7/5 Getaway Review w/ Pictures

[Terpsince74]

Getaway Day 3 (Monday July 7th)- Sea Day

We were able to sleep in a bit on the second sea day which was great. We lounged around a bit in the morning and again enjoyed coffee on the balcony.

 

Ropes Course

After a late breakfast, we headed up to the top decks to try out the ropes course. A pretty good sized line started to form but we decided to just hop in line and wait while our breakfast digested. It was a very windy day which made it feel comfortable while waiting for a half an hour in line. We got the harnesses strapped on and jumped on the course. It is super safe, and as you are strapped in, you can hold on to the strap as well. We walked around some of the circular platforms extending slightly over the ship’s edge a bit. The views were amazing and the strong winds made it even more exciting. We walked all over the course and enjoyed it quite a bit. I did the ropes course on the Breakaway so this was not much different for me, but my GF was having a blast. She tried all of the rope bridges. We finally made it around to the Plank, which was optional, and were disappointed to find the Plank was closed since it was too windy that day. From there we navigated our way over to the end of the course which has a fun little zip line from one side of the ship to the other right before you exit. If you are not into zip lining, you can just enjoy the ropes and go back to where you entered the course avoiding the zip line part.

 

Vibe

From the ropes course, we headed over to Vibe to relax for a while. It was crazy windy up there. No umbrellas were able to be raised since it was so windy. The breeze felt good but we were having to load up on the sunscreen with the limited shade.

 

After relaxing there for a while, we heard an announcement regarding an art auction that was taking place at 1:30 pm. We had missed the art auction the day before and made a mental note that we should try to attend one if another occurred. My GF does some painting in her free time and is trying to get more into art. Obviously she was interested in checking it out and I thought it would be neat to see what an art auction was all about.

 

We were getting a bit hungry so we went down to grab a pastry at the Atrium Café before going to the art auction. This ended up being our lunch that day. I wanted to show my GF how good the Lobster Tail desert was there. I ate those every morning while in Bermuda on the Breakaway. They are a cream filled desert with a filo dough crust. It is shaped like a lobster tail and is to die for! The Lavazzo coffee there is amazing too!

 

Art auction- Headliners

We headed down to Headliners where we were asked to sign up for the auction which included a few raffle prizes. They told us that a free piece of art would be given to everyone that stayed for the entire auction. At the beginning of the event, the lead guy did a 15 minute presentation explaining how the process worked and also giving us a bit of history on art and some specific artists. They did a great job of getting you excited about starting an art collection. Of course we heard about how certain paintings were purchased for $3-$5K in the past and then sold for millions. I almost bid on a few things even though I have zero room for them in my small condo back at home. LOL!

 

 

 

 

 

After the presentation, they gave everyone 30 minutes to stroll around the (converted gallery) to look at paintings we would like to bid on. I found a couple of cool paintings that I liked and found a couple of artists that I liked. The art gallery folks were friendly and helpful showing us around. I was dying to know just how expensive some of the paintings were so inquired about a Lebo painting I saw. For those that don’t know, Lebo is the artist whose paintings are on the outside of the Getaway. It ended up being a one of a kind that they said could be purchased for $8900. I told the lady that was a bit over my budget! LOL!

 

The auction was a bit confusing. I decided that I was too nervous to join in on the bidding but did find the process exciting. They did some cool special deals that I am sure were great bargains but I knew so little about the process I decided to just take a back seat and observe this go around. A couple seated in front of us purchased at least $10K-$15K worth of art. There were some pieces that sold as low as $150 however. Maybe these art auctions on the ship are a good deal. I just did not know enough about it to want to spend too much money on the art pieces. I was very tempted though.

 

We had been hoping the event would only be about an hour (much like the rest of the activities on the ship). It ended lasting close to 2 hours but it was still fun to experience and we were glad we did it. As we left, we were given a nice 9X9 authentic print by an up and coming artist. It even came with a certificate of authenticity. We learned from the presentation that prints would not likely make you a million dollars one day, but still thought it would be a cool reminder of our trip that we could frame and hang up. We just got frames for those today as a matter of fact.

 

Slides

After the art auction, we headed back up to Vibe for a little while. We wanted to warm ourselves up a bit before trying the water slides. I wanted to head right for the vertical drop slides. I could not wait to see how scared my GF got when the floor dropped out from under her. Well, it’s a good problem to have, but she is a trim/petite woman, and she was not able to meet the weight requirement for those slides. You have to be at least 100 pounds or they will not let you go down that one slide. I decided to still do the vertical drop slide while she went over to the windy slides that did a lot of loops. She had a blast on them but almost got stuck on that slide just before reaching the bottom. She had to scoot her way to the finish line she says. I had no problem on either slide as I am well above the weight limit lol! The vertical drop slide really is crazy. Your stomach is in your throat for the first 5 seconds as you drop crazy fast on that thing. I caught a mouth full of water once I hit the bottom. I then tried the twisty slide that I was able to pick up some serous speed on. The slides were fun. It was still so windy that it made us pretty cold as we had left our towels over at Vibe. We headed back to Vibe and warmed up again before heading back to the room to enjoy our balcony.

 

Dinner- Tropicana Room

We decided to do dinner again at the Tropicana Room as they had live Latin music Monday night. They also had a nice sized dance floor. We were again sat for dinner right away. My dish was not as good that evening. I had the sword fish that I would not recommend. It was thinly sliced and not super tasty. My GF however had an incredible Chicken Cordon-Bleu entre that was awesome. I would highly recommend that if you visit the MDR! I helped her finish that. They had a live band that played some fun songs. We got up to dance salsa and meringue for a few songs which was fun.

 

After dinner we headed back up to O’Sheehan’s to watch the band, New Season, play some reggae songs. They played a lot of Bob Marley songs. By then, the drinks had me singing to all of the familiar songs which made my GF give me a few funny looks. LOL!

 

[Terpsince74]

By the time my singing became unbearable, we went over to check out the bowling alley and darts in OSheehan’s. We played some darts which was fun. The boards were plastic and did not always record your score properly but they were accurate enough to enjoy a few games of cricket.

 

 

The next morning was our first (land day) so we wanted to make it an early night so we could get up early. We had a big day planned for St. Maarten.

 

We got back to the room and had a friend waiting for us on the bed.

 

[hscruiser]

Would you happen to still have the Dailies from this sailing?

[j603]

Great review! I can't wait for September when we go.

[PathfinderEss]

Enjoying your great review and wonderful photo's.

[Still Dreaming]

Great review!!!

[kevin1877]

I am really enjoying this review! Great pics...this is getting me extra pumped for my 8/9 sailing :D

[Terpsince74]

Would you happen to still have the Dailies from this sailing?

 

Hi hscruiser- I have some of the dailies. Were you looking for any specific days or specific info?

[Projunior]

Love your review, most enjoyable. Is there dancing every night in the Tropicana Room? Or just certain nights?

[Cupkakes]

Loving your review! Thank you!

[Terpsince74]

Love your review, most enjoyable. Is there dancing every night in the Tropicana Room? Or just certain nights?

 

Hi Projunior- I am pretty sure it is only on select nights. I will try to check my dailies to see what other nights have something going on. I lost a few days worth of those but have most I think at home. The one thing that we missed that I had wanted to see was the Burn the Floor night in the Tropicana Room. I think you can dance on stage that night too! Would have been fun.

[mickanddoe]

where was the lobster desert at..

[ggooglyboogly]

where was the lobster desert at..

 

Lobster tails on board are at carlo's bake shop and the cafe at the atrium

[Terpsince74]

Love your review, most enjoyable. Is there dancing every night in the Tropicana Room? Or just certain nights?

 

Projunior- I looked up in my Dailes (I have every day except for Sat and Wed) and to my surprise, it looks like they offer "Dine & Dance with Latin Express" every night in the Tropicana Room except for Saturday and Thursday. I know this as we went to dinner there Saturday and the band was not there. The night that the Burn the Floor dancers are in Tropicana Room was Thursday night and was labeled as "Burn the Floor- Things that Swing." Hope that helps. Enjoy your trip!

[Terpsince74]

Getaway Day 4 (Tuesday July 8th)- St. Maarten

As I usually do, I woke up a bit early anticipating our arrival to St. Maarten. I jumped on the balcony to see if I could see land. All I could see was the carnival ship that had been following us since Miami.

 

 

I then took a stroll out to the Waterfront area to see how far from land we were. It was a pretty morning and you could see some land far off in the distance. I predicted we would be about an hour away.

 

 

 

Since I was still pretty tired, I decided to go back to sleep. I figured that the vibrations would wake me as we pulled into port. At some point I woke up and could tell the ship had slowed down. I opened our blackout shades and went out on our balcony. We had already turned and were backing into the port and were almost tied up to the pier. I could not believe how smooth the process was. You could barely feel any vibrations. I was actually a bit disappointed as I was hoping to watch more of the arrival into port. This was what we first saw when pulling into St Maarten. It was beautiful!

 

 

 

[Terpsince74]

As we mentioned we love sea days, but by that day, we were eager to get off this ship to do some exploring. After a quick breakfast, we were off the ship around 9:30 am. We snapped a few pictures of the ship and headed for the taxi stand.

 

 

 

Maho Beach

 

Our first destination for the day was Maho Beach. Many of the locals in port were calling it Airplane Beach. Yes, this is the beach near the airport where you can see the planes landing in the morning or taking off in the afternoon just a few hundred feet away from you. The planes land so close to the beach that it really feels like the plane is going to hit you while standing on the beach or even in the water. You can also watch the planes taking off and experience the jet blasts hitting you when they do so.

 

The port at St. Maarten is super organized. They have different areas for you to queue, depending on where on the island you want to go to. What they do is they lump you together with other cruisers going to the same places, and put you in 10-12 passenger vans. This also helps make it more affordable for everyone on a per head basis. We were told to jump in one of the vans. The van was very clean and fairly new as well. On the ride over, we met a family from England seated next to us that were also on the Getaway. We got to talking about Getaway and the experience so far. It was their first time cruising and they were having a blast. They were mentioning that they also were enjoying Vibe. They did not get their Vibe passes until Sunday. That is when I realized it really was not necessary to get to the terminal so early on embarkation day. I guess it really depends on your cruise but my guess is that as long as you get to the terminal around Noon or even 1pm, and proceed directly to guest services from there, you should be able to get a Vibe pass. I liked having the peace of mind that we would get one, and just like on the Breakaway, we used it quite often throughout the week. Anyways, back to St. Maarten.

 

We took a nice scenic route to Maho Beach. I got a few cool pics of the 2 ships in the distance. If you look closely you can see the tip of the Getaway sticking our next to the Carnival ship.

 

 

It took about 30 minutes for us to get to Maho Beach. There was a good bit of traffic by then and all the roads we took there were only 2 lanes.

 

The driver told us that we were there just in time for the KLM 747 to land. Just so you know, that lands around 11:15 am and you DO NOT want to miss that. Since it is such a large plane, it has to really land close to the beginning of the runway (which straddles the beach) so it is larger and even closer than the other planes were when landing.

 

As we exited the van, I asked the driver if he could come back to pick me and my GF up a bit later. Our plan was to stay at Maho Beach for a few hours than go to Orient Beach for the afternoon. The driver said he could help arrange it and the British family asked if they could join us. I thought it was a great idea as the odds of a van being there waiting for us were much better with a larger group of people (and money waiting for him). I took a card from the driver (just in case he did not show) and asked him to be there at Noon.

 

We were dropped off right next to Sunset Bar. I immediately saw the surf board that I had seen in other people’s reviews and snapped a pic. After looking at it more closely, it looked as if only 1 plane would land before we were picked up so was a bit bummed by that but was happy we would be able to see the KLM flight. Much to my surprise we were able to see at least 7-10 planes land in that short span of time.

 

 

 

A few of them were pretty good sized planes like this United flight.

 

[Terpsince74]

The beach was really filling up by 11am so I would recommend you try to get here by 10:30 am at the latest. The beach is pretty small so it gets crowded quickly. It is pretty fun to just go out in the water and watch the planes flying in. They land every 5 minutes or so around that time of morning.

 

 

And then the KLM 747 started approaching. The beach was packed by then. People were screaming and hollering as it approached. As you can see by the pics, it’s an awesome experience that I highly recommend people try out.

 

 

 

 

[aubreyc1988]

Enjoying your review...we loved Maho, def an amazing experience...

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Terpsince74]

At Noon we headed back over to the Sunset Bar and the British family was already there waiting for us. The British dad said that the van was already waiting for us which came as a relief. We had a very friendly driver that drove us over to Orient Beach. He pointed out when we crossed over into the French side and gave us some fun facts about the island. The British dad, the driver, and I got to talking a bit about sports too, as us guys tend to do sometimes lol! We got to Orient Beach about 20 minutes later. We had to be back on the ship by 5:30 so I was being super careful to make sure we got an early start on heading home. I suggested a 3pm pickup time which would also give us ample time to shop back at the port. The British family convinced me to push it to 3:30 which ended up sounding just fine as well.

 

 

Orient Beach

The driver had taken us to a small bar that looked like a hut on the beach that belonged to someone he knew. As soon as we got there the lady running the place said she was offering a lounge chair, free drink, and free wifi for $10 per person. It sounded like a great deal to us and we parked ourselves in some lounge chairs on the beach. The place looked like it was a bit older but it seemed good enough. The beach was not big at all. My GF and I took some chairs that were on the front row closest to the water. My chair was at a pretty bad angle where I felt like I was falling off the chair towards the water. I went behind and dug into the sand a bit making the angle much better. Soon after that I went and redeemed my free drink for a Corona. I also asked the lady for the wifi password. She said, one moment, and took my phone over to someone who tried to get it working. That made me a bit nervous but I felt comfortable enough since my phone was in view. We never did get the wifi working on my phone or my GF’s. I had a feeling that was going to happen. I honestly was not too upset as it felt so good to disconnect from the world for a while. We relaxed on the beach and went for a swim with the British family. They were very nice people who were there with their teen aged daughters. Later, I also had my GF’s free beer as well, lol!

 

 

 

It was starting to get late when we realized we had not eaten yet. Some of the huts looked nicer than others. Ours was definitely a little more shady looking than some of the others so I took a walk to look for something to eat. I ended up coming back with 3 bags of chips to tie us over until we got back onto the ship.

 

 

It looked like it was about to start raining, so we decided to call the driver and ask him to come and get us a few minutes earlier. I was pleasantly surprised when about 15 min later our taxi pulled up. The storm ended up being a false alarm. By the time the driver showed up, the sky was completely clear. To my disappointment, the sky was completely clear but we were leaving the beautiful beach and heading back to the port.

 

 

We got to do some shopping at the port which was great as I have some nieces and nephews I wanted to get a few souvenirs for. I also found this cool cigar stand where I purchased a small cigar to smoke back on the ship. I really liked the shopping square at the St. Maarten port. As we made our way back to the ship we noticed that they were playing the Germany/Brazil game on a large screen on top of the building facing the square so everyone in the port could see it. I did not realize until I got back on the ship but Brazil was getting stomped by Germany. The screen out in the port was so hard to read that I could not tell what the score was.

[Terpsince74]

As soon as we got back onboard, we headed directly to the Garden Café Buffet. We were starving! The mac & cheese was awesome as were the sandwiches but by then anything would have tasted incredible. As we left the buffet, I swung by Spice H2O where they were showing the game. That’s where I realized just how big of a blow out the Brazil game was. I took a few pics to send to my friends back home. What a cool backdrop that was to watch a World Cup game.

 

 

Sailaway- from balcony

We went back down to relax on the balcony and watch the sailaway from there. It was a pretty sailaway and the islands looked amazing as we drifted back out to sea while the sun was going down. We had a great view from our aft balcony as we were pulling away from port.

 

 

 

 

Dinner- Le Bistro

We had made dinner reservations for Le Bistro (the French specialty restaurant) the day before. We were surprised how booked up the specialty restaurants were by then. I hate making plans too far in advance and things still came out the way I wanted so I think I will stick to waiting to book specialty restaurants until after boarding.

On this night, I brought one of my wine bottles down to the restaurant to enjoy. I was super excited for Le Bistro as I was upset I did not get to try it on my Breakaway cruise. And we were not let down! The dinner was FANTASTIC! We sat on the “patio” facing the grand stairwell and the chandelier.

 

For appetizers, my GF had a “salad sampler”, a combination of 4 different salads served in 4 cones. Each salad was simply delicious. Unfortunately, I could only get one bite, LOL. I had the mussels which were servied in a cream sauce that was excellent! For entre’s my GF had a leg of lamb and I had the duck breast, both which were super tasty. The duck breast was the best dish I had on the entire cruise. For desert we went for the chocolate fondue for 2 which lit my GF’s face up like you wouldn’t believe. She has a sweet tooth and this was right up her alley. The fruit was served in a carved-out pineapple, and we were given metal tongs to dip our fruits into the warm milk chocolate. What a great meal that was!

 

 

Fireworks

After dinner we went to drop off my half finished wine bottle, and decided we would shoot up to Spice H2O for a good spot for the fireworks. That was the only night when they had fireworks, so we couldn’t miss it. The fireworks display was a great show that lasted about 15 min. Last year I watched the show from my balcony towards aft on the port side of the ship. I was not able to hear the synchronized music however. It was definitely more fun to view the fireworks from Spice H2O which I will warn you, was completely packed (so get there early). After the fireworks we stayed up there and danced for a while before heading back to the room to collapse from exhaustion. We also had to get to sleep at a decent hour as we had an 8:30 am snorkeling excursion in St. Thomas.

[Terpsince74]

Getaway Day 5 (Wednesday July 9th)- 5 St. Thomas

We again woke up just as we were pulling into port while arriving in St. Thomas. We again backed in and did not feel much by way of vibrations. When we went on the balcony, we were 3-5 minutes from being tied up to the pier. This is the amazing view that we had that morning.

 

 

 

You could tell an immediate difference in this port. There were pricey yachts docked in the marina and it felt more posh to us at first glance. St. Maarten’s port was a bit more industrial than St. Thomas’.

 

After breakfast we hustled down to our meeting point for the Captain Nautica Snorkeling excursion which was only a few steps away from where you exited the ship. Our guide was a nice young guy who told us to wait near a covered area and sign a standard waiver. It was already a hot day, so we caked our sunscreen on while we waited in the shade.

 

Within 10 minutes, our group of about 10 people was walking over to the boat which was docked just to the aft of the Getaway. We took a few pics and you could see our balcony from that vantage point.

 

 

Our guide had just recently moved there from the US. He told us that St Thomas was awesome but it was very expensive to live there and that he basically was breaking even on what he earned after factoring in rent and beer money. We learned that the electricity on St. Thomas is one of the utility highest rates in the world so virtually nobody uses air conditioning. I would not last a week with that heat. LOL!

 

After everyone signed the waiver we walked over to the boat. Our Captain, a nice young lady, was waiting for us there. She explained that we needed to take all of our belongings that we did not want to get wet and place them in waterproof bags that were scattered around the boat. Thankfully, we didn’t have a lot of stuff to lug around with us since they supply all the snorkeling gear. I held onto my camera as I wanted to take some shots of us leaving the port.

 

 

Our captain warned us that they would not stop for hats and loose items that blew off the boat since they had to stick to a tight time schedule. She also explained that if you had back issues, to go towards the back of the boat since we were going to hit some really rough waters on our way to our first snorkeling destination (the Shipwreck). They never took the boat up to high speeds as the water was very rough at certain times.

 

Shipwreck

At the Shipwreck site, we put our fins on and jumped in. The water felt great. It took me and my GF a few minutes to get used to breathing out of our mouths (and not our noses) through that tube. Once we did, we started exploring the cove. It was so relaxing and tranquil. We saw all sorts of fish and I immediately was pissed that I did not bring a waterproof camera.

 

 

 

We then swam out to the middle of the cove where the shipwreck was and that was a really cool experience. We saw fish eating off of plants that had started to form on the shipwreck. We swam around and then saw another ship excursion zoom by us. This was a group of people that looked like aliens wearing air-tight helmets that allowed you to dive. They were hooked up to little powered machines that allowed you to navigate under the water. That looked like it would be fun but I might get a bit claustrophobic with the contraption on my head.

 

As we swam back towards the boat we heard the signal that our time was up and it was time to board the boat for our next destination. As we swam back the guy on the boat pointed out that a Barracuda was lurking under the boat. He said not to worry, it would not bother us. It was a freaky looking fish about 2 feet long that sat still with its mouth open and giant teeth showing. I kept a very close eye on him and my GF was a bit freaked out about him which was understandable. I did not tell her as I did not want to freak her out but as she climbed back on the boat, the barracuda got within 6-7 feet of her and that made my heart skip a beat. Soon after, I quickly hoisted myself out of the water and was glad to be back on the boat. I was honestly never worried or threatened about the Barracuda. It was really cool to live and talk about it after the fact. LOL!

[Terpsince74]

Turtle Cove

Our second destination was a Turtle Cove, a small lagoon where you could swim with sea turtles. As soon as we pulled up, a number of sea turtles came into view. We all quickly hopped in the water to check them out. They were very cool. Not the biggest sea turtles but super cute. They were not intimidated by us at all. They would go to the bottom of the bay, eat for a bit, and then swim back to the surface where they breathed in 3 giant gulps of air and then dove back down again to eat some more. It was fun to watch. After 15-20 minutes, I was ready to go back on the boat as was my GF. She got cold after being in the water for so long, so it would have been a good idea to bring a wet suit or a wet shirt. We relaxed in the sun on the side of the boat for another 10 minutes and eventually everyone else climbed back onboard.

 

 

 

 

We were back at the port 20 minutes later. I took the below pictures on our way back into the port. The whole excursion took about 2.5 hours but the time just flew by.

 

 

 

They were testing the life boats when we got back to port.

 

 

We were back at the port around 11:30 am. The swimming had made us pretty hungry and we considered eating something quick back onboard the ship, but I wanted to try the restaurant up the mountain on Paradise Point. I had heard the restaurant offered incredible views of the port and the rest of St. Thomas.

[Terpsince74]

Paradise Point

To get up to Paradise Point, you have to take a Cable Car up the side of the mountain. It was a 5 minute walk to the entrance of the cable cars. The entrance fee was surprisingly pricey at about $20 per person for a 10 min ride but I still thought it was worth it for the views. We had to wait in line for about 10-15 minutes as they only had 3 cars. Soon enough we were on our way up to the top of the mountain. I immediately started snapping pics as the view looked like a post card.

 

 

 

 

Once we got to the top, you saw this as soon as you stepped off the cable car.

 

 

The views were breathtaking. I probably took 100 pictures. LOL! Once we got over the shock and awe factor of the view, we headed over to grab some lunch at the restaurant (called “Paradise Point”). We grabbed a table right next to the ledge overlooking the valley and the port. We could see our ship from there.

 

 

[Freespir8]

Really enjoying your review! Fantastic pictures...makes me feel like I am on the cruise with you!

[Terpsince74]

I was surprised how fast the service was up there. I got a really tasty jerk chicken sandwich and my GF ordered a fish dish. We both loved our meals. At that point the exhaustion started setting in from the heat and the earlier snorkeling. We sat there for a while relaxing and enjoying the view. My GF got on the free wi-fi provded by the restaurant, and it was the first time she was able to connect to the real world since we had left. I gladly stayed off the grid and just enjoyed the view for a while longer.

 

 

 

There were a couple of gift shops right next to the restaurant, so we purchased a few souvenirs and looked around a little bit. One of the attractions was a Parrot stand, where you could take pictures with the birds. We had just missed her Parrot show. I was not too upset at that as the owner was a bit of a strange bird herself. Pun intended! LOL!

 

We took a cable car to get back to the bottom of the hill and were at the port in no time at all. On our way back to the ship we stopped by a Cigar store where I purchased some rum flavored cigars for my father. I was kicking myself for not getting him one at the cigar place the day before in St. Maarten.

 

As we were walking back towards the ship I thought it would be a good idea to run up to the room and see if my GF could take a pic of me on our balcony so we could show everybody where our room was. It was oppressively hot out so I tried to hurry up to the room while she was waiting for me in the hot sun. As I got closer to the boarding area, I noticed that the line to get onboard was crazy long. There must have been 200 people slowly waiting to board the ship. I immediately turned around to go pickup my GF. I figured we could try to get that picture during our stop in the Bahamas. As we queued up in line it slowly trickled people onto the ship. It was a bit early (3pm-ish) so maybe they did not have a lot of people there working yet. Then the line started moving faster and we were on the ship 15 minutes later. Unlike St. Maarten, they were religiously checking passports and room keys which made for a slower boarding process. In St. Maarten they did not even ask us for our passports.

 

Vibe

We decided to head up to chill at the Vibe for an hour or so after we boarded. The heat that day really had knocked me out. We enjoyed some frozen drinks there and before we knew it, we were sailing away. We decided to just enjoy the sailaway from Vibe that day and it was fun. By then we knew a lot of the people up there so it was fun to chat away with everyone. We had quite a few drinks as we sailed away which also made it a fun time.

 

Thirty minutes later, we sailed through a short but powerful rainstorm. The cool rain water was welcome and felt great.

 

 

Right before we left Vibe, we saw the British family that was with us on the beach on St. Maarten, and we talked about what we had done that day in St. Thomas. I showed them some of our pics from Paradise point which they thought were amazing. For the past half an hour they had been watching flying fish that they spotted at the wake of the ship.

 

The British dad said he had been watching these fish for the last 30 minutes that were swimming alongside the ship. He said it was incredible as there were hundreds of fish that as the wake of the ship scared them while swimming, spurred them to fly out of the water.

 

Birds were circling the area like vultures and would swoop in and eat the little guys. I stood there staring at the water for 10 minutes trying to find the flying fish but couldn’t see anything in the waves. I did see the birds, but not the fish. He said it was quite the spectacle and I bet it was.

 

Snacks & Wine on balcony

On the way back to the room, we stopped by the Garden Café to pick up some cheese, bread, fruit, and meats to snack on upstairs while drinking wine on the balcony. The sun started to come back out by then. I also stopped by Spice H2O to snap this pic and check out the score of the Argentina vs Netherlands game. We watched the ending of that game from our room before enjoying our wine and snacks on the balcony.

 

 

 

 

Dinner- Sushi

Later in the evening, neither of us were super hungry so we decided this would be a good night to try sushi. The sushi place on the Getaway is ala carte so you just pay for what food you order. It is very reasonable and our dinner for two was under $25 (with drinks). The sushi was fantastic and we both left there full as can be. We only ordered 3 rolls and that was all we needed.

 

Headliners- Rodney Laney

After dinner we ventured back over to Headliners where comedian Rodney Laney was performing. The same guy came out with the same cheesy jokes to introduce Rodney. I thought that was a bit lame. In all fairness, the first time I heard those jokes from the intro guy, they were really funny, but he should have 2-3 routines at least if you ask me. He really only cracked jokes for 5 minutes before he introduced the main comedian. Rodney Laney was hysterical. We really liked him.