Sunday January 26, 2014. 12:21
Day 7 & 8 - Cruisin Home

Our last full day on the boat was kind of a blur.  I know we got up in the morning (I remember that part), I'm pretty sure we had breakfast, and then we hung out in the pool for most of the day with Nichole's friends.  We had hoped for some pool volleyball, but that never took place, but all in all we spent the day relaxing and hanging out.  We did spend some time in the room packing and getting everything cleaned up (we had to have our bags packed and in the hallway before bed), had lunch with our friends from Miami/Colombia (extremely nice to meet you!  We WILL have to get together sometime in the future!) and then it felt like we were getting ready for supper.  I realized this trip that I don't need to eat as often as I do, but I do eat because Mandi and Nichole get hungry.  So I have been trying very hard to eat less at each meal.  This is nearly impossible to do, especially at our formal sit down supper, without leaving a mass of food behind, which I definitely wasn't raised to do!  We did enjoy our super lovely last supper with amazing service from Natalia and her crew, and Nichole got to visit with a couple of her new friends who had similar meal times, and we had one last late night in the tropics.  And in case you're wondering about the photos of Nichole, that IS a shower cap. it's a travel tradition, I guess.  Don't ask (cause I'm not really sure). We tried to get to bed early to be ready for an early breakfast and be ready to go, but of course these things never go as planned.

We got up at 0630 in order to be out of our room by 0700 (check-out time) and met everyone for breakfast.  From the patio in our room we watched a massive projection of what looked like cartoon aerobics displayed on the side of one of the ocean-side high-rises.  We didn't follow along.  Nichole was able to say her good-byes to her friends, I walked around getting some final shots from the deck, and we hurried to wait for our scheduled disembarkation.  We had been slotted for a 0930 check-out, but it was very obvious (not to mention nerve wracking) that everything was way behind.  We were definitely getting a bit concerned about missing our 1207 flight.  In the end, we did get off the boat with a few minutes to spare, caught a taxi (take note: a taxi to MIA is $3 more for a full car - 4 of us - then the cost of the airport shuttle for 1 person, and is way quicker, way more comfortable, and way less stressful.  ALWAYS take the cab.  Much easy.) and got to the airport in time for a rushed check in and a brief rest at our gate.  We barely had time to grab some snacks and food and get in line for our seats.  I know people always say "there's no rush, no need to be the first on", but if you want your carry-ons to be near your seat, it's good to get in ahead of the crowd.

We got on our flight on time, and we did get overhead stowage right at our seats, and we got organized and ready to go.  For our flights home, I purposefully booked seats at the back of the plane so we didn't have as many people around us.  And this worked out for us in this regards, but I didn't realize that the notice "flight operated by United Express" when booking meant we were on a tiny little express jet with rear mounted engines.  The last time I remember a flight this noisy we had ascended above the drop zone in Westlock, and they had just opened the doors of the Cessna to let us out.  Thank God for Gramma!  She let us sleep while she and Nichole had a great time laughing and playing games all the way to MCO (Chicago).  So nice.  We landed for our layover and made our way through the airport.  At this point it was becoming obvious everyone was tired and getting cranky.

We came across a play center for kids, and had planned to let Nichole play for a bit, but due to time zone confusions we left much early then we needed to.  We went back through the underground tunnel Nichole loved so much, but most of the automatic pedways were out-of-order.  We got to the food court, found a nice place to relax, and took turns getting food.  After we had eaten and relaxed a bit, we made our way to our gate, and after our final bathroom breaks we got aboard our final flight home.

This flight started pretty good, but Nichole was becoming anxious, and I think this started her towards an upset stomach.  This, and with the 2 extra hours added for time zone crossing, the early start and the long day enroute, this trip was ending on a very unhappy note.  She did wait to through up until after we landed, which was appreciated, and her ears did finally clear, and we did eventually get our luggage (new lime green bags are super easy to spot, but also get super dirty super quick) and we did eventually get through all the check stops along the way.  Funny thing, Customs told us to make sure we claimed the bag of trail mix as "fruits" on our form, and Immigrations scoffed at us for claiming the bag of trail mix on our form.  Huh.  Nichole, although still feeling ill, was excited to see her Mom waiting in the airport to greet her.  After some Tim Horton's and much debate over how we were all getting home, Mandi went with Tara & Nichole in case she got sick & I went to get my car (boosted my dead battery) went back for my Mom and our bags and hit the road home.  One last piece of the trip.  After a pit stop in Airdire for some food (I didn't get airport Tim's), I got her home, picked up Mandi, said goodnight to Nichole and parked my car in the garage, thus ending our 2014 Winter travel.

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Friday January 24, 2014. 04:30
Day 6 - Winding Down

This is the start of our journey back to Miami, a time for relaxing and getting the most out of our last few days. For this reason the next and final couple entries are simply a quick recap of how we spent our time. This morning we had breakfast by ourselves in the Oceanview Café because everyone else figured we wouldn’t be awake. After breakfast we got ready to go swimming and spent most of the day at the pool. We did stop for lunch and more sunscreen, and to give Nichole a bit of a break, and then we returned to the pool deck until it was time to get ready for supper.

We met another Nicole that Nichole played with in the morning, I played volleyball for a few minutes, and enjoyed the sun for a few minutes more. After lunch we met a family from Miami (formerly Colombia) and Nichole played with their daughter for a while. I also met an Ontario fire fighter in the hot tub and we talked about that for a while. By 17:30 we started packing up our stuff (Lee & Lisa had joined us and Mom on the deck earlier this afternoon) and we came to get ready for supper.

The afternoon went way better then previous days, Nichole brought a couple toys to supper and had a really good evening. She paraded around with Natalia our waitress during a time of crew recognition, and after we came back to the room Nichole went to bed nicely. Gramma stayed with her while Mandi & I went to try to find Troy & Lee, but after a bit of looking around, checking out a bit of a show in the theatre, watching a dance competition and just wandering around, we saw no sign of them. We called it a night around 22:30 (after setting our clocks back to gain an hour) and we were rocked to sleep by the wind and waves.

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Wednesday January 22, 2014. 16:05
Day 5 - St. Maarten

Today was another scheduled morning start (Scuba diving @ 08:30), but I was already awake way before I needed to be. I was feeling sick. The last couple days I have had a sore throat, headache and have felt congested, and I think the by-product of my body fighting all that had found its way to my stomach and was planning on ruining a perfectly great, very hot day in St. Maarten. I wasn’t impressed. I did get up and get ready though, and after eating a bit, I thought maybe it would pass.

Troy and I had breakfast and made our way to the pier to meet up with our host.  After a short walk and a short bus ride, we were at our dive center. We got everything ready to go, I purchased a motion sickness pill for $1.50 and we set sail for our first stop. Our dives were both within view of our cruise ship and out in open water, and I’m realizing it doesn’t take too many of those before they all blur together, and none are very special unless something unique happens. This time, nothing really unique happened.

We did our first dive to about 50’ in moderately choppy water, and swam around through a maze of reef cuttings. It was very colourful, and every time I cleared my fogged up mask the visibility was great, and we did see (and photographed) a couple turtles and a fish or three, but all in all there wasn’t much to be seen on that dive. Normally I would have done my best to find something fun to look at, or a tunnel or cave to poke around in, but with my constantly foggy mask, my upset stomach and my head cold (which made it extremely difficult to clear my right ear), I was honestly just waiting for the rest of the group to be done so I didn’t have to wait up top for too long.

Once everyone was back in the boat (one poor guy was sicker than I was and was successful a number of times in feeding the local fish) I got my gear off and decided that the motion in the boat wasn’t bothering me that bad. I questioned what we would be seeing on our next dive (I’m sure I remember reading something about a wreck dive) but they informed us it was another reef dive.  They did say that many years ago a wood ship had sunk here, so we would see an anchor and a rusty, hardly distinguishable canon. As sad as it was, I made the decision to skip it and stay up top. And in the end, the only thing I missed was a couple smaller reef sharks. And after being spoiled in the Bahamas, that didn’t bother me too much feeling the way I felt. All things considered, based on the dive I did and the dive I heard about, diving here is comparable (at best) to diving anywhere else I’ve been in the Caribbean.

After our dive trip, I bought a T-shirt and we returned to the Reflection. Troy hurried to meet up with Lee & Lisa for some shopping while I came in to shower, rest and have lunch with Mandi, Nichole and Mom. I think the food really helped, but still didn’t solve the issue altogether. Even now as I type my stomach is not happy. After lunch I really wanted to check out Maho beach (were the airplanes are almost within reach as they pass over the beach to the runway) but it was getting late, and I was told we may not even see any large planes until later in the evening, after our boat left dock. So Mandi & I left Nichole with Gramma and headed into town via the $7 per person water taxi.

Our main goal was to locate a ring repair place to see about fixing my broken ring (did I mention it broke a few days ago for no apparent reason?) It didn’t take long in the smouldering heat to find a place that would fix it. For a whopping $7! Yikes. They did what looked like a great job, so I paid them $10. Still together, so it appears to be worth it. We looked around for a bit, got a couple souvenirs and made our way back to the dock. We got on board, got cleaned up, met up with Gramma and Nichole and got ready to set off.

We made a quick decision to head to the aft deck on the 14th & 15th floors for some sail-away photos. Nichole played around in a nice patch of grass (really, real grass) that we had found before on floor 15 while we watched St. Maarten fade away into the distance. We then had to rush back to get ready for our 18:00 supper time, but once again, trying to do anything quick with a grumpy 6 year old is not easy, and we finally made an appearance about 15 minutes late. Supper was great again, the service fantastic, and to leave the evening on a high note Nichole and I left before desert to read a book and get ready for bed.

The night did finish positive, and as I finish typing this I hope to find myself having one of the longest stints in bed since the start of our travel. If my stomach allows it! And after that, only 2 more days at sea, one in the air, and home to school and work.

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Tuesday January 21, 2014. 17:13
Day 4 - St. Thomas

Today we woke up to the amazing coastline of St. Thomas.  We had to be up and out early, and this morning with a 6 year old that wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. We did have time for a rushed breakfast before getting off the ship around 08:05, but had to run back on for our beach towels.  Just off the gangway we got some photos with a pirate and his wench, and still made our 08:30 meeting for our catamaran with “Stars and Stripes”, and for the most part everything went really well.

We had a great journey to Buck Island (Ship Wreck Cove), and had a wonderful trip back, and from what I hear the snorkeling was really good too! By the time I got Nichole ready to go, got her in the water, got her right back out of the water, got her dried off and calmed down (apparently she’s not ready for snorkeling) and accepted Captain Kyle’s generous offer to watch her while Mandi and I went out, we had a little more then enough time to circle our boat before getting packed up to go, and other than a couple steal wrecks and a few fish, that wasn’t the most exciting place to swim. Although from what I heard, the swimmers that got going on time were given a tour and an explanation of what they were seeing. It was a bit annoying, but Kyle and his crew, Val & Mel were extremely pleasant and helpful, and made thetrip as good as it could have been. We bought a shirt each and left a $30 tip (I hope that’s fair for 2 adults and a kid), and Nichole got to steer for a few minutes, which really made her day. There was one other girl her age as well who didn’t last in the water any longer then Nichole, but she had someone with her that wasn’t going in to sit with her while everyone else had their fun. I was happy to hear Mom (Gramma) really enjoyed it, so that is good.

After the catamaran we came back on board the Reflection to drop off our gear, grab some lunch and drop off Nichole at “Fun Factor”. We ended up splitting away from the family for the afternoon and doing our own shopping, but found them and were joined by Mom. Even though, in the end, it sounded like we all went to the same places anyway. This time I had brought a pill bottle with me to collect some St Thomas sand, but we were having a hard time finding any beach close by. The guy at the Flip Flop store suggested we walk 5 minutes further around the bay and there would be a small patch of beach we could get sand at, but not really enjoy as a beach. After about a 10 minute walk, we did find it, and he was right. Perfect for what I wanted. And, after watching an ambulance go by, I decided to ask a local where a fire dept. might be, and to my surprise there was one just around the corner, hardly out of sight! And, they had shirts for sale! So of course I got one.  And right across the street there was a massive bazaar. Great for grabbing a couple souvenirs and a colorful purse for Mandi.

We caught the $4 per person shuttle back to the port, checked out a couple more shops, realized that plain gold bands are no cheaper here (did I mention my wedding ring broke a couple days ago? Cracked clean through, no idea how or why) then at home, but did buy a pair of souvenir drumsticks. We got back in line for our boat, got back on, got organized, got Nichole from the kids club (she claimed to be sick, didn’t look like it!) and came back to the room. We had thought we would rest for a few minutes before getting some homework done, but she wouldn’t have it. She through a fit, and we pretty much did nothing until our 18:00 reservation for supper.

Once again, supper was great, and after we ate we got Nichole back to the room and into bed before asking Gramma to baby-sit for a bit while we checked out the cruises night life. We went for ice cream (self made banana splits once someone brought out some bananas) in the restaurant, learnt some Hungarian from one of the table staff, had a refresher on my Kenyan, and checked out the pool deck. Pretty dead, so we carried onto the forward of the boat. We checked out Karaoke, then stopped in at the theatre to see what was happening.

Now, I’ve been pretty spoiled with cruises over the last few years, but this one is remarkably different in many ways, as I’ve said before. Tonight I was reminded once again I was on a normal cruise when, as we entered the apparently full theater, the first thing we noticed where all the power carts and walkers parked at the top of the stairs. Although I’m sure many would have loved them on Ships N Dip and The Rock Boat, I don’t remember seeing even one. We also witnessed a lady scolding the man with her for wandering to far ahead with her cane. Come on, man, wise up! After that we made our way back to our room, I typed this, Mandi fell asleep reading, and this is how our day ended. Up in 8 hours for Scuba diving and a stroll down “Airport Beach” Have a good night, yall!

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Monday January 20, 2014. 16:25
Day 3 - Puerto Rico

This morning I woke up with a sore throat and a headache, and I wasn’t ready for the day. We all attempted to go to the Opus dining hall for brunch, but contrary to what Natalia told us last night, there was a dress code in effect, and Lee’s sleeveless shirt didn’t cut it. So Lee and Lisa went else where while the rest of us wasted our time at the fancy buffet with ice sculptures and the likes. I think the Ocean View buffet would have been more my style, with all the same food and a fraction of the line ups.

Before brunch I went to the shop to get some Halls and something for my headache, as well as stopping at the shore excursions desk with a $10 coupon for my dive trip to be credited to my bill. The Halls helped a bit, but afterbrunch I decided to go have a steam shower and attempt to clear my head. It helped a bit, but I still opted out of the mid day activities and slept for a few hours while everyone else hung out by the pool.

Around 14:00 current time I got up to go for a pre-port meal with everyone else, and just missed some great shots of Old Town San Juan (I did get a few as we docked). I did eat a bit, and we got ready to go to land. After a bit of back and forth, and some more waiting, we got out to the dock, and Nichole lost it. She was hot, the sun was bright, she wanted in the water, nothing could make her happy. So after a bit of thought, I took her to the Fun Factory for the afternoon. This was probably for the best as going store-to-store with Troy, Lee & Lisa was no travel.

Finally, while Troy was shopping for a purse, Mandi, Mom & I split off to get a closer look at the Fort. We didn’t actually get into the fort, but we had a good walk around the walls. On the way, I bought a bottle of water from a small shop that looked like a private house selling beverages to passerby’s in order to have something to put some sand in. There are more cats here then people, I think! Wow. In the end, we got some pictures, pet somecats, met some people, got some sand, and bought some souvenirs.

As the sun finished going down and the town got dark, we made our way back the ship. Mom was looking everywhere for a mailbox, and finally stopped in to the Sheraton to inquire, and they put her post cards in their mailbox for her. So easy. The mailboxes we did find seemed bolted shut. As we tried one, some other girls commented that they all were like that. Maybe it’s due to today being “Martin Luther King Jr” day. Not sure.  I have read that in "Warm Climate Cultures" such as Puerto Rico, it is considered extremely embarrassing not to be able to assist someone with things like directions or finding amenities in your own town, so it is likely all of the wrong directions we were given were given knowing they were wrong, but giving wrong directions to tourists was better then admitting that they just didn't know.

We got back on the boat, got Nichole (who had a fun afternoon by the sounds of it), paid the $12 for the 2 hour “Supper While At Port” fee that they charge, and came back to the room. We finally agreed to go for supper with Mom. We did check out our designated table, but (probably for the better, time-wise) that option was out, so we made our way to the buffet and had a quick meal.

After, back at the room we met up with Troy, Lee & Lisa who had just got back on board and were heading for supper now. We got into our room and got Nichole to bed, and got some other things organized. Tomorrow will be an early morning on the catamaran, so good sleep tonight is a must. I got some pictures as we set sail, checked out some of the evening entertainment (found Lee and Troy taking part in Battle Of The Sexes), got my gear ready for snorkeling, and finally to bed like my daughter and wife before me!

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Sunday January 19, 2014. 16:25
Day 2 - Out in a Boat

First morning at sea and the sea legs are working just fine. The sea stomach was unsure about it for a good part of the night, but it didn’t get to upset. We had our first morning family meeting leaning over our balconies as we passed within sight of Guanahani Island (to our west, as everything we see from our rooms is).

We met up with Uncle Troy and Gramma for breakfast buffet at the Sunview dining hall on the 14th floor, which was pretty good, more than enough. After breakfast we went to check the youth program. We got there at 11:00. We found out the morning program went until noon, and the afternoon program started at 14:00. We decided to go swimming until then, which turned into gramma & Nichole in the small pool and Mandi & I in the deep pool. The pool guy put up a volley ball net, so we smacked the ball around with a couple other guys before joining them in the shallow pool. Troy, Lee & Lisa were out by this time, but only Troy and Lee came in to play. Mom wouldn’t take Nichole into the hut tub as the sign said no one under 16 allowed, even though other kids were there. We allowed her to later on.

The wind started picking up and it started cooling down, and it was nearing cupcake decorating time in the youth area, so we packed up and came back to our room to get Nichole ready for her afternoon of fun. The plan was for her to stay right through until we were done our formal supper, but we ended up picking her up for some homework time around 16:30 and Gramma took her back there just before 18:00. Nichole wore her Minnie Mouse dress for her kids supper while we were getting dressed up for ours. I was disappointed to find out that my free tux rental they offered me was cancelled due to availability. Nice. Good thing Mandi and I went shopping after dropping Nichole off earlier and I picked up a pair of linen pants and a long sleeve linen shirt, which I ended up wearing. No one even commented on it. Also, as the girls were working on home work, Troy & I did some looking around at the shops, but just looking.

Supper was good, I had a rack of lamb, which I admit I prefer pork ribs over any day. Mandi had frogs legs, webbed feet and all. We were informed we need to change our clocks ahead for our next 3 days at port (so this 21:58 post is really like 22:58), which Mandi did immediately. We left supper around 20:15, dropped off the camera at the room and went to pick up Nichole. We got through our bedtime routine relatively painlessly (including Nichole’s shower) and got her into bed a bit later then we wanted.

All in all I think it was a good day, I think my stomach is starting to accept the waves. I’m a bit annoyed by the number of crew who tell me I need to put “slippers” on, even when I explain to them bare foot cruising helps prevent an upsetstomach for me. I will persist! So far, it’s been fun, but not as good as my experiences on Carnival and Norwegian for the most part, and not even close to my experiences on Ships N Dip and The Rock Boat. We’ll see how the next few days go, and I’ll judge at the end. For now, it’s off to Neverland!

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Saturday January 18, 2014. 17:42
Day 1 - Celebrity Reflection

This morning Mandi and I got up and got ready while Nichole and Grandma toured around the hotel. We went for breakfast with Mom, Troy, Lee & Lisa at the local Dunkin Donuts before heading to Wal-Mart to pick up some last minute items, including a watch for diving as I had forgotten mine at home (and Mandi got one as well for everyday use). Troy gifted me a pair of sunglasses last night as he had bought 2 new ones, so that was one less thing I needed, but we did pick up a clip-on set for Nichole while at Wal-Mart. We also got some cream for my bug bites. I really need those to go away. We grabbed (and paid for) a few other odds and ends, and headed to MIA to return our rental car. On the way, we happened to stop at a light beside a taxi with people we new! They were my Mom, my 2 brothers and my brother’s girlfriend! Funny that we would happen to come up beside them getting onto the freeway. It didn’t take us too long to drop our car off and catch the shuttle to the port, but it would have been quicker if Thrifty Rent-A-Car hadn’t added extra insurance, drop charge and other fees onto my bill. They did remove the insurance and $100 drop charge for us relatively painlessly, which was nice, but it got us to the port later then we wanted and put us in the middle of a huge crowd of pre-cruisers.

After going through all the lines and checkpoints, we were happy to finally be aboard the Celebrity Reflection. We were able to get into our rooms right away (balcony room 7336 for us), only to learn that the toilets weren’t flushing. We called Guest Services and they informed us they were fixing a main line plumbing issue. Things were moving properly after a couple hours. We met up with everyone else (our rooms are all side-by-side), and talked about the plans for the evening. We had boarded by about 13:30, got organized, received our luggage, went for a quick walk and before we new it it was almost 15:30 and time for our muster drill.

Once that was over, we booked a family catamaran for the first part of our day in St. Thomas, and Troy & I booked our Scuba Dives for our morning in St. Maarten. We then inquired about splitting Troy & Mom up, but were told it was a sold out cruise. Wow, good on them I guess, we’ll see how the week goes. Around this time, our ship started moving out of port, so I came back to the room to get some pictures. We were on the east side of the ship (the starboard side, in this case) so the view from our room was docked ships, sea-cans and the goings-ons of an industrial port on a Saturday afternoon, so we got our swimming stuff and went up top and port side to get some shots of Miami Beach as we sailed off into the opposite of sunset (east and away from it).

We played in the pool until 17:00 before getting back to our rooms to get ready for supper. Tonight the dress code was supposed to be “Smart Casual” (pants, shoes, collar shirt) but due to some delays in luggage was changed to “relaxed”. We did try to fit the “Smart Casual” description, but I quickly realized I had forgotten my extra pants, and the pair I wore on the plane had torn beyond repair so I chucked them while at Disney World. We went to our assigned table for our first supper, and while in line I checked at guest services about the level of which dining attire was enforced, and when they learnt that I forgot my pants, they offered me a free tux rental for dinner tomorrow. Nice. The hard part was I had to fill out my sizing on the rental form. Good thing I tried on a suit at Cross Iron Mills a week ago!

We were seated at our table (250 in the Opus hall on the 3rd floor) which will be our table for the whole cruise (same time, place and service staff). We managed to get Nichole to wear her new orange and black Minnie Mouse dress, which was a huge hit among diners and staff alike. Natalia will be our waitress this week (she taught me that “spaseeba?” is Russian for thank you) and Philip from the Philippines is our bartender, so I get to use “salamont” when thanking him, I learnt that a few cruises ago, and I can’t remember what our wine-guy’s name is, but he brings the wine so I don’t really have to thank him for much at all. The food was really good (I think I’m getting spoiled, or maybe I’m just not a food connoisseur) so I ate my fill. Nichole didn’t eat much as normal, and on the whole, the meal went pretty well. After supper we made our way back to our room and got ready for bed.

Nichole spent a good 30 minutes tucking her sheets in on her bunk bed, only to have me untuck it all to get her in it. She was exceptionally cranky tonight, so it took us longer then I wanted to get her ready for the night, but when she actually laid her head down and closed her eyes she was out in seconds. After such a whirlwind day and crazy evening, I was happy to take a breather and “some time away from the group” (code for bathroom break) only to realize that my wedding ring was cracked right through on the back. I’m pretty sure last time it was fixed they warned me that it was very thin and if it broke again it wouldn’t be fixable without adding more money in gold then what a new one would cost, so I think it’s time to check out other options (for a ring, I mean). What a way to end the day. So, tomorrow I use a rental tux for supper, and Monday I’ll be pants shopping in Porto Rico. Due to lack of free internet, this will be posted after the trip is over, but like I said, this is more for me than for you.

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Saturday January 18, 2014. 05:00

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