WHAT THE HELL?!

   OK, so here is the scoop on Caribbean Cruises, DON’T expect to see the ports you have signed up for. I have a friend that told me she has been on 4 cruises to the Caribbean and Grand Cayman has been a destination on 3 of these, but only once has the ship been able to dock there. I used to tease and say, “How naughty can I be without going to hell”, well apparently it is harder than I thought, and I even paid to go, and still couldn’t get there.

   The only excursion that we signed up for on this Caribbean cruise, was at George Town, Grand Cayman. Our tour was supposed to go to a turtle farm, then take a boat out to Stingray Bay to swim, feed, and play with Stingrays, and go to a place called “Hell”. In Hell we would stop at a Post Office to send post cards to ourselves, family, and friends which would be post marked from “Hell”.  The morning we arrived at George Town, the Captain gave an announcement that due to rough seas we would not be able to dock or even use the Tenders to get into this port. My first words were “What the Hell”? We were so disappointed that we didn’t get to go. I bet not many people you know want to go to Hell as bad as we did.

   Because of this we had two days back to back of sailing, which is not something I enjoy. The sea was choppy and constantly rocking the ship back and forth and side to side, which only leaves me sea sick. While buying some Dramamine, I was given a tip by a crew member. She said that eating a green apple would help with sea sickness. I had later heard a group of women talking about the green apples to each other trying to help with their queasiness too.

   The Norwegian Escape had plenty to do to keep you busy on the two days of cruising. Most everyone we met on this cruise was from the Eastern part of Canada (where temperatures were subzero), the Midwest, or East Coast of the U.S.A. so even though the temperature was only in the 70’s, most of them donned swimsuits and laid around the pools, swimming, and getting tanned. This ship was so big, it had an outdoor water park, rope course, running track, and a miniature golf course.

This is the rope course on board, but we never got to do this either, because it was too windy to open.

My hole in one shot. Look at all the spikes it had to go around and it still dropped right into the hole!

Various outdoor attractions on our “Mega Ship”

Eight Hours Of Shopping In Falmouth, Jamaica

Norwegian Escape docked in Falmouth, Jamaica

   On our third day of our cruise we woke up in Falmouth, Jamaica, here we had eight hours to spend. I was a little surprised we even went into Jamaica considering they were under marshal law at the time, but later after talking to a sales clerk in one of the shops I understood. This little port is strictly a little triangle shaped shopping plaza, with a guarded gate,and was advised we probably shouldn't go past the guarded gate unless we were on an excursion.

  Hubby and I decided we should do the majority of our shopping here and get it done with, since that was all we could do. One of our "bucket list items" to purchase on this trip was Cuban cigars, since they have been illegal here in the United States for our whole life, and since they are supposed to be one of the smoothest cigars made, we wanted to see what all the hubbub was about on these and get a few. We purchased our cigars at a store that was nothing but Cuban's! You always hear how cheap things are in the Caribbean, but not always the case, our cigars were $20.00 a piece! I was hoping for half that price. We also knew Rum was another must to purchase here, but we choose to buy the Tortuga Caribbean Rum Cakes instead. We bought a six pack that cost $35.00. My favorite was the rum coffee cake, these are only the size of a large cupcake. When we got to the Miami airport they sold the exact same thing CHEAPER. Another item on our "bucket list" was the Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee. They gave out samples at the little store we bought it at. The coffee was 16 oz. and cost $45.00!  The funny highlight to this little store was we were checking out the cigars in their cases, and the lady pulled out this big ole cigar called a "Threesome", we started giggling, and then my hubby said, "Well we should have a Threesome, and go to Hell". We all just busted out laughing, because the next day on our excursion we were suppose to go to a place called Hell. 

   Apparently one of  the big things to buy in the Caribbean is jewelry, it seemed that about a third of this place was jewelry stores. One of the ladies we had meet on the ship showed me her $6,000 diamond necklace. It was beautiful. It had a crown of light diamond in the center with smaller diamonds surrounding the big center diamond.   

At the end of our eight hours in Falmouth, we had been there, done that, and completed our little "bucket list" of things to buy in the Caribbean.

Seven Day Caribbean Cruise on the Norwegian Escape

    After 30 years of marriage, we finally had "our honeymoon". We have actually traveled the world, but never alone, so we decided this was it. Just hubby and I sailing the ocean blue, walking on white sandy beaches, wading in absolutely clear  water, (which actually was chilly), but perfect weather to explore the islands.

   We have always sailed on Holland American Cruise line, but this time we took the Norwegian Escape cruise ship.  This was one of their mega ships, it had 4,200 passengers on board, which means a lot of greets and meets. We had to be at the ship for our check-in at 11:00 a.m. Once on the ship you couldn't get into your room until after 2 p.m. because they are still cleaning the rooms from the last cruisers. Every bar and eating joint was filled to capacity with passengers and their carry on luggage waiting for their rooms. We had a 5:30 p.m. dinner reservation at Teppanyaki Restaurant and still hadn't got our luggage delivered to our room. Turns out they have until 7 p.m. to deliver it. So we just went "as is" to dinner. 

   I cannot say how much we enjoyed this restaurant, they are so much fun, such entertainment in watching our food be prepared. We had the funnest group of people at our station, the chef was hilarious, he chopped the food to the beat of the songs he had us singing. We ordered the Steak and Shrimp, the steak was cooked to perfection, it was so tender in melted in your mouth. I have to say this was really one of the finest, funnest dinners we have ever enjoyed.    

   Second day was a full day at sea, so we took advantage of exploring the ship, we had a balcony room which we so enjoyed just sitting out on it watching the waves go bye, enjoying the sounds of the sea splashing against the ship, it was windy that day and had choppy waters that would spray us with a sea mist. At night we actually just opened our sliding glass door, pulled back the curtains and lay on our bed and soaked up the whole ocean voyage experience.