Philipsburg, St. Maarten

We awoke, alongside the Norwegian Epic in Philipsburg, St. Maarten.  Since this was a full port day, we had ordered room service breakfast the night before.  I wrote in the word berries on my form, and they were there along with all the other goodies.  I love the service and flexibility on Celebrity!

The aforementioned berries, with a ham and cheese omelet, fresh salsa and a chocolatine.  Breakfast of champions!

I ran down and picked up excursion tickets for St. Kitts (the TV wouldn`t let me buy them for some reason) and we slowly got ready to head into town.  The last time we were in St. Maarten we had taken the water ferry from the port to town, but this time we realized it was possible to walk.  So we walked there and back and saw lots of fun stuff along the way.  We shopped a bit, but bought almost nothing. 

Its $13k watches with actual parts of the Titanic or moon dust in them!  Also a gun full of tequila, `Dock Maarten`, a guavaberry colada, and a teeny palm tree.  We read the sign at the Atlas sculpture, but I don't`remember why he`s important. 

 I also took my most successful photograph ever.  Behold.

If there`s some thing wrong with this picture, I don't`want to know. 

Our walk back was even more exciting!  That guavaberry colada was hitting me pretty hard, and when we stopped for water, we noticed the mountain goats partying across the road.  I took a zillion pictures, so there would be this decent one.

Mountain goats, doing the Mountain goat thing. 

And then, there was a butterfly just chilling out on a palm tree.  IN JANUARY. 

I remain in disbelief that I managed to get this shot. 

After all that nature and excitement, we spent the afternoon in the Solarium pool and hot tub, while everyone else was still in port.  Suckers! 

We lazed in the deck, I think I read some of my book (Heads in Beds, read it if you ever stay in hotels) and watched sail away with the ridiculous folks from the Epic.  They definitely had someone late to get back.  And they were trying to start a shouting match across the dock based on the argument ``Our ship is bigger!"  I was not sad to have them sail off in another direction. 

At dinner, I managed to put together a fully Italian meal - caprese salad, pasta fagioli soup, turkey parmigiana and tiramisu. It was all delightful. 

 We followed that up with a trip to the casino and the "Love and Marriage" game show, which was surprisingly hilarious.  Another good day living the Celebrity Life! 

San Juan, Puerto Rico

We wouldn't arrive in San Juan till 3:00pm, so much of the day was like a day at sea.  We got up "early" had breakfast and went to take in the second talk by the handwriting expert, this time, she was showing and discussing the handwriting on notes from famous criminals like OJ Simpson, the Benets and others.  Apparently, there were 55 similarities between the Jon Benet Ramsay note and her mother's handwriting.

After that, we were kind of sleepy, so we went back to the room to "re-wake" up.  We enjoyed the music feature in the shipboard entertainment system, which is powered by Apple and is therefore amazing.  In the music channels they have all sorts of themes and selections.  I highly recommend U2's "Beautiful Day" as a cruising song.

The system also has free and pay per view on demand movies, the ability to see your current cruise bill, order room service and to book excursions.  Also functions as a tv, with some dedicated cruise channels like the Cruise Board Shopping Channel, CNN International and CBS at Sea. 

We motivated ourselves over to Movie Music Trivia at the Ensemble Lounge.  We played with an older gentleman and a couple, and we came in sooooo close.  Second isn't bad though!  The key is definitely to have diversity on the team if you are trying to win these.  We need Ron's superhero movie expertise, and the ability to confidently identify Barbara Streisand movies...oy.

We had late lunch at the Oceanview, a great place to catch the sail in to San Juan. 

One of the views as we arrived in Puerto Rico. 

We ventured into San Juan, and walked up the hill to a spice shop we'd read about online, Spicy Caribee.  It was a great place to pick up treats for our friends back home and to re-stock our at home fresh Caribbean spice supply.

Things we saw in San Juan, lovely architecture, slate blue cobblestones (lots of iron in the ballast on the ships), loose roaming cats, hot sauces, tourist traps etc.

We somehow managed to get back to the ship along with every tour that had come back in time for dinner.  We decided to wait until the line cleared, and that meant we got rained on - briefly, but intensely.  Oh well, at least we cooled off :)



We had come back to the ship early because it was time for my winning facial!  Hooray!  I went up to the salon, only to discover that the lovely lady Kasia who had given us the tour would be doing my treatment.  I think she was more excited about it than I was, which is saying something.  I had a whole bunch of things done including an eye serum pack, and Kasia told me my skin is very very dry. I explained to her what minus 40 degrees Celsius does to your skin, and I promised to think of her every time I moisturized. 

I snuck a few pics in the treatment room - so may products!  And yes, they hit that tiny chime/cymbals when your treatment is done.  Its adorable. 

With my radiant skin we set forth for dinner - we had Select Dining, which was very nice for not having a plan, but sometimes challenging to figure out where to go when and in terms of not having any say over your table placement. This was the night we got the best table going - way in the back corner, with fantastic service.   I said the word double, and ended up with double clam linguine.  The waiter explained its Buy One Get One Free, this week only (with a wink).

So many clams!

Finally, we went to see Steve Caoutte.  He was a blast.  Best ship`s comedian I`ve encountered so far.  He was great at working the crowd, and he got his trick of warning people about being late to pay off.  It was super.

If he plays near you, go see this guy.  He`s great. 

A Lovely Day At Sea

The waffle is smeared with orange butter. Those roasted tomatoes are delish!

Cruise day 2 started with breakfast at the buffet, known as the Oceanview Cafe.  We sat outside enjoying the view of the wake and the horizon. 

Also early that morning I put my new quick drying top coat to the test and rocked out a cruise themed manicure. While it was drying we went and lazed in one of the amazing lounge cubbies in the Solarium.  Ron read, and I invented a new cruise game - using the waves as visualizer for the music your listening to.  Its a great way to enjoy an hour or two sailing by. 

Why yes, the accent nail is the Celebrity Logo.

Much of the rest of the day was spent at various shipboard activities.  I couldn't resist the shopping talk.  Not much has changed in Carribbean port shopping.  Except, they have a new watch where you can change the gemstones at the touch of a button! 

Its all the same watch!  I don't even want to know how much this runs. 

Ron and I both went to see the Celebrity Life Speaker who specialized in handwriting analysis.  We learned about the tilt of your writing and what your t's mean about you.  So be careful next time you hand us a note!

I hit the 4:00pm Zumba class with Linell - super exciting when the ship is rocking and rolling :)  The class aligned nicely with everyone abandoning the pool for the evening, so I went for a post-Zumba hot tub and then got ready for formal night. 

We all met up at Cellar Masters to select our wine for the evening from their huge collection of enomatic machines. 

The first one I tried, and definitely my favourite of the whole week. 

We went for dinner, and enjoyed the special touches on the formal night meal - including a champagne sorbet.  

A lovely way to cleanse the palate. 

It was super busy at the casino, so we went to take in the Captain's toast and the ensuing show, Centre Stage.  It definitely took a few minutes to get going, but if you like musicals this has lots of fun - it led with a trifecta of Oz based songs from the Wiz, the Wizard of Oz and Wicked, but my favourite was definitely the number from Nine - be Italian everyone!  Still humming along I toddled off to bed to rest up for San Juan!