Memories

This travel talk will be in 2 parts. This first post will include Friday through Wednesday. This was our first Eastern Caribbean Cruise and our first 7 day cruise. We absolutely love the Eastern Caribbean. Mountains and Oceans…Amazing!

Since the big talk about cruises is usually the great food, I’ve included a sample menu for each day. The menus I’ve listed would be for the sit down meals in the dining room and they might vary just a bit. Here’s the Breakfast Menu and it is the same everyday.

May 30, 2003: Friday
We flew to Fort Lauderdale on Friday evening. Here’s Rob at FLL watching for our hotel shuttle, which by the way never showed up. We ended up taking a taxi, which Sheraton reimbursed us for along with a $25 hotel credit.

We stayed at the Sheraton near the airport and cruise terminal.

May 31, 2003: Saturday
We got up and headed to the Fort Lauderdale Port, by shuttle, free courtesy of the Sheraton hotel. We got checked in and were on the ship, the Century. Never having cruised on Celebrity before, we didn’t know exactly what to expect except for a better quality food, better service, and nicer interiors on the ship. We were pleasantly surprised to be handed some champange as we stepped on board. You see us here drinking up and trying to figure out the layout of the ship.

We looked around the ship, found our cabin, ate lunch, and then the mandatory lifeboat drill. At about 4:30, we waved goodbye as the ship disembarked from the port and we set sail towards San Juan! 4:45-5:45 we enjoyed a Bon Voyage Dance Party poolside on the Resort Deck. The partyband Xtasea did a great job getting everyone in a relaxed, caribbean mood.

That evening we enjoyed our first dinner and then was entertained by the Cruise Director, Allan King, at the Welcome Aboard Show and the LadderGuy, Michael James.

June 1, 2003: Sunday

Sunday was a relaxing day at sea. It was interupted by an aggressive onset of kidney and urinary pain. Of course, the pain got to the point that I knew I couldn’t handle it any longer when the ship infirmiry was closed. This meant that I was an “emergency” patient which cost an extra couple hundred dollars. It’s a little scary when you have a nurse from one country and a doctor from another country, both with interesting accents. They fixed me up pretty quickly. We could tell the nurse wasn’t happy to be pulled away from other duties, which at the time appeared to be mandatory drug tests for the crew.

The antibiotics that I got were of course the kind that makes you very sensative to sun, so I had to make sure I wore sunscreen anytime we were in the sun. I forgot to put sunscreen on my hands so they got nice and crispy…

The rest of the day we just hung out and relaxed in our cabin and in the shade on deck. We even managed to clean up nicely for our 1st formal night, dinner and the show: On Broadway.

June 2, 2003: Monday
We weren’t scheduled to arrive in San Juan, Puerto Rico until about 4:30 p.m., so it was much like Sunday. Hanging out on deck, enjoying the reggae band called Xtasea, relaxing, people watching, and of course, eating!

Enjoying the beautiful blue waters

How cute is that hair blown look?!?!

After arriving to San Juan, we just walked around and did some of our own site-seeing.
Beautiful San Juan

Above ground cemetery near the shore

Beautiful views

El Morro at San Cristobal Fort

As we departed San Juan just after midnight a deck party started poolside themed Tropical Island Night Celebration. Assistant Cruise Driector Lance, Celebrity Dancers, and Xtasea put on a great show under the stars. There was a special fruit presentation and melons on parade. The buffet was delicios. You know I’m always happy when there’s Mexican food.

June 3, 2003: Tuesday
Our ship stopped in St. Thomas, at the West Indian Dock Havensight at 8 am. We took a bus to Red Hook and took a boat over to St. John for an Eco-hike.

Here’s Rob on the Eco-hike in St. John. So many beautiful views.

On the hike we walked through this resort called Caneel Bay.

Then we went back to St. Thomas, where we took a taxi to Mountain Top

After the eco-hike, we got a taxi up to mountain top, which I was shocked to find out while researching for this post burned down in 2009.

Back in the taxi heading down to the Magen’s Bay beach.

We saw this pelican while relaxing on the beach. He seemed pretty tame and didn’t mind me walking right up to him.

Such beautiful waters…yah, that’s me looking total silly. Rob always says that I need to pose …I’m not sure I love this pose. LOL

Some nice person asked if we wanted our picture together.

That evening we were exhausted so we opted to stay in the cabin, order room service, and watch movies in the room. We missed the show: The Beat Goes On put on by the Celebrity Singers and Dancers.

June 4, 2003: Wednesday

Around 8 am we arrived in Philipsburg, St. Maarten, which is the Dutch side of the island. We got in a taxi to Simpson Bay Lagoon where we got our life jackets on and got ready to drive ourselves in these little boats called Rhino Riders around to the French side of the island for some snorkling.

St. Maarten is known for it’s Guavaberry Coladas. Not the Guava we know, but St. Maarten grown Guavaberry. We got a coladas are yummy! We bought a bottle of Guavaberry Rum to bring home. We had to board the ship for departure by 3:00.

The show that evening was The Future of Magic put on my Dale Scot and Ana in the Celebrity Theater followed by a 50’s Rock ‘N Roll Sock Hop in the Crystal Room, Deck 7.

Read Part 2.