Our Caribbean Cruise
We love our cruises. We try to get out on one at least one a year. Just to float around. Now that the girls SCUBA dive, it gives us one more excuse.
There are only two things wrong
with them. The biggie is that damn bar tab they slip under your door on
the last night of the cruise. Now that we have three divers, those
excursions really add up. And the booze is a little pricey, also.
The other problem is getting readjusted to real life after the cruise is over.
On the way home from the port, we stopped at a Wendys for something to eat.
After we sat down, we waited to our waiter, Wendell, to come over and spread the
napkin on our laps. He never did. So much for his tip.
I'm trying something a little different with this page. Instead of having 7 or 8 different pages, it's going to be one long one, with bookmarks to click on that will bring you down to the section. Let me know what you think of it.
San Juan and Day one on the boat.
San Juan and Day one on the boat.
As pass passengers, we always get there a day or so early. So of course, we ended up in PR the day before the cruise. We walked around Candado and met up with Patrick, Kevin, Gigi, and Garrett.
The weary, merry travelers.
I'm not sure why they are leaning. It may be a "we're so close to the Equator" thing. With kids, who can tell.
?????. And what the green thing that's smiling supposed to be?
One surly group, if I ever saw one.
If we're waiting for our drinks, what are those two guys doing behind us? Patty cake?
We decided to go into Old San Juan on the morning of the cruise. This was at Morrow Castle. In fact, most of these are from Morrow.
Can you tell I photo shopped Garrett into this pic.
This is the "before" pic.
This was good practice for all the walking we were going to do on the shore tours.
Kris was going for a soccer goal. I wish I had a pic of the result.
This castle had a bunch of ramps, as well.
And once we went down the ramps, we got to hang out in a dank tomb. Very nice.
Looking out on the entrance to San Juan Harbor.
The outcast. We never liked Garrett, anyway.
This was their bathroom. It was self-flushing. As soon as Jen finished, it was Kristin's turn.
They were asking if we had any toilet paper.
Gotta love those stairs.
This was the closest that Gigi has been to church in years.
Kristin looking out at the Harbor entrance.
More of the Harbor entrance.
Those are some thick-assed walls.
I'm just not sure what the hell this is? At all.
I guess no one told this tool there was no smoking in the park.
We got on the boat about 1 pm and wasted to time. Nor did Kris. Honest, it was a non alcoholic Mai-Tai. Honest.
Kevin was feeling a bit "outcast". Right after this pic was taken, we gave him a drink and let him into the cool club.
The first of the drinks were starting to kick in.
I can't decide if that's a cute expression on Kris, or one of evil.
I'd like to think this was a bomb going off but it is just a time-elapsed pic. Maybe next time.
Jen is thinking to herself "what is that annoying buz in my ear"
The damn buz is back, but now it's in the other ear.
Thank god, it's gone now.
Our first gourmet meal of the cruise. We have Garrett, Patty, Gerry, Kevin and Pat's lobotomy scar.
Kris and Jen. Our big bad College Girls.
Patty and Gerry.
Kathy and Jake, hamming it up.
Our first full day on the boat was spent cruising from PR to Barbados.
We were just starting to get used to having this many family members around and checking out the boat. And then we were leaving a bar when someone said "isn't that your son on the stage"? It turns out that Jake was picked to help with the Cruise Director in forming some of the towel animals they always leave on the bed.
And how do his attentive parents find out? They just happen to wander by.
And we are all still wondering what he was making.
Flash forward to Formal Night.
It turns out Jake's hero is Barney Stinson. The guy from "How I Met Your Mother" If you've ever seen the show, you know he is a smooth operator.
He never takes a bad picture. Unlike me.
It gets worse.
On the other hand, the lens loves Scooby.
If you get a chance, please tell here the diet works. Whatever the diet is. I just want to be able to serve one meal for the family With Scooby, it's got to be several lunches and several dinners. No more "Oysters only", or maybe "boiled Broccoli water only", or "Japanese Poo Extract meat only" diet. All I know that she weighed the same when she got home and I haven't seen my penis in a week.
And now we have Jen. Coming into her own.
Now let us have a bit of a theme. It's called a photo bomb. Someone takes a picture with someone else posing or doing something behind them. Like this pic. Is it peace or F U. You decide.
I keep a trimmer in my overnight bag to give me that "Brazilian" kinda look. You know, I don't want to look like something out of the 80's or anything. Keep it short. Besides, it makes my balls look bigger. Well, Garrett needed to trim up his beard. If you don't tell him, then neither will I.
Two Fister. With a Kristin photo bomb in the back. Too Cool.
Can you believe Kris is drinking Champagne?
This was at the Captains reception. Open Bar. Anything else you want to know.
I'm not sure but I don't think Jen likes to get her picture taken. On the other hand, I've had about 15 of those Rum Punches so at this point, you could give me a colonoscopy and I would have loved it.
It was a pretty fun adventure.
The Usual suspects.
Barney Stinson, again.
Cuttin a rug.
Captain Michelle, and crew.
At this point, Pat just wanted to know where was the sommelier?
These guys clean up pretty well, don't they?
The excuse of going on this cruise was Patty's 70th Birthday. Kathy set up this thing for them to have a small cake at the table and this B-day streamer in the room.
Some flowers.
and this streamer thing.
Patrick with his boars head.
And we might have ended up at the disco a little later that night. And that's my story. I'll never tell.
We had planned on doing a Snorkeling thing with the Turtles. But alas, it was sold out.
When we woke up in the morning, this is what greeted us. Our first look at Barbados did not impress us.
The family self shot. We decided to walk into town and see if we could buy some cheap crap that we'll never use again.
On the way, we saw this stream running into the ocean. With a butt load of crabs. Sorry, that's about it for this pic.
If there is anyplace to get cheap stuff, it's from the Cheapside Market. Public Market, no less.
A look down a street.
My brother, Tim, liked Barbados so much he went ahead and opened a bar here.
After we got back to the boat, we decided to give the rock wall a try. Every time I get on one of these things, it reminds me how weak I am.
Pat on the Wall.
Has anyone seen my Beach Ball? It's about thissss big.
Kristin got into the wall thing, also. Kathy and I did it but I was the one with the camera and she told me if I took a picture of her on the wall, she'd kick my ass.
This was our first dive of the cruise. Kris, Jen and I went on this beautiful two tank a little south of the port.
Jen has been looking forward to this since about 10 minutes after she finished her last dive (last summer). She has been saving up money to buy a Reg and BC. I think she is going to start with a dive computer. That would have been very handy this day. The Islands don't have real safety oriented people running the show and I think we may have exceeded our down times by a bit. I'd be able to tell for sure if I could remember how to read a dive table. Oops.
We hopped on a Catamaran just off the pier and then went over here to pick up some more divers. There were maybe 12 or 13 of us total.
We cruised south along St Lucia for about 45 minutes. There were a bunch of beautiful little harbors, like this one, along the way.
Jen and Kris and our first Photo Bomb of the dive. That is Erik doing the finger dance and his brother, Alex, looking out over the water. I think Erik got in a couple of more bombs during the course of the cruise.
We stopped to pick up our dive gear here. A nice little beach with black sand. At least it's black when it gets wet.
This is the boat that we picked up at the pier. We also did our first dive off this beach. It gets deep quick. That boat you can see behind the Cat is in about 500 ft. of water. We were never more than 100 ft from the shore but went down to around a 70 foot depth. Again, the dive computer would have helped.
This is looking down the beach. Can you believe they had a bar there. I mean, you never see bars in the Caribbean.
Just me and the girls, out for a little adventure.
We became good friends with Erik and Alex but I didn't get the impression they started hanging out with us because of me. I really don't think I was the draw to this group. What do you think?
Jen and Kris on the way down for our first dive. Sorry about the spots and lines of the pics. The camera I was using was pretty good but I guess I spaced out the fact if was only rated to a depth of 30 feet. We ended up quite a bit deeper that that. When we got back to the surface, I noted the water that had leaked into the case. I'm actually surprised the pictures came out at all.
They had some of the biggest Urchins I'd ever seen. Some of them had white spots of them. Never seen that, either. How'd you like to step on one of them, eh?
Diving is the picture of beauty and grace.
Sometimes....
not so much grace. I'm just glad I had the camera and nobody took a picture of me.
This is a rock fish, one of the deadliest fish in the sea. So we got closer to get a better look. Makes sense to me.
Peace, love, dope.
Dad, is that you? I can't tell cause the sun is in my eyes. OK. That's better. It is you. Please don't take a picture of me. Thanks.
Our second dive was at the base of this mountain. It's called the Petons and it goes over 2 thousand feet up. And over 4 thousand feet down. When we were diving at it, I took a look up from about 65 feet down and could see the waves breaking at the base of it. Beautiful conditions.
I told the girls that this was Madonna's mountains. Not in her "Material Girl" phase but more like when she wore funnels over her boobs.
During the descent on our second dive.
Jen.
Kris is holding a Spider Crab. That little thing in her hand. What I want to know is how can she hold this now but at home, she is totally arachnophobic. I guess the water calms her down.
I think Jen dropped something and is looking for it. Just kidding. She's just checking everything out.
"Talk to the hand"
This picture just doesn't capture the beauty of the sea. But it was really pretty. Trust me.
After the dives, we had lunch here.
These rocks were at the end of the beach.
There is a Hotel above the restaurant. I think they said an episode of "The Bachelor" here. Or something like that.
The Motley Crew.
I'm not sure but I think Kris is proud of her diet results.
While we were on the dive, Kathy and Jake took a tour of St Lucia and the surrounding area. I'm not sure what they saw or where they went so I'm just going to make up random stuff.
Actually, I do know where this is. It's just south of Castries. We saw the tanks on the way down for our dive. OK, that's the only one I know. From here on out, it's only going to be made up bullshit.
This is to commemorate Captain Jack Sparrow's capture of this island.
Looking down at the boat. Nice view.
I'm not sure why but Jake loves his Tie Dye T-shirt. I guess he's just a hippy at heart.
That's Kathy. That's Jake. Who's taking the picture?
Barney Stenson, at it again.
I don't think we fly into this field. But it would be cool if we did.
What would a cruise be without wasting a bunch of food by sculpting different things.
Does anyone eat this shit?
Are they turkeys or fruity Don Kings?
OK. You can eat this one. They serve the apple from the pigs mouth but I'd stay away from the squash they put in the pigs ass.
???
You can eat the stuff on the left but I'm not sure what they maid the roses from.
We saw that on the dive.
Again, not sure what it's supposed to be but pass the butter.
In Antigua, we just did a motor coach tour of the island. It was fun and beautiful and ended with the obligatory cocktail. No surprises there.
Standing around, waiting for the tour to start. That's my Father-in-Law, in the middle with the blue shirt. He's thinking to himself, "I bet that idiot son-in-law of mine is going to put this picture on the internet".
A nice view of Eric Clapton's house and a rehab clinic for Whitney Houston. Among others.
Kathy and my self shot over English Harbor.
The same shot without Kathy and I.
Now the kids got in the way.
Mr. Knop, our fearless driver. He may not have had any fear but he put the fear in us.
Our tour guide, Bob.
The tour crew with a Photo Bomb from Garrett.
The smallest house in Antigua. A man was supposed to have fathered and raised 5 children in that house. I think our kids bathroom is bigger.
5 kids......where did they fit?
I asked Kathy to get me a couple of tacky, touristy, t-shirts. This is what she got. Mission Accomplished.
"Do I have a booger?"
"There's that fool son-in-law of mine with his goddamn camera. If he takes one more picture of me, I swear I'm going to shove it up his ass."
Jen, Patty and Gigi
The spoils.
And of course, you have to play some drunken Shuffle Board. I hope Jake wasn't drinking.
Kathy, kickin ass.
Our day at St Maarten started with a misunderstanding, and it went down a bit then went up from there.
We had asked to go on this excursion, but they said it was cancelled because there weren't enough people going. We told them that we had 11 people in our party. They said they would get back to us. This was the day before. They called us up a bit later and said that some other people wanted to do it and we had enough. Great. Lets do it. Meet us down on the dock.
And that's what we did. Everyone got the message that the tour was back on, but the driver. So we stood around, looking stupider than usual, waiting for the bus. After about 20 minutes, we thought of stealing one of the busses parked there and doing it ourselves. I mean what the hell. At least they drove on the proper side of the road. At last, this bus comes roaring around the corner, tires squealing, to pick us up. I guess someone has to be the last one to know. In this case, it was our driver.
After that was settled, we had a very nice drive.
Sorry, had to insert a pic of Kat and I.
We saw some beautiful areas. If you look in the distance, you can see Orient Beach. It is a nude beach. I can see some tits from here.
This type of house was all over the place. They will not allow them to renovate because they were built in the 1850's. They were built very well, had top notch craftsmanship, and for some reason, wouldn't let them do any upkeep on them. Or maybe, that's just the way it ended up. But what we have now are some really crappy little houses that are old as shit and also look like shit. I have to tell you, I built a storage shed out back that already looks like shit. I didn't even have to grey the wood.
We've just entered France. Still a bunch of black people, rough roads and half assed buildings. But now they are French black people, rough roads and half assed buildings, not Dutch black people, rough roads and half assed buildings. I noticed the difference.
What would a cruise shore excursion be without standing on a rotunda surrounded by street people hawking there wears. And the one you are talking to has the best stuff, and cheaper, than they guy next to them. I have a tendency to believe them.
After the bus tour and the obligatory shopping stop, we boarded a boat on the French side of Simpson Bay Lagoon.
The tour was to take us on a 90 minutes tour of the whole place. Jen was acting like herself. Sitting by herself and waving at us whenever we paid attention to her. Then hoping we would ignore her.
It was a nice dock we left from. If you would ignore the brown floaters and the Hudson River Trout (used condoms). I wish I was kidding.
Our DJ. He could imitate anyone from James Brown to Brittney Spears. I asked for Led Zeppelin but he couldn't deliver.
Did I say that there was an open bar on this boat?
And by open, I mean nobody at the bar. Just bottles of booze, mixer, ice, and if you want, a cooler of beer. The captain even had a passenger running the boat most of the time. I wish I got a picture of it. They were even sharing a cigarette. It was hand rolled. It smelled kinda funny, also. Hmmmmm.
I know we are all frowning but it really was a fun trip. Really.
OK. That's more like it.
They told us that St Maarten is famous for it's Boat Captains Schools. Unfortunately, they took on a contract to train Asian Boat Captains.
It didn't work out to well.
And you thought they couldn't drive cars.
This is where the planes land right over the beach. They take off right over the Harbour and we watched one take off when we were there.
This is a nice place. I just wanted to know what the purpose of the catwalk with the circular stairs is?
These people really have nice houses.
I mean, there are worse places to live.
It reminded me of the really nice places in the Keys.
Kristin enjoying a beer. I wonder if she had any idea Garrett was behind her. I'm thinking, no. She was too busy thinking that her father was an idiot with a camera. Sometimes, there is a god.
A pool on the dock. Someone is living right.
We have arrived at our destination. And feeling no pain. Did I mention it was an open bar.
Our crew groping my wife's ass. Hey, is she smiling? It must be true what they say about those guys.
Our boat.
That is one beautiful beach.
This sign will lead you anywhere you want to go.
I'm sure you've never seen a picture of a bunch of shops like this. Actually, I ended up going into one and buying an underwater camera. I think I got a good deal. The guy who sold it to me said it was a great deal. He looked trustworthy......
Another Formal Night. These Bruens clean up pretty well, don't you think?
Back to Barney Stinson (you know, "How I Met Your Mother")
Patty and Gerry.
I'm not sure where Kristin was.
I don't have the heart to tell Jake that the actor that plays Barney is a gay guy that used to play a child doctor.
The girls and I did a dive. I wish I could say I paid attention to what everyone else was doing but the girls and I did a dive. If you dive, you know what I mean. Plus, I couldn't wait to try out my new camera. OK, I just wanted to do the dive. It's a SCUBA thing.
On the way out, there were a couple of Dolphins following us. I wish they stayed but they were gone by the time we were in the water,
On our way down.
Here we are, in about 40 ft of water, making sure the equipment is right.
Kristin's stuff seems to be working fine. More on that later.
Jen is doing fine.
"What. Why are you still taking pictures of me?"
"Dad, enough with the pictures. Talk to the hand."
An cool ray.
Jen had menstrual cramps. I hope they don't attract sharks. Just kidding.
We dove on a wreck.
swam over some coral.
I'm still trying to get the color right on my new camera.
I think the last picture was better.
Then we cruised across a sanding void.
Did I mention that Jen had a bit of a cold and was having alot of fun equalizing.
They dropped a NASA trainer for people training for working in the Space Station. It was for working in small quarters. We were given the chance to swim thru it.
It's not as easy as you'd think. About 3 1/2 feet around and you have a bunch of crap strapped to your back.
I stopped and took this picture. Thankfully it was Eric. I still heard him cuss me but anyone else would have given me the finger.
Pretty.
I guess the picture settings do matter when you are under 40 feet of water or on the surface.
Kristin had a wardrobe malfunction. She lost half her weights at about 40 feet. Uncontrolled ascent. A very dangerous situation. She handled it right, tried to control her rise. She got to the surface shaken and asked for help. Jen and I were on the boat and before Kris got back to the boat, Jen asked me what happened? I told her that Kris was in trouble. Jen asked me what did she do? I told her, "No, Kris is having trouble". I guess Jen thought that Kris got caught with a beer or something.
This is the second dive. Jen have the camera because Kris and I were on shore, getting O2 and making sure she didn't start puking blood.
A nice picture of the Kraken.
Acualley, this is one of the only fish they actively hunt. It's a Lion fish. Brought to us from the Grand Banks. Not indigenous to our waters. Now they are out of control with no natural predators. Did I mention they were one of the most poisonous fish in the ocean. They offer a bounty for killing them. And these guys were killing them.
Everybody loves an eel.
There is no doubt. The Caribbean is nice.
The waters are nice.
The colors are soothing.
And the golf is the best.
This is the beach that they used for the end of "The Shawshank Redemption". You know, Zihuatanejo. People spoke Spanish everywhere but I don't think we were in Mexico.
The last night of the cruise.
I not only think I have a booger but you can tell I like my coffee.
Patty always puts up with me but I swear I'm glad Gerry doesn't have any guns. I really don't think he likes having his picture taken. What do you think?
How many glasses of wine does a guy need in front of him?
Loving sisters.
Our waiters, Lionel and Juan. Excellent choice.
???
Back to reality. That sucks.
A nice little picture of where we've been.
You have to love pass travel. The thought of actually paying for an airline ticket turns my stomach. I'd never even think of doing it. And the worst, would be having to travel with the riff raff in the back of the plane. While we have to deal with these cattle, the only thing that keeps me going is at least it's free. These other fools had to pay for it. Minions. (needles to say, First Class was full. Did you know those people in that back of the plane smell. Not bad, but different).
But at least we had a perfect picture from Barney Stinson.
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