Travel Tuesday

We had a great time on our trip. Me, definitely more than Butch. He's not so good at sitting around. He goes a little stir crazy. For me, what's not to like? Basking in the sun, being waited on with tropical drinks, reading to my heart's content and working on a few organizational projects on my computer. For me the week went by pretty fast.

I'm really happy that Mindy and Justin were with us. We were looking forward to a relaxing trip. Although, unlike Stephanie and Nicky who travel with us, Mindy and Justin travel adjacent to us. Meaning that we mostly each do our own thing, but meet up for specific things--like tours, trivia, happy hours and dinner. That's fine by us as I like to do my own thing on this type of vacation. In fact I only got off the ship once in San Juan and that was one time too many. I had already been to each of these islands and once is all you need. I was happy to stay on the ship.

 

However, we learned a couple things:

1. We're done with the Caribbean. Been there, done that, too many times. Don't need to do it again.

2. We're done with big ships. Ditto from above. We are spoiled by river cruises. It's the only way to go! About a hundred people compared to 3000!

Also, a few more things if you are choosing a cruise. Do Not choose Holland America. This was our first time with this company. The ship was beautiful, spotless and easy to get around. The service was fabulous and the food was delicious. We are used to cruising and know the ropes. This time, everything we thought we knew was a lie!!

1. We upgraded our rooms to connect with Mindy and Justin including the balconies. We pictured ourselves having happy hours there. That didn't happen. All the beverages in the refrigerator were extra charges.

2. We paid for internet, but it was terrible. We simply didn't get it most of the time. We all spent time at guest services trying to figure out what we needed to do. It was a complicated, convoluted mess. The bottom line was that you could not have two devices on the internet at the same time. That meant we could not share photos or get them to sync with our computer. I could not download a book to Butch's Kindle because that required internet connection for both at the same time! So frustrating. Butch went down first. When he got back, he had a puzzled look on his face. He said, “Barb, I cannot honestly tell you what she said. It made no sense."

3. We paid extra to have the tips included. As it turns out, not all the tips were included. Tips were added to the beverages. Here's another thing: sometimes we got a bill we had to sign that included the tip and sometimes we didn't. There was no rhyme or reason as to how it was handled. 

4. We got the beverage package. The package was only good for beverages up to $11. Many, many of the drinks were more than that so we had to pay the difference.  Even a simple cosmo was a dollar more. Then when we got the bills, it looked like we were paying for each drink. Their accounting system was ludicrous.

5. Another thing about the beverage package: we had to count canned water (they don't use plastic) and Cokes as one of the beverages. The only free beverages were tap water, coffee and tea. 

6. In all of our cruise experience, we have never seen a menu where there were additional choices that you had to pay for! It was annoying. Of course the premium items looked amazing! We didn't get any of them and luckily, ALL the food was delicious.

Now I'm going to let you in to see a little of my crazy. I doubt I've ever told you that I am a counter. You might have figured it out by my careful documentation of things: books I've read, movies I've seen, documentaries I've watched, the things I get rid of and it goes on and on. Well here are the counts from our trip:

Drinks:

Bloody Caesar—4 (like a bloody Mary but with clam juice)

Extra Dirty Martini—4

Miami Vice—2

Chocolate Martini—1

Miami Beach Spritz—1

Hot chocolate with Bailey’s—2

Hot Chocolate—1

Iced tea—10+ refills

Diet Coke—6

Water cans—4

BBC—3

Hot tea—6

Orange juice—2

Milk—3

Fashionista-1

Blue Florida-1

Total of Alcohol drinks: 19 (wow, that's a lot for me--they sure were good)

Activities:

Music Trivia--2

Trivia—4

Prom Photos

San Juan, Puerta Rico

Origami (this was stupid--thought I might learn something I could use for scrapbooking. No such luck)

Read on the trip:

People magazine: 8

One book.

And now, the pictures:

San Juan's smallest house.

He couldn't resist stopping at his favorite store!!