Cruise

 I have never been to the Caribbean Islands, and probably would never have planned a trip there on my own.  I have been on one cruise, our Alaskan cruise a couple years ago.  We enjoyed the cruise, but didn't have a burning desire to become cruisers.  One of the marketing firms that I subscribe to, Roach Ag Marketing, puts on a marketing cruise each winter for clients.  This year, they had an 11 day cruise planned to the Eastern Caribbean that stopped at six different Islands.  This sounded like a great opportunity to see a sampling of the Caribbean, enjoy a cruise, enjoy warm weather, and meet some farmers from around the Midwest.  We signed up and off we went.

We flew from Peoria to Ft. Lauderdale through Chicago.  We went a day early in case of weather or flight delays.  We spent the extra day Ubering around Ft. Lauderdale including visiting the beach.  It was our first experience using Uber, and all went well.  We feel like we have joined the modern world now!  We boarded the Celebrity Ascent on Feb. 23 and found our stateroom and made the required visit to our muster station.  It is a fairly new boat, very nice, and holds around 3200 passengers plus about 1400 crew.  When Ed and Peggy heard about our trip, they asked if they could join us.  As they are experienced cruisers, and have been to the Caribbean, we said yes.  We were able to split our time between the farm group (about 75 in that group) and Ed and Peggy.  

  We docked at Basseterre, St. Kitts for our first Island stop.  Ed and Peggy rented a car and we drove the full circle route around the Island.  They drive on the left hand side of the road down there, and the steering wheel is on the right side of the car!  I'm glad Peggy did the driving as the roads are also very narrow. Some of the highlights of St. Kitts were the old plantation house we toured, the Brimstone Hill Fort, and the surf along the rocky coast.

Our second Island stop was Antigua.  We took a bus tour of the Island with the farm group.  We spent the most time on a boat tour at Falmouth Harbor and toured Nelson's Dockyards.   Admiral Horatio Nelson of the British Royal Navy spent several years stationed here during his career.  The British Royal Family also had a home here where they would vacation in the winter.  It is now a hub for sailing races and regattas.  There were lots of luxury yachts docked there for the winter. 

Next stop was Castries, St. Lucia.  We took a catamaran tour with Ed and Peggy which included snorkeling. The water was a little rough, but I was able to see colorful fish and coral as I snorkeled.  They also took us to see the world famous Pitons; two volcanic mountain spires.

We next docked at Bridgetown, Barbados.  We took a bus tour to a rain forest botanical garden.  We stopped at Haymans Market which used to be a sugar processing plant.  Now it is a museum, shops, and restaurants.  We drove along the West coast of the Island where all the beaches and resorts are.  Barbados beaches are all public beaches, not privately owned like most of the Islands.  Their beaches are also beautiful white sand beaches.

When we pulled into port at Roseau, Dominica, there was smoke rising from the downtown area.  They had had a fire overnight and some of the streets were blocked off.  We took a bus tour through a rain forest, to a waterfall, and another botanical garden.  We also did some shopping before heading back to the ship.

Our last Island stop was at Phillipsburg, St. Maarten.  We left the ship with our farmer group and headed for Orient Beach.  It was a beautiful beach and had beautiful blue water.  They had lounge chairs and Umbrellas set up for all of us, so we relaxed in the sun and walked the beach.  They served us a nice meal at the resort then spent more time on the beach after lunch.  We shopped awhile before we boarded ship again.

On every Island and tour, we were offered Rum Punch which is their specialty drink on the Islands.  We tasted it but weren't impressed.  While on the ship, we spent time visiting and playing games with Ed and Peggy.  I took naps and read.  We went to some off the game "shows" and played some of the trivia games.  We checked out some of the entertainment in the theater, but not greatly impressed.  The four sea days I attended the marketing seminars.  We ate a LOT of good food.  Every type of food you could want.  The dinners in the evening were excellent with lots of choices including prime rib, lobster, oxtail, steaks, fish, chops, and about anything else you could want.  Lots of appetizers and lots of desert choices.  We even had fried octopus!  We ate with the farm group four evenings, and with Ed and Peggy the other evenings.  And we usually topped off the evenings with ice cream.

We enjoyed our time on the cruise and may cruise again.  I was worried about getting seasick, but with precautions I never had any problems.  It was only really rough one night and day.  Back in Ft. Lauderdale, we exited the boat at about 8:30 in the morning. When we were in the Ft. Lauderdale airport getting ready to fly home, we waited in the TSA line 45 minutes.  All passengers had to walk slowly two by two at intervals down an aisle while a drug sniffing dog circled us.  That was a first.  Then a severe thunderstorm in Chicago delayed our flight 2 hours.  When we got to O'Hare, our Peoria flight had been cancelled.  We got booked on a later flight that kept getting delayed, but we finally made it home by midnight.

About a week and a half after we were home we had a good old fashion March snowstorm.  We had enough snow and wind that Logan and I went out a couple days later on a Tuesday and dug a snow cave.  By Thursday, the temperature was in the 70's and the snow all melted.

And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.           Mark 4:1