Diane

Our first port and, after three days, I”m happy to have some time off the ship. When we arrived at port, we were one of eight ships and there are lots of tourists in town. The locals are friendly and happy to have us visitors. It feels safe too.

We had the third largest cruise ship of the world, Wonder of the Sea, (6,988 passengers- our ship has 670!) just across the pier from us. The really amazing thing is that I saw a green turtle right next to the dock as we pulled up. It was so weird to see the turtle next to that huge cruise ship.

My original excursion to go snorkeling was cancelled so I wandered around port. It’s 84 degrees Fahrenheit and the sun is strong so I didn’t stay out long. Just long enough to walk to & from town, visit the shops, visit a local museum and to put my feet on the amazingly fine, white sand and in the cool-ish Caribbean Sea.

There was no shade on the walk and as much as possible I walked in the shade of the buildings around town and enjoyed any stray sea breeze that past by. It was a 15 minute walk from dock to town.

As soon as I returned, Jennifer suggested a root beer float. It sounded great but they don’t have any root beer on board so I settled for a strawberry shake. It took about an hour to cool down to normal temperature. We’ve seen a number of ambulances go to the cruise ships and I found myself wondering if heat stroke was the cause.

Half the island is Dutch and half is French. I was really hoping to have a Dutch meal but couldn’t find any- not sure if I even got to the Dutch part of the island!

The French side freed the slaves before the Dutch side so the slaves just crossed the ‘line’ to become free. Slaves were treated ok as most owners were more interested in drinking rum than farming. Slaves ‘ran’ the farms so everyone could eat. The main crop is Sugar Cane which was grown for sugar(white & brown) and rum.

The island can be listed at Sint Maarten(Dutch), Saint Martin (French), St. Maarten, or St. Martin….

Another day of ocean passing by and exploring the ship & its activities. The picture is of the view from my breakfast table.

I love my apple watch retirement gift- thank you IT group- it tells me I’m actually meeting my movement goals. Don’t ask how high/low the goals are.

Today we are at sea all day in international waters in the Caribbean. This means we get to explore the ship and watch the ocean go by.

And we get to explore on-board activities- fitness classes, art classes, ballroom dance classes, singing groups, casino, pool, spa, and, of course, eating.

I did take a fitness class in the morning and in the afternoon I was really sore.

Our room is on the 7th deck, the fitness center is on the 9th, the library is on the 10th, and places to eat are on the 5th and 9th deck. So there is plenty of opportunity to take the stairs which I do (sometimes).

We flew from San Jose California to Miami Florida on Friday morning and our cruise leaves Miami on Sunday. We just wanted to be sure we arrived with all our luggage in time to get onto the ship. We figured we were being overcautious since it’s only a domestic flight.

There was a bad winter storm in the US. We saw lots of folks running in the airport and many missed their flights and had to re-book. At our hotel we met folks that were missing members of their group because of the flight disruptions.

Our flight was quite smooth and all our luggage arrived at the airport with us- very happy news and well worth the little extra time in Florida.

We spent the time at a hotel near the airport and on Sunday took a hotel shuttle to PortMiami.

Our hotel was 5 1/2 miles from the port and it took us 2 1/2 hours to get to our ship! Our driver said it was the craziest he’s seen this season. There were 9 cruise ships in port and we calculated they held a total of 30,000+ people- no wonder it was crazy.

Our cabin is 216 square feet and it has two twin beds, two end tables, a desk with chair, a wall-mounted TV and a small couch. Now we have to get all our luggage(see packing post for quantity) into its very small drawers and cabinets.

We managed because we put all our empty suitcases plus half of our clothes under the beds. When we are about halfway through the cruise we’ll swap our currently-in-use clothes with the under-the-bed clothes. By then, I”m sure we’ll be happy to have a new selection of clothes to wear.

Jennifer has the knack of walking past the wall-mounted TV without causing bruising. I don’t. She gets the bed that requires walking by the TV multiple times a day.