All Aboard!

I finally convinced Buddy to go on a cruise for his birthday.  He gave me a difficult time for several months, but I finally convinced him he would not get sea sick or panic because he could not see land.  We left on March 14th and flew into Fort Lauderdale.  We spent two nights in FL before boarding the ship.Larry took us to the airport at 7:30 in the morning.  I had him take this picture because we always take a picture as we leave.

 

Buddy giving last minute instructions to Larry about the Sterminator.

On Friday morning I gave Buddy his birthday present.

Had no idea what it was.

It was a book I had done by Shutterfly.  When  the book came I was very disappointed.  The writing on the white pages was difficult to read, and there wasn’t any embellishments.  It took me almost two weeks to work on the book to make it special.  When I was finished it was magnificent!   Buddy loved it and that’s all that matters.

Buddy enjoying his book.

After a simple breakfast we head for the pool.  We spent the entire day at the pool.

I had no problem jumping into the water.  It was a bit chilly at first, however, once you were in it was beautiful.

It took Buddy awhile to get in but he finally did.  We were the only two people in the water.  We had the entire pool to our selves.  Everyone else was chicken.

You can’t see it from this picture but my diamond was shining like the sun in the water.

The next morning we boarded a bus to take us to the port.

We were so excited to finally be on our journey.When we arrived at our stateroom we went to the balcony to take pictures of the other ships in port.  Some of these ships were enormous!  I know I would hate to be on board of them.

 

Some of these ships hold 6,000 people!

I like a smaller ship.  As it was, we were on the largest ship that Holland America owns.  It holds 2,000 people.  

Buddy making a last minute call to Larry before we pull out to see.  

I had to take pictures of our wonderful room.  It was so big!  Bigger than any hotel room we have ever stayed in.

King size bed.

Wonderful sitting area with couch and two chairs.

A large screen TV that we never watched.  Never had the time to sit and watch.  You can see our balcony from this picture.

We had double sinks in the bathroom!

A bath tub (unheard of on most cruises) and a shower.

After taking pictures of our stateroom we head to the top of the ship to see the send off.  We passed this beautiful display of fruit on the way.

This was at the top of our stairs.  We did not take the stairs, we took the elevator.  Just look at these elevator doors!

On top side we saw some more mega ships.

Buddy and I snapped pictures of each other as we pulled away from port.

Below is a picture of Fort Lauderdale receding in the background.

I did not know this, but the captain of the ship doesn’t take the ship out of port.  There is a harbor pilot that does it.  Because all ports are so different, each port has a harbor pilot that takes the ships in and out of their ports.  The hop on the ship, take it out to sea, and then they jump from the big ship on to their pilot boat that rides along the side.  I got some pictures of this amazing feat.

The pilot boat waiting for the pilot.

This is where the pilot jumped back on his boat.  As you can see there isn’t much room between the ship and the boat.  If he misses his boat I would hate to imagine what would happen.

 

We headed back to our room to get ready for dinner.  We called it an early night and had a wonderful nights sleep.  Buddy didn’t even realize he was on a ship.  We got up the next morning to breakfast served on our balcony.  We did that every morning we were on the ship.  We never went to a restaurant for breakfast.

While waiting for breakfast Buddy checked out the happenings at sea.

Waiting for breakfast.

After breakfast we went exploring around the ship.  This is the main staircase.  People had their pictures made on this staircase on formal night.

This is looking straight up the center of the staircase.

This is a picture of the base of the staircase.

There were fresh flowers all around the ship.  They would put a beautiful orchard into a simple bowl, or have a big floral display.  Flowers everywhere!

There were sculptures and art work through out the ship.

Buddy and I having a drink and getting ready to play trivia.  We paired up with another couple and we came in second.  I thought that was pretty good.

I sculpture on the Lido deck.

Having lunch on the Lido deck.  Where ever we ate, we had great views of the ocean.

When we got back to our room we found these beach towels waiting for us.  We wanted for nothing.

Getting ready for an afternoon nap.

Fresh fruit was delivered to us every morning.

This is the view from the Satin Bar.  We went there to have a drink before dinner.  Can you see the cabanas in the background?  You could rent those and have your own private hide a way on board the ship.

This was our appetizer at dinner the first night.

I had mushroom risotto for dinner.  The following are pictures of everyone’s desserts.  They were kind enough to let me take a picture of their food.

Picture of my French onion soup.

This  picture was taken as I was finishing dinner.  Buddy and I had a seat at the very end of the dinning room overlooking the ocean.  The sun was getting ready to set.

How lucky were we to sit there for dinner?  Well, we sat there just about every night.  It was truly beautiful.

More sculpture on our way to the Ocean Bar.  The Ocean Bar was having a Blues singer and we heard that she was wonderful.  We headed that way after dinner.

When we got there the place was packed.  We got the last romantic booth.  We ordered drinks and snuggled down to hear some good blues.  We weren’t disappointed.  The woman was amazing!  I’m only sorry that my pictures didn’t turn out as clear as I would have liked.  I don’t know if it was the camera or the drinks.

Stayed until the end then called it a night. 

Got up to a beautiful morning to have breakfast on the balcony.

After breakfast we headed to some of the deck chairs to soak up some sun.

Buddy became a real sailor and loved the ship.  I came in from the sun and look what happened!

I can’t believe it!  I put a ton of sunscreen on and this still happened.  

On our way to the theater I took these pictures along the way.

I saw this bar stool and just had to have a picture.

I don’t think you can make it out, but that is a chef sitting alone in a theater.

Every night that we returned to our stateroom, our steward arranged our hand towel into a cute animal.

The next morning we headed into San Juan harbor.

We took an excursion to the only rain forest in North American.  It was something like a 4 hour tour.

Our tour guide, Rocky.  He was very knowledgeable but at time I had difficulty understanding him.

Entrance to rain forest.

Beautiful flowers throughout the rain forest

.As you can see from the next two pictures, you can see the Atlantic Ocean over the tops of the trees.

We asked a worker there about the cats in the forest and he said there were none.  Funny thing.  Doesn’t that look like a cat to you?  And look at the next picture.

 This tower had something like 98 steps in it.  I wasn’t about to venture up, but Buddy sure did.

Another view of the Atlantic Ocean.

Ocean in the background.

Buddy at the top of the tower.

That is Buddy waving from the very top window.

Our ship.

Good to be on board once again!

I will write about our dessert extravaganza next time.

Blessings!