Here goes...

Okay, folks. At the request of Mrs. Cari Henley Dickinson, I am making an attempt at blogging. Since it's ridiculously expensive to call Australia, I don't mind :o) Since I don't have a sweet clue what I'm doing, I can't promise anything amazing. But I'll try!

Paradise

Well, we're back in Halifax, but we had a fantastic time on our trip. We took almost 500 pictures (we didn't want to forget anything!) So here are some of the highlights. Don't worry, I'm not posting all the pictures!

We're not in Canada anymore - Miami and Day 1 on the Ship

Cars, cars, cars. Craig has some sort of car radar. Everywhere we went in Miami, he was freaking out about some car. He took pictures of a few of them. This red one was parked at the waterfront by some huge yacht. Even I have to admit that it was pretty sweet! Here is another huge yacht. There is some serious money in Miami.
The white and black cars were parked at some rental place. Apparently they cost several thousand dollars a say to rent. We never found out for sure.

I really like this picture of me and Craig.

This picture is of some trapeze school or something. It reminded me of "Sex and the City"

My first ever Hooters sighting. We didn't eat there though.

A very cool tree.

Here we are as we leave the Port of Miami on the ship. That other ship is Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas. It is one of the newest ships. It's the one with the wave rider on board.

This is a photo of South Beach that we took as we sailed by.

There were some insanely huge houses that we could see as we were leaving on the ship. I'm sure some of them belong to celebrities.

Day 2 - At Sea

This was our first full day at sea. We went from Miami to San Juan, which is pretty far. So we did not see land for the entire day.

This was our chance to check out the ship. Here is the rock climbing wall which doesn't look too scary from this distance.
Craig went on it, but I chickened out.



We also played a little minigolf. The course was pretty crappy. All these people didn't seem to mind, though.

There was also a basketball court onboard. Craig played a little at night when all the teenagers were gone. I did not, however, since I detest basketball.
The pool was really busy this day. Needless to say, you had to get up pretty early to get a good lounge chair. The pools were fed by the ocean, so as we got further south, the water was really nice.
There was also 2 bars by these pools, and another bar by the adult pool. People were constantly drinking.
This is Craig in the adult pool. It was later in the evening when half the ship was at supper. That is why there is no one around. You can see the bar (closed down) in the background.

Day 3 - San Juan, Puerto Rico

I took this picture right after we got off the ship in San Juan. Craig wasn't too impressed, in case you couldn't tell. You can see one of the other cruise ships in the background.


Here is our ship. Whenever anyone at any of the ports asked us which ship we were from, they commented "Oh, the big one".
We went on a bus tour around San Juan. The bus driver was awesome, and really knew hiw stuff. He even knew exactly how many Burger Kings and Starbucks there were in the city.



We stopped at some Fort in the city. There was a photo shoot going on while we were there, and I couldn't help but take a picture of it.
This is a replica of one of Christopher Columbuses' ships. I think it was the Santa Maria... Anybody know any Puerto Rican history???


I took this picture before we got back on the ship. I thought it was a good way to get a concept of how big it was.

Traffic in the shopping district of San Juan was insane! The streets were really narrow and the cars were bumper to bumper. I was glad we were walking!
Some pictures from the fort. There were three ships in port that day.

Day 4 - St. Martin, the Friendly Island

It was unbelievably hot in St. Martin the day we were there. It had to be well over 30 degrees Celcius. And I love it! We rented a car while we were there so we could drive around the island, which is really small. It's actually divided in half, with one half being owned by France, and the other half being owned by the Netherlands. But the two sides get along. That's why St. Martin is known as "The Friendly Island". It even says this on their licence plates.

The water was soooooooooo greeny-blue. I just had to take a picture from the water taxi.

That's our ship on the left and a Carnival ship on the right. That ship pretty much followed us around for 7 days.

This is the little shopping area right beside the port.

St. Martin was very hilly. From this picture, it almost looks like a deserted island.

This was the jeep that we rented. We had the lovely combination of crappy, run-down roads and a car with no shocks! But we got to see a lot. I think St. Martin is going to be one of the next big up-and-coming resort islands. There was a ton of construction going on near the brand new airport.

This was Orient Beach. I heard somewhere that it is one of the top 10 beaches in the world! It was nice and the water was gorgeous, but paying 8 bucks for a chair and unlimited bathroom was a little excessive. But I suppose the locals need to make a living too!

I love this picture! That cloud was so ominous, though surprisingly it didn't rain while we were there.

Craig and I walked down the beach until we got to a row of rocks. On the other side of the rocks were lots of naked breasts and well, you know! We decided to go back the other way. I just don't think I could bare it all in front of hundreds of strangers!

I took this picture because I thought it was cool. 99 cent cans of beer that you could just buy and walk around with. While we were waiting for the water taxi there were two teenagers waiting with their parents, sucking back beer. I thought they looked about 15. I wonder what the drinking age is there.

I snapped the rest of these pics while waiting in line for the water taxi back to the ship. The water looked gorgeous with the sun shining on it!