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Cruising in the Caribbean: Part 1

September 28, 2009 Category: Albino Bowler 4 Comments »

It was finally my turn to take the Albino Bowler on vacation again! Carnival Cruise Lines graciously allowed AB to come onto the ship for the entire ride (ok so I didn’t ask for permission, I just took him). The cruise was 7 days long and visited 7 islands in the southern Caribbean. The home port for the ship (Carnival Victory) was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was an incredibly long flight (3.5 hours from Atlanta to San Juan) but luckily there was a LCD TV’s built into the back of the seat in front of me. We arrived in San Juan on time and headed to the hotel.

San Juan:

My mom, brother and I woke up at around 8:00AM and ate breakfast. We were unable to board the ship until about 1:00PM so I just sat around and read a book. Once we were on the ship, the real fun started. One of my favorite places on the ship was the deli. It opened for lunch as soon as we boarded the ship. They made a delicious turkey sub for me. After we were done eating, we went up to the top of the ship and took some pictures

with San Juan behind us. The ship pulled out of the dock at 9:30pm and we were on our way to St. Thomas!

St. Thomas:

We were able to sleep in on the second day but still had an excursion. We went to the top deck of the ship to eat breakfast. I really enjoyed the omelet stand on the ship. They cooked it exactly how you liked it. Once we finished breakfast, we explored the ship some more. I checked out the casino and sushi bar since they were right next to each other (they weren’t open though while we were in port). My mom, brother, and I got ready for our excursion at about 1:00pm. While we were waiting, I snapped a shot of the Albino Bowler next to the ship.

The boat arrived to pick us up for the underwater motor scooter excursion shortly after. It was a 30 minute ride out to where we would be snorkeling and using the scooters. They went through a quick tutorial on how to steer the scooter and divided us up into two groups. The crew was absolutely hilarious that were running the excursion. Once of the girls that went with us was terrified of fish so as soon as she jumped in the water, the owner of the boat threw a TON of goldfish (the snack, not the actual fish) around her.

She was swarmed with yellow striped fish within seconds and screamed so loud. Everyone on the boat was laughing about it. The motor scooters were a blast. We were able to go about 20 feet down and still breathe normally. They didn’t go very fast but we were able to see a ship wreck and some very beautiful coral.

After about 3 hours, we loaded up and went back to the ship. We all prepared for dinner and to meet the other diners at our table. My mom and I had decided that since everything on the cruise (except alcohol) was completely free, we would try as many new things as possible. We started going to the sushi bar every day at 5:00PM when it opened and trying every single thing that was available. The first day was barbequed eel and believe it or not, it was VERY delicious.

We went to dinner and met 3 of the 6 other people at our dinner table. Their names were Michele, Tom, and Scott. All of them were from New Jersey and they were some of the coolest people the entire cruise. All of us got along with no problems and we had dinner over conversation about the excursions we had done that day. We were also able to meet our main waiter, Alexander, and our assistant waiter, Pospita. They were also incredibly nice and did a great job serving us the entire week.

Shortly after dinner, we went back to our rooms and fell asleep from a very long day. The ship left port at around 5:30PM to head for the next island so we were already on the way before dinner.

Dominica:

We woke up as early as possible and found we were already in port at Dominica (pronounced Dom-a-ne-ka). We all went up for breakfast but had to eat quickly because our excursion was an early one. We finished eating and went down to deck 0 to get off of the ship. As soon as we stepped on to the island, we heard a guy playing steel drums. We found our excursion guide for river tubing and waited for everyone to arrive there. Everyone piled into a bus and we made the long trip to where we would be river tubing (1 hour and 15 minute drive). Once we were there, everyone had to put on life jackets and helmets. The river tubing guides gave some instructions and told us to just relax when we hit whitewater on the river.

Everyone formed a line to get into the river with a tube. Once we were in, it was very relaxing and clam so I took out the Albino Bowler to get a few pictures before the whitewater part. The water was colder than I had expected but still felt great. We were on the river for about 2 hours and had a great time. We stopped on the bus ride back and tried some local rum punch (it was VERY strong and delicious). We got back to the ship and prepared for dinner.

We still had time before dinner so my mom and I decided to go to the casino and learn how to play some of the games (the first few nights of the cruise they host a teaching session and show you how to play 2 or 3 games). We learned how to play Roulette and Blackjack. I decided that Roulette was not my kind of game and stuck with Blackjack. The casino host, Paul, taught us everything we needed to know about Blackjack. Of course, the version he showed us was Face-Up Blackjack, in which the casino has better odds of winning. Luckily, Tom and Scott from our dinner table knew exactly how to play the regular version of Blackjack and told us how to adapt what we had learned to the regular game.

The other 3 members of our table showed up for this night’s dinner. They were also from New Jersey, not far from where Tom, Michele, and Scott were from. Their names were Janette, Gabriella, and Tom (yes we had 2 Toms).

Stay tuned for part 2!

–Zac Mckinney