Post by K Man on Dec 3, 2008 14:09:38 GMT -5
No shit, there we were.
At least that what my friend Japic
says all stories need to begin with, so it shall be with this one.
So like I was saying, no shit, there we were. All aboard a Carnival Cruise lines super-liner the 'Liberty'. I've been on this boat before, you might remember that, but we were the only ones out of 34...yes, 34 people that decided to cruise with us this time that had been aboard this vessel so I will recap important features of the boat. Jumbo-tron on deck 9 to watch movies out doors, a casino, a dozen bars, an auditorium, Mira Sorvino as a godmother...basically over 110,000 tons of food, fun, drinks and sexiness.
This thing isn't a boat
It's a BOAT
Here are some pictures of places you might not have seen before or were blurry last time.
I'll let someone else give you a more detailed low-down on the interior (*looks at Udjat or Japic*). I'll start with us leaving the port of Miami headed for the Eastern Carribbean.
They gave us crappy champagne in our room as VIPs, probably because organized 34 people going, so we decided to drink it on the bow while we watched the city disappear into the setting sun behind us.
Drinking Champagne:
Miami Disappearing:
Setting sun:
Open sea ahead:
So we drank, we danced, we had fun and we even had a formal night where I realized I got all the way to Miami without a formal shirt for my suit.
Days 1 and 2 ended and we arrived at San Juan Puerto Rico the next morning.
San Juan is the largest city on the island of Puerto Rico - literal translation meaning "Rich Port". There is a massive fort/castle on the edge of the bay and a bustling city on the inside of the bay.
Seeing that it looks OK, we dock the boat, lock up and go wandering.
We hear that Old San Juan is the place to be so we trek alongside the sea and the city, admiring old statues and ramparts from the fortress alongside the path. There were even massive Banyan trees that looked hundreds of years old.
San Juan is also full of stray cats.
But the sun was setting
So we hot-footed it through the city
To the fort - which we discovered was named "Castillo San Filipe del Morro".
It was immense, cool, and closed (being after 5:30pm and all) but we didn't know that until Japic challenged Udjat to a race to the doors of the castle
Which Japic summarily lost.
We walked around the Castle grounds a little bit and watched the sun set.
The sun now set, we walked into Old San Juan to find some food and some shops to blow all our disposable income. We passed a few monuments and buildings that looked cool at night.
We eventually found the place that claims to have invented the Pina Colada...and if they didn't then theirs is definitely top-notch. We had some food, wandered around and returned to the ship to set sail for St. Thomas the next day.
However, I think the room steward hated me because look at the towel animal I got that night.
Yup, a stingray. I've never received a more blatant Steve Irwin-esque threat in my life.
Anyways onto day 4 of the cruise.
Ahh...St. Thomas. Technically a US property (but we'll be damned if we give them a star on the flag or voting rights), St. Thomas still has a very Caribbean feel with steel drums echoing on the streets and thick accents on everyone. Our outing for this day was with the officiant from the Wedding and Japic, so I don't know what Udj or Specs did this day.
We met our cabbie who drove us around the island to look at the feckin sweet beaches all over the place.
But we couldn't just hang out all day, we had to go snorkeling! So he takes us to meet our guide for the day sail, we load up and sail our way across to the smaller island of St. John waving our goodbyes.
We pass a few things of interest on the way, bigger ships, neat rocks, other sailors etc.
Until we get to our little bay
And we jump in for about an hour and a half of snorkeling.
[img src="http://kwkmediadesign.com/honeymoon/images[/IMG_4214.jpg"]
We swam and saw sea life...which is the present for Shakes. I haven't developed my pictures yet, but my officiant had an underwater digital camera and he sent me these about a hour ago.
That's right. 4 cruises, 13,000+ miles all to get some pics of the common green sea turtle in action. There were several of them in the bay and we got pics and video footage.
So there you go Shakes, Merry Christmas.
Among the things we saw were stingrays and remembering my threat from the previous night, we got out of the water and lazily sailed back across the bay to St. Thomas. We shopped a little, walked around, then crashed for a nap. St. Thomas gave us a beautiful sunset send off too.
Day 5 arrived and found ourselves dock at St. Martin or St. Maarten for those of the Netherlands-Antilles origin. I thought about giving Vemu a call to help translate, but thankfully everybody spoke English. It's a neat little island and has changed nationalities like two-dozen times but currently it's divided into two sides - the Dutch and the French. We were on the Dutch side.
We debarked with like a million other people because two other cruise ships were there too.
We decided to get in the water again, this time to try snorkeling. We boarded a smaller boat, got briefly trained, and dove into the water. Down there we saw more sea life, a few shipwrecks and some other stuff but a storm three weeks ago left the bay a little murky. I'll put up the pics when they get developed, but that's what we did in the morning.
Then we walked around Old Sint Maarten.
There were Belgian Chocolatiers (yum), clothing and jewelry shops, food shops, even the shop for the guy that helped to build Yoda and now does his own artwork. We had some pretty good food, spent some more money and returned to the boat.
The next two days were at sea, Art Auctions, fancy dinners, guilt for eating too much...you know, that sort of thing. We returned to Miami on the 22nd and left the boat.
But our vacation didn't end there.
Japic and I made plans to stay in Florida a little while and head to Key West, the farthest Southernmost point in the US.
We get a car, drive 150 miles and get to our hotel...which was right on the beach.
FANTASTIC view of the setting sun every night, close to the main strips in Key West, just a great place to be. We crash for a little bit;
Then go and get us some scooters to cruise the island. The island itself is like 4 miles at its widest so a scooter is THE way to go around Key West.
We saw a few museums, including the shipwreck museum, dedicated to the long lost art of Wrecking. When ships used to wreck around Key West, Wrecker would salvage the goods (after trying to save lives) and auction it off. A Mr. Tift was the wealthest man in Key West at one time and the museum was dedicated to him.
Some things from the old Wreckers' office
Things salvaged from the ocean floor
We also went to a place called Pirate Soul, which rocked;
but they wouldn't let us take pictures inside. It's essentially a museum dedicated to piracy and pirate's way of life. They had an authentic pirate flag (one of two left in the world) and a real treasure chest! But again, they were butt pirates in the sense that we couldn't take pics inside.
So we spent the next two days futzing around in Key West, enjoying the sun, the beach and the key lime pie. Which, by the way, if you're wondering the best place to get Key Lime pie in Key West is at The Blonde Giraffe. We saw some cool statues.
That last one is a golem-esque creature made out of sea-sponges and sea-stars...I think we need to stat it out as a D&D creature.
Anyways, the rest of the trip was a 2300 mile drive back from Florida over the course of 3 days. Not much to add there, save for tasty Southern food. However, not to leave on such a down note, I"ll put up some random sunsets I took pictures of;
If you want to cruise...all pun intended, the photo gallery on your own, Here is the link. I can get you full-sized pics of any picture you like here (around 3888 X 2592 resolution).
At least that what my friend Japic
says all stories need to begin with, so it shall be with this one.
So like I was saying, no shit, there we were. All aboard a Carnival Cruise lines super-liner the 'Liberty'. I've been on this boat before, you might remember that, but we were the only ones out of 34...yes, 34 people that decided to cruise with us this time that had been aboard this vessel so I will recap important features of the boat. Jumbo-tron on deck 9 to watch movies out doors, a casino, a dozen bars, an auditorium, Mira Sorvino as a godmother...basically over 110,000 tons of food, fun, drinks and sexiness.
This thing isn't a boat
It's a BOAT
Here are some pictures of places you might not have seen before or were blurry last time.
I'll let someone else give you a more detailed low-down on the interior (*looks at Udjat or Japic*). I'll start with us leaving the port of Miami headed for the Eastern Carribbean.
They gave us crappy champagne in our room as VIPs, probably because organized 34 people going, so we decided to drink it on the bow while we watched the city disappear into the setting sun behind us.
Drinking Champagne:
Miami Disappearing:
Setting sun:
Open sea ahead:
So we drank, we danced, we had fun and we even had a formal night where I realized I got all the way to Miami without a formal shirt for my suit.
Days 1 and 2 ended and we arrived at San Juan Puerto Rico the next morning.
San Juan is the largest city on the island of Puerto Rico - literal translation meaning "Rich Port". There is a massive fort/castle on the edge of the bay and a bustling city on the inside of the bay.
Seeing that it looks OK, we dock the boat, lock up and go wandering.
We hear that Old San Juan is the place to be so we trek alongside the sea and the city, admiring old statues and ramparts from the fortress alongside the path. There were even massive Banyan trees that looked hundreds of years old.
San Juan is also full of stray cats.
But the sun was setting
So we hot-footed it through the city
To the fort - which we discovered was named "Castillo San Filipe del Morro".
It was immense, cool, and closed (being after 5:30pm and all) but we didn't know that until Japic challenged Udjat to a race to the doors of the castle
Which Japic summarily lost.
We walked around the Castle grounds a little bit and watched the sun set.
The sun now set, we walked into Old San Juan to find some food and some shops to blow all our disposable income. We passed a few monuments and buildings that looked cool at night.
We eventually found the place that claims to have invented the Pina Colada...and if they didn't then theirs is definitely top-notch. We had some food, wandered around and returned to the ship to set sail for St. Thomas the next day.
However, I think the room steward hated me because look at the towel animal I got that night.
Yup, a stingray. I've never received a more blatant Steve Irwin-esque threat in my life.
Anyways onto day 4 of the cruise.
Ahh...St. Thomas. Technically a US property (but we'll be damned if we give them a star on the flag or voting rights), St. Thomas still has a very Caribbean feel with steel drums echoing on the streets and thick accents on everyone. Our outing for this day was with the officiant from the Wedding and Japic, so I don't know what Udj or Specs did this day.
We met our cabbie who drove us around the island to look at the feckin sweet beaches all over the place.
But we couldn't just hang out all day, we had to go snorkeling! So he takes us to meet our guide for the day sail, we load up and sail our way across to the smaller island of St. John waving our goodbyes.
We pass a few things of interest on the way, bigger ships, neat rocks, other sailors etc.
Until we get to our little bay
And we jump in for about an hour and a half of snorkeling.
[img src="http://kwkmediadesign.com/honeymoon/images[/IMG_4214.jpg"]
We swam and saw sea life...which is the present for Shakes. I haven't developed my pictures yet, but my officiant had an underwater digital camera and he sent me these about a hour ago.
That's right. 4 cruises, 13,000+ miles all to get some pics of the common green sea turtle in action. There were several of them in the bay and we got pics and video footage.
So there you go Shakes, Merry Christmas.
Among the things we saw were stingrays and remembering my threat from the previous night, we got out of the water and lazily sailed back across the bay to St. Thomas. We shopped a little, walked around, then crashed for a nap. St. Thomas gave us a beautiful sunset send off too.
Day 5 arrived and found ourselves dock at St. Martin or St. Maarten for those of the Netherlands-Antilles origin. I thought about giving Vemu a call to help translate, but thankfully everybody spoke English.
It's a neat little island and has changed nationalities like two-dozen times but currently it's divided into two sides - the Dutch and the French. We were on the Dutch side.We debarked with like a million other people because two other cruise ships were there too.
We decided to get in the water again, this time to try snorkeling. We boarded a smaller boat, got briefly trained, and dove into the water. Down there we saw more sea life, a few shipwrecks and some other stuff but a storm three weeks ago left the bay a little murky. I'll put up the pics when they get developed, but that's what we did in the morning.
Then we walked around Old Sint Maarten.
There were Belgian Chocolatiers (yum), clothing and jewelry shops, food shops, even the shop for the guy that helped to build Yoda and now does his own artwork. We had some pretty good food, spent some more money and returned to the boat.
The next two days were at sea, Art Auctions, fancy dinners, guilt for eating too much...you know, that sort of thing. We returned to Miami on the 22nd and left the boat.
But our vacation didn't end there.
Japic and I made plans to stay in Florida a little while and head to Key West, the farthest Southernmost point in the US.
We get a car, drive 150 miles and get to our hotel...which was right on the beach.
FANTASTIC view of the setting sun every night, close to the main strips in Key West, just a great place to be. We crash for a little bit;
Then go and get us some scooters to cruise the island. The island itself is like 4 miles at its widest so a scooter is THE way to go around Key West.
We saw a few museums, including the shipwreck museum, dedicated to the long lost art of Wrecking. When ships used to wreck around Key West, Wrecker would salvage the goods (after trying to save lives) and auction it off. A Mr. Tift was the wealthest man in Key West at one time and the museum was dedicated to him.
Some things from the old Wreckers' office
Things salvaged from the ocean floor
We also went to a place called Pirate Soul, which rocked;
but they wouldn't let us take pictures inside. It's essentially a museum dedicated to piracy and pirate's way of life. They had an authentic pirate flag (one of two left in the world) and a real treasure chest! But again, they were butt pirates in the sense that we couldn't take pics inside.
So we spent the next two days futzing around in Key West, enjoying the sun, the beach and the key lime pie. Which, by the way, if you're wondering the best place to get Key Lime pie in Key West is at The Blonde Giraffe. We saw some cool statues.
That last one is a golem-esque creature made out of sea-sponges and sea-stars...I think we need to stat it out as a D&D creature.
Anyways, the rest of the trip was a 2300 mile drive back from Florida over the course of 3 days. Not much to add there, save for tasty Southern food. However, not to leave on such a down note, I"ll put up some random sunsets I took pictures of;
If you want to cruise...all pun intended, the photo gallery on your own, Here is the link. I can get you full-sized pics of any picture you like here (around 3888 X 2592 resolution).
