View of pier - small boats are the tenders used by cruise lines
7:30 am
Rise and shine! We do have a shore excursion booked today but we don't have to meet them until about 11:15 am so we have a little bit more time to wait out the rush for the tenders.
8:00 am
To this point we have only had breakfast in the Windjammer Café for the buffet. Since we don't have to go ashore real early we decide to have a sit down breakfast in the main dining room. There are 3 main dining rooms on this ship and all 3 are in the rear of the ship and stacked on top of each other. The Carmen dining room is on deck #3, the La Boheme dining room is on deck #4 (this is where we eat our dinners) and then The Magic Flute dining room is on deck #5. There is a very impressive staircase (reminds you of the staircase on Titanic) that connects all 3 levels but the main entrance to each dining room is on their appropriate deck.
Breakfast and lunch are only served in the Carmen dining room on Deck #3 so we make our way down there. The seating is not assigned so they seat you on a first come, first served basis. They will seat you at a table with other guests unless you specifically request otherwise. We joined a table with 8 other guests who had already begun their meal just a couple of minutes ahead of us. Today I decide to try the omellete since I have been wanting one all week and too lazy or impatient to wait in line in the buffet. I order a ham, cheese and mushroom omellete with some wheat toast. This omellete is one of the best that I have ever ordered, anywhere! Light, fluffy and just superb. Horse actually orders more like his normal health conscious self and enjoys scrambled eggs made with Egg Beaters and some turkey sausage links. Eh, go bad and take an extra cholesterol pill is my theory this week!!!
9:00 am
Pop up on deck real quick to see how the tenders are going and this are running very smooth. We watch for a few minutes before we have to get ready ourselves.
9:30 am
We start making our way down to deck #1 to the tender stations. There is one in the front and one in the back of the ship. They are using tenders that hold about 250 passengers and are mostly full when they leave the ship so they are not creating unnecessary wait times by leaving half full.
View of the ship as we tender to shore
(notice the 2 tenders loading people)
The whole process goes very smooth and we are on land at the pier pretty quick. We don't have to meet our guide until 11:15 am so we have plenty of time to look around and shop a little bit. I decided that I was going to buy Christmas tree ornaments for my kids at each port. Well, that lasted about 10 seconds when we first got to Jamaica as most stores did not have them or they were $20 U.S. dollars. OK, so plan B is now to buy them a $2 keychain and call that a Christmas tree ornament. I found a couple and we add them to our collection and keep browsing.
Pier area full of shopping and excursion meeting points
11:00 am
We find the meeting point after looking for several minutes as it is not clearly marked where we should be. The tour operator is running tours for multiple excursions including Royal Caribbean and Carnival cruise lines. Some better communication and organization is needed as it was difficult to find meeting point and we left about 30 minutes late even though we were all there. Even though the delays, this tour is outstanding and I highly recommend this wonderful excursion. What tour is it you ask? We are embarking on a bicycle tour of the island complete with a rum cake tasting and a rum sample.
The tour begins by van as we ride a couple miles to our meeting point. We are introduced to our 2 tour guides, issued safety gear and bicycles. After a brief instruction on the equipment and the rules of the road, we are off and riding.
Our first ride is through a more residential area as we ride over to the famous 7-mile beach. We ride along the beach for a short distance and then we stop for a drink break. While we stop the tour guide tells us of a couple interesting facts about the islands history and it's current economic reliance. We are treated to a view of a crab that happened to by walking nearby and the guide picked him up to show him off to us.
7-mile beach -- notice our ship really small in the background, just left of center!
We continue a few miles to the Dolphin Discovery center where you can swim with the dolphins. We are not swimming with them but just watching the guests that are swimming with them (sold as seperate excursion). We have the option to wait and have our picture taken with one but none of us want to wait or pay to do so. We rest our legs a bit, grab a drink and then we are back on the bikes.
Guests enjoying the swim with dolphins excursion
My favorite part of the bike ride comes on this leg of the trip. Horse is 2nd behind the tour leader and I am 3rd. We are riding at a comfortable pace and Horse seems to be enjoying himself with sightseeing the island. Next thing I see is Horse riding off the side of the road and half in the bushes as he rides. Bushes are just smacking him in the chest and arms as he rides off the side of the road and then he regains full control and calmly glides back on the road. I about wreck my bike from laughter watching him ride through the bushes. Oh my, what a hilarious sight!!
I think they are considering adding training wheels after his off road bushes adventure!
We ride a short distance to a store that sells rum and rum cake. We are able to sample some of each at this stop. Hey, let's get liquored up and ride a bicycle on the street! Wahoo! Eh, the amount of alcohol that you actually sample should not hinder anyone from the bicycle portion. Unless you act like the passengers from the other cruise line (no names please -- but they have a red, white and blue smoke stack) that treated the samples as a buffet. Our tour guide had to ask the other groups guide to step aside and let our group have a few samples too. Very small place and very crowded but some very, very good rum cake and rum. We head out back of the store to the water and look at the coral formations that are ABOVE water and have turned black. Little crabs are running every and sunning themselves and someone believes they saw an iguana but we cannot locate it though.
Time to mount up and ride on. We now enter one of the longer stretches of the ride as we make our way up the island to a town called Hell. Blink and you miss it but it is a tourist trap as a motor coach full of guests arrive as we are preparing to depart. Basically it consists of a small gift shop, post office and bar. Behind the building is a large mass of more black coral formations. The coral turns black without the salt water and then actually turns white from the heat of the sun. Some interesting stories are told as to how and why they are there and how the town got it's name. We do find some birds eating in the shallow water below the coral formations and an iguana sunning himself on top of one group of coral. We all visit the gift shop and purchase postcards to mail home so they are postmarked with the town of Hell postage. My postcard to my kids has not arrived after almost 10 days so I am guessing it must have gotten lost in Hell.
The main attraction in the town of Hell - black coral formations
Our little iguana friend resting in the sun
After we reach the starting point we all park the bikes, return the safety equipment and talk about our favorite parts of the ride. The tour guide gives us some more interesting facts about the island and we thank him for his assistance on a great tour. We board the van back to the cruise ship and get in line for our tender back to the Voyager of the Seas.
3:00 pm
We get in the short line to board the tender and then grab a seat on the top deck for some extra sun on our ride back to the ship. Very organized process overall.
3:45 pm
We are back on board and get cleaned up before we go in search of some lunch! We worked up a big appetite riding bikes to Hell and back! Ha ha, sorry, could not resist! We make our way to the Windjammer Café and just have to try the steak and pepper burrito station. Piled them nice and high with steak & peppers, cheese and sour cream. Oh so good!!!
4:15 pm
Time to grab an ice cold Coca-cola and sit poolside to relax a little while. I might have dosed off a little bit but people did not scatter so I must not have been sleeping to the point of snoring. We hang out and just relax our tired legs.
6:30 pm
Tonight's show is a tribute show to the music of Broadway shows. We are entertained with all sorts of music from great musicals and Broadway shows. Very enjoyable.
Broadway Rhythm and Rhymes show
7:30 pm
We have about a half hour until our dinner seating so we decide to visit the Aquarium Bar on deck #4 which is just outside of our dining room. We partake in our first cocktail of the week as Horse enjoys a Rum and Coke and I have my new favorite Tequila Sunrise. Drinks are about $7 each including tip so we don't plan to have too many as I don't need alcohol that bad to spend that kind of money for several drinks each day. You do get your moneys worth though as they do not go lightly on the alcohol content of the beverage. Very, very good drink.
8:00 pm
Dinner time!!! (have you sensed that this is our favorite time of the day?) Dinner ends up truthfully being very enjoyable as we all gather to discuss our excursions and our days in general. Also, Horse has become the entertainment at dinner as he is not afraid to try different things, multiple dishes and then cleans up after everyone is done with their meals and does not want certain items. I am convinced that they are ordering too much just to have leftovers to see what he will eat and how many plates he will try things from. It is really funny to me knowing that at home he is really strict on what he eats and here he is letting his diet go and just eating everything in sight.
Tonight I decide to go with the scallops for starters and the tiger shrimp for the entrée. My seafood meal is so good that I completely forgot what I had for dessert. (Or Horse must have snagged mine off my plate before I got a chance to eat it!)
9:45 pm
Time to go for our nightly stroll on the deck to walk off dinner. We really like looking out at the dark horizon and trying to see if we can find any ships or land. Most nights we cannot but every now and again we see some lights in the far off distance.
10:45 pm
Good night all! A busy day today and with all of the bike riding we are tired and ready for a good nights rest. We will be in Cozumel, Mexico tomorrow and we have another excursion so we better be rested.
Ice cream cone-a-thon update: ZERO cones today!!! I believe the quest is mathematically over as far as reaching my 25 cones in 7 days as I have only had 3 and we only have 2 days left on the ship!
0 comments:
Post a Comment