Final sea days and disembarkation

After 5 consecutive days of island adventures, we were ready for our 3 at sea days coming back.  Today was beautiful.  We took it VERY easy.  We went out on deck 5 and found loungers to read in.  A lazy lunch, then the 4th Thriller Dance practice for me.  Today, I think I can do it.  The jury was out before today.  We have one more practice before performing in the Centrum.  We wanted to go to the show, which was the singers and dancers doing Broadway.  All went well until the guy next to me had a female friend come sit on his lap jokingly and spilled about a half a glass of wine all over me.  They were very apologetic, I had on black pants and it was white wine so no worries!  Then on to dinner.  We tried a new thing - Majority Rules game.  It was kinda fun but wouldn't do it again.  Then we went to the centrum to listen to the music and have a last drink before bed.  Continuing with the every other night towel animal theme we found this - which we THINK is a sunbathing human??

The next morning arrived and we slept well, enjoying our extra hour of sleep!  The seas are a bit rockier, as we had been told it would be so we both donned our sea bands and took a Bonine just in case.  The barf bags are appearing again just in case also.

We enjoyed sitting in the centrum and reading until the event of the morning which was way more fun than we expected.  It was the egg drop.  Each team that competed was given a packet with materials like a plastic cup, popsicle sticks, cotton balls, paper, a pipe cleaner and also given an arm's length of tape.  They were to build a vehicle to protect a raw egg when dropped from the 8th deck down to the 4th.  It was much fun to see what folks built, what they named it, and whether or not their egg survived the drop.  If it survived drop 1 they were to go to the next round - drop 2, same contraption but this time you had to survive AND be closest to a target to win.  Two teams tied.  Some of the eggs came down with a splat, some fluttered as folks built parachutes.

The landing zone....

And Thriller dance practice again.  Then lunch.  The buffet is on the top deck, which gets a lot of motion, and by lunchtime it was hard to tell the drunk folks (yes there are a few that early) from the sober ones with the motion of the ship making for challenging walking.  Bill took this shot from our deck 2 window.

We came back to our cabin to find departure tags for our bags along with our assigned departure waiting spot.  A few games of magnetic battleship ensued - a treat in our stocking from Santa.  I won 2 out of 3!

Tonight was formal night so we got a bit gussied up (hardly formal) and headed to the dinning room to enjoy lobster.  During dinner they brought out the chef teams to be recognized.  There are over 400 folks supporting the dining operations here!

Then on to the Schooner Bar to have a glass of vino before the quest game.  The piano player, whom we had heard early on in the cruise, was almost unrecognizable.  He was not good, and I swore it must be a different guy.  But no, I decided it was the same guy but he was either sick or had a few because he was really bad.  We picked up our drink and went on to the adjoining area where the next game we were going to participate in was going to happen.  This was called the quest.  It's kind of like an audience participation scavenger hunt.  It's an adult only event (there are only 36 kids on this cruise and this happened at 10:15 so that's easy to attain).  They break the audience into teams and request items that each team must attain and show to gain points.  And at 2 points the audience has to get up and dance to music.  Each team has a male and a female captain.  Some things they asked for: a 6 person rowing canoe... for this one I saw a woman quite well along in years get on the floor and row.  Another was having to have 2 men change clothing.  Black teeth - which produced combs and zippers.  Then there were some suggestive ones.  We participated in a couple of ways.  They asked for a woman wearing pink underwear.  I had on pink underwear so I ran up to the host and hiked up the side of my dress to show it.  Bill provided shoelaces when they needed 12, and a belt when they needed 7 hooked together.  I provided a bra when they wanted 6 of those (which I could wiggle out of without showing anything) and Bill dropped his drawers when they wanted 7 pair of men's pants.  I didn't think of grabbing a pic of him in his underwear (thankfully he had on a shirt with a long shirt tail) but grabbed his phone and grabbed a blurry pic as he was putting himself back together.

It turned out to be a lot of fun, but our team did not win.  Darnit!

Breakfast the final day (and a dance on my part with Shekinah our assistant waiter as we exited the buffet area, off the ship and on the bus to take us back to our car in 30 min.  All in all a most wonderful vacation!

St. Maarten

Breakfast as usual then we headed out to find our meeting spot for our excursion.

We had directions (this was our only private excursion) but had to ask for help finding it.  When we got there we found out we were the only 2 who signed up for the particular excursion we planned.  The other one, which had a fair number of folks, was ours plus a "beach break".  We were assured there was a very nice restaurant there so we said OK when they moved us to that excursion with no additional charge.   Then the waiting began.  We were to meet them at 9:30, and it got close to 10:00 and no movement.  Some complained and they took us after that.  Thank goodness for complainers!

We started on the Dutch side of the island, and moved to the French side.  St. Maarten was devastated during the 2017 hurricanes and is coming back but is far from being back in business fully.  We saw evidence of this time and time again. But we also saw lovely beaches.

We headed to Rainbow Beach where the beach break was to take place.  We opted to have a very nice lunch - starting with the special drink of the day - a mojito with champagne.  It was pretty and refreshing!  We decided to share 3 tapas dishes - mozzarella sticks (yes mozzarella sticks), chicken skewers, and calamari.  All were really good!  And they came with a gorgeous beach view.  While waiting for our meal I noticed a Maryland flag hanging from a condo porch right next to the restaurant.  It was so close I walked over and had a nice conversation with the guys.  They were from Baltimore and come every year.  They pointed out the properties nearby that were not open.  They were very nice, and I enjoyed talking to them!

We slowed down in an area that had LOTS of iguanas in the trees.  They are hard to see in the pics, but there were a LOT of them. 

Next we stopped for a "shopping opportunity".  I took this pic so show the traditional markets but honestly we could have taken this picture on any of the islands we have been on.  Some vendors are more aggressive than others, but most are very respectful of a polite no thank you.

Then we headed toward Moho beach that is famous for planes taking off and landing right over the beach.  It was nice to see, but after you have seen a couple of planes land you are ready to move on.

They have a surfboard at the beach bar where they post the landing times.

Then it was on our way back to the ship.

Off to dinner, then a bit of music before heading to an early bedtime.  We were both beat!  Tomorrow is a sea day and we are looking forward to it!

St. Kitts

Today we had no problem getting up on time.... our excursion meeting time was 12:15!  So we headed out to do a bit of shopping, grabbed a snack before we left and headed out.  Today we are doing a catamaran sail around part of the island then meeting a renovated sugar cane train to see more of the island.  The exit into the city was really pretty.

Off to meet our tour.  There were 17 of us and we headed off by bus to our catamaran.  Along the way our guide showed us many different kinds of fruits and nuts and plants growing on the island.  We also had to wait for a bunch of goats to cross the road in front of us.  Our guide said they know where they live, and roam free to return home when they are supposed to.  Apparently that's what they were doing - I caught a shot of them going up an alley.  

I was quite amused when I saw this "security office".

Soon we were on the catamaran.  They attached a fishing pole to the back of the boat, and caught a Spanish Mackerel as we made our way to meet the train.  

Islands off in the distance.

And the inland shrouded in clouds.

Soon we were transported to our train.

Just kidding that was a small car that came in front of the train.  Here's the train!

It was nicely outfitted and there was a nice woman making daiquiris and pina coladas for the guests.  We enjoyed mango daiquiris!  And they had a tour guide giving commentary and a group of 3 girls who sang traditional songs.  It was a lovely way to see the island!

More goats - we saw lots of goats!

Surviving stacks from the processing of sugar cane back in the day.

We returned to the ship with little down time before heading to the show of the night - the crew talent show.  Several folks who we have interacted with were in the show and it was really really good!  Dinner and now .... time for bed.  We returned home to find this guy on our bed. 

St. Lucia

Our morning started off the polar opposite of yesterday.  We set the alarm.  Check to make sure it's set AND on.  What we DIDN'T factor in was that for just a brief moment my phone somehow went out of airplane mode, allowing for the time to be current as to ship time (we moved forward an hour our last day at sea or so).  So.... we were up and at the Windjammer for breakfast before the doors even opened!  I swear we will get this right.

So today we booked a tour of the island called The Island's Delights.  It was wonderful.  We had large van full of folks and a wonderful tour guide and driver and we went all over the island.  We saw many gorgeous views of Marigot Bay.  

She pointed out the home of the current governor (not sure that is what she called him) of the island along the way.

We learned a lot about bananas, a prime crop of St. Lucia.  Here are baby bananas.

A bit further up the mountain there was an opportunity to view the beautiful bay again.

Panning the camera to the right if you wanted wine with a view there was this.

We visited a little fishing village with vendors and views.  Here's Bill doing what he loves to do.

Matter of fact the head waiter from the ship was on our excursion and he was a photographer type too.  They bonded and it increased Bill's fun on the excursion to share shots and info with him.

We continued on to our next destination - lunch spot with a view of the Pitons.  

Lunch was very good - local food.  Chicken, rice and beans, a dish of sweet potatoes and yucca, and a really good potato salad made with green bananas instead of potatoes!  The view was wonderful, food was great, but the restrooms left a lot to be desired.  But they DID have these lovely faucets!

Note I did NOT turn the camera to the stalls themselves.  You're welcome!

Next it was off to Sulpher Springs - a park that is volcanic in nature.  As we walked to the steam vents we saw a pretty waterfall.  The water at the top was cool runoff from the mountain.  The middle part began being heated and the final part was about 212 degrees from the thermal heat.  

Then on to the boiling mud pots.  The smell of sulphur was strong - so strong they said there were no snakes here because I guess snakes don't like the smell?  People can take mineral baths and then slather themselves with this mud and then when it dries and cakes they wash it off.  It's supposed to be very good for you.  I didn't book that excursion!

Next on to a working 17th century plantation - Morne Coubaril Estate.  There were beautiful flowers here.  

They also process cocoa beans here.  Our guide cut open a cocoa bud and let us taste the raw beans which are covered with a kind of slimy but sweetish coating.  We were warned not to bite into the raw bean. 

They demonstrated the crushing of the beans by donkey power.

This was a representation of a van that used to carry goods to market.

And more gorgeous views!

We were absolutely exhausted but happy after we returned to the ship.  We broke our normal pattern and went to the buffet for dinner, which was good enough and we didn't have to change out of our shorts and T's.  Then I hit the casino slots until I lost the $20 I put in.  That took only about 10 minutes.  And we then closed the book on another day in paradise!