We thought after the amazing day we had in St. Maarten, nothing on our cruise could possibly top it. But we were pleasantly surprised at how wonderful St. Thomas was!
We took a walking tour from Blackbeard's Castle (which, by the way, is not a castle nor did Blackbeard ever visit). We posed with some awesome pirate statues, and then headed down the windy, steep road to see the rest of the island.
We went into three different historic homes, where we met some great people that we befriended. The great thing was that everybody on the island knew everyone else, so they just kept directing us down the road to see their friends, who were equally awesome. We went to a rum distillery, lots of shops, an amber museum, and ended up on a really fun boardwalk next to the water, all off of the famous 99 Dutch Steps.
Matt and I were so impressed with our second port of call, St. Maarten, that now we want to go as often as possible. When we arrived to the island, we automatically headed down to Sunset Beach -- one of the most famous little strips of land in the aviation world. We had a spectacular time watching the planes land at Princess Juliana airport, which was so close you... well, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.
We found a neat little restaurant right next to the beach where we ate french fries and watched all of the planes. They had a chalkboard surfboard (pictured below) that told you the flight times of all of the incoming aircraft.
We couldn't ask for a more perfect place to spend the day!!!
And to top it all off, an amazing sunset from our ship's balcony.
Aside from all of the beautiful and lounging-packed destinations, our ship had some pretty fun stuff.You learned all about our fondness for the pizza bar in my last post, but we had a great time exploring and partaking in the awesome activities they have to offer.
Each night, there was a neat show.We only made it to one of them, sadly, because we had the late seating at dinner.Here we are at the magic show.I think it was good—at least from what I remember.That evening I was suffering from some major sinus congestion.My sweet husband bought some Sudafed for me at the ship store, and I took it in between dinner and the show.Needless to say, about 20 minutes into the performance I was sacked out.You can’t really tell from the photo, but we sat really close, right in the middle.I’m sure the magician must have seen me:head back, mouth open.I woke up when he was doing some crazy trick in the middle of the audience, about 15 feet away.
Our awesome porter (whose name I unfortunately could not pronounce) decorated our stateroom for us.We had a fun little mail box outside our room, and each night we would get the next day’s itinerary.We had so much fun going through all of the neat little activities and picking out what to do.
One morning we got up super early and caught an awesome round of bingo.We were the youngest people there by at least 30 years, and we had a blast learning all of the bingo lingo.For example, did you know that when they draw the number 25, you yell “A duck and a snake!A quack and a hiss.”I’ll spare you the details of the hand signals that goes with it!
After about a day of looking for the way to get to the bow of the boat, we finally found it.(If you’re ever on a Princess cruise, by the way, check deck 15 – it looks like it doesn’t go all of the way to the front, but it does!)It was incredibly, insanely windy when we stepped out of the door.At our wedding, Catherine’s dad gave us a lucky dollar to play in the casino on the ship.Matt put it in his pocket that very morning, but when we walked outside that poor dollar didn’t have a prayer.If you find our lucky dollar floating anywhere in the Caribbean, we would really appreciate it if you would return it.I mean, don’t you think it might be bad luck when your lucky dollar blows away?
And it wouldn’t be a proper cruise without a formal night picture.Please note, I was wearing a strapless dress in the photo, but that’s not exactly apparent.So much fun!
On our absolutely amazing honeymoon, our first stop was Princess Cays, Bahamas -- our cruise line's private island. As you can see, the water was absolutely breathtaking.
This was the view from the pizza bar on the cruise. It's where we spent most of our time. Sad, but true...
When we went downstairs to get off of the ship, we quickly learned what a tendering port was. Tendering, in the cruise world, signifies: Get off your big, safe ship and get onto a small one that should only ever be used for emergencies.
But alas, we survived the tendering experience and it was actually quite fun. If Matt ever gives up the Southwest Airlines thing, I think he might move to the Caribbean to drive life boats (or, given his latest obsession, he might move to Alaska and work on crab boats--specifically the Northwestern on the A&E show, Deadliest Catch). But alas, I digress... Here we are in arguably the most touristy picture of our voyage.
We had an amazing time playing in the ocean together. We jumped in the ocean and acted like kids for hours. The water was amazingly clear and there were stingrays swimming all around our feet. We were acting so crazy that people around us started saying, "They must be honeymooners, they still like each other."
After a couple of hours on the beach, we eventually ventured back to our ship. After eating some more pizza, we started roaming around looking for a pool without 18 million people in it. We soon located the serene little hamlet pictured above and were so proud of ourselves for "outsmarting the masses." Little did we know, we actually snuck into a private pool connected to the spa. Apparently, it's about $20 a day per person. Oops. Oh well, no one caught us.
Stay tuned for the next installment of "we went on a really amazing honeymoon and are still so excited about being married." Have a great weekend!
I can't believe Matt and I have been married a month and a half. It has been so much fun, and we're enjoying every minute of it. More on married life to come, but I thought I would post a little bit about our amazing honeymoon. I imagine this will probably need to be spread out over a few posts, just because one can't hold so much awesomeness.
After our incredible wedding, Matt and I took the first flight out (on good ol' Southwest Airlines, of course). We arrived... no, stumbled into Fort Lauderdale all bleary-eyed around noon, and caught a cab to our amazing ship. This was Matt's first cruise and my third, and I would most definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone.
Our escort out of port, taken from the side of the ship.
That first night we had a wonderful time exploring the ship, going to our safety briefing, and eating (of course!)
You can just call us Mr. and Mrs. Buoyant
It was the ultimate relaxation!
Look at us all married!
That evening, we had our first formal dining room experience on the ship. We had this hilarious Romanian waitress that was rather... gruff to say the least. She would say things like "You no order what I recommend? You no like is not my problem." We had so much fun with her throughout our week-long cruise!
After dinner, our waitstaff surrounded our table and sang "Happy Honeymoon" to the tune of Happy Birthday in an Asian accent. It was amazing. Matt and I sing it to one another at least once a day now. :)
The "Happy Honeymoon" Dessert
After dinner, we wandered around the ship and accidentally kept winding up in the crew-only areas. It was very confusing -- definitely not as simple as the Love Boat (which, by the way, was on a non-stop loop on our stateroom TV because we took a Princess Cruise).
Whew... And that's just day one of the cruise! More to follow. Enjoy!
