas. Thanks for the great time Henry. You rocked and if we ever make it back to St. Thomas we will be booking a tour with you once again.

We boarded back on the ship at around 6:15pm. Because we had early dinner we missed it. Theres noway we would be able to get ready in time. So we just decided to grab dinner at the Lido buffet. I was actually suprised that they had some pretty good items to choose from for dinner there. After which we returned to our rooms so we could shower and change and get ready for the night. Kiera and I finished getting ready before Tyler and Rachael so we decided to go to the top deck to look at the city at night. In one of the photos below you can see the Freedom and Norwigeon ships already heading back out to sea.

 

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We weren't gone for long but when we came back to our room it had already been turned down for the night and we had our new towel animal.

Tyler and Rachael were finally finished so we headed down to the Amber Palace so we could get some decent seating for the main show this evening. This show was easily the best one of the week in my opinion. It was an illusionist show and this guy was great. He was very good at what he did and left us all in awe with almost every trick he performed. You can't tell in the picture below how swelled Kieras foot was at the point of the show. We also took some goofy pictures of ourselves lol.

After the show we didn't know what we were going to do for the rest of the night. There was no Comedy Club this evening so we had no prior plans. We went out onto the side decks for a little bit. To my suprise we could see some citys on the Islands we were passing.

We arn't one's for pictures. We don't line up for all the photo options they have like so many other people. However this night we saw they were doing those old fashioned type pictures so we decided to get some done even though we had no intention of buying any. We just figured it would be a good way to kill some time and have some fun dressing up. Theres no pictures of all of us but I did manage to take this one of Kiera.

We next decided to hit up the Kariokee Bar for a little bit. I love watching people drunk off there butt getting up at these things and trying to sing. I find it pretty funny. We had a good time watching and then we decided to play a small joke on our cabin neighbors. There was 1 room between Kiera and I's and Tyler and Rachaels rooms. These people were so extremely loud. Yelling all the time and constantly slamming there door all night long. they also must have had friends in the room across the hall too cause we could hear them yelling loudly in the halls as well back and forth. So we decided to leave this nice little note sitting on a table in Kariokee bar when we left. We don't know if anything ever came of it or not though. But we got a laugh out of it.

The last event of the evening that we attended was the ships Mardi Graw event. We had some fun standing in the crowd in the main lobby trying to catch as many mardi graw beads we could. I thought we did pretty good hahaha.

It was well after midnight when we decided to call it a night. We went up and I grabbed my Pizza and this night we just took it back to our room. We also stayed up and watched a movie before we finally decided to go to bed. Tomorrow we would be in St. Maarten. However we didn't have anything planned so we decided we would sleep in some before getting off the ship.

 

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Day 8: St. Maarten

The 8th day of our vacation found us in our final port of St. Maarten. We decided to sleep in for a little this day because unlike St. Thomas and Nassau we didn't have anything planned for St. Maarten other then shopping. Kiera and I were already well over budget. I really wanted to go see the beach thats right next to the airport. But unfortunatly that wouldn't happen due to being low on money. Infact I had to get more cash out of the ships ATM. After grabbing breakfast on the Lido deck we soon unboarded the Glory crowd free and started our day.

From reading and planning things a head of time online I found the easiest way to get to the main part of Philipsburg would be to take the water taxi. So thats what we did. It costs $6 a person for a round trip ticket and sure beat walking or trying to get to the city from the port on our own.

Once in the city we didn't know where to begin. As I said before we didn't plan (well Kiera and I anyways) anything to do in St. Maarten other then shopping. Multipule people back home recommend to us to do our shopping St. Maarten cause thats where we would find the best deals. So we just started walking the streets looking for a flee market since Kiera wanted to find a Purse, I wanted to find some sunglasses, and we needed to find some gifts to take home to our families.

Eventually we found the cheap flee market type stuff. However St. Maarten had a horrible selection of items here. This is why I stressed that Nassau had the best selection of the cheap knockoff type stuff. Even St. Thomas had a better selection. Kiera and I found many gifts for our siblings here. But we didn't find anything for our parents or ourselves. We really wished we would have bought them when there was a huge selection in front of us in Nassau.

So the search continued for what we were looking for. We wondered down a some more streets before finally finding a shop that sold knockoff purses that Rachael found. We thought that because the purses were actually in a shop and not the cheap flee market places that they wouldn't barter at all. We were wrong. The workers wheeled and dealed and did whatever they could to make sure we walk out of that store with a purse. Which we did. Kiera got a Chanel Knock Off perse with a matching Wallet for only $55 bucks. Not bad considering they originally wanted $69 for the purse alone. This place had alot of knock off purses. But it still didn't have the variety that the flee markets had in Nassau.

We walked down the beach front after the purse shop and before we knew it we found ourselves at the dock where the water taxi dropped us off. At this time Tyler and Rachael left us because they decided they wanted to go do parasailing (sorry no pictures of them doing this). I'm deathly afraid of heights and so is Kiera so we decided to pass on the Parasailing idea. Plus we were already over our budget so we couldn't really afford it even if we wanted to.

With Tyler and Rachael off to go parasailing we now had a few things on the agenda. Find gifts for our parents. And find me some sunglasses. We headed down the way we came looking for any small shop that looked like it could sell knockoff sunglasses. When we were in Mexico last year on our cruise I picked up a pair of knockoff Oakley sunglasses. Knockoffs or not I love these glasses. Unfortunatly my pair from mexico accedntally got broke a month before the trip. So a new pair was needed. Knockoff Mens sunglasses are very difficult to find in the Caribbean. I didn't find any any Nassau or St. Thomas and I don't know how many shops we looked at before we found them hidden in the corner of a shop in St. Maarten. We had no problems finding the Knockoff glasses for females though. So keep that in mind. Its not like Mexico.

After finding my glasses we continued stopping in shops looking for ideas of what to get our parents. But there was also another shop I wanted to find that I heard about. I'm a big Star Wars fan so when I heard about the the Yoda guys shop I knew I wanted to stop by there. We soon found it and the shop is pretty cool. It would be really cool to be able to walk thru the museum that he is building. I'm sure that if he charged for that alone he would make a lot of money. Anyways the shop is really neat and a must see for anyone into Star Wars.

We stopped in a few more shops after the Yoda Guy and finally finished the shopping that we needed for our parents. We decided though we should at least check out the beach before we headed back to the ship so thats what we did. The water hear is just a pretty as it was in St. Thomas. I really liked the look the beach had with the city in the background as well. Kiera also had a good time finding sea shells in the sand.

 

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We next headed to the side of the beach on the other side of the water taxi dock. Hear Kiera hit the sea shell jackpot. I've never seen anything like it but there were piles on piles of sea shells right next to the dock here. Kiera found many cool looking shells and also some coral. It was pretty neat.

After finishing at the beach and being done with shopping we decided to head back to the Ship. We headed up to the dock and boarded the water taxi and headed back to the cruise ship docks. Although St. Maarten had a horrible selection of cheap knockoff type stuff it is easily the best place if you are looking to do expensive shopping. Things like Diamonds, Electonics, luggage, and other large expensive type items are diffenitly the best prices here then they were in Nassau or St. Thomas. And it showed on the water taxi as we saw many people carrying huge boxes of goods back to the ships.

Once back at the cruise ship docks we decided to just head back to the ship instead of looking around. Just like in St. Thomas we were very tired by the time we got back to the ships. Not because we were busy doing things all day but we did alot of walking in St. Maarten. The St. Maarten pier is being expaned right now as well so it will be a pretty neat little shopping district when they finish (if there adding more shops anyways).

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We were back on the boat. And our final port of the cruise was finished. Tyler and Rachael still weren't back from there parasailing adventures and we still had over an hour tell dinner so we went up to the top deck to look at the beautiful island of St. Maarten and also to get some views of the other ships in dock with us. I'm not sure what the names were but they were both Princess ships. The one behind us was huge. I really liked how it had a walk around deck all the way to the front of the ship as well.

 

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We had a great time in St. Maarten. However it ended up being the regret of our trip. Not because we regreted going there. But because we regreted doing something more then shopping. St. Maarten with half the island being dutch and the other half french probably had the most to be viewed culture wise there any of the other islands we went to. We really wish we would have taken a tour so we could have seen more of the island and especially the french side of the island. You can bet that if we make it to St. Maarten again we will be doing a tour for sure and going to the French side of the island. I don't thing we will be visiting any of the beaches on the french side though seeing as womens tops are optional lol. I really would like to go see the beach thats right next to the airport as well.

It was soon dinner time and we finally met back up with Tyler and Rachael. They said that Parasailing was a blast and that it wasn't scary at all. They had a lot of fun and hope we will try it next time we go on a cruise. We told them we will see lol. They said it was great and the views were amazing. We had another wonderful dinner in the main dinning room and the dinning staff put on another great little show for us.

This night of our cruise was the Mexican buffet and late night deck party as well. However due to catching the main show that evening in the Amber Palace and then having tickets to the 10:45 show at the comedy club we would miss out on pretty much both events. We still looked around though as they were setting up for this. I guess this kinda replaced the old Gala buffet as there were many fancy food items done up for it.

The show this evening in the Amber Palace was a comedian Juggler and he was very good at what he did and pretty funny. They had the early dinning go to the later main show so after that was over we headed strait to the Comedy club to watch the show there. This guy was pretty funny as well. However almost his whole show was based around making fun of people in the audiance. So this got really low in my opinion many times and started to not get very funny. But overall it was pretty good too. He was also the longest of any of the comedians as his show ran for well over an hour where everyone elses lasted only around 45 minutes. With it being late when the show got out we wondered around the side deck for a little bit before heading back up to Lido to grab some midnight Pizza.

After Pizza we just sat and chatted with one another. We had a good time and soon realized it was well past 1am so we decided to head to bed. We hadn't even been back to our room since before dinner. Man we had a busy night. So we said our goodnights and retired to our rooms where we found our towel animal for the night. We quickly fell asleep and again looked forward to sleeping in tell whenever we woke up tomorrow. We now only had 2 full days left of our cruise. Both of which were sea days.

 

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Day 9: Second Full Day at Sea

With our last port done with for the cruise we were now on our return route back to Port Canaveral. Because we were on the return route our final two days of the cruise would only be sea days. And as I pointed out in the post about our first full day at sea i'm not one who cares for sea days at all. So I just tried to make the best of it. As with the last recap of a sea day this one will be short as I didn't take many pictures. In fact this day I took the least amount of photos then any other day.

Because this was another day at sea we slept in again tell around 11ish. Something that we would repeat each sea day haha. We got up and grabbed some breakfast/lunch and then headed out by the main pool where we were lucky enough to find some good seats near the stage where the band played. I don't know why but it seemed to be unbareably hot this day. Even though we were at sea the sun seemed to be much hotter then it had been all the other times we had laid out. Because of the heat we didn't stay out for very long. Not that I was complaining cause I was pretty much at my laying out limit anyways.

After grabbing another small lunch we retired back to our cabin where we watched a movie and relaxed before getting ready for the evening. Tonight would be our second and last formal night so it took sometime getting ready for that. We soon meet up with Tyler and Rachael for the first time this day and headed down to the main dinning room for another excellent dinner and the crew put on another excellent show for us.

We are not ones who like to stay in our formal clothes all night like so many other people do. So as soon as dinner was over we headed back to our cabins so we could change back into our casual clothes.

After changing for the night we meet up with Tyler and Rachael again and grabbed some ice cream before the main show that evening. The show this evening was the "just rock" show that Carnival seems to do on most there ships as I remembered this one from the Pride as well. It was a good show as many great eras in Music History were well represented by the performers.

After the show we had some time to kill still before the finaly showings of the Comedy Club that night. So we decided to head back up to Lido and grab some more Ice Cream. We were really suprised to find once we got up there that they had the roof closed over the pool area. We thought that was kind of odd as it wasn't raining. At least not at the time. I guess maybe they closed it if it was raining earlier in the night. Because we had time to chill we just grabbed some loungers and relaxed by the pool talking with one another to kill some time before the Comedy Club would start.

We got to the comedy club early this night and because of such we were some of the first groups let into the lounge. So because of this we were able to get a table very close to the stage. The comedian tonight wasn't funny at all. Yeah he had a few good lines and for the most part his show was pretty clean but man none of it was funny. You could even tell he was struggling up there. I don't know maybe he doesn't do many R rated shows. Maybe his PG ones were better. I don't know but it was just kind of a downer to end the Comedy Club on that note. After the show Rachael wanted to stay again for the Comediean that we saw the night before. I told her that he would do the exact same show almost word for word again but she said she wanted to see for herself. So after she was kind enough to help scratch Kieras toe that itched so bad from the sea urchint sting Kiera and I left as Tyler reluctantly stayed to watch the show with his wife Rachael.

Kiera and I decided to head back to our room after the show. Of course not until we got our typical Midnight Pizza and Ice Cream though. Today was a nice carefree lazy day. And we had one more ahead of us as tomorrow would be our final full day aboard the Carnival Glory. Stay tuned as the update of our final day at sea will have many picture as well as a tour of the ship.

 

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Day 10: Third Full Day at Sea

Our final day of the cruise had finally arrived. It would be another full day at sea so of course not a whole lot would be happening. Kiera and I slept in late again before grabbing some lunch (yeah we slept in that late) and then we went and meet up with Tyler and Rachael for some more laying out and sun tanning. Once I reached my limit I decided to leave the group and go take some photos around the ship. This is something I like to do so that we always remember what the ship looked like. It took me around an hour to snap all the photos but here they are below. Sorry there won't be alot of text following these pictures.

I love the water of the Caribbean. Even out in the middle of the ocean it was very pretty and looked like we were in a big puddle of windex.

Looking out over the main pool area towards the back of the ship:

Looking out over the front of the ship. I must admit this view was much better on the Pride then it was on the Glory:

The Empty Amber Palace:

This was outside the Amber Palace:

The Atrium:

The Shops:

On the side deck:

The Casino:

Walk area of Promenade:

The Arcade:

Piano Bar and Walk way:

Platnum Dining Room:

One of the Lounges:

Red Sail Restaurant:

We were very suprised by our cabin. On our last cruise we had a balcony so we thought an Inside cabin would be way small. But it was fairly large and worked out great for us on this cruise.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

The rear pool area:

Looking over the main pool area towards the front of the ship:

The sporting area of the ship:

Will that concludes the tour of the ship. Although i've only been on two cruises so far the designs and theme of the Glory have been our favorite of the two. We prefered the bright vibrant colors theme of the Glory to the darker Rennasaunce theme of the Pride. The one thing we didn't care for with the pride was its layout though. We thought the Pride had a much better and easier to navagate Layout then the Glory did.

After I finished with taking photos around the ship I rejoined Kiera, Tyler, and Rachael where we layed out a little longer before returning to our rooms to get ready for dinner and prepair for our final evening aboard the Glory.

We quickly got ready because Kieras sting on her toe was really starting to swell and bother her. We tried to avoid the ships doctors at all costs because it was very expensive to them look at you. Like $80 for the doctor and $40 for the nurse or something like that. But Kiera was really starting to worry so we decided to go down there and chance it. The nurse there was very nice. We just asked her what we could do to help a sea urchin sting. She looked at it real quick and just told us to ice it and the swelling would go away in a few days. She was very nice about it and was even nicer to not charge us for looking at Kieras sting.

Our final dinner was very good as always. It was sad to think this was our last dinner of the cruise. We showed how sad we were and enjoyed the final performance from our dinning crew.

After dinner we walked up to the gift shop to grap some final gifts before the cruise was over. Kiera and I have a tradition of getting a christmas ornament to represent the main point of the vacation we are on. So we found a good one and also grabbed some post cards then made our way back to our rooms. We couldn't help to take a few pictures on the way back though.

Once we got to the room it was time for probably the most depressing part of a cruise. Packing up our luggage so it could be set out that night. This is when reality starts to sink in that the cruise will soon be over. But we were happy to find our most favorite towel animal of the cruise. When we first walked in we thought we didn't get one this night but soon found this little guy hanging on the wall.

After getting our luggage packed set it out and meet up with Tyler and Rachael to head to the Amber palace for the shows and events taking place that evening. Tonight the main show would be the Carnival Legends show where passengers addition for parts and perform the show. But before that were a few other things. We went down there early to watch Game Show. Tyler and Rachael put there names in the box and Tyler happened to get his name drawn to participate in the second game. And he ended up winning. His prize? Another bottle of champaign. So now both of us couples had a bottle of champaign and nether of us drink Alcohol lol.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

After Game Show they did there final game of bingo of the cruise. We didn't want to lose our good seats so we waited and watched thm play. We took a picture of Kieras foot where you could start to see the swelling from the Sea Urchant sting.

After bingo they did the Carnival Colors Celebration or something like that where they announced who won the Carnival Colors Competition. Well Kiera and I are now 2 for 2 on our cruise as we were on the winning team again. This time it was the White team.

Finally the Carnival Legends show started. The first two performers were really good. We were suprised cause the show on the Pride everyone sucked. Well that changed after those first two as it went downhill from there. I don't know if we will go to this show or not when we do another cruise.

When we got done in the Amber Palace for the evening we discussed what we wanted to do for the rest of the night. It was now pretty late so we decided to go get Kiera bottle of champaign so we could find someone to give them to.

We went up to the Lido deck where we would get our usual late night Ice Cream and Pizza. We found 2 groups to give our Champaign to as a gift and both groups didn't understand why we didn't want it or why we didn't drink lol. Untill we told them we were from Utah and they they understood lol. Ether way we were glad we could make there nights by giving them free Alcohol hahaha.

The cover was closed over the pool area again as it was storming pretty badly at this time. We grabbed our Ice Cream and noticed that the ship was leaning really badly to one side of the ship. We didn't know why it was doing this at the time. We had our ideas but we had no real idea. We watched the lightning from inside and it was quite the site to behold. it was pretty amazing to watch this natural occurance. Tyler and I went up to the top deck to watch it outside. The girls didn't want to go up cause it seemed like it was raining still. While up top we found that it wasn't raining anymore and the night was farely warm still so it was nice to watch the lightning up there. Tyler and I then saw a red light fire up out in the distance. We thought that was kind of odd. It looked like a flair. We were very intrigued so we went back down and told the girls that it wasn't raining and to come up as well to see this mysterious red light we saw.

We got back up to the top deck just as the red light burned out. We continued looking out towards where the light came from speculating what it might have been. Then the spotlight on the front of the Glory lit up shinning out towards where the red light came from. We figured it had to be a stranded boat or something so we ran to the middle of the ship to get a better view. Right when we got there the red light lit up again. Verifing that it was a flare and the spotlight on the glory was able to zero in and find this stranded ship.

We watched intently as we now realized why the ship was turning. They must have spot them and turned the ship around to go rescue them. We also realized that the glory had stopped and was probably preparing a crew to go out and rescue them. All we could tell was that the boat was very small. It looked like a 20 foot fishing boat. Since it was stormy this night the small boat was being tossed around like a rag doll. The few of us hopped they could get the rescue crew out to them as soon as possible. The cruise director then came over the intercoms and announced what was going on and that we were going to start rescue efforts. At the time of the announcement there were only around 8 or 9 people on the deck around us. After people came from all over and it was so packed you could barely move. Lucky for us we were there to witness it from almost the beginning.

We watched and wondered when the rescue would take place. THe glory continued to just sit and circle the small ship. We had been watching for over an hour. Finally we saw a life boat come out from around the front of the ship. The rescue was on. We watched as the life boat itself even got tossed around badly in the storm. But it eventually made it out to the small boat to rescue the people on board.

The crew rescued the men abandoing there small boat and brought them back to the ship. We ran to the other side of the ship to see the life boat pulling back up to the glory. So we decided to run down to the lower side decks to watch the lifeboat come back up.

This is where we got really frustrated with the layout of the glory. Because of the Golden Dinning room being in the center of the ship we had to go way around in order to get to the atrium and then outside to the decks. By the time we got there the life boat had already been pulled up and the crew and those rescued were already pulled off. It was interesting talking to a crew member there who was guiding traffic. He explained how the rescue proceding take place and how there are specific life boats that can be emnuvered for rescues where the majority of the lifeboats will only go strait. He also mentioned that in his 6 years of working on a carnival ship that he had never seen a rescue of this nature take place. This was litterally a once in a lifetime event that we witnessed happen.

Info on what happened with this rescue was the first thing I looked up as soon as we got back to Port Canaveral on my Blackberry. From what little info was out there this is what I was able to find out. There were 3 men aboard the small fishing boat. 2 from the Bahamas and 1 U.S. Citizen. They were on a fishing trip when the boat experianced an engine falure of some sort and got drifted out to sea. Supposidly they had been lost out at sea for about 5 days when the Glory found them. I'm glad we were able to rescue them as many of us were praying for there safty. One person on this site even mentioned that he saw the boat capsize not long after they were rescued. God was diffenitly watching over these men and we were very happy that they were safe. From what I heard the coast guard took them off the ship as soon as we were back in US waters.

Anyways after nearly 2 hous of watching the rescue efforts it was now around 2 in the morning. We would have to be out of our rooms early so we figured maybe we should go to bed. But I couldn't go without having my final night of pizza.

After our pizza we headed to bed. When we wake up we will likely be back in Port Canaveral and our cruise will soon be over.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Day 11: Debarkation Day

The time had soon come where the cruise was over. When we awoke in the morning we were just pulling into Port Canaveral. Due to the rescue efforts the night before we were a couple hours late getting into Port Canaveral. But that didn't bother us anyways. I didn't reserve our rental car tell noon so we would be killing as much time on the ship anyways. We went up and grabbed some breakfast and then waited until the last moment to get off the ship. I was really suprised that for being so late how quickly they got everyone off of the ship. They were very quick about it. Alot quicker then the pride was in Long Beach and that ship was on time. Both Disney ships were next to us in port this morning as well.

We waited until the final groups were called to get off the ship and so we decided to go then as well. It was just pass 11am so we figured going thru customs and all that would take us awhile because it took forever in Long Beach. We were wrong. We got thru Customs very quickly and were on our way to the rental car agency by 11:30. Today Kieras toe from the Sea Urchint sting looked the worst out of all the days. So we took a picture of it while waiting.

We were soon at the Budget Rental Car agency and we still had about 20 minutes tell we were suppose to get our car. We were all sick of waiting so I went to talk to the people and they let us take the car a little early with no extra fees. At first we thought we got the same car that we took to Port Canaveral as it was another Maroon colored Pontiac G6. But once inside we soon realized it was an older one. Not anything like our brand new one we had heading to the Port. After getting our car we were soon on the road and waved goodbye to the Carnival Glory which was a wonderful ship to spend our vacation on.

We now had another full day to spend in the Orlando area. When booking plane tickets we found it would be cheaper for us to fly home on Sunday instead of Saturday so thats what we decided to do. Since we had lots of time and nowhere to be we decided to drive out by the Kennedy Space Center. Kieras brother is going to school right now to be an Aerospace Engineer so we figured he'd enjoy any photos we could get. We didn't actually stop at the space center though. It was way to expensive and we didn't have enough interest to justify spending the money.

After driving around the spacecenter for a bit were back on the road and heading towards Orlando. We decided to head to the Orlando LDS Temple to do some work while were there. Kind of a way for us to give thanks to God and Christ for watching over us and protecting us on our vacation. So we punched the address into Google Maps on my Blackberry and were on our way.

The direction that Google Maps told us to go took us right thru Downtown Orlando. I was actually suprised to find that the city itself is pretty small. The route it told us to go also took us thru many tolls. So once again remember to take a bag of quarters with you to Florida. Unless you tell your phone or GPS to give you a non-toll route.

After just over an hour of driving we finally arrived at the Temple. We ended up being there for almost 3 hours doing work. It was a great experiance and we are happy that we took the time out of our vacation to spend time there and to feel of the spirit. Had we not been starving by this point we may have stayed there longer. We were very suprised by the weather in Orlando this day as well. It was pretty cold with the highs only in the high 60's. Quite the change from before our cruise where they were having record heat in the mid 90's with high humidity lol. I think I liked the slightly cooler weather and almost no humidity much better hahaha.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

We soon found ourselves back on International Drive were our hotel would be located. As I said before we were starving by this point so we were trying to find food. We eventually decided on a Panda Express which hit the spot perfectly. After eating we then drove back down International Drive to find our Hotel. As with before the cruise we booked a Days Inn for our hotel and would be sharing the room with Tyler and Rachael. This was a different Days Inn though then the one before our cruise. This one seemed to be much nicer then the other one. It had had updates done and it looked nice and the rooms were in much better condition. However it was still pretty ghetto. the wall that sperates you from the outside was very then. We could hear people all night talking and yelling at each other. When you closed the door it seemed like that whole wall was going to come down. Then to add to the ghettoness of the hotel the location was in a much more ghetto location then the first hotel. Needless to say this pretty much put the nail in the coffin with teaching us to not book cheap hotels ever again when in Orlando lol.

After getting settled into the room we decided on what we wanted to do for our last night in Orlando. If theres one thing that the Orlando area does well (with the exception of theme parks) its there Mini-Golf Courses. And International Drive is dotted with them. We so many cool and different looking themed Mini-Golf Courses while driving around so thats what we decided we wanted to do. We ended up choosing Congo River Golf. We chose this course because they also had live aligators on site that you could feed. This course was the best Mini-Golf Course I have ever been to. You really think it should be at one of the theme parks its so themed and detailed. These Mini-Golf Courses are pretty pricey. But I think it was worth it for 18 holes of detailed fun.

[IM

 

[Teknik_DC2]

After Tyler and Rachael beat Kiera and I at Mini-Golf we decided it was time for dinner. Since we had so many different things on the cruise that we wouldn't eat back home we decided to just do something simple for dinner and just eat at Chilies. We had a good time there and couldn't belive that in less then 24 hours our vacation would be over and we would be home. We couldn't belive how fast time had flown. Located next to Chilies was this fun park place that had a few thrill rides. We watched from the parking lot but there was no way I could most of the stuff there due to my fear of heights. It was pretty cool to see the rides going though.

After dinner we returned to our hotel where Kiera was going thru Ice Cream withdrawls and I was having Midnight Pizza withdrawls lol. We fell asleep quickly as we had a big day of traveling home ahead of us to look forward to. Our Vacation would soon be over.

 

[williamson_ja]

It was really fun to read your report. I've often wondered how the Carnival ships were for those of us who are "from Utah" lol. Is there a lot to do for those who don't drink/gamble?
We're going on our first cruise with DCL next month and decided to leave the day after as well. You gave us some great ideas for what to do that day!
Hope you guys had a great vacation!! Thanks for sharing with us.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Well its taken me long enough. Its been over 2 months now since we've been home from this trip and now i'm finally posting the last update of this recap. Due to the holidays and other projects it has prevented me from finishing this sooner. But now i'm finally gonna get it done.

Day 12: Travel Home

We woke up early as we had to be at the airport to drop our car off by 11:30am. Our flight wouldn't be leaving tell 1:30 so we would have some time to kill at the airport. It was going to be another long day of travel just as it was when we left SLC for Orlando. Luckly we survived the night in this ghetto hotel room so we got all our stuff together and packed and we loaded up an headed out.

After checking out of the hotel we took one last drive down International Drive before heading to the airport. We stopped at the shell gas station next to the huge Mcdonalds to top the car off before returning it. We also decided to grab breakfast at the Mcdonalds. I would have loved to go in it as this Mcdonalds was one of the fondest memorys I have of when my parents took Me and my siblings to florida 16 years ago. Unfortunatly time wouldn't allow it so we grabbed our food and were on our way to the airport.

We were soon at the airport. We found the rental return and quickly got that all taken care of. Kiera and I weren't looking forward to the first part of our flights this day. When we originally booked our flights back in July they had our seats together. About a month before our trip I got an email saying our flight details had changed and Kiera and I weren't sitting together anymore. So when we got to our bag check in I was very suprised when the lady asked if we wanted to sit together and be next to an emergency exit. Of course we would. We weren't expecting to sit together anyways. So we were happy about that. However Tyler and Rachael were now a little confused. There seats never changed fromt there original booking. However when they checked in there person told them to go to the gate and they would get there seating arrangements there.

We also found that our departure time had changed. Where we were originally suppose to leave orlando at 1:30. Instead we would now be leaving at around 3:30. So now we had 4 hours to kill in Orlando before our flight leaves. So before heading to the gate we decided to look around at all the different shops they have in the Orlando Airport such as the Disney Store, Universal Store, Harley Davidson, ect......

After killing some time looking at the shops we decided to head to our gate. We hopped on the tram again and we were soon there to kill another 2 hours or so. We spent most the time watching football on tv or browsing the internet on our Laptops or Phones.

After being bored almost to the brink of insanity our Plane finally arrived. They gate workers announced that the flight was overbooked and thats why not everyone got assigned seating. So we waited and waitned and hoped that Tyler and Rachael would have seats on the plane. luckly they were within the first people called to come claim there seats so we were in the clear. We soon bored the plane and prepaired to leave sunny Orlando. The whole time they keep asking people if they would give up there seats for a $300 credit per seat towards another American Airlines flight as well as a later flight to Dallas (where we would be connecting). If they would have offered us a flight strait to SLC we would have been all over this. However they would only offer it to Dallas. And our connecting flight would have already left had we done that. So unfortunatly we missed out on a great oppertunity.

We were soon in the air and on our way to Dallas. The flight wasn't anything too exciting. We took some pictures of the passing land below us before finally flying over Dallas, Texas and landing at the Airport.

Once in Dallas we had around an Hour layover to get to our next flight to Salt Lake City. The Dallas airport is very large. Upon arrival we found that our connecting flight was in a completly different terminal from where we landed. Luckly the Dallas/FW Airport has a tram system that takes you around all the different terminals. So within 15 minutes of when we got off our plane we were in the terminal and at the gate we needed to be at for our SLC flight.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Since we still had some time to kill before our flight left we found the restrooms and grabbed a quick bit to eat in the food court. We got back to our gate right after they started boarding so we pretty much walked on to our flight. Before long we were back in the air on the final stretch before we would be home. The sunset was amazing to watch from the air and I found it so interesting to see the sunset still in the air and total darkness down below.

We landed in Salt Lake around 8pm MST. It felt so weird to be home after being gone for nearly 2 weeks. The other big shocker was that SLC was warmer then Orlando was when we left. Something that would last long when our first snow storm came thru 2 days later. Gotta Love Utah Weather. Tylers dad picked us up and before long we were home.

This vacation was easily our best one yet. So great that it looks like we may be doing almost a repeat of it again next fall. A few weeks after we got home another set of friends told us they were planning on going on a Western Caribbean Cruise for there 5th wedding anniversary and asked if we wanted to go. Of course we would so that is in the early planning stages now. From what it looks like we will be going on the Cruise October 10th-17th again this time on the Carnival Liberty out of Tampa. We chose Tampa over Port Canaveral Cause the Liberty is cheaper then the Dream. Yes the Liberty is more then the Valor as well which goes out of Miami. We chose the Liberty because we are going to go back to Universal Orlando again to check out the Harry Potter stuff which will be opening this spring. So now we have a long 10 months to go until our next big adventure. Expect another recap such as this from that trip as well.

So untill then farewell everyone. Thanks so much for reading and following this trip recap. Its been fun putting it together. For any more long reads please feel free to read my past trip reports posted below. Thanks again everyone.

Honeymoon Mexican Riviera Cruise on the Carnival Pride:
http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1060691&highlight=

California Christmas 2008 Trip to Disneyland, Universal, Knotts, and Vegas:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2071198