RCCL trip report! Freedom in Eastern Car Jan 26-Feb 2, 2014

[bumbershoot]

As I mentioned above, I was actually gone. For 20 days! We had a crazy opportunity to follow Robert on a work trip; got official permission, made sure the hotels were the same price for 3 of us vs just him, etc etc. Found airfare that didn't make me physically ill. Got on the plane.

To England and Ireland! Woo! Now that we've been home 8 days I can say it was great. I had lousy travel both there and back, and that always obliterates my joy about the trip for a bit. First days were in Dublin where he met with coworkers, then he and one coworker flew to England while E and I did the "sail-rail" program over to Birmingham. The day they moved by car to Nottingham, Eamon and I went to London and then from there to Nottingham at the end of the day. That half day was NOT enough so we actually had an London overnight a bit later in the trip. Then Robert was done with the work trip and he took about 6 days personal time, and we rail-sailed back over to Ireland, back to Dublin then drove over to the West of Ireland (my fave part).

I was shocked at how much I enjoyed England, and I cried (as I did 19 years ago) the day before we left Ireland...if you happened to be at the Cliffs of Moher on the 21st and saw a crying woman walking slowly to the car...that was very likely me.

So that was my adventure this month.

 

[bumbershoot]

I love the "pirate safety notice" and parade info in the pages above and below, but it is very important! The kids were having a parade. They had to be there early, and they couldn't then LEAVE early. No one could leave early, so if you didn't want your kids to be in the parade, don't drop 'em off!

 

[bumbershoot]

I can't decide which picture I like better, so you'll have to decide for me. Either way, there's no losing.

The Royal Princess.

Water.

More water.

We, especially DH and DS, were exhausted this day. The heat and the walking in San Juan really did us in. I was really glad I hadn't scheduled anything at all for this day, because it would have been hard to be alert for it. So a simple day of wandering worked well. Now...I hadn't planned on that. I had really wanted to schedule something, but just never figured out what. But it worked out.


We were able to get up and out to get breakfast, though! Everything was good except for french toast that was weirdly hard.

I'm not writing with my receipts now so I don't know about the lattes and waters and whatnot. Just assume we had some, but not quiet enough to break even on Replenish. Biggest issue there was not knowing we could get waters and virgin drinks on Coco Cay, and having bought the huge water package for Eamon.


On the way out of the ship...

Walking on the dock in St Maarten makes you feel very very small, that's for sure!

And immediately I saw foliage I'd never seen before. I didn't get close enough to see leaves, but just the way the greenery looked going up the mountain was totally different. Gorgeous, too.

Ohhhh, I will take THAT wee little boat, please. Please? Oh please please please?

We walked over to the water taxi, making a stop at Effy to get more $10 pieces of glass.


How do people live in places like this? How do they ever look at their computers or anything else?

Walking to the water taxi.

More foliage.

And we were on our way to city center.

 

[bumbershoot]

We skipped the first stop on the water taxi because it's not the city center one. Got off at the second. There's an Effy right there, so looked at more colored glass. This time I passed because it was black glass, and I didn't want that, but they were super-sweet and gave E the small pendant for free.

As we continued from the dock to the front street, we saw a woman who had fallen and hurt herself enough that an ambulance was called. Not a great start to her day. I hope she was ultimately OK.


Robert went to try to get some cash (unsuccessful! which was weird) and E and I took a little time to hang out on the public beach that's *right there*. If we'd wanted a chair or lounger we would have had to pay someone, but just hanging out there was fine. The water was bizarrely deep right off the beach; a man was in the water and would dive down, completely disappear, and come up with shells.

Well, you can see the water difference in this shot, with the guy in the background.

Same kid, more of the beach/foliage.

No kid, back down the beach along the walking path from the docks I believe.

I've heard that the public beach here used to be pretty gross, but it didn't seem like it this day. Seemed awfully pretty and tempting! But we weren't prepared for a beach day. Oh well!

We wandered, we saw the St Maarten dogs (San Juan has the cats if you recall), Robert managed to buy me some tanzanite even while I said that it was a ripoff (sometimes I have to let him spend some money or he just doesn't feel right), we met nice salespeople, we got more Effy (I think we did). E had brought his pack of cards purchased at the El Morro giftshop, who knows why. He got taken for some fake Legos (when negotiating down b/c you really don't want your kid to get something, make sure the husband stays far FAR away! they can sense when the money-spender comes into range! the negotiation halted immediately when Robert approached and said $10 for 2 sets is good, not realizing they weren't real legos). Wander wander.

Found the Yoda Guy. Hmm. Ever feel like you need to donate just because you kinda feel bad for someone? That was our experience. He never ever said that he was THE guy that designed it...he was just A guy that worked on Yoda. I knew that. But his museum is not tempting (and had horror movie stuff in it, so E wasn't going to go in it, that's for sure) and while he was sweet, there was just nothing there I wanted to buy. So we donated a little something and hit the road.

At some point, someone discovered that his pack of cards was missing. This was most definitely Not Good. In a different family nothing would be done and the child would Learn His Lesson. In our family, since almost all of E's money comes directly from us, that doesn't work well. So we retraced our steps, quicker this time, to find them. And, amazingly, we found them. They had been sitting right where E had been sitting, in some random electronics shop that Robert sucked us into. The staff had been just about to put them somewhere safe when Robert went in while E and I went somewhere else. Eamon went in to thank them in person. Good kid. And we were much happier.

HUNGRY though. And so, despite the fact that the ship and all its pre-paid food was RIGHT THERE....

....we went to Hard Rock and had some generic food. Felt a LOT better after, though. I might have had one of my patented "this trip is ruined" moments before the food showed up. At some point the guys are going to realize that they aren't the only ones with issues when the blood sugar gets low. But for now let's just keep it a secret OK?


Of all the odd things to learn while dining, we found out that a day or two before we docked, a sister ship had been denied entrance to the port because of noro. Ewie. The Hard Rock employee was glad, because if people who are sick but don't know it come into the port and touch everything, they spread it to those on land, and that's not fun. They were glad the ship had been stopped.

My little photobomber.

We didn't eat here (the one with "Blue" in the name), though their menu seemed good, even for vegetarians.

Funny how different the specific angle of the sun makes things look!

E is wearing his solar-changing shirt.

I have a thing for pictures of clocks and churches.

Bells.

The courthouse just right out in the middle of everything.

Back on the watertaxi.

They have a TV and the TV was playing Psy (though maybe not at the moment I snapped the picture). E was very happy. He loves that guy. And this is a picture of the water taxi.

Beach foliage.

Myyyyyyy boat. Mine!

If I weren't afraid of 8-legged things as big as my head, I would climb this hill.

Aha, I've exceeded my picture limit! Gotta split it up.

 

[bumbershoot]

For those who don't make it over to the French side of the island (like us), never fear, there's a small Belgian Chocolate Box right near the ships!

We were stopped in our tracks by the Guavaberry Rum kiosk on the way back to the ship. Didn't intend to, but ended up buying a bottle. On RCCL they take it as you enter the ship, close up the bag, staple and stick tags to it, and put it off in some other room. They return it to you in time to leave the ship.


I want to live there, in sight of MY boat.

Gotta say, I love the Royal Princess's balcony glass.

From our balcony. Remember, it was early February and around 5 by this time!

This night they did some sort of thing in the dining room. The pictures are blurry but you can see how high the dining room is. We were on the bottom floor.

I have absolutely no idea what anyone ate this night. My sense of taste and smell was getting worse. Maybe this night, maybe another, maybe I've already told the story, but I was having Robert taste things for me and tell me if I would like them. If yes, I'd eat it. If no, I wouldn't waste the calories. I remember ONLY tasting chocolate and coffee and that's pretty much it. I was eating by texture, mainly. Very depressing.


E went to the kid's club, and I think Robert and I went shopping. Finally it was time to wait for the pirate parade! Here they come!

My blurry boy.

If you're going to have your kids participate, I want to warn you, this is what it will look like while they are standing and singing piratey songs.

Wow, one lone good shot.

Those people up there on the balcony have the right idea!

Picked him up a bit later. I was still reading the mystery I'd picked up from the library. Not sure what else was going on.

Take a lesson from me folks, don't take any long pauses in your trip reports! Feb to the end of June here. So sorry!

But from Day 5, goodnight.

 

[bumbershoot]

 

[debsters41]

Yay! The Best RCCL trip report on the Dis Boards continues !


Love the updates and I am taking notes

I am so glad that E was able to find his cards again. Your pictures are amazing and will really help others going to St Maarten.

So, how was the chocolate?

 

[bumbershoot]

The chocolate was really good. That particular location is tiny, so don't expect the whole family to comfortably fit inside. In fact I just stood outside taking pictures, while the guys went into the air conditioning (it was like a tiny trailer with an AC unit on it) and picked out the chocolate.

And many times people have questions about being able to bring food back on board (a question I see a lot on the DCL pages, especially with the chocolate factory tour on Nassau), and it was absolutely no problem to bring the box onboard. We actually didn't even eat any until we got home! Very tasty.

The kiddo apparently has chosen playing cards as his "thing to collect". He got three, I think, from England and two or three from Ireland on our recent journey as we followed DH on his work trip. One is themed to the Underground, which I think is superfun.

 

[annmarieda]

So glad to see you posting to your report again. Your pictures are so fun! I love the waters and the land... boats...etc. I agree with you. How does anyone living there get anything done?

Glad the the cards were recovered. We too would have gone back.

 

[kaoden39]

The water is so amazingly beautiful! I cannot believe the beautiful blue colors. They are so vivid!

 

[bumbershoot]

So glad to see you posting to your report again. Your pictures are so fun! I love the waters and the land... boats...etc. I agree with you. How does anyone living there get anything done?

Glad the the cards were recovered. We too would have gone back.

Glad to know someone else would have gone back for the cards. Feels so indulgent, but then, if I had lost something I surely would have gone back, right?

The water is so amazingly beautiful! I cannot believe the beautiful blue colors. They are so vivid!

It was SO gorgeous.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

Loving your trip report!

I'm a little unclear about what you have to pay for on RC. Can you help me understand?

I know alcohol and fine dining and if you want soda you should get the soda card.

 

[nancy drew]

I'm so glad you're back!!!

I know the kids and I will do a RCCL cruise one day, and your reports help me remember that we will have an amazing time, even if it isn't Disney.

 

[bumbershoot]

Loving your trip report!

I'm a little unclear about what you have to pay for on RC. Can you help me understand?

I know alcohol and fine dining and if you want soda you should get the soda card.

Alcohol, fancy coffee and tea drinks...just like on Disney.

Soda, unlike Disney.

Ben&Jerry's, which can't be compared to Disney because Disney doesn't have that ice cream option. BOTH lines have "soft serve" included, but we don't eat that for ingredient issues.

Fine dining, yes.

Bingo.

Disney doesn't have a casino but Royal does (and it has smoking sections) so if you like to gamble that's an extra expense on Royal.

That's all I can think of right now.

Glad to have you here!

I'm so glad you're back!!!

I know the kids and I will do a RCCL cruise one day, and your reports help me remember that we will have an amazing time, even if it isn't Disney.

Thanks.

There was a family next to us at dinner with 3 kids who seemed to each have a variety of food needs. One night I noticed (I'm sure it happened each night, I just only noticed the one night) the mom looking at the regular menus and a special menu, and filling out 3 different forms. It seemed that she was looking at the next night's offerings and she was pre-ordering for the kids. Pretty neat! Our server actually had me do that a few nights, because he could tell that we were veggie and I was being pretty picky what with my weird tastebuds and all.

My point in telling you this is that they seemed to be just as helpful with food as Disney is.

They did have one funky issue with the menu, where they used their "vegetarian" label on something most definitely NOT vegetarian, but I think that was just an oversight than anything sinister.

 

[bumbershoot]

An "at sea" day. Ahhhhhhhh.


View off the bow. E is putting his changes-with-the-sun pirate medallion into the sun. Goes from silver to gold.

More views of our side-aft balcony.

After breakfast, we ran into our server, Jean, dancing at the front of the Windjammer. He had done this most mornings; him or another guy. They wore crazy wigs and hats and big necklaces, they greeted you and were incredibly joyful. Our server Jean was lovely. Sweet, kind, helpful, ridiculously handsome. We kept trying to set him up with the beautiful woman at our table, but they resisted. They could have had a wonderful life and ridiculously good looking children!

Anyway, this morning he was dancing, and he happened to be playing Gangnam Style. This inspired my kid.

It did not, however, inspire my camera to take decent pictures.

This was a day marked in short periods of time. Do this for 30 minutes, do that for an hour, do another thing for 20 minutes, etc. Now this sounds crazy-making, but it sure keeps things interesting! Robert wasn't feeling 100% by this time, so being able to relax worked for him. For me, having a bit of time on my own to go sit in the sun, but for a limited amount of time, was good. It just all worked.

Breakfast was just me and E, if I recall, because Robert needed to sleep. Made specific when&where plans to meet up later.

From there we went back to the room for E to change, because he wanted to ice skate! You need long pants and socks. So we got him into those (and a shirt of course) and headed off to the rink.

Got him into a rental helmet and rental skates (free rentals). He had NO interest in me getting on the ice that day, and I decided to let him have his way. This was his second time ice skating, and the first time without one of those cage things to hang onto. So it was a lot of walking while holding on to the walls, then a lot of falling. Not a lot of gliding happening.

This was a rare, very rare, moment of gliding.

These were far more usual.

For the really good ice skaters out there, just go to the ADVANCED ice skate, OK? Don't go to the main one. Why? Because there are total and complete newbies out there, and your fancy tricks aren't safe. Also, if you're comfy enough to be skating and chatting, and you happen to stop for chatting along the wall, you are interfering with the newbies who need the wall.

There were some total showoffs on the ice that day; they were obviously ice skaters or hockey players (or maybe just typical Minnesotans, LOL) and a few of them had to be talked to about what they were doing.

It was run by the people involved in the ice show, so I got to chat with one of the women who had been in the show the other night. She was really nice.

E had fun and was sore sore sore later on.


As we left I caught some pix of the room.

Reflection of windows on the shiny ceiling.

Out the window.

From there, we went to Pharoah's Palace, for the Adventure Ocean's "blacklight" show.

It was actually quite cute, though I would recommend getting there EARLY for those who have a hard time seeing in the dark. We got there after they had turned off the lights, and I absolutely could not see. DH was there and he saw us. Eamon saw him and went straight there. For me, it was as though all the lights of the world had been turned off. Robert had to come up to get me and lead me down. It was terrifying for me, and really embarrassing.

The show was very cute, though a little young. Cleverly done, too. It's advertised for kids, but it's in a big lounge so you could go if you wanted, even if you didn't have your family with you.

From there....I think that's when I got my suntime, and the guys went and played somewhere. Arcade? Shuffleboard? I don't know. They had fun, I got a little sun (but not too much), it was all good.

E didn't want to meet the Dreamworks characters, but they were still fun to see. Somehow this character looked exactly like he does in the animation.

Dressed for our second formal night.

I bought this pashmina onboard, and love it. Might not go with the raspberry dress, but it kept me warmer! Oh I really must do something about my hair.

Sunset.

This was the error on the menu, Nancy. The tortellini was the vegetarian item (not vegan, obviously) and they got the grain-looking V in the wrong spot.

E tried Baked Alaska. And you can see his pack of cards there. Kept him (and others) amused during dinner.

A funny little towel animal.

Eamon went to the kid's club this evening. If you read the Day 6 stuff, you see that they were having Rock & Roll Night. I knew this would be right up E's alley.

So, a few hours later, when we picked him up from the kid's club, I was not at all surprised to see him wearing a crown, indicating he had been made "King of the night". And the girl that had been made Queen was a girl he kind of liked. Aw, adorable.

He had participated in everything, but it came down to the end, when, in his words, he had to "break out The Worm" to win the dance contest.

He still has the crown.



This was the day when I realized that I finally like reggae music as I lazed in the sunshine. Here we had had 3 weeks of illness and exhaustion. We'd been so miserable. Robert had been so worried about us. And then things turned around, we were feeling better, we were relaxing and, you know what? Everything WAS going to be all right. Just like the man sings.

I'd never gotten reggae before. Not at all. And now I cannot wait to hear that steel drum again.

 

[nancy drew]

Thanks.

There was a family next to us at dinner with 3 kids who seemed to each have a variety of food needs. One night I noticed (I'm sure it happened each night, I just only noticed the one night) the mom looking at the regular menus and a special menu, and filling out 3 different forms. It seemed that she was looking at the next night's offerings and she was pre-ordering for the kids. Pretty neat! Our server actually had me do that a few nights, because he could tell that we were veggie and I was being pretty picky what with my weird tastebuds and all.

My point in telling you this is that they seemed to be just as helpful with food as Disney is.

They did have one funky issue with the menu, where they used their "vegetarian" label on something most definitely NOT vegetarian, but I think that was just an oversight than anything sinister.

That is really good to know, that they can handle food allergies/needs. I was just talking to someone local who said they had a horrible experience on DCL with a dairy allergy, and I was kind of shocked. I don't really understand how it could have happened.

And LOL at the menu!!

 

[bumbershoot]

That is really good to know, that they can handle food allergies/needs. I was just talking to someone local who said they had a horrible experience on DCL with a dairy allergy, and I was kind of shocked. I don't really understand how it could have happened.

And LOL at the menu!!

Just goes to show you that one person's experience doesn't mean EVERY experience!

How's your boy doing, by the way?

 

[woody73]

. . . They did have one funky issue with the menu, where they used their "vegetarian" label on something most definitely NOT vegetarian, but I think that was just an oversight than anything sinister.

This reminds me of when DCL had "leeches" on the menu.

Apparently they meant lychee, a fruit.

Woody

 

[bumbershoot]

I hadn't heard if that one, woody! Hilarious!

 

[nancy drew]

Just goes to show you that one person's experience doesn't mean EVERY experience!

How's your boy doing, by the way?

That's why I always ask for fresh opinions and experiences! Can't have too many stories, both good and bad. Both offer the opportunity to learn.

The boy is doing well, so far. He has a few tests to make sure this is really gone gone gone, and I feel like I will always be expecting a relapse. I hesitate to even mention if he is doing well. I feel like it will jinx him.

This reminds me of when DCL had "leeches" on the menu.

Apparently they meant lychee, a fruit.

Woody

Omg. I would laugh so hard if I saw "leeches" on a menu!