Cruise, Part 2

 Tuesday (San Juan, PR): Our camera sucks. As I'm looking at our pictures, they just don't do justice to the real thing. The colors are all off and they aren't crisp at all. Sorry about that :( We spent the morning sailing and then arrived midday into the port of San Juan. The port itself is guarded by two very old forts, so it's a scenic ride in. They open up the front bow of the ship so that you can enjoy the view. We tried to watch it from the forward observation lounge, where there was a narrator explaining the sights, but SOMEONE (no names) wouldn't stay quiet. Oh well.

view of one of the forts (don't ask which one) from the ship

watching the sail-in

 When we arrived onshore, we decided to walk up to the first fort. With both strollers. It's uphill. On 400 year old cobblestones. We deserve a medal. :) We were duly rewarded, however, by the views both on the way up and at the top. The cobblestones are actually made from ballast stones from the first ships that sailed over to colonize PR, and they are a beautiful blue. Also the architecture is really neat and there are plazas dotted throughout. At the top, up one more steep hill, was the entrance to fort San Cristobal, which is actually a National Park. We paid $3 per adult and were granted access to the huge complex.

atop the first fort, San Cristobal

in the dungeon

 We explored the fort, which also has period clothing, informational displays, and more. Very cool stuff. The weather was nice in the open areas and absolutely stifling in the places with sun and no breeze. I could only imagine what it had been like hundreds of years ago for the people who lived and worked there, with all of their clothes, wigs, and no indoor plumbing. No thank you.

We walked across the wall which extends along the tip of the island from one fort to the other, and then headed downhill back to the ship.

our ship from atop the fort

La Perla, for Stephanie

 The ship was docked until 10:30 p.m., but when you travel with kids you really need to go by that schedule rather than your port times. So we went back onboard, showered, rested, and found another towel animal!

Wednesday (St. Thomas): I had done a bit of research on this port and decided that the safest thing to do was to take an excursion. The taxis are open air (read: big pickup trucks with benches in the back) and the island has mixed reviews as far as tourist safety goes. Jason disagreed with me and refused to look at excursion, so we ended up doing nothing. The island of St. Thomas is very steep and rocky, which I was surprised by even though I read about it, because I'm used to the pancake flatness of the Bahamas and Florida. It really wouldn't have been navigable with the strollers. So, we hung around onboard, Nathan went to the kids' club for a bit.

remembering how to swim

towel animals in the cabana, too!

one of our many diversions

refusing to take his eyes off the "chocolate pirate money"

Thursday (sea day again): Let me be honest for a moment. At this point in the vacation, I was seriously 50/50 as to whether I'd rather be on land or on a cruise. The boys had been rather "trying" and I was tired. I knew I had signed up for a different vacation that just the two of us going, but we were still at times pulling our hair out. I was getting, quite literally, cabin fever.

Since getting off the ship and going home was not an option, we soldiered on. :)
And were thusly rewarded with another towel animal.

On this night (I think), we actually made it to a restaurant that's on the buffet level, so it's more casual, but still has table service. We had dropped Nathan off at the club. Noah was awake but happy. Until we sat down. He wasn't crying, just fussing, but we were getting LOOKS from people. So back into the stroller he went, as I proceeded to do laps around the buffet for thirty minutes, stopping to whisper to Jason through the partition each time I would pass by: "I think he's about to fall asleep! One more lap and I'll come sit down. Go ahead and order for me." It was so bad that the head of the lido area told me that he'd make a special accommodation and have the food sent to my room if needed. LOL. Noah finally dozed off and we had a hurried meal together.

Friday (Half Moon Cay): HMC is supposedly the highest rated private island of all the cruise lines. We've been to Coco Cay, Castaway Cay, and have seen Great Stirrup Cay from the ship, so we are no stranger to private islands. I have to agree with the experts that this is the nicest island. It's spacious, with tons of infrastructure and a beach that is just breathtaking. It's the kind of beach that sears its beauty on your memory forever. Lucky for us, since it looks like any old regular beach on our crappy camera. Ugh.

We had to tender to the island (for you non-cruisers, this means you take a boat rather than have the ship dock at the pier). I successfully managed to get ashore WITHOUT having a heart attack- for some reason having the boys, especially Noah, on a small boat makes me nervous.

The plaza at the entrance

 We did a bit of everything- explored, ate at the BBQ, sat on the beach, and went in the crystal clear ocean. I have a thing about going in the water when I can't see the bottom, so this was the perfect beach for me. Surprisingly, the water was really chilly. The sand was like sugar- hard to walk in but super soft and fine. Great for sandcastles :)

ready for beach day!

great playground on the island

a bar that's in the shape of a shipwrecked boat

the beach- imagine it bluer, clearer, and brighter

going back to the ship on the tender- do I have a death grip on the stroller???

happy boy

Back aboard the ship, I packed up our stuff and we settled in for our final night of cruising for many years to come. Even though it was fun (and not fun, in alternating spurts), we've decided that until the boys are older we are hanging up our lifejackets and sticking to land vacations.