Hi Judi - I was so excited this morning to see that someone had replied! Also excited that it wasn't pouring down rain like they had predicted as I have lots of errands planned for the day. I guess Mother Nature is holding that off for tomorrow.
I went back and read all your posts, just to try to get to know you a bit. Where in the midwest are you from? We had a horrible winter in Toledo Ohio, but don't think we got 60 inches of snow! thank goodness!
We usually don't go to the meet and mingles. We tried one on Carnival early on, but it was kind of lame, so we haven't tried it again. But we haven't tried one on RCCL. The only RC cruise we were on was on the Granduer and we met some really great people, and in fact ran into some of the other addicts we had chatted with on the site. The ship was smaller and it was really social so that made it great. After several trial and error trips, we have decided to find our way back to RC because, even though we are relative "newbies" to most of the cruisers out there, we are definitely figuring out what we like.
We are flying out late on Friday arriving early Saturday into San Juan. We will stay overnight at the Hilton Caribe near the cruise port. The last time we were in San Juan, we saw nothing on the way to the ship as we had a scary flight delay situation and arrived after dark. Luckily it was an 11pm ship departure so we made it. On the way back to the airport we had a cab driver who took a short detour through Old Town and gave us a brief history lesson, but still only saw it from the back seat of the cab. On the website for the hotel we are staying at, they have a video, and sometimes I just play it in a loop!
I think it will be a great start to our vacation.
We were in Aruba on our first cruise. On that cruise we weren't very confident or competent cruisers, so we booked an excursion in every port. We had a full day in Aruba, and in the morning went on morning "snorkeling cruise" and in the evening on a "sunset cruise". Both ended up being "booze cruises" so by 7pm we were feeling pretty good. Our ship didn't leave port until midnight, so we decided to go into town for dinner instead of eating on the ship. There was a bit of sticker shock. Most of the Caribbean is pretty inexpensive, or at least reasonable. Here we spent $25 US on 6 chicken wings and 2 bottles of beer.
So we went back to the ship and on the way found some unique souvenirs in the pierside shopping area. So if you do plan to go on your own, plan extra $. We aren't experts and I am sure there are bargains to be found, but like I said, it was a bit of a shock. We booked an excursion here, another "booze cruise" but this one in the afternoon instead of one in the morning and one in the evening.
Will probably head downtown after to find a good spot to watch the sunset and have a cocktail before heading back to the ship.
I am going to have to get busy researching Curacao to find a good beach I think. I don't think we are going to do an excursion here, we really want to just explore. Your suggestions sound great and I will start with those. Sounds like you have done your homework. Whatever that cream liqueur they have here, my husband loves it. We were going to buy some, but didn't want to mess with having it checked on the ship. We may this time as we are more comfortable with the process they have for doing this. Plus he always talks about the stuff.
We are going on a schooner excursion in St Martin and on our own in St. Thomas. I doubt we will spend much time ashore in St. Thomas as this will be our last day and we will want to relax. We have to fly home on Sunday after debarkation.
I will be sad to see it end, but plan to have as much fun as two people can in 8 days! Feel free to e-mail me directly too at
calicyra@yahoo.com. Hopefully we can meet up! Cindy
