lolavix

Guy was feeding the fish and they flocked to him.

It was like swimming in a giant aquarium...

and then peace.

Just hangin' out.

I think DS1 took this selfie, during his turn out with DH.

Oops. I just realized I left this photo out of my Mountaintop series.

If anyone cares about the history of banana daiquiris, you are all set now.

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Back to Coki.

The beach was starting to fill up. Note the darker clouds. You can also see Coral World off in the distance. We did not visit, although DH and I had talked about it way back when. We didn't miss it, but it is an option.

You might have noticed the rocks we camped near. When we first settled down, I noticed this guy:

and figured he wouldn't bother us.

He got a little braver as the morning wore on.

and he brought a bunch of friends.

Evidently, at lunch time, the iguanas come on down to visit the folks on the beach. People do feed them, so why not?

It was pretty funny because we also had humans coming down to check them out. As I went about my business of tidying up and trying to dry the rain-soaked clothes, someone asked me if I realized that there were a bunch of iguanas near me. I told her I did.

I don't have a photo of it, but they would come right under the chairs of people sitting, scavenging for food. It was comical to watch.

We got burgers from the stand and a couple of waters. I think the five burgers cost around $35 to $38, so a bit pricey as they didn't include fries or any other sides. We figured we could eat more when we got back to the ship.

After lunch, time for more snorkeling:

I'll be back later today.

Again, I am struck by how well the fish are camouflaged. The one dead center is easy to miss.

Pretty blue fish.

Another, not-so-camouflaged fish.

DH coming up for "air". I think he and I had been snorkeling for about 20-25 minutes, so it was time to head back and get one of the kids. Note how sunny it was here? About 30 minutes after this photo, it rained. And then it was sunny again. I love how the showers are just a brief punctuation to an otherwise gorgeous beach day.

See? Tons of fish in schools.

DD demonstrating snorkeling in very shallow water.

At some point, DH came and escorted each one of us beyond the shore, around near these rocks:

Here he is in the distance with DS2. I went first, and we went out quite a ways.

Similar views to the previous photo, with more of the islands in the first one.

This is where Dean and I had a nice conversation, where he told me that when he worked with the police force, he had been assigned to cover President Clinton when he visited. He said he also had met Michael Jackson.

We stayed here for about 20 minutes. The trinkets in the shop held the kids' attention more than the view, but I count that as a win since it allowed us to enjoy the view for longer than we probably would have.

I noticed this on the way back to the van. I had seen this is others' photos, so I took my own photo.

As we traveled to Coki, we saw Drake's seat, another tourist spot.

We continued to travel to Coki, and arrived just around 10 AM. This is what I was hoping for--we got our tour of the highlights, and then still had 4.5 hours for beach time. Dean suggested he pick us up at 2:30, and that sounded good to us.

We walked down to the beach and decided to keep walking as far as we could, to create our own private spot. (Well, private for now. We had some visitors later, as you'll see.)

Yes, we brought a small tent that the boys earned by selling cub scout popcorn. It worked well for our day at Coki, although we didn't use it for the rest of the trip for various reasons. We kept our bags and dry things in the tent. We did not rent chairs here, as we had a large, roll up blanket to use. No one seemed to care that we popped the tent. Later on, those chairs would be used as well.

We spent a lot of time in the water, checking out the fish. I am very nearsighted, and DD has corrective lenses as well. Prior to our trip, I purchased snorkel masks with corrective lenses for us from Promate. They worked so well and we were thrilled that we could see underwater. It was a bit foreign to me to be able to do that.

So nice and so quiet right now.

The fish were everywhere...and so very close to the shore. Even young kids would be able to see them without having to venture too far out.

ontheweb--This information will probably be very helpful to hawgtuf, since I am on a snail's pace with this review. I would have preferred anytime dining and gone around 6:30 or 7 rather than 6, but I didn't trust that we'd be seated then with 5 of us, which was often the case on Norwegian. When I walked by the sensation (albeit later--around 8 or so), there was usually a fairly long line. For us, even though it was a speck earlier than I would have liked, having the 6 PM set dinner time got us there and done and on to the next activity in a reasonable amount of time.

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Maybe I'll finally get us to Coki Beach right now.

Next stop, the famous Mountaintop. Complete with more views of the othr islands and this:

After the Bushwhacker, we passed on the banana daiquiri. Maybe if it had been later...

DS2 loves being a ham, so this was the pose he immediately struck when he saw this guy.

In addition to views, there is a HUGE gift shop.

We don't do a ton of shopping, but we usually pick up a magnet at each place we visit. So we did that here.

If you walk through the gift shop and past the bar, you get rewarded with this:

To help orient you to what you are about to view.

OK, I lied. I have just enough photos of this stop to fill a post, so it makes sense to continue so tomorrow (later today) I can continue from a new locale.

I can't get enough of the views!

I think this is the tram to Paradise Point.

A wider perspective

I love all these little swaths of land popping out of the water.

Yes, we are here.

I will be back tomorrow/later today.

on the web--I was interested in the Butterfly Farm in either place, but it wasn't at the top of the lists, and as I mentioned earlier, when we are actually doing our traveling, I realize that my lists are sometimes a bit 'overzealous' and things further down on the list go by the wayside. I'm keeping it on my 'next time' list...the City Clickers tour sounds like it would have been fun. We also went to Maho Beach as part of our St. Maarten tour. I will get to it someday, at this rate. :rolleyes: Six on an organized tour sounds great!

cmp03--If I knew I were going back to SJ for more days a few months after my first cruise, I'd probably just stick to SJ proper when I'm there for one of my ports. I'd make sure I did both forts and did my walking around the streets, and then you could do some of the further things when you have more time in May. There are also supposed to be some very good restaurants in SJ, although we didn't hit any of them.

hawgtuf--Lucky! I wish we could go again. I hope to get the bulk of the review done by next week. If you have any specific questions, just ask.

perfect match--I just need to ask...where have you done such terrific snorkeling? My DH in particular would be perfectly content to have an entire vacation of just snorkeling. He said his favorite day of this vacation was St. Thomas, which I would have predicted based on what I knew about the islands and his preferences.

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I haven't forgotten this review. I figure I'll do one more bit of St. Thomas before bed, and hopefully will have more time tomorrow to do a bit more. I teach college and my very long summer vacation is ending this week, so it's been a bit crazy on my end.

But enough excuses...

Dean waited for us at the bottom of the 99 steps. I don't know what he and DH are discussing, but I am including this photo so you can see the van. It was plenty roomy for all of us.

Another lovely pastel building

This sort of reminded me of the view from the caves.

We stopped at another lookout point. There was no bar or shops, but there was a man with "Lady Gaga", a donkey that kids could ride. We declined, so there are no photos of Lady Gaga in all of her glory.

I do have a photo of this dude, though. He was almost hidden in the brush below us.

I use syringes, which are much less discrete than pens, and no one batted an eye. I carry a note from my doctor which says I can carry them, and I have backup insulin in the original boxes, as well as the insulin I'm using. The only time I have ever been asked about the syringes was when I was in Australia. I think you'll be fine, especially since they look like pens.

Next up: Three Queens

These three women were essentially feminists in the 1800s. They fought for better working and living conditions.

More pastel:

A view of the front from my vantage point.

Next stop--the 99 steps.

Must work off that Bushwhacker!

Some lovely flowers to look at as you climb.

Ah, made it.

Riclop--You are very welcome. Thanks for reading along.

Perfect Match--I don't think I was clear. Our tour guide drove us up to the top in his van, so we didn't ride the tram. I don't think the tram ride itself is all that long, and you can spend however long you'd like up top. I would imagine that if we were there sans kids and later in the day, we'd sit and have our own (e.g. not shared) drink or two. There are a few small stalls with vendors selling things as well. Where did you snorkel?

Ontheweb--Someone else reported that to be true (the Carnival Excursion was cheaper), which I also found strange. How did you like the Butterfly Farm? Did you pass on the one in St. Martin? How was the beach? I'm getting to my recap here.

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Some more views from Paradise Point:

Ah...I wish I was there right now.

Getting some information from Dean.

We stayed at Paradise Point for approximately 20 minutes. Then we piled in the van and did a tour of Charlotte Amalie.

It's always interesting to me to see familiar icons in foreign destinations.

The Fascination from the port side.

This is the Legislature building. I will mention that I don't remember the specifics of what we were told about many of the structures, and with five ports plus SJ, it's all starting to run together. But the architecture is nice to look at.

I think this is a random building. I'm enchanted with the pastels and palm trees, so I snapped a lot of photos as we were driven around.

One more post for today.

The first place we went was Paradise Point. You can do this on your own quite easily, or you can even purchase the tickets as a Carnival Excursion.

All the way up we went!

You can really get some lovely views.

Now, I knew that the Bushwacker is the drink that Paradise Point touts. Dean had also suggested that we buy something while we were up, although he mentioned "water". Although DH and I really aren't huge drinkers at all, I figured "when in Rome" or in this case Paradise Point, and I followed directions.

If you like Kahlua and Bailey's, this is the drink for you to try. DH and I shared it and it was delicious. It was also 8 AM and we were the only folks at Paradise Point at that time, so it really did feel a bit indulgent.

Yes, proof that we were there.

I will have to continue this tomorrow. I'm out of pictures for this post and need to end for now. Good night.

Our first of the five ports, not including San Juan--St. Thomas.

I will mention here that we arranged for a private, independent guide for all five ports. This was our first time for all of the islands, and we wanted to get an overview of each. When I started doing my research, I realized that Carnival's tours were probably going to be cost prohibitive for five of us, and probably a little limiting as we'd be at the mercy of a group tour. The independent operators offered less expensive options, but the same held true in that we wouldn't be able to go at our own pace. We decided to just hire a guide for a private, independent tour and it worked out very well for us. For one thing, once you have five people in your group, the price for a private tour isn't that far off from the group rate. And we liked the idea of having the freedom to move at our own pace...this would work for both our wanting to take longer than a big group at a particular spot and if we didn't want to linger at whatever the group wanted.

We had a wake-up call for 6 AM. Not exactly what you want on your first full day of your cruise, but we had a good reason. We had a pick up time of 7:30. I deliberately picked that time with our tour operator because we were going to have a tour for a few hours and then we wanted to go snorkeling. Since we heard that Coki Beach had some of the best snorkeling around, we wanted to be sure to get enough time at the beach. I didn't think anyone would complain (much). ;)

I think we opened up the breakfast buffet today. It opened at 7 and we were there a few minutes before. No lines!

We ate quickly and went back to the rooms to get our gear. We each had our own set of snorkel gear to carry, as well as the usual beach items. We got off the ship and found our guide, Dean Chinnery, without any trouble. Dean came recommended here on a thread on the St. Thomas board and he was great. He is a retired police officer and had some interesting stories to tell of his time as a policeman/security officer. We had his entire taxi (large van) to ourselves, which was nice.

And the detailed schedule:

I also forgot to post this:

On our other cruise, we didn't do the embarkation photo, and then we were kicking ourselves because Norwegian offers a package where you can get 10 prints and the electronic version of those prints for about $12/print. We bought the package, but didn't have the embarkation photo to include. Of course on Carnival, they don't have a package, so I didn't want to go too crazy with the photos, but I did get a couple of things that I couldn't photograph myself. So this is one of those photos.

I now think I'm ready to move on. ;)

Sorry for the size of these. Flickr seems to have done something to the application and I can't select the size I want to use. I tried to scale them down as I was posting, but evidently, I didn't scale enough and now I can't see the actual photos in the editing screen to adjust them. I'll try to get it right as we go on.

Mabones--That is nice that they give free admission on Veterans' Day. DH is a veteran and always has to work, while the kids and I have it off.

Ontheweb--:) at the idea of saying hello to random kids. Next time, we'll have to check out the Harrison Caves. I'm glad you could get the price match, too. You're going to have to wait a few more days for my reaction. My kids were a bit tired on Monday, but excited to be back at school. In particular, my DD really enjoys school and is happier when it's in session. She was especially anxious to get home since her class schedule was only available by mail, and they were sent home the day after we departed.

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Some housekeeping items I had forgotten to scan.

The most important part of the kids' menu. DS2 started out here, but by the end of the week, you'll see he got more adventurous. DS1 didn't even bother with this menu, except for one night when he and his brother both got banana splits.

I regret that I don't have the kids' club schedule for the 9-11 year olds, although some of the big events will be published in the Fun Times, which I do have. I have this flyer:

As well as these:

We did not participate in the babysitting, but I figured I'd put it here in case anyone was interested.

I do have more information about Circle C:

Stopping by to see how your trip went, and I agree that there are lots of similarities between our experiences. I am sorry about Barbados as well as your fall.

Your pictures are terrific.

And now I want to go back and visit Ponce. If I had seen your review prior to making my arrangements, I would have been torn. I probably would have just stayed and done what we did, but now I know that next time, there is so much more to see on the south side of the island.

I had been looking forward to the night time sail away, and I wasn't disappointed.

My attempt to get some photo of El Morro:

We watched until OSJ faded away. We were pretty tired, although DD begged to go Circle C since their party was scheduled for midnight, I think (I have the schedule which I will have to scan as well as the kids' menu). We let her, but warned her that we had a very early tour scheduled in the morning. She also had to check in with us when she got back. I didn't expect that drill would happen at age 12.5, but I think things are different on cruises. Next time, we won't be surprised.

All in all, a pretty good Day 4. We enjoyed the fort we did see, and the cruise was off to a pretty good start, muster drill notwithstanding.

Edited to add: Here is our towel animal for the first day.

Just because I didn't order the warm chocolate melting cake, DS2 did.

DH got the orange cake:

We weren't disappointed with our choices.

When we left dinner, it was after 8:15, and people were still entering. It looked like the dining room would be open past the desired closing time.

The kids wanted to swim, so they got on their suits and hit the hot tub.

Unfortunately for my kids, they closed the pool before they had a chance to get in.

The muster drill was scheduled to start at 9, and our station was F, which was right where we were. We were told to stand off to the side...and we stood, and we stood. For what seemed like forever. I had forgotten what I had read about the muster drill, and how not to show up right at 9.

Does anyone know why it's done with everyone standing for an hour? I know we only have one prior cruise experience, but on that cruise, we were allowed to sit in one of the MDRs and watch. I think what bugged us the most is that people could stroll in 30-40 minutes late. There were toddlers sleeping in their parents' arms, I'm guessing due to the time. I understand the importance of safety, but there seems like there should be a better way.

Anyway, we survived the muster drill and by then, it was just about time for sail away.

We returned and went to dinner. Since we had the early dinner in the Imagination dining room, we decided to visit the Sensation since we otherwise wouldn't see it. Tonight was open seating, and our steward (Al) had told us that we should aim to be done with dinner by 8:15, since they would be closing then.

We were seated at a table for six.

This is the side that stays constant throughout the week, so I'll just include it here in this post.

Sorry for the quality. It's tougher than you think to photograph the menu (especially when you have a prime lens with you and can't back up far enough to focus).

Here is the side just for tonight:

I also have the kids menu, but I will need to scan it and include it in a later post.

I started with the tropical fruits. DS1 also got them, and made a big deal out of the tequila. He told me he could taste it. Um, no.

and the Sweet and Sour Shrimp for my main.

I devoured it.

Time for dessert:

Despite the raves about the warm chocolate melting cake, I figured it would be there again. I chose the Black Forest Gateau (and so did DS1, and again with the liquor comments).

After lunch, we head off to the kids' club to sign the kids up.

This was a little different from Norwegian (our other cruise).

Norwegian is very strict with the ages. DS2 turned 8 in the spring, and they offered to bump him up to the 9-11 group to be with DS1, so we did that. I liked the idea of keeping them together, and we thought that DS2 would be fine with the 9-11s, since he has two older sibs.

Here is the one shot I took of the kids' club.

There are two rooms. I will say that for the most part, the 9-11 year olds are relegated to a conference room, very far from the location on the 11th floor. My boys pretty much only attended at night (except for the sea day) and nights were spent in the conference room, which bummed them out a bit since they didn't have access to the toys and games.

We also registered DD for Circle C, which is the club for ages 12-14. I don't have any photos of that location, but it is located on Deck 8. DD loved the kids club, and she enjoyed the independence that went along with that age group. On our last cruise, she was 10.5 and we didn't give her sign out privileges, so this was new territory for all of us.

After this, we split up for a bit. Looking back, this was where I made my mistake. DH and the boys went to nap for a bit, and DD wanted to go to stay at Circle C. Instead of my getting off the ship and hopping on the free trolley to get to El Morro and see more of OSJ, I just explored the ship.

Anyway, I sat in the library for a bit.

The library has books and games that are always available. You don't need to check them out, which is nice since if you have a yearning to play something at 10 PM, you can. This is on Deck 8, pretty close to where DD was hanging.

This is the Palace Theater:

I'm on the balcony (Deck 9) but we pretty much sat on Deck 8 when we attended events held in here.

I then went upstairs to walk around. I don't have a ton of photos of the ship (sorry, since I know that many of you want to see those). How about a view?

By now it was around 5 PM. I had told DD to come back to the room by then and when I returned, the boys were all up.

This is when we made another mistake--DH offered to get off the ship and go to CVS to buy some soda and wine. He took both boys with him. This is when DD and I should have gotten off the ship, too and hit El Morro. I think that DD wanted to go back to Circle C, though, so I didn't want to just leave her on the ship alone.

DH and the boys took about an hour for their errand. They came back with 3 8-packs of soda and a bottle of wine. DH said to me that security only seemed to care about hard alcohol, and that maybe we should all go out, get on the trolley, do our little tour (too late to see the inside of the fort by now, but we could ride and see a little more of OSJ as well as the outside of El Morro) and then hit CVS again to get more soda and another bottle of wine.

We all left and walked over to the trolley station. There was a police officer nearby, and he told us that the trolley stopped running at 6 (not 7, which I had seen on their website), and we had missed the last trolley.

I was a bit disappointed to not get close to El Morro, but I knew that I had packed our schedule full and that sometimes, the plans would need to be adjusted (we're hot, we're tired, the kids are just "done", etc.)

We walked over to CVS with a lot of humanity.

Another view of the Fascination.

We picked up another 8-pack and bottle of wine. We could have brought more, since no one kept track of what we had already carried on, so there's a bit of advice for anyone who wants to stock up on beverages. You have to do a bit of walking, but it might be worth it.

Since this was a split day, I didn't post these earlier. I will for each day.

Perfect Match--Thanks for your kind words and joining us.

Ontheweb--Glad you found us. Thanks for the nice words about my kids. :) We did not go to Harrison Caves. It'll be something for next time. I know you were looking forward to it, so it sounds like it lived up to your expectations.

Cruisin*tigger--Thank you. I wish we had more time to avoid tripping. ;)

Bringonthesun01--Thanks. Good question about the mosquitoes. It was very odd. We came armed with 3 of these:

and we didn't even use one completely. I was concerned about the mosquitoes as well, but we only used the spray when we went on the Biobay. I think DD and I both got bitten once on the ankle while we were out there (we must have missed the same spot) but that was it for the entire trip. I was surprised, in a very good way. I hope you find it the same way.

Ginjer2911--Thank you. I hope you can convince your DH. I actually wish we had one more sea day (not to take away from the five islands, but to give us one more day to chill on the ship--make this one 8 days). We generally sail for the ports, but it was a lot of go-go-go and my kids came home to their first day of school on Monday. :eek:

Another placard to put the entire fort in perspective:

By now it was after 1 and we were pretty warn and getting hungry. We decided to head back to the ship and see if we could at least check in, if not board, since boarding time was officially 2:30 PM. We thought we'd eat and then take the trolley back to El Morro.

We left the fort and headed down to one of the free trolley stops.

We were told that the trolleys came every 20 minutes. We lasted about 8 and then decided to just walk to the ship.

I thought I'd snap photos along the way, but the only one I got was this one:

I liked the pink.

We arrived at the cruise terminal and to our relief, we could not only check in, but board. Because of lengthy stay in port, I think the lines were very manageable and we kept moving along. We set foot on board around 2 PM. We were able to access our rooms and our luggage was waiting for us, so we wheeled it in. DH and I had an ocean view on Deck 6, while the kids were across the hall in an interior room. They didn't seem to care that there were no windows...they had the room to themselves.

I apologize for no photos here. I think I was so hungry and hot and happy to be onboard that I forgot, and by the time I remembered, the rooms were already "lived in". We went up to the Lido deck and had lunch. The boys and DH had items from the grill, while DD and I decided to try the Mongolian Wok. I knew that it was only open for lunch and also knew that we'd be off the ship most days that it was open, so I figured that this would be a good time to try it. We weren't disappointed.

To prove we were here:

When you go downstairs, you can look at some exhibits:

These don't look all that comfy to me.

The tunnels leading to the dungeon. The boys were very curious about the dungeon.