remainder of the cruise

Did not want to keep you all in suspense as for the rest of the cruise events so here are the remaining details:

Day 5 : AT SEA ...... just like it sounds on the ship surrounded by water and not much else to look at. Took the kids to Camp Carnival to check it out. They love it!
The age groups fell at 2-5 and 6-11 so my boys got to stay together. It was a great program and they kept the kids busy with activities and fun projects, best of all it was included in the cruise price. With the kids at camp I relaxed poolside to people watch and pretend I was reading a book. A few drinks may have been consumed as well.
I joined in for a game of bingo and lost 10 bucks. Met the family for the first of many serious pig out lunches, they are not shy with the food on this ship. Picked up the kids and we toured the kids arcade, Carson as usual was running ( his method of choice) and tripped and fell on the tile floor HARD! Yep, you guessed it blood gushing out his nose everywhere. I managed to stop the flow and kept him up for a few hours before the nap. However, when he sat up from his nap it poured out again all over his bed sheets and a trip to the infirmary was necessary. By the time we saw the ship's doctor (some 40 minutes later) it had stopped again. He survived and no further blood loss has happened and I don't think he broke it. Maybe just maybe he will start to listen when I tell him not to run! yeah right, when pigs fly.

Day 6: We are behind scheduled arrival at St Thomas thanks to hurricane Bertha.
Although the storm went North we still got the swells and wind which slowed our progress. It turned out OK though as we got to watch the arrival into port. Let me say it is beautiful a few shots for your viewing pleasure.




This is a hotel at St Thomas



This is a sister ship I think it was the Imagination

We decided to take the sky cable cars to the top of the mountain some 700 feet up.
The first thing to happen as we disembarked was that we were swarmed by taxi drivers all shouting and basically fighting over who could get to you first. Not the atmosphere I had hoped for and certainly not for my kids. We decided to take the ten minute walk to the sky car instead. It was warm but a nice island breeze was gently blowing. We hiked up to the car and started our journey up, breathtaking views of the whole harbour and surrounding hills. Here is a shot of us in the car.




A shot of the actual cable car ride




At the top of the mountain were some island shops and we sat in on a parrot show, the kids thought a parrot riding a bike was hilarious. Of course I did partake in the traditional island cocktail a strawberry daiquiri.



There was a group of teenagers playing music at the cafe where we stopped for refreshment, they were nice enough to allow Carson to try his hand at the steel drum.
He thought that was totally cool! Back down the hill we went with souvenir stuffed parrots and necklaces and such. The ship left the dock at around 7 and it just started to rain as well set sail.

Day 7 : We sailed all night and boy was the ship rolling, surprised me as it is about six hundred feet long, we were on the 8th deck though and that is pretty high.
We arrived in Saint Marten around 7am and yes I was well awake, you see Carson is our resident rooster. The child never sleeps past 6:15 no matter how late you keep him up or tire him out. We disembarked at 8 and headed for the beach! They had cool water taxi's to take you to the beach and shopping. What struck me most was how friendly and clean this island was. We camped out on the beach and found beautiful sea shells and made sand castles . Here are some scenes from the beach.







We took the kids back to the ship and after a quick nap they were off to camp and hubby and I went back to the island to listen to music and soak up the beach and some drinks by ourselves for a change. What a wonderful island, wish we could have spent more time there.

Day 8: Back to the day at sea..... Not my favorite thing as you can probably tell.
The kids had a pirate party including treasure hunt with loot as well. Me well I read the book and paced the decks, I was missing my Harley and was getting bored.

Day 9 : Still at sea....oh joy! Really restless today and not even bingo can cheer me up. I lost some money in the casino but the smokers really drove me out of there pretty quick. On the way to lunch Stuart the youngest somehow managed to get his foot stuck in the elevator door. The part that recedes into the wall! He never said a word or cried just stood there. I basically had to shred his croc to get him free and I think that upset him the most. No damage to his foot and I think the poor family on the elevator with us took it harder than him. We watched a show in the theater after dinner but the singing was pretty bad and the boys were tired by the time it got going.

Day 10 : Disembarking the ship. It took about three hours before our deck was called and I was more than ready to abandon ship at that point. We gathered the luggage, all eight pieces and headed for the car. The poor porter had to shuttle it on foot and cart all the way to the parking garage and up an incline that should have been on those buns of steel videos. He was a good sport and loaded us up and we were off to a day in the car again. We drove to Forsyth Ga and called it a day, lots of thunderstorms all day and that slowed us down.

Day 11 : We woke up to a phone call from the front desk asking if we drove a mini van, well yes we do. It seems overnight some lovely people cut all the luggage off the tops of peoples cars and stole it. Not us, we had everything stowed inside safely. We encountered more storms and the mother of all traffic jams in Chattanooga Tn., but we made it home by 7 on Sunday and alas that is the rest of the story.

I rode Harley today, in a bareback pad. I think it has been 12 years since I have done this. I bought one on eBay to use at Buffalo River, they do a river ride one day where you actually ride in the river for 3 miles. No way am I getting my new saddle soaked so I got this little dandy for that day. Harley was good, it was around 90 today and that helped cool his jets a bit. Tomorrow starts the packing for the trip, getting so excited.
Happy trails......