Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Since we had a laptop on the ship, I took some time each day to write down what we did. Don’t feel like you have to read this. It gets pretty bland. I just want it on the blog so that we can look back in the future and reference it. In fact, if you’re planning to go on your first cruise, I actually recommend that you do NOT read this. Part of the fun is discovering a lot of the things that I discuss below. Plus, when I write this much I tend to sound like a sixth grader recounting their summer vacation.

And for those of your suffering from cruise post overload, rejoice in the knowledge this is the last one that I have planned except for the video which I’m still editing.

Sunday

You knew I couldn’t go a week without blogging, right? We brought Tyla’s laptop along to offload pictures and video from the cameras and so I could record some thoughts along the way.

We arrived in Miami on Saturday night just before midnight. Thankfully all our luggage arrived with us and the transfer to the hotel was simple via one of those shared blue shuttle van deals. We stayed at the Holiday Inn right at the entrance to the Port of Miami. It turned out to be a great spot because in the morning we walked across the street to a park, shopping center, and marina with wild dolphins. We ended up eating dinner at a nice Cuban restaurant right on the water, headed back to the hotel to pack up and then took a quick taxi over to the cruise ship.

The ship is enormous. I knew it would be big but this is incredible. Up until the end of last year, this was the biggest ship in the world and it’s not hard to believe that fact. There is a running track along the top of the ship and it’s the same length as the park where Tyla walks her dog! And the track doesn’t even come close to touching the ends of the ship!

We spent the day exploring the ship, eating our first dinner in the main dining room, and enjoying the view from our balcony. After a soak in the hot tub, we were about ready to call it a night when we decided to go check out the parade in the promenade. That turned out to be a great decision. Think carnival in Rio. Costumes and Caribbean music made for a fantastic show!

It’s surprising how many other cruise ships we saw around us today. There were two Carnival ships that left port at the same time as us. One has been in view in the distance for much of the day, and at dinner, the Oasis of the Seas was spotted. The Oasis replaced this ship as the biggest ship in the world.

It’s hard to explain how weird it is to on the balcony and read a book. Staring at the book you feel like you’re in a hotel. But then you look up and see the water speeding by (about 18mph) and remember you’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean beyond sight of any land..

After dark we headed up to the helicopter pad where there aren’t many lights and stared up at the stars for a while. I saw my first ever shooting star in the arms of my beautiful wife on our honeymoon.

Tomorrow is a full day at sea so we’re looking forward to relaxing and some fun activities. You could triple book yourself all day long with the activities they have available!

Monday

Today was a full day at sea and we took advantage by doing… not much! The morning was a bit of running around as we went to a presentation about shopping at the port cities. We thought it was going to be tips and tricks for spending time off the boat, but it was all about jewelry and which stores to go to so we left early. Here’s a tip: they spend a lot of time recommending that you go to this show, but unless you’re planning to do a lot of shopping, skip it. While Tyla took a quick nap in the room, I headed down to the Promenade and picked up tickets for an ice show on Wednesday night.

Next up was the FlowRider. This is Royal Caribbean’s surf machine, but when we went it was set up for boogie boarding on your stomach and knees. It took about 15 minutes to wait in line but we both got a shot. It’s a great activity to sit and watch because there are a lot of great wipe outs.

The entire afternoon was spent poolside and in the hot tub. Throughout the day we’ve caught glimpses of various islands including Cuba. It’s quite windy today (20 mph wind plus about another 20mph due to our ship speed.) It makes the top deck very breezy but they have done a good job of organizing the top few decks to keep the pool area sheltered.

While we were by the pool, we caught the bellyflop competition. About nine guys duked it out for top honors. Two of them got a perfect score and had a flop off. I’m not sure what the winner got for his victory except for a red belly, but we enjoyed his pain.

We also ate at the Windjammer Café for breakfast and lunch. I had just assumed that there would be a 24 hour buffet on the ship, but it turns out that there isn’t. So I was very happy to see that the Café is the buffet and it’s open for breakfast, lunch and dinner with little breaks in between. When the café and main dining rooms are closed, room service is the way to go. Last night we ordered chocolate chip cookies, milk and spinach dip.

We felt the ship rocking for the first time today. I had thought that if we felt the ship moving, it would be very slow since the ship is so big. Quite the opposite is true though. This feels more like plummeting from waves. It’s a side to side motion and it’s pretty rapid.

Here’s another thought: when will Europe get the memo that male swimsuits are supposed to reach your knees? There are too many guys walking around with what may as well be women’s bikini bottoms. And as for European and Asian women, what’s the deal with the sensual/serious poses for pictures? It’s not just an “I don’t like to smile” face, it’s the “I’m posing for a magazine photo shoot” look. It cracks me up every time I see it.

Tuesday

Today was our first day off the boat and we had a wonderful time in Labadee, Haiti. It’s a private part of the island owned by Royal Caribbean. You can cover the whole area in a half hour, but we enjoyed laying in beach chairs and swimming in the ocean. Lunch is provided on the beach with food from the ship.

Here’s a tip for anyone stopping there: When you get off the ship, the natural flow directs you to the beach that faces away from the ship. That beach doesn’t have a good swimming area (lots of coral in the water), and later in the day people were getting sandblasted by the wind. Instead, head over to Columbus Cove where it’s secluded from the wind and the whole swimming area is very nice.

We did feel a little weird thinking about the destruction that is probably still evident on the other side of the island. Sure we gave some money to a Hatian relief charity before we came, but it’s still hard to ignore the difference in lifestyle. We were happy to see huge pallets of food, water and clothing being unloaded from our ship for the Hatian relief effort.

Walking through the market area on Labadee felt like being a fish in the stream. Every guy you walk past walks out to try to “show you something in my shop.” We ended up buying a little wooden jar from one of the quieter shopping areas. Do the guys who attack you get more business than the ones who don’t say anything? Maybe it doesn’t matter since the quiet people just end up with lots of people browsing but not buying?

Tonight we stepped into the Platinum Theater for the second time. Last night they had some semi-odd dancing, flying music review. Tonight was a singing comedian. Both shows were ok, but I was mostly impressed with the enormous theater. I’ll have to look up the exact number when I get home, but there are well over 1000 seats in the theater.

The boat has been rocking much more like I expected today. It’s very long, slow side to side motion. It takes about 15-20 seconds to do one full back and forth cycle. I wonder if the shorter oscillations I felt yesterday were due to wind and not to waves? I also learned that this ship has stabilizers on it to keep from rocking too much. I can see how this would get to you if you had a weak stomach though. There were lots of those little ear patch medicine things around today. Neither one of us had any problems though.

We’re going to get up early to see the sunrise tomorrow, but we decided to stay up late anyway and watch “Dancing in the Streets” in the Royal Promenade. It was an hour long show and consisted of singers and dancers performing a bunch of disco hits. Of course the Village People showed up and danced above the crowd and then came down to dance with the crowd in the streets. It wasn’t quite as impressive as the parade on the first night but was still worth staying up for.

Wednesday

I’m sitting on the balcony the laptop staring out at ocean while we sit in the Ocho Rios Port. The other cruise ship (a Princess cruise line ship) is leaving the dock before us and I have a front row seat. Not too shabby.

This was a very early morning as we decided to get up at 6:10 to watch the sunrise. There were some beautiful colors to see but unfortunately we didn’t actually see the sun as there were too many clouds. It was worth getting up to see though.

After going back to sleep for a while, we got up to watch the ship pull into the Jamaican dock around 9am. It’s amazing how well they can thread the needle with this enormous ship. They have pods on the bottom of the ship that spin 360 degrees so it can turn on a dime.

If the retailers yesterday were annoying, it’s only because we hadn’t seen Jamaica yet. I wanted to scream at them all to leave me alone. First you walk through the mob of taxi drivers trying to drag you into their cars and then you get to the retailers ready to suck you dry. I understand it’s their livelihood but their livelihood annoys me.

We killed a little time by walking around a shopping area right by the ship and then headed back to the excursion departure area. Around 11:30 we headed out in a small bus to the Chukka horse camp for our horseback ride and swim. I had no idea what to expect but we had a blast! We ended up being first and second in line and the guide in front spent most of the time turned around talking to Tyla. We took about a 20-30 minute ride through fields and along the coast to a small cove. There we switched to water saddles which basically let you ride bareback on a pad. They then took us out into the water. The horses could touch bottom the whole time, but even on my big horse, my butt was getting wet. I’m pretty sure that swimming with the horses will be one of the highlights of our trip… except for the part where I was following Tyla pretty closely and her horse let go a stream of poo which I rode right through. Yum. The guide in front acted as our private photographer. He took my camera multiple times and gave us some great shots. He even held Tyla back while everyone else dismounted at the end and took her on a trot around the corral a few times. If you go, be on the lookout for Ryan. He’s a great guy!

Ok I’m back. We took a break to go play trivia. They have quite a few trivia games throughout each day that last about 30 minutes and have various themes. We arrived a few minutes late to yesterday’s game. We almost won even though we got there after four of the twenty questions. Today we arrived one time and came in somewhere in the bottom half of the pack.

Before leaving Seattle, we signed up for My Time Dining. I think it’s something that only Royal Caribbean offers. Normally, you spend every night eating at either 6 or 8:30 and you eat at a large table with a number of other people. We decided to try this new option which allows you to make a specific reservation time for every night and you can choose to either eat along or with a group of random people. It didn’t cost any extra money and I’m not sure why you wouldn’t do it. Maybe they only accept a limited number of people? I highly recommend that you check it out. It’s very nice to have the flexibility depending on what your schedule is.

Speaking of schedules, I’m amazed at how busy we are. I really pictured long stretches of time with nothing to do where we’d be sitting in our rooms. That pretty much never happens unless we schedule it in. Every day, we get a list of all the activities for the coming day.

After dinner we headed to the ice rink. That’s right: ice rink. There is an ice rink in the center of the ship with stadium seating on three sides. They have public skating throughout the week as well as numerous showings of an ice show. We had tickets for the 9pm show tonight. The tickets are free. They are just used to spread out the crowds. I’m never one to watch ice dancing on TV but this show was incredible. So far it is my favorite show on the ship. Don’t miss it!

We were planning to head for bed but decided to go see the show in the theater. They put three couples on stage and played a newlywed style game. They had one couple that was married four days, one that was 13 years, and one that was 50 years. The cruise director was the MC. He did a great job of keeping it moving and keeping it funny, but we ended up opting for bedtime about half way through the show.

They really have thought of everything on this cruise. Dinner portions might seem a little small but that’s because everyone is stuffing their face all day. Shows aren’t so long that you feel like you’re making a big commitment (and it’s easy to leave whenever you want.) There is a knob in the room so you can choose whether you want to hear the captain’s announcements or not. Every member of the staff has a smiling face and it happy to answer any questions you have. There’s a channel on TV that shows your current position along with sunrise, sunset, speed, direction, etc. It’s all very polished and smooth.

Thursday

This morning we arrived in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. This was a completely different experience compared to Jamaica. The island is very wealthy due to the 430 banks here. In fact, there are no taxes! They make all their money through banking and tourism. During the busy season, November through May, there are 3-4 cruise ships in the harbor. In the low season there is about one per day. Today there was a Carinval ship and a Princess ship anchored alongside our ship. Later this evening, our cruise director said, “Didn’t those two other ships look so cute parked next to our HUGE SHIP?”

There is no dock in Grand Cayman so we got onto a tender for the 5 minute ride to shore. Sit near the sides in case someone tosses their cookies. At least you’ll get a little fresh air. Neither one of us had any trouble on this trip, and thankfully I don’t think anyone else did either.

We arrived in the port and quickly found our dolphin and turtle excursion. A 20-25 minute bus ride took us out to Dolphin Discovery. We started by walking across the street to Turtle Town where we saw tanks full of enormous turtles and got to hold baby turtles. We picked up a couple souvenirs in the gift shop and then headed back across the street to the dolphin area. After some instruction on how to interact with the dolphins, we donned our life jackets and stepped into the pool. For about the next half hour we got to touch the dolphins, kiss their noses, have them push us on a boogie board, and hold onto their pectoral fins as they swam upside down in front of us. It really was an incredible experience!

After drying off, they herd you back into the gift shop to look at your photos and video. It’s hard to stomach the prices, but it’s our honeymoon and how many times do you swim with dolphins? We opted for the full package (6 photos total and a video of us playing with the dolphins.)

The last tender left at 3:30 so by the time we got back to port, we didn’t have much time to wander the very nice downtown area. We did walk down the street a little bit and step in a few stores, but after that it was back to the port for the tender ride to the ship.

We had a later dinner tonight (7:45) so we headed to the buffet for a late lunch, took a nap, and then lounged in the pool and hot tub. Believe it or not, this is the first time that we have been in one of the pools on this ship!

After dinner we stepped into the theater to see what tonight’s show was. There have been so many good shows there that we are pretty much willing to give any of them a try now and we just leave if they aren’t what we’re looking for. We ended up staying for the entire show tonight though. It was a Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons tribute group. Obviously I’ve never heard or seen the real thing live but these guys were great! It was my favorite stage show of the trip so far.

We finished up the night by going up to the heli-pad on front of the ship. They keep all the lights off up there so it’s fantastic for viewing the stars. It has become one of our favorite nighttime activities. I’ve seen a number of shooting stars and standing on the very front tip of the ship in the dark is quite an experience.

I’ve been having weird dreams on the ship. Last night I dreamed that I was driving a race car and was doing pretty well until I felt like I had to go to the bathroom. After a discussion with my crew chief on the radio, we decided that I should come in for a pit stop instead of going in my seat. Luckily when I hit the pits I woke up and was able to head for the bathroom. Not weird enough? How about this: I dreamed that Patrick Duffy (the actor who played the dad in Step By Step) was piloting a starship, firing on an enemy and shouting “Feel my epic Vulcan-ic wrath!” I remember thinking that Vulcanic wrath doesn’t really make sense since Vulcans don’t have emotions. I did not, however, think it was weird that I was dreaming about a TV sitcom star from 15 years ago flying in a space ship yelling about Vulcans.

Friday

It’s hard to not think that we’re leaving in two days. All day long that thought was going through my head as we stopped in our last port of Cozumel, Mexico. The first thing I learned today was that Cozumel is on a pretty flat island. I had been thinking it was part of the mainland.

Our excursion, All Terrain Jungle Buggies, said to meet ashore at 11:15 so we were nervous when we found out that the boat wasn’t docking until 11 and it takes about a half hour for them to get ready to let us off the boat. We just made sure that we were among the first people to get off the boat and it all worked out fine.

We started with a 20 minute bus ride away from the port area to the other side of the island. A good portion of the population here travels on mopeds and small motorcycles. It wasn’t uncommon to see three people on a little 125cc bike. I even spotted a lady with a very young baby strapped to her front with a 3-4 year old hanging onto her back. Yikes! A lot of the houses are small concrete structures. There’s not a lot of money on this island but all the people seemed very friendly and waved as we went past.

The vehicles were Polaris Ranger RZR’s. They are two seat, four wheel drive vehicles with a roll cage. Going into this, I was expected to putz along at 5-10 mph along some smooth dirt roads, but boy was I wrong. We started by driving down the road in a caravan of about a dozen vehicles and then turned off onto the bumpiest road I’ve ever driven on. It was a single lane road with about 8 feet of vegetation on both sides. Every once in a while, one side would open up for a beautiful view of a rugged coastline. Tyla did her best to take video but it was so bumpy that it was a nearly impossible task. She did manage to snap a few good photos though. As for the driving itself, woohoo! We were flying. Luckily we were two cars behind the leader because nobody behind us could keep up. At one point I told Tyla that I don’t know how much faster I would have gone even if I had the chance. We obviously went pretty slow for the rocky, bumpy sections, but there was a long smooth stretch where we really stepped on it. If I wasn’t able to see the car in front of me, I wouldn’t have been confident enough to go that fast. We were only going between 30-40 miles an hour, but on a tiny sandy road barely wide enough for the vehicle that was enough to be drifting around corners and catch a little air twice. I kept waiting for Tyla to ask me to slow down but she was apparently enjoying the ride. The guide would stop to let the rest of the group catch up and we knew they had arrived when we heard the couple behind us bickering about how fast they should be driving.

The 35-40 minute drive ended at some Mayan ruins on the beach. Unfortunately most of the building had been destroyed by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, but the guides did a good job of explaining what it had looked like. It served three purposes when the Mayans lived there. First, it was a religious spot that they were required to visit once per year. Secondly it was a sort of smoke/light house to help sailors navigate. Most interestingly, it was used as a hurricane warning station. The wind would blow off the sea into the building, get funneled into specially designed chambers and blow on 13 well-placed conch shells. When a hurricane would arrive, the conch shells would all blow loud enough to give the villagers time to gather supplies and head inland. Archaeologists estimate that they would have had 3-4 hours of warning from the structure! There is still one in tact on another part of the island.

We took mostly the same path back (with some detours along the beach), hopped back on the bus and drove to a resort. At the resort we got the chance to wash off the layer of dust that had caked on our faces and eat a delicious lunch. Since we were in Mexico, I broke my personal ban on tequila and had a margarita with Tyla. We had a little time after lunch to walk along the waterfront and snap some pictures before getting on the bus and heading back to the port area.

The boat didn’t leave until 7:30 tonight so we had a few hours to spend walking around the shops. We have been picking up a little souvenir from each port so we snagged one here and then ended up at Senor Frogs. Tyla had a huge rum punch and I had a Dos Equis. It was great to sit at a bar on the beach and relax. They say they don’t let tipsy people back on the boat, but luckily Tyla was able to keep her cool, pretend the stumble was caused by the rocking of the ship and sneak past.

All in all, Cozumel was nice but it was once again annoying to have vendors trying to lure you into their shops. We took advantage of a few of their offers just to get into the air conditioning and ended up getting suckered into a souvenir that was $10 cheaper elsewhere. The ship provides a list of recommended jewelry stores and it’s probably wise to pay attention to that list even if you’re just looking for souvenirs.

At all of these ports we have been expecting to have the chance to sit on the beach, but that really doesn’t happy unless you pay to use a beach (or at least we didn’t see anything.) We actually didn’t see any beaches in Cozumel that were the sandy, sunny beaches you picture when you think of the Caribbean. They were all extremely rocky and rugged. Our guide told us that some of that is debris from the hurricane.

Speaking of guides, if you get a quiet minute with them, ask them how long they’ve been working or some other question. We’ve always gotten interesting glimpses into island life. The ports (and sometimes the whole island) are driven by tourism so these jobs are very coveted. The guides are thankful for their jobs and put out an enormous effort to make sure the trip exceeds your expectations.

There were four boats in the port today: two Carnival ships and a Princess ship docked along with us. It’s a lot of fun to be on the biggest ship in the port!

After taking much needed showers back on board, we headed down to the theater to see tonight’s show. I don’t remember the exact name but it was something about fairy tale characters coming to life. After about fifteen minutes we decided to head to the top deck to see if we could catch the sunset. It was obscured by clouds but we did get to see the Princess ship leave the dock. They were right next to us so we could see into their ship and check out their amenities.

Tonight’s dinner was surf and turf and it was delicious as always. Our waiter and assistant waiter are a blast and we always look forward to seeing them. If you get the chance to have Catalin and Fermolito as your servers, you won’t be disappointed! We did a little shopping in the promenade (it’s hard to resist duty free shopping) and then came back to the room to relax. (Duty free shopping tip: Each person can bring back a liter of alcohol and up to $800 in tax free items. Keep your receipts to make this forms simpler.)

This is a long post already but I’ll tell one more story and finish it up. We asked Catalin a couple questions tonight. We found out that he is in the ship for seven months at a time. He has a wife and 8 year old girl back home in Romania. As you can imagine, it’s very hard to be away for so long, but he said he wants her to grow up with a better life than he had. Later we asked about My Time Dining and why some people choose not to do it. It turns out that of the 3300+ guests on board, they only take about 500 for My Time Dining. So when you’re booking your cruises, make sure you select this right away! I’m sure the regular dining is fun in it’s own way, but it has been extremely nice to eat at times that we choose and to have a private table every night.

Tomorrow is a full day at sea as we cruise back to Miami. We’re heading into the wind so we’ll be rocking most of the way. The top deck has a 40mph relative wind, but the way they have the top area designed, you can still sit in any of the pools and be sheltered. I’ve been typing this whole thing while sitting on the balcony staring out into the dark ocean, but now I’m headed for a relatively early bedtime with no alarm clock in the morning!

Saturday

This was our last day of the cruise. The day definitely had a different feel to it because the impending disembarking was looming in my mind. We sure crammed a lot of fun into this day though!

We started in the morning by playing mini golf on the sports deck. The wind made for an interesting game of golf as we tried to factor the breeze into our putts. We then decided to try out the rock climbing wall. We both made it all the way to the top and proudly rang the bell. I wish I had taken time to look around more while I was up there. It’s probably a good view, but I was just focused on getting down safely.

All week long I had been thinking about whether it was worth the extra money to do the golf simulator. Today we finally pulled the trigger. I’ve only done it once before, but I’m glad I got to play again. We both played and had fun, but I was ready to move on about the time that our hour was up. I feel like the simulator must not be very popular since it’s only open for part of each day and reservations are an hour each. That means a very small percentage of the guests could actually reserve it if they wanted to.

After gorging ourselves at the buffet, it was time to relax. We headed to our favorite porch swings on the solarium deck. I had my book and fell asleep while Tyla sat over by the pool to get some sun and enjoy the water.

Later in the afternoon, we headed back to the Flow Rider. They had a surfing competition for the best guests and some of them were quite good. After they finished, the workers put on a little show with some pretty impressive tricks. The best was probably three guys on boogie boards as the base of a three level pyramid!

At dinner tonight we said goodbye to our wonderful waiters, Catalin and Fermolito. Both of them were fantastic and we’re going to miss seeing them every day. On the way back from dinner, we watched the pirate parade in the promenade. It wasn’t quite as good as the first parade but was still fun to watch.

Tomorrow morning we elected to carry our own luggage off the boat so that means we have to be gone by 7am. Our flight isn’t until 12:30 and then we have a three hour layover in Atlanta. It’s going to be a long day but it will give us time to look through our wedding pictures and pictures from this trip. I spent the day trying to soak this all in and burn the memories into my mind. This was one of the best vacations ever! I love you Tyla!

UPDATE: Thanks to Mom for reminding me to post the results to my weight gain poll. The crowd was split between 0-5 pounds and 5-10 pounds. The final result? 3.5 pounds. I was so full for the whole cruise that for most of the time, I couldn’t think about eating more food. We didn’t even have very many alcoholic drinks because we were always so full that they didn’t even sound good. I’m not sure how it ended up being only 3.5 but I’m not complaining.