Caribbean Trip December 2015

Day 1:  Traveling With Children!!!

Nothing to report here.  Everything went fine.  Beth and the girls totally packed a reasonable amount of clothing, knowing that I would end up carrying it.

Our flight left at 5pm from LAX, and with a super fun stop over in Dallas for 42 minutes. After a successful red eye for the kids!

 we landed and got our car around 3am.  If you've never seen wide awake children at 3am.  Well, here is a photo.

 

(But right back to sleep in car and hotel after!)  We checked into a pretty nice hotel across from the sand, which we were able to book last minute.

Day 2:  Hotel #1 / Ft Lauderdale

Wow - slept til 10am!!  Eastern time, and went to bed at like 430am - but still, not bad.

Had a sweet breakfast on the patio overlooking the ocean. Fortunately, there were hurricane winds to keep the temperature down.  

We took our rental car up the coast to visit Uncle Joe, Aunt Edna, Uncle Izzy, & Myra.

The kids enjoyed the M&Ms they were given and we went to Gramercy Deli - our favorite place in Del Rey Beach.

After a drive home and a stop at TJs for some two and a half buck chuck - we retired for the night.

 

Day 3: Ft Lauderdale/Cruise

Got up early today.   Walked around the Ft. Lauderdale Riverfront - there was no one there.  It was odd. 

Anyway - went to the cruise terminal.  I dropped off the girls, returned the car, walked most of the way back and still waited 30+ minutes in line with the girls.

Quick Ship Review:  The Nieuw Amsterdam is a smaller boat, by Caribbean standards.  The small size leads to a relative lack of high end amenities like on our last cruise on Royal Caribbean.  This skews towards an older crowd.  We had two connecting balconies (OMG STOP SMOKING ON BALCONIES, NEIGHBORS) which were very nice.  The boat is nice, the best feature is a Piano bar. I did feel that the small size made the lines/crowds more tolerable.

 

Day 4:  Sea Day

Explored the ship, pool, etc.

Day 5: Grand Turk

So the boat had a weird schedule.  This was one of the stops that started at 8am and went until 2:30 - which is a weird time to do the beach.  Either way, I was off the boat asap - and had one of the first beach chairs.  The beach was just at the end of the cruise dock - so you could basically swim back to the boat.  

We had a clam shell tent, there was a Jimmy Buffet's there, and weather was nice.  I did a little snorkeling - but there was not much to see. Girls had fun in the sand, and got their hair braided. Anyways - quick trip and back on the boat to the next stop..

 

Day 6:  San Juan

We've been here before.  We took the girls on a cool hike around the water front.  Cool for them, as they were in the carriers, and we carried them in the sweltering heat.  Saw some cool Iguanas, and heard children say "Iguana," which is even cooler.

We then hiked up "El Morro" and down through the downtown. 

The girls, as is custom, enjoyed a coconut.  The coconut was prepared with a drill.  Literally.

 

Day 7:  St Thomas

Another repeat for us.  I couldn't remember St. Thomas, so it felt new!  We took a shuttle bus to Magen's Bay Beach.  If you ever go to Magen's Bay they will tell you over and over how nice it is - the 10th prettiest beach in world!  It is very nice.  It is not the 10th nicest beach in the Caribbean, much less the world.  That negatively colors your day.  Magen's Bay is a 2-3 mile long beach at the end of a bay.  There are many small fish in the water and some turtles.  We even saw here (and in San Juan) Gulls and other birds diving and catching fish.  

This was a nice stop - Had fun and then took the shuttle back.  In town, we saw the second-oldest Jewish Synagogue in the Western Hemisphere: The St Thomas Synagogue

There is sand on the floor.  They actually have a legit reason for the sand, that is not based on it being in the Caribbean.  Very cool place.  Glad we could see it.

After that, another bus back and then back on the boat.

 

 

Day 8 - Sea Day

More fun on the ship. Becca went to Kids Club which she loved.

There were a formal night and Christmas on the ship thrown in here somewhere too, can't remember if this was the day! But here is our formal pic:

 

Day 9 - Half Moon Cay (Private Island)

Richard's favorite day of the trip!  Again, another early 8-2:30 stop.  The private island is jointly used by Holland America and Carnival, so we had been there before.  Again, having an industrious, handsome husband like me helps, as we were on the first boat off, and got a premium "front of the beach" clamshell.  

The island is ridic.  It's super long - you cannot walk all they way up one side in a day.  There is a pirate ship bar, a shopping village and dozens of cabanas.  We snorkeled, dug in the sand, here look at pics!

At night, we went on our 4th date night of the trip! to the piano bar.  The piano man played a couple songs for us and we went to pick up little b from the kids club.  We found her in what can only be described as a coma on the floor (but apparently was having a great time and tried her best to hang in there til the end!)

Goodnight moon.  Goodnight Hannah and the towel animals.  Goodnight Cruise Ship.  

 

Day 10 ;-(  Ft Lauderdale and Flight Home (in theory + 1 day)

Last day of the cruise.  We had 2 exhausted children, a full day to further wear them out and an evening flight back.

We did a duck boat tour, which was pretty cool.  Becca and I both fell asleep.   Then walked around Las Olas Street. Got some yummy fudge.

We took the kids to the mall to keep them awake.  Then off to the airport.  I don't want to recap this next part, so I made a brief outline.

1.  Got to airport 3 hours early.

2.  Was notified of delays at our connection in Dallas

3.  AA lies to us part 1

4.  Rebooked on new flight to Dallas.

  4a.  No flights are leaving Dallas and we would be standby all day,

5.  Wait 4 hours for flight to leave.

6.  Book trip to LAX from Orlando

7.   Flight is cancelled.

8.  Rent new car, have luggage retrieved, install car seats, drive 3.5 hours to Orlando, spend an hour getting a room for the night, sleep 4 hours (me on the floor).  Wake up  at 7am go to airport.

9.  Orlando-LAX delayed

10.  OMG finally get home.

Kids were really cool and chill the whole time!

 

Overall really fantastic trip!!

Caribbean Cruise - February 2015 - with the Horowitzes!

The first Caribbean trip for the girls!  Becca has done a couple (once in utero), but this is Hannah's first time to the white sands of the Caribbean!

We flew out to Orlando and had a relatively uneventful flight with the girls.  Momma and Poppa rode shotgun in Business Class, and had an extra seat, that apparently came with a pretzel platter.  Becca had some pretzels.

We then rented separate cars and drove down to Delray Beach to see Uncle Izzy and Uncle Joe.  Last time down they met Becca as a baby, and this time they got to meet Hannah as a baby.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites that had swans, which Becca loved.  

After a whirlwind adventure in Delray Beach, we took a midnight drive to our hotel near the cruise terminal in Port Canaveral.  The room was not a suite, as Richard remembered booking, and as the booking slip confirmed.  But, it was late and everyone squeezed in....

The next morning we rushed to get onto our boat - Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas. This was by far the nicest boat we had ever been on - it had a stunning indoor promenade with "shops" and bridges and lights and Dreamworks Characters.  

The boat was the largest in the world when it was built, but has been since surpassed by two new RC boats.  

First stop - Coco Cay - RC's private island.  Raced off the boat to claim our spot of paradise.  Turns out the sand is imported and an inch layer of sand sits on a concrete foundation, but it was still beautiful.

Did some snorkeling, ate, swam with the kids.  Later on we met up with Richie and found a lesser populated side of the islands.  For some moronic reason, people packed up early and went back on the boat.   

We wandered around the rather large island and ended up on a shallow sand bar, hundreds of feet from shore...pretty cool.

Boat was awesome - it has a Flowrider (see pics) and a Johnny Rockets (not sure it's needed, but cool), also had a desert and pizza bar on the promenade and an ice skating rink.  Rich and Teri used their status to get us into the fancy lounge and to get front row seats for the ice capades.  Becca fell asleep...but in the front row.

Next stop:  Falmouth, Jamaica.  In the words of Richard Schulman "Hard pass".

It's a port supposedly owned by RC.  All of the excursions involve bussing to Ocho Rios or other Jamaica stops.  There is a pseudo mall/port and an entrance to an extremely run down town.  More than a block outside the gates is thoroughly impassable.  Beth stepped in a pothole filled with liquid death, though, so that was cool.

We did get some sweet woodworking items, and a soccer ball.  Back at port the girls shared a giant coconut.

Third stop - Grand Cayman - my 4th time there, and Becca's 3rd.  Did the whole island tour - stopped in Hell, and experienced a plethora of awful jokes.  Also, hard pass.  After that we went to the turtle farm.  IT WAS SO AWESOME.  First is the breeding pond.  And the turtle are like 500 pounds each.  Then, you get to hold baby turtles.  Wait.  It gets better....then you can swim in a lagoon with giant turtles and other sea life....and there is a predator tank adjacent., that you can view underwater through a glass wall!  And there is a water slide (not into the predator tank).

We also stopped in Cozumel for the 300th time.  We did a (windy) walk across town. Then Beth and the girls went back to the ship.  Richard  went back on land and pretended to work, but just went to a beachside resort for some much needed male-only time.

After that, we went back to Orlando and to the KW convention.  Beth, the girls, and Mama and Papa flew home, and Richard stayed in Orlando for more girl-free time.