Cruise Wrap

The cruise was great. We had a really nice time, balancing our daily activities between excursions, shopping and ship activities.

Excursions:
Submarine in Aruba was awesome. Saw abandoned boats and tons of fish. Really cool. Probably what snorkeling and scuba are like.
Took a beach trip in St. Maarten, to the French side, where they called it St. Martin. The whole setup of the island as a split property of the Dutch and French was quite interesting to learn about.
Rain forest in Puerto Rico. This was cool, but it wasn't actually raining and there were no animals.

Shopping:
We basically did a little shopping in all four places but it wasn't too bad. We broke it up with stops at internet cafes and Kate wasn't too bad about taking forever. I don't think the shopping is really much cheaper than U.S. prices anymore. It was fun to see some of the stores, they sell jewelry, t-shirts, perfume, drinks, phamracy, anything. Unemployment is 1% in St. Maarten, because every store whas 45 employees to harrass you when you walk in.

Food:
Food on the ship was great. Breakfasts were nice buffet. I had several shrimp and bacon omelets. And several huge piles of bacon. Lunch was adequate but not that great. First day was paella but downhill after that. They also had "tea" or snack at 2:30 which was good. Hamburgers were overdone. Dinner was awesome. One night was garlic shrimp (i had about 3 portions). Four lobster tails. 4 shrimp cocktails on the last night. Kate said I was eating too much but I think the waiters really like when someone is enjoying the food.

Ship activities:
Because there were so many people the ship had a lot of cool stuff. In addition to the things we didn't do (rockwall, ice skating, comedians) there were a lot of cool things we did. Mini golf (I won), Johnny Rockets ($4 additional charge, but a great root beer float), we saw a couple shows, which were very funny.

Gambling:
Separate post.