Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Cruise Vacation Blog Part Five

Disclaimer: Although we did not really care for St. Thomas, we noticed nothing necessarily scary or violent there. Certainly, no evidence of the tragic shooting that occurred there a few weeks ago whereby a young girl was killed in an exchange of gang gunshots while on her way to an excursion. Violence can occur anywhere and at any time; even in "paradise".

24 May 2010 Enchantment of the Seas Day Five: St. Thomas!

All is well. We’re getting the hang of the ship and its layout. I’m feeling relaxed (and fat). I guess that is what vacations are for! We are steering clear of Deck 7 (the “future vacation consultant”; we’ve already talked to several people who did not…and now have their next cruise booked).

We’ve now arrived in St. Thomas…apparently, a shopping Mecca. I really don’t need anything; seriously! I’m not in a shopping mood. But, we’ll get off the ship and wander around a bit but probably head back to the ship early enough to chill by the pool several hours. Mr. B wants to try to win his money back in the Casino, too.

St. Thomas from our balcony

Later

St. Thomas was a BUST, as far as we are concerned. Near the port, all there is are a bunch of boring touristy shops. I didn’t see any “good deals”, either. We tried to walk to the square in Charlotte St. Amelie but we could’t find it! Seriously; Mark kept saying, “This way! This way!” but we ended up lost. We went into a really disgusting McDonald's to ask directions. He asked someone at the counter and I asked a woman sitting by the (REALLY gross and dirty) bathrooms. Guess what? We both got different directions. Plus, it was raining. Hard. At this point, I lost interest and so we decided to go back to the ship.

Our dining room window (3rd round one from the right)

We ended up spending several hours in the Solarium. Since it was raining, they had the roof shut and it was like a sauna in there until they finally opened it back up.

We went up to Deck 10 to watch the sail-away from. Bye-bye, St. Thomas.

The best part about St. Thomas. Sailing away! That's the Carnival Victory sailing away right behind us

Afterwards, our same routine of cocktails, cigars and cards on our balcony before dinner. Definitely could get used to this!

We had an interesting conversation with our “Booze Man” Placid at dinner; turns out he’s a recovering alcoholic. At the ripe old age of 28. I’m not sure I understand why a recovering alcoholic would want to be around alcohol all of the time, but, he says it doesn’t bother him. Plus, the tips are good. I guess therein lies the answer.

In general, it seems to me that majority of people working on the ship are in their 20s (not including the officers, of course). This makes some sense, considering how often and how long they are away from home.

At dinner after St. Thomas. I still fit into the red dress, despite the amount of food and drink I've been consuming!

After dinner, we went up to the Viking Crown Lounge to see if there was any dancing action. There was, but, it was “teen disco” time so we didn’t much care for the music. Back down to our stateroom where we found our towel creature for the evening.

Swan

Tomorrow we’ll be in Samana, Dominican Republic. We actually have an all day excursion planned (with the folks from Cruise Critic) and are looking forward to what we’ve been told is an excellent tour.

Mrs. B

3 comments:

Mr. B said...

You were not fat!

Seriously, there were significantly more stores near the pier then the last time I was there. You'd be all set if all you wanted was diamonds, emeralds, t-shirts and high priced liquor. What a deal.

TA

Analee said...

you mean dancing to rihanna and lady gaga wasn't your cup of tea? even though i sorta like that kind of music, i suppose we would have just sat there and people watched (or headed back to the room just like you did)! i'm not much of a dancer. my 2nd left foot always gets in the way.

Mrs. B said...

Is THAT who that was? :-)

When we were on the QMII, we were out late several evenings dancing. That was five years ago; I guess I still paid attention to "current" music at that point. Although, frankly, I prefer to dance to 70s/80s stuff (you know, all that stuff we were listening to the other night that you'd never heard of :-) )

The ship we are sailing on next January has both an adult AND a teen disco. So, hopefully, I can drag Mr. B out on the floor at least once.