one BIG GIANT cruise post

The whole SLEW of pics are at my lil' KodakGallery, so if you'd like an email sending you there, just let me know, and I'll sendja one. Otherwise, here's a few highlights...

April 21, Saturday
We started off in Miami:

(which, in my opinion, will be a really nice town in about 10 years when they're done with it's facelift. Construction EVERYWHERE, and really dirty). We DID eat at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. (per uncle Don's recommendation) and really enjoyed it.

It was raining the afternoon we left, but the sun made up for lost time later on.

April 22, Sunday

The next morning, we dropped anchor off the shore of a private island owned by the cruise line itself (from what we gathered from the 'hey mon' locals) called Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas.The water there was, as I called it, "Kool-Aid" blue. It was very turquoise, clear and not as warm as I thought it would be, but still warm enough to swim in.

They 'shuttled' us to the beach (by boat which took FORever. 3000 people wanted off, and the boats (3 of them) only held about 100 people each.) We were glad that was the only port we had to do that at. We swam briefly with some white and black striped fish, walked through a "Bohemian Church"
and ate hamburgers. Not our typical Sunday, but still surprisingly quiet,
despite our "not-so-quiet" shipmates.

April 23, Monday

They called it one of our two "Fun Days at Sea." Meaning, we had no where to stop, so we sailed and sailed for many miles in search of land. We abused the cool twisty slide, read our mystery novels (And might I add, that I really must have been relaxing, because I bought a Mary Higgins Clark book (300+ pages) which I have NEVER done, finished the ENTIRE thing, and bought another one in the ship's gift shop.) and ate ice cream cones (of which there was an EVIL, endless supply.) We were afraid to ask any of our intoxicated guests to take our picture for fear that they'd drop our camera into the seemingly-bottomless ocean below, so we ended up with a lot of pictures like this:

April 24, Tuesday

We docked early at St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands in the rain. We got to walk off the boat onto a pier this time, which was much more enjoyable. We were one of the few brave couples to brave exiting the ship without an umbrella in the rain, thinking it would be a great adventure. (which it was. especially for my humidity-challenged hair). We shopped some and went SCUBA diving (with tanks and all) which was by far the highlight of the trip for both of us. We swam with a barracuda and a real "Finding Nemo-type" sea turtle. It swam right out from underneath me and about scared me half to death. I could get into scuba, though. It was great fun. We saw an LDS church there that was exceptionally clean despite some other "less than tidy" features of the rest of the city (away from the shore). The one below is on our way out of some older ruins of some kind.

April 25, Wednesday

We docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico at 7:00 am. From the gym on the 11th floor, you can see an almost 280 degree view of the water. I was using the treadmill between 6 and 7 as we aproached and finally docked there. That was a cool way to see it. It kind of (but not really) felt like I was walking toward the pier on the water.

I took a WHOLE bunch of pictures here for some reason. We took a bus tour of the area with a tour guide who didn't speaka-sogooda-english and toured (briefly) one of the forts there.

They had several forts, and a wall that was built around the city. Doug used the camera (a lot) so I will just put up a few. I used my Espanol to ask a local teenager to take our picture. The one I took was better, but I didn't delete his since he really did put forth a good effort.

Puerto Rico was my favorite port, for sure. I'm not sure why, it just was. Maybe one of my boys will go on their mission there. I'll send shorts and sunscreen. (for P-day anyway).

April 26, Thursday

We stopped at Grand Turk (of the Turks and Caicos islands) where they pretty much had a cool private beach and pool, accompanied by a "Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville" restaurant. Which, of course, was widely accepted by the vast majority of the company on board the ship. We managed to acquire some lounge chairs and swam wish some more fish (this time skinny minnow-types) and perused the shops. We went snorkeling where we came across some really colorful fish, and another barracuda. The tour guide guy fed him. His name is Larry. I think he's their pet. That night we had another formal night onboard, and we got all schnazzied up and had our picture taken a GOzillion times.

April 27, Friday

Our last day (pretty much) was Friday which was another "Fun Day at Sea." We swam some more, ate some more ice cream, read and soaked up the last remaining bit of sun our now-leathered skin could take on. I wanted to be on the deck to read, but didn't want to get burnt and couldn't secure any shade, so I full on covered my whole body with a towel except my head with my visor, and read. Strange that no photographers were swarming for that picture.

April 28, Saturday
On Saturday morning at 6:00 am bright and early, we docked and debarked the ship. The Carnival Triumph had been a trusty and enjoyable vessel for our vacationing pleasure.

We decided that again, on another perhaps more conservative line, we'd love to go again. Considering the variety in destinations, the endless supply of food including but not limited to 24 hour pizzeria, ice cream and room service, luxurious accomodations (the cabins were really very roomy and the bed was quite comfy), the entertainment, and cool towel animals in your room every night, it is a great bargain!

WOW That was a long post. You're tired now. Get some sleep. I know I need some.