Last Port

It sure is taking me a long time to finish my vacation. We got back and life got busy real fast. I must say that my moms cut that I was worried about has healed up really well. I feel like I need a vacation to recover from my vacation!

Our last port was the Dominican Republic.

For this port John and I went and rented a taxi and brought Anthony and Jason along. Larissa and Sarah went with Angela and family on an excursion.

As soon as you drive out of the port you see a dump. Sadly on the dump you see lots of people going through all the trash looking for treasures. Makes you appreciate all that you have and even feel guilty on all of our expensive pleasures.

We went into town and rolled some cigars. My husband loves his cigars so he was enjoying himself.

We were heading back to relieve Tasha and Ethan and got into an accident! The taxi service was very nice and we had a replacement pretty quickly. We felt bad for the driver, I imagine he lost his job. We did notice that stopping to look at accidents is a universal issue!

  The girls had a good time with Angela.

The next day was a day at sea. We did lots of eating, playing, relaxing and eating.

Typically when we went to the buffets we would plant ourselves at some tables and send people out in groups to get their food. I planted myself with Benjamin and Vaida and asked Michelle and Larissa to pick them up some food.....

they both came back with food.

I did find Michelle's plate interesting. She said she couldn't find anything else. This was the attitude we had from her the entire time. Charlotte complained that Michelle started yelling at her and screaming in her hallway when they couldn't find the area the children's group went to. We couldn't allow Michelle to go with her after that.

We got into Fort Lauderdale right after the airport shooting so my brother didn't know if his flight would be delayed. Disembarkation was long and slow and uneventful, the ride home was long and slow as well and we came home to very cold weather and a snow storm that didn't produce much snow.

Now on to life......

Sea Time

The evening after we left St Thomas was a quiet night. I was in our room with Benjamin and Michelle. Benjamin wanted to take pictures with my water camera and I let him do so. He was enjoying himself with it, Michelle was reading a book she had picked up in the library on the ship.

I went into the bathroom to get something when I heard Michelle ask Benjamin for the camera. He said no, he was taking pictures. So she told him that if he didn't put it down it would explode. I heard his hesitation as I walked out and said it would not. I asked Michelle if she got her way with him through intimidation often. I got the blank look. I believe that she does. I do know that Vaida refuses to have anything to do with Michelle. She won't hug her, play with her and really avoids her. She says that she is mean. It makes me wonder what Michelle says to Benjamin when she is upstairs and he goes up there to play. Something for me to consider.

Every time we cruise we get balconies, it is the only way to go with kids. They are a great place to relax...even after they have fallen asleep. We spent lots of time with the little ones. Vaida wanted to stay in our room and the childcare they spoke of was not worthy of advertising.

I shared a little margarita with Jason.

The girls spent a lot of time at Camp, the little ones not much at all. First the people there obviously had no childcare experience and did not know how to distract the kids or play with them.

Second, there play equipment was less than desirable....I couldn't understand why they didn't remove the broken equipment.

Third, they were hard to find during meal times. We were not able to eat at the restaurant most evenings because the little ones were bored there. One night we hoped to take them to the childcare area and have an adult meal. They had a sign telling us where they went but they weren't there. The next day I asked them where they were and they told me a different area than their sign. Guess it didn't matter anyways, the kids wouldn't have stayed with them. 

We were very disappointed with the childcare. We got back and shared the pictures with them and told them of our disappointment. Their response was "sorry". We will not be using Carnival again. I did ask if they removed the broken equipment and they said they were looking into it.

St Thomas

Next port St Thomas. 

We had gotten Tasha and Ethan an excursion for this port so we had Vaida for the day.

We took all the kids up a hill on a tram. We survived with 6 kids in tow plus Sarah.

Tasha and Ethan enjoyed themselves.

John took the little ones back on the ship to play while I looked for a taxi to show us around the island.

We ran into my brother and his wife and rented a taxi together.

Larissa wanted to buy a coconut to try. 

I tried a different local drink.

Emma didn't like it.

Larissa didn't like it the most...

They cut it open and made a scoop with the shell. More of the kids liked or tolerated the fresh coconut meat.

We paid $20 per adult and $10 per child for our tour. It was a nice tour and very informative. We paid the same amount to go up the tram and actually saw less of the island.