Cruise Part 3 - St. Maarten and at Sea

Another Towel animal... a dog we think

Good Morning St. Maarten

The weather wasn't too bad, yet

The guy who made/designed Yoda for the Star Wars Movies lives in St. Maarten and has a movie memorabilia shop. 

We walked to the Dowtown shopping area which took about 10 minutes. When the cab drivers told us it would take 45 minutes. Its tough being a tourist at a port where 5000+ gullible people show up every week.

Here's a comparison shot of the Oasis at port with the Carnival Ship, that followed us all week.

The storm is rolling in.

Taking cover while waiting for the shops to open and rain to slow.

The not so picturesque beach

Since the weather was so yucky I was eager to check out the jewelry shops. We had a significant discount pass from the curise as a gift for our anniversary at this particular shop, which I'm sure made the prices almost reasonable. Richard found a watch that he had his eye on the whole trip and I found a diamond pendant with a setting that I had been searching for. The only problem was that I was only looking for a single stone and this pendant had 3 graduating stones. Big surpise that it didn't take much to talk me into the bigger setting. :) Here I am getting Richard's watch. And I was positive he was happy with the two he already had ;)

The road that is now a river

A view of the St. Maarten from the ship. We headed back to the ship to grab lunch and get to our afternoon Scuba dive. With the rain, wind and lightning, we called to see if it was cancelled and they told us we could get our money back. So we chickened out and didn't want to have a bad experience.

Waiting to pull out to sea and sporting my new purchase.

Watching the last few people straggle in. We were interested in one lady who came running to the security hut 10 minutes after time to leave. She eventually got on the ship but we could tell somehting wasn't right. We later found out that we did leave a couple who assumed the ship would wait because of the rain. Royal Caribbean sent someone to their room, got their passports and medication and left it with the port authority. It was up to them to find a way home from St. Maarten. Don't be late!

Here I am waiting for a seat at the Comedy Show, since we didn't go to our originally reserved show because the Mavs were playing and the score was too close. So we had to wait almost an hour to get the left over seats once all the resevered people showed up. We were glad we made reservations for everything else.

While we were waiting we talked with the family I was sitting next to and they did got out on a Scuba dive that afternoon. They said we should be very glad that we didn't go because the boat was rocking so much that it made them sick and they had trouble getting their equipment back onto the boat because the ladder was bouncing 4ft in and out of the water.
Remember this machine form "Big"

Couldn't get Richard to enter this competition either.

Watching the show and getting you a shot of our balcony. Six back and second from the top.

One of my favorites from the Art selection. Its made from labels of a champange bottle. I took the picture because I thought it could be recreated and for much less than $500.

A monkey tonight

Waiting for a show in the theater

Catching a cake preperation competition with the ship's Chef, Captian, and the Hotel Director. Very humorous!

The results and sharing platters. The Black Forest Cherry Cake was supposed to have a splach of amaretto, but you could pour it off of the Captian cake. Richard got a slice and I couldn't even walk near him because it smelled so much like liquor.

We tackled the rock wall on our last day. Richard went first on the difficult path.

Like I said it was tough.

I waited for the easier path, because the very easy one was closed :(

I got off the ground at least.

And lost my hold

For this next photo there is a bit of a back story... On the second night of the cruise one of the appetizer and entree choices was escargot. Richard and I just laughed and said that wasn't something we were willing to try, even though we had tried to make sure we were trying new things, while it was already paid for of course. Well as the later nights progressed our Head Waiter stopped by to see if everything was up to par. In our conversation on a great dining experience and being able to try new things, Richard brought up the escargot. The Head Waiter smiled and said well now you have a reason to come back for another trip. On a later night he rememebered our conversation and told us that about 95% of people who actually try it end up liking it. He then told us how to prepare it for ourselves at home..."A little butter, garlic, any other spices that you like, and bake it for a few minutes in the oven. Don't microwave it or it will be rubbery." We smiled and said Thank You Very Much and went on about our dinner.

Well, on our last night of the cruise we placed our orders and were enjoying our bread for the evening. Then our Waitress walked up and moved Richard's bread plate to clear the corner of our table. The Head Waiter walked up and placed a plate of Escargot in its place. We were shocked! The Head Waiter said he couldn't let us leave the Oasis without trying the Escargot. That made a very big impression on us. 

He suggested to forget about what it is, SNAIL, and eat it on a piece of bread.
So here's proof we actually ate it, ALL 6 of them! It wasn't that bad. It was pretty salty and I'm not sure I would choose it over anything else.

This is Ileana, our waitress, and Dine, our asstistant waiter.
We really enjoyed seeing them each night and really got to know them because we went early for dinner and they had plenty of time to visit. It was very nice to eat before the dining room was too crowded.

This next picture reminds me of a story... The temperature was too low for me in the Dining Room so after dinner I always needed to warm up. Richard and I would step out on to the jogging track to watch the water and warm up outside. Well, one night we were both gazing and I saw something jump. I honed in my focus and told Richard to look. Then we both saw them jump again. Dolphins! There were at least 6 of them swiming ang jumping and coming right for the ship. We immediatly started filming with our camera and had to run to the back of the ship to keep up with them. They were so beautiful and I'm sorry that I don't have a photo to share. I dont't know how many cruiser get to see dolphins, but we are considering ourselves lucky.

A stingray! We both said, why didn't I think of that!

A shot from our balcony, which by the way we got on a free upgrade from our minumal purchase of an interior stateroom.  That made it so much more enjoyable!

Grabbing a late night snack, another benefit of an early dinner. We've had to ration ourselves since we've been back home.

We got up and had breakfast aboard and then quickly went through customs and painlessly got our bags. After a shuttle to Hertz Rental we picked up our car and headed for Texas. We got an upgrade on our car to a brand new Altima so we were plenty comfortable with just the two of us. It was almost too easy traveling without two dogs and a baby so we drove all night and arrived in Duncanville at 6:30am. We returned our car in less than 24 hours and were back home before Paige even woke up. It was so great to see her and it seemed like she had grown a foot since we last saw her.

The cruise was FANTASTIC but 7 days was just long enough.