We have returned! (Cruise Recap)

Sorry for the long post but lots to tell!.........

WOW...what a wild time! First off we are all so glad to be ALIVE and also we are very thankful for what we all have.

We hit Florida last wednesday night and got the rental SUV-Toyota Highlander (nice ride) and traveled to Jacksonville. We had reservations at the LaQuinta Inn and of course wanted a no smoking room. Well that didn't happen but they gave us our room for free once we complained about a non-smoking room that was really smokey!

Thursday we drove to Dawn's friends house and met her (Sandy-the travel agent) and her daughter (Shannon). They are really great people and fun to be around. We got on the ship around 1:00pm for our cruise. Of course the boat didn't leave port until 4:00pm. The booze was flowing on the cruise. I could not believe how the wait staff was pushing adult beverages. I had a couple beers but that was it. I have to admit I was a little nervous about drinking and being on the ship. We had a life boat drill then headed off down the river out to sea. We saw dolphins playing along the shore of the river and went under a HUGE bridge that was being worked on. The workers were REALLY HIGH up in the air and were waving at us. Pretty cool. We met a couple guys from Georgia, I think, had fun with them and a iceball (shaved ice from our bucket of beer) The iceball was made and thrown at them and later made the daily cruise video. The first night sleeping was interesting. The ship moves side to side which I was not expecting so I didn't sleep all that well but others in our party slept fine as it rocked them to sleep.

Friday we hit Freeport Bahamas. This is a very industrial port and not much to do unless you take a long cab ride to town. We did see flying fish fly/swim out along side the cruise ship which was cool. We opted for a Jeep Excursion Tour of the island. It was a great way to see the island but our speaker didn't work in the jeep so we had no idea what we were looking at half the time. We decided to make up our own commentary...."and on the right we see a pine tree leaning on a power line"...."and on the left we see more pine trees". We did visit a beach and got into the COLD ocean, had lunch, visited a cave with a scary circular staircase and of course the wonderful driving on the left hand side of the road. Got back to the ship and watched us depart Freeport. Oh ya, it was Gilly's birthday so we had fun telling a lot of people we ran into that it was her birthday.....I think she got tired of it but was a good sport. It was also an adventure finding her birthday cake we had ordered before the cruise that was suppose to be delivered to her room then to our dinner table then we had it poolside later that night.

Saturday we docked in Nassau Bahamas. This is a much nicer port but is about a mile walk to get to the entrance of the town from our dock. We had not really planned anything at this stop except to see the bike race (Tour of the Bahamas). We talked with some lady at the information desk and she got us interested in a taxi tour for 2.5 hours at the cost of $25 / person. This proved to be VERY INTERESTING! We had to wait about 45 minutes for this lady to try and get 2 more people for this tour. We were to the point of asking for our money back and then they got us in the mini-van with two other people. So we had six people in our mini-van plus Joan our driver. Off we went almost taking off two mirrors from other vans in the lot. The Bahamas seem not to believe in traffic signs much. You would pull into an intersection and tap your horn a couple times to let people know you are going through and away you go! Can't tell you how many close calls we had. The tour was funny. We pulled up along a building (sometimes not even stopping), Joan would give her little talk and then we were off. We did see some neat things like Eddy Murphy's private island, Al Capone's house, an old Fort, the Aquarium at Atlantis Resort then the places that "normal" people lived. She showed us the middle class areas and then we went to, what she said we call the HOOD in our country..OH MY GOD! Let me tell you it was a place I didn't really like being and really wanted out of there fast. There were groups of guys standing around that looked suspicious, prostitutes and just very unclean, povertiy stricken areas. There was also the corner hand pump for water. Joan stopped the van right next to this and told us this guy was getting water for his family. The poor guy had his two kids with him and they all starred at us. Talk about uncomfortable. We tried the local beer called Kalik. We had asked if we could have some beer in the mini-van and she said of course but not to buy it at Atlantis. She would stop at a place downtown for us to buy beer. We all kind of forgot about it untill she went zipping around a corner and told us, "GET OUT" we said "WHAT?", and of course she repeated herself "GET OUT", so me, Dawn and Gilly got out and left Kris with the two other traveliers and the driver. Joan told us to get our beer in this building that was not in the best shape. We tried the door and it was locked. You had to RING THE BUZZER TO BE LET INTO THE LIQUOR STORE! We walked in and of course we were the only women except for two behind the counter and we were the only white people in there. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone and headed to the beer cooler and grabbed 4-Kalik Golds and up to the counter we went after one of they guys told us that he was getting his kick and we would also from the beer. We had no idea what he was talking about at the time. We paid and they grabbed our bottles of beer and opened them for us then back to the mini-van. Joan then took us back to the area were we started this adventure....WOW! We walked over to the Duty Free Liquor Store. We found out we were suppose to have our beer bottles in brown paper bags when drinking them in public so they were kind enough to bag our beer. We bought some rum and bought another round of Kalik. We found out that the Kalik Gold was over 7% alcohol ( I guess that was the kick that guy in the liquor store was talking about) and that not many of the locals drink the Gold...we were very proud of ourselves! We went to a place for lunch called the Bahamian Kitchen (Conch bites, Conch salad and Grouper fingers-YUM). The food was great and so were the locals that had bellied up to the bar. We had a good time there. We made two passes through the Straw Market and that was all we could stand of people begging us to buy some of their stuff. Amazing....didn't like that part of our adventure either.

We did get a cabbie talked into taking us out to the bike race after bartering with another cabbie (I had giving up on seeing the race at that point) This guys seemed nice but they want to get you in the cab and then talk price later. We didn't fall for that and worked out the price to start with. On the way to the race he stopped to get gas. You have to pre-pay for gas then a guy comes out and unlocks the chain holding the gas nozzles securely to the pumps. $4.70 / gallon for gas...OUCH! We got to the area where the bikers were racing. What a cool thing. I will post the video sometime soon that I took. They are something to watch but went much to fast to see who the people were so that is way we took video. We only watched 2 of the seven laps as we had to get back soon with the taxi guy. Ends up as we were heading back to the mini-van there were a couple of racers that wanted a ride back to their hotel and asked if they could hitch a ride. They had finished their race before the pros started and were pretty tired. They were very nice people from Maryland. David and Cheryl Osborne and raced for the Artemis team. Very neat to talk with them. He road a Giant carbon fiber and she had a CSK. I had never heard of that brand bike before but it looked pretty cool. Of course they both had the carbon fiber wheelsets.....very nice!

We headed back to the ship, had supper in the dining room and then out to the back deck of the ship to watch it take off. It sure is amazing how they can move the big ship and ours by no means was BIG like some of them! Ours looked like the S.S. Minow compared to the four other ships docked at port that day.

We had a day at sea to play and do whatever. We watched the hairy chest competition and as stiff as the drinks were I could have entered but I refrained. It was won by a 70-something guy from Minnestota with his six chest hairs. I think the thing that won it was his pick up line. All the guys had to give the judges their best pick up line and his was..."I would like to check you for ticks!" OH MY GOD. We were laughing so hard. He was having a good time. We went to the super bowl party that evening and it was ok. Not much of a fun party. Then it was back to the room to load up the suitecases. You had to have your luggage outside of your room door by midnight so they could put them in the cargo hold. If you didn't do this you had to lug your luggage and it would not have been fun with all the stairs and you would have waited forever for the elevator.

So we made it through customs and headed to Disney for a short stay. We stayed at the All-Star Sports resort (value resort) It was fine and I would have to say if it were the only way I could afford Disney I would do it again but the rooms are smaller and the travel distance from the parks to the resort is longer. We didn't eat there so have no idea about the food.

We had supper on Monday night at the California Grill at the Contemporary Resort and watched the fireworks over Magic Kingdom from there. Amazing how far back the fireworks actually are from the castle when you see them from that angle. It was a late night and we could not believe how may kids were still up and eating at that time of night (9:10pm reservations). Tuesday we spend all day at EPCOT and had a great time. Ate sushi at the newly redone Japanese restaurant. Then we went to Fulton's Crab House for supper (YUM!-Crab legs and Milk Chocolate Creme Brule!) Wednesday morning we checked out and hit Wolfgang Pucks at Downtown Disney for lunch before heading back to Sanford to catch Allegiant Air back to Sioux Falls.

All in all like I said, I am greatful for what I have in my life, the cruiseline was a fun time and of course you can never go wrong with Disney.....the down side.....with all the food and beverages consumed me and Kris gained 5 pounds each even though we didn't eat that much bad food and didn't partake in the beverages all that much. We did walk a lot so that was good. The Disney EPCOT day we walked almost 8 miles! Can't imagine what the weight gain would have been if we had not walked!

Here's to getting my land legs back SOON!