Mike's and My 15th Anniversary Cruise!

Ok, I don't know if I really believed this would ever happen, but Mommy and Daddy promised us a romantic cruise on our own (we pay - they keep the kids home) for our 15th anniversary if we got married in the Catholic church.

Well, that was all the incentive Mike needed. He basically said "Name the time, and I'll be there."

We had a lovely ceremony at our church 1/18/07, with the boys and my parents there. It was so romantic to look eachother in the eye & repeat those same vows after all this time. I mean really. How often do we look at eachother after 15 years & say anything remotely romantic to eachother? Next to never! So I loved it, and the boys were so thrilled to be at our wedding.

So, Mommy & Daddy kept the boys while Mike and I jetted off to Miami to board the NCL Jewel for 7 glorious nights of cruising to San Juan, St. Thomas, Antigua, and NCL's private island Great Stirrup Cay.

The cruise itself could not have been more amazing. We loved every port & met some great people. I got lots of sun, and we relaxed, and got reacqainted, and loved every minute of it! We spent our actual anniversary 1/22 eating lobster at two different restaurants that night.

The only bad things we experienced all had to do with Miami. The airport sucks, the employees there suck, the cabs suck, the hotel sucked, the transportation from the hotel to the port sucked, the traffic at the port sucked, the port sucked.........you get the picture.

But let's focus on the good. Let me dig out my photos..................

Mike at Senor Frogs

In San Juan we did a little window shopping in town, hung out at Senor Frogs, another little outdoor cafe, and walked up to Fort San Cristobal, which was beautiful. The view was amazing.

Fort San Cristobal

On the ship we met a very nice couple. In Antigua, we decided Mike and I would hang out at Jolly Beach with Deb, while Steve did the canopy zip line. We all had a blast. The locals did bug the living crap out of us on the beach, though, trying to sell us things left & right. I bought several delicious coconuts & some lovely jewelry. But we thought Mike was going to be hacked to pieces by a guy with a machete who very rudely interrupted our conversation and then got mad at Mike when he quickly said "Oh, no thank you." The guy said "I asked you HOW YOU DOIN' MAHN?!" He gave Mike such a look as he mumbled some curse words at him and walked away with the machete. Needless to say, I didn't buy my coconuts from him. The funny thing was, not 30 minutes later, he walked up to Mike & said "You want to buy some ganja, man?" and then later walked by all of us mumbling "Ganja, skunk weed...." Needless to say, we didn't take him up on that either. The beach was gorgeous though. We went into the little village at the port and did some window shopping. Deb ended up winning approx. $2500 worth of jewelry in a drawing, which was exciting.

In St. Thomas, the four of us met up at Magen's Bay, which was amazing. Mike & I got off the ship quickly, so we got to the bay while the locals were still having their morning walks, and we met some very nice people who own some amazing property/homes all around the bay, up the hillside. Can you imagine?! One of the guys owned the concession at the beach & must be really raking it in. Rough life. We watched the pelicans dive bombing fish all around us before the crowd showed up. That was fun. Mike cracked me up while we were swimming. We were standing in the water talking, and all of a sudden we see a tiny head poke up out of the water and swimming toward us. Mike asked "What the hell is that?" and kept asking that as it's getting closer and closer. I was steadily running backward yelling "I don't know, and I'm not sticking around the find out!" The security guard said it was probably a sea turtle, and that they're not very common around there anymore, because everyone eats them. We did a bit of shopping at the port, but didn't go crazy.

Oh, a cool thing happened as we were coming into port at sunrise in St. Thomas. I was on the balcony, trying to get some pictures of the fortresses on either side of the port, and the sun hadn't come over the hillside yet. When I looked at the digital pictures that were taken in the dark, there were approx. 15 to 20 orbs in each photo. Very interesting, and it makes sense with the old fortresses, pirate history, etc. The photos taken as the sun was coming up over the hill had none.

Our last stop was NCL's private island, Great Stirrup Cay. This was the only place we had to tender to shore, and it wasn't bad at all. The island was very pretty. We got there early enough to reserve chairs for all 4 of us at the small beach area. Mike & I hiked for about 2 hours to the other side of the island to see the lighthouse. They had an old helipad, which was jokingly named "Great Stirrup Cay International Airport". The island used to belong to an oil company before NCL bought it in the 70s, from what we heard.

Unfortunately, Mike got sick the last night of the cruise, and I got to be the 3rd wheel with Deb & Steve at dinner & the show. All the shows onboard were amazing, especially Cirque Bijou, which is their version of Cirque du Soleil. People were screaming, because we couldn't believe some of the things those gymnast/contortionists can do!

We had a great time celebrating our 15th anniversary & enjoyed our 1st romantic cruise together. Now, maybe Mommy & Daddy will agree to keep the boys for 2 weeks, so we can go on one of those incredible European river cruises we've been dreaming about!!!