Last week was spent at sea, and unlike the experience of
some benighted souls, all went well.
To celebrate their upcoming 50th anniversary, my in-laws took a Caribbean cruise -- and graciously brought their children and their families along as well. An early, early Sunday flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, followed by a quick cab ride, brought us within sight of the
Adventure Of The Seas -- 15 decks high, more than three football fields long, and briefly described as "The Biggest Thing I've Ever Seen That Wasn't The Hoover Dam Or Something." 10 pm that night brought cast-off, and here is the cruise from A to Z.
A is for
Aruba, the first stop after a day at sea. Prior to becoming known for the disappearance of an Alabama blonde, Aruba was known (at least by me) as a tropical paradise. Turns out, not so much. Although the beaches can be quite beautiful, most of Aruba is as dry as a desert. The north coast of the island, especially, is pretty much a moonscape on the edge of a heaving ocean. Harsh, desolate, and mostly inacessible except by jeep (which is what we used to tour it), it's almost the perfect antithesis of what you would expect from a Caribbean island.
B is for
Balcony. Our cabin was at the stern of the ship on the 10th deck, which means our balcony afforded us a perfectly wonderful panoramic view of where we'd just been from about 100 feet above the water. Nice.
C is for
Curaçao, our second stop, the day after Aruba. Although it certainly appeared to be quite a bit more lush and green than Aruba, we really didn't see much of Curaçao outside of its port/capital, Willemstad. Truth is, the day on Curaçao was by far the most hot and uncomfortable of the entire week, so we didn't do much other than walk into town and spend a couple of hours ducking into air-conditioned shops, staying on the shady side of the street, and eventually winding up at a riverside bar for an Amstel (not light, not bright, just regular Amstel) and a
Polar.
D is for
Drinking, which Noreen and I did quite a lot of on this trip. By my recollection, there were 14 different bars on the boat, and we managed to visit just about all of them at one time or another. Added to that, we had a 3-way wine package that brought 21 bottles of wine to dinner over the course of the week. Best drink of the week? Had to be the gin-and-tonics from the poolside bar on the first day at sea.
E is for
Eating, the other half of the killer cruise combo. It's not the greatest food in the world, but it is pretty widely varied and it is available pretty much all of the time. Not easy to avoid when you can basically just walk up and start chowing (or call up room service, order, and then start chowing) any time of the day or night. Final result of all the eating and drinking? One pound (see "X").
F is for
French Bistro, which we managed to find a very nice one of
for lunch in Grand Case on St. Martin. While we didn't partake of the full hot lunch that the locals favor, the croques, french bread jambon et fromage, chocolate crossaint and cold, cold
El Presidente. Sure, the beer wasn't French, but everything was awfully good.
G is for the
GPS Channel, which turned out to be the most interesting channel on the cabin TV. Location, speed, lat & longitude, course, sea depth, bridge cam -- pretty much everything a geek would ever want to know about where you are when you're out in the middle of nowhere.
H is for
Hurricanes, which we thankfully didn't run into. We did have some near misses of
Tropical Storm Chris (now Tropical Depression Chris...sorry, Chris) which preceded us into St. Martin and the Virgin Islands (while we were in Aruba and Curaçao), making those islands pretty wet but thankfully not doing much to ruin our vacation.
I is for
Irena. Not another Tropical Storm, but our dining room waitress for the week (well, I guess she was technically the assistant waiter, but anyway). One of the interesting aspects of the cruise was the very international nature of the ship's staff. The captain was Norwegian, our cabin attendant was Jamaican, our head waiter and waiter were Turkish, Irena was Bulgarian, etc., etc. Found out quite a bit about life on board from Irena -- 70-hour, 7-day workweeks for 6 months, followed by 2 months off. Her husband also works on board, and as a matter of fact was our waiter one night when we ate at a different restaurant. Both will head back to Bulgaria during their months off, and ultimately would like to open their own restaurant there somewhere on the Black Sea. Not sure what a Bulgarian restaurant would be like, exactly, but Irena will be a hell of a front woman for it regardless.
J is for
Jazz Club, which they had one of on the boat. I know it was a little DisneyWorld-y, but each of the bars on the ship had some kind of theme. The jazz club was on the 14th deck with a view overlooking the pool and the ocean was one of the coolest places we found to sit and have a drink.
K is for
Karaoke. Not that I've seen or done much karaoke, but easily the worst I've ever seen was in one of the lounges onboard this ship one night. Maybe it was just bad luck, but each of the first several songs were awful ballads (after which we high-tailed it), and when the second song is a complete nine-minute version of "Paradise By The Dashboard Light?" then you've got a problem.
L is for
Liverpool, one of three soccer shirts I found for 20 bucks in Willemstad, which were pretty much the only thing I bought all week that wasn't in a glass.
M is for
ManU, one of the other two.
N is for
Never mind.
O is for
Oh get a life, Dick.
P is for
Pannenkoeken, the Dutch pancakes
we had for lunch on Aruba. I had apple and bacon, and it was awesome. Slices of both are fried right into the large, thin, crepe-like pancake. Great sweet-and-salty combination.
Q is for
Quarterdeck. The quarterdeck of the Adventure of the Seas has a basketball court, a climbing wall and a putt-putt course. You could look it up.
R is for
Rolling Seas, which we encountered almost none of. In fact, I have to say that the sailing was so smooth that most of the time at sea you could barely tell that the ship was afloat and moving at all.
S is for
St. Martin, our third island stop. Not a large island, but big enough to essentially be split down the middle by the Dutch and the French. The ship docked in Philipsburg on the Dutch half, but after renting a car we spent most of the day in the French half (see "F" and "O"). St. Martin was probably the most tropical of the islands we saw, certainly the greenest, and probably our favorite stop (see "O" again).
T is for George
Takei, who seems to have
taken the same cruise as us a couple of years ago. Oddly, though, given George's lifestyle, he seems to have left the nude beach to the Star Trek fans.
U is for
Ultramarine, which was the color of the water on the beaches we went to. Sweet.
V is for the
Virgin Islands, specifically
St. Thomas, our last stop before returning to San Juan. As was the case with
Philipsburg, the port of
Charlotte Amalie is on an absolutely beautiful harbor. Our experience on the island was pretty much limited to wandering around downtown for a while shopping (this happened to be the only day that it rained during the whole trip). The best part of the day, however, turned out to be when we left port. The maneuver was basically the same as backing your car out of the garage, only your car is a thousand feet long and 15 stories high. Pretty cool.
W is for
Water. It's a fact that the ocean is filled with water. Lots and lots of water. Really, a
lot of water. And it's very, very blue. That bit about "the ocean blue" is right on, man. It's blue.
X is for
eXercising (I know it's a reach, but what the hell, how much junk on a ship starts with an "X"?). The ship had a great workout center -- lots of treadmills and ellipticals and weight machines -- which was very fortunate. Otherwise, "D" and "E" above would have had us looking like ... well, looking like a lot of the people on the buffet line. Interesting thing, though. Beginning of the week, gym is
packed. End of the week, mmm, not so much.
Y is for
Yummy, which describes the desserts we had every night at dinner.
and Z is for
Zero, which describes the number of times I didn't enjoy myself on this trip. Thanks, Norb & Kay and Happy 50th!
