Happy Anniversary to us! 8 years can you believe it?! Last month we celebrated our anniversary by taking a trip on a Caribbean cruise. To say this trip was amazing is a major understatement. It was a blast and we did and saw so many wonderful and beautiful things. Let's break down the trip with a massive picture collection as there were too many things to take gorgeous pictures of. We flew to the beautiful island of Puerto Rico to board the ship (which we recommend and will do from now on since you are such closer to all the islands and can see a lot more and you have almost no "sea days" and wake up in a new island everyday). We then visited St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Martin. All were our favorite islands for different reasons.
Jeff was so kind to capture this beautiful moment on our red eye flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, as me, the guys next to us and the lady across the isle are all knocked out. At least my mouth wasn't open.
Getting crazy on deck hammock ontop of the ship
The one downside of the trip...our anniversary always falls on Mother's Day...and I wasn't with my cute boys. I was missing my babies.
DAY 1 - St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
Coki Beach (Virgin Islands) and an iguana hanging out at the beach
Magen's Bay (St. Thomas Virgin Islands)
Blackbeard's old pirate warehouse in Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands
Steps up to Blackbeard's castle
Beautiful murals in Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands
Coki Beach Snorkeling
Coki Beach
Aqua man Jeff @ Coki Beach
This pic Jeff took from our cab window of the beautiful Island on St. Thomas...fun first port city. We loved the island for it's amazing snorkeling, probably the best place to shop of all the islands, and it's cool history of pirates living there and stashing their loot.
Day 2 - Our Day at Sea as we traveled the Caribbean down to Barbados
The second day of the cruise was our only "day at sea" as we had to sail all the way from the US Virgin Islands to Barbados. We spent the day exploring all the ship had to offer which included lots and lots of food. It was also formal night for dinner. Here is Jeff all dressed up with his beloved lobster tail dinner.
Must see video above...wait until the very end when it gets good. The ship also brought in a professional breakdancing duo for the entertainment that night. As we were watching their performance they pulled Jeff (so glad it wasn't me) and some other people up on stage in front of about 300 people looking down from all the deck floors for a dance battle of "So You Think THEY Can Dance?" As they were up there they started cracking jokes at them clearly not thinking any of them could dance. They even pulled up Jeff's pant leg to make him look like LL Cool J before the battle as we was wearing a suit and tie for formal night. They each have to take turns showing there 'best "break dance move". When it is Jeff's turn he acts like he is unassuming and then pulls out the "Worm" break dance move, and the audience and professional dancers were SHOCKED. The crowd went crazy as they didn't think Jeff in is suit and tie could dance. The main professional dancer pulled him over with his mic and said "clearly you have some dance experience". It was really funny. After that night Jeff turned into a celebrity on the ship. People kept coming up to Jeff in the hallways and at dinner saying, "That was awesome man, can't believe you pulled out that move in front of them."
Jeff and his break dance crew
Another funny thing we did on formal night was take "awkward cruise photo" glamour shots. We started making funny poses and laughing and I think the photographers caught wind that we weren't taking it seriously and they got mad.
The awkward "head cup" pose
This picture we were laughing so hard because the angle the picture was taken makes Jeff's forehead look massive
We were going to do a Titanic arm spread pose on this one, but the photographer wasn't having it
Enjoying virgin strawberry pina coladas while sailing the Caribbean
Day 3 - Barbados
We landed in Barbados early in the morning and took a short taxi ride out to Payne's beach.
At Payne's beach we met our little Green Vervet Monkey friend. With Jeff it was fine and calm...
...me on the other hand? Yeah that is me getting attacked by a monkey.
Video...when Monkeys attack
Beautiful waters of Payne Beach
Jeff's brother works in the Caribbean a lot and told us to go out and take a boat to go snorkel with the sea turtles. Barbados is known for all it's sea turtles. We paid a local guy at Payne's Beach to take us on his boat to go to this old shipwreck and snorkel there and swim with the sea turtles. On the way we got to see the beautiful coastline and see where Simon Cowell's summer home is and the hotel where Rihanna was discovered by Randy Jackson. When we got there is was amazing how blue and clear the water was. The video above Jeff got a video of the shipwreck we swam over and all the big fish we swam with, and below Jeff got a good video of the sea turtles that we swam with. Such an amazing experience to be able to swim with these beautiful creatures.
One thing that was great about not having the kids with us is that I got a lot of reading in. I love relaxing and getting into a good book. I think I must have read 4 books on the entire trip. It was amazing.
Goodbye Barbados, we loved you! Although there was a lot of haggling by the locals (more than any of the other islands) we loved the Barbados crystal clear water, the beautiful beaches, and all the wildlife we encountered on the island.
Day 4 - St. Lucia
This is the only day that we did one of the cruise excursions and we are glad we did. Normally, we scoff at the excursions and want to do everything on our own, but Jeff's brother gave us a list of things to do on St. Lucia as it is one of his favorite islands, and we looked at an excursion that was doing all the things on his list and then some for a fraction of the price we were projecting so we took it.
We came into the port of Castries early in the morning and took a charter tour. First stop was to a banana plantation. It was cool to see all the bananas and how they harvest them and to taste very fresh and sweet bananas. We also got some banana ketchup there which was surprisingly really good.
Stopped in an old French fishing village and I got sung to by a guy with a kettle drum who was off tune the entire time. Colors were pretty though.
One of the highlights was this amazing botanical garden in Soufriere. The flowers were GORGEOUS, and the garden was endless beauty.
A gorgeous view of the famous "Pitons" mountain volcanoes and the French fishing town on Soufriere. View was stunning in person.
Getting ready to set sail on a catamaran with lunch around the Pitons and sailing around the island.
We loved sailing on the beautiful catamaran. We sailed around a cove (made famous by the show the Bachelor where Juan Pablo proposed). We had an amazing Jerk Chicken lunch and stopped at a secluded St. Lucian beach for snorkeling and relaxing and then sailed up the island with a quick stop in beautiful Marigot Bay. It was heaven.
Video of our catamaran ride in St. Lucia
Marigot Bay
We loved St. Lucia for it's beautiful scenery. Best views, mountains, botanical gardens. It truly is a paradise
Day 5 - St. Kitts
We hadn't heard many things about St. Kitts before we arrived there, so we weren't expecting much. It turned out to be one of our favorite islands. It was so green and had amazing culture.
Jeff riding a Rastafarian donkey with sunglasses and us holding two monkeys. Enough said.
St. Kitts had amazing old ruins
Beautiful gardens and grounds of Romney Manor
Amazing colors of St. Kitts
We toured the Caribelle Batik factory at Romney Manor and it was interesting how the make the fabric by dipping wax on it and dying it different colors to get the patterns on the fabric.
Beautiful hand made Caribelle Batik fabric
This bell tower is the only one left on the island as it symbolized slavery as they would ring the bell to call in the slaves and the slaves tour them down after they were freed. This one stayed up because the owner of the plantation, Mr. Romney was nice to slaves and they let it stay.
Beautiful pink flower tree
Ate lunch and spent the afternoon on a beautiful beach in St. Kitts
Jeff climbing the palm tree like a monkey
Day 6 - St. Martin/St. Maarten
If we were forced to pick our favorite island. I think Jeff and I both decided that it was St. Martin. Not that the other islands didn't have things that were our favorite characteristics of the islands, but that St. Martin had it all. Of all the islands, this is the one where Jeff and I would actually consider living one day. The island is split into two...the Dutch side St. Maarten and the French side St. Martin. We rented a car and drove up to the French side. Jeff was in heaven. He said he felt like he had been transported back to France but with beautiful blue Caribbean water and palm trees. The island is super developed and it full of actual French citizen expatriates that live there. We went into a grocery store and Jeff said he felt like he was back in France. The scenery was gorgeous and the food was amazing.
Jeff showing his French pride at Fort Louis
Movie of Fort Louis and the city of Marigot
French pastry heaven!!! Disclaimer...we ate a lot!
We had this amazing drink with a fruit called Soursop... now we are on the hunt to find it back here in States.
Conch shell Jeff found while snorkeling on Orient Beach
Relaxing on Orient Beach in St. Martin
Day 7 - Back in Puerto Rico
We were really impressed with Puerto Rico. We got to spend two days here as it was the port of embarkation city and it was amazing to walk around and explore the city of Old San Juan. The colored buildings were incredible and it is a perfect mix of Europe and the Caribbean.
Exploring the sites of old San Juan. Walking the fortress wall around the city.
Jeff doing a karate kick around the wall of San Juan. I was impressed with my photography skills on this one catching him in the air. :)
Beautiful colored buildings
This street was Jeff's favorite. Amazing colors
The Colors of San Juan, Puerto Rico!!!
Me and my sad face that the cruise is over....:(
Plane ride home we had a long layover in Fort Lauderdale, Florida... amazingly beautiful downtown.
Jeff's brother Rob picked us up from the airport in San Jose. He just started a job as a Senior Mobile Web Designer at LinkedIn and his office is in the Googleplex. We had a fun time touring his office before we left home and riding the famous Google bikes. What blew us away was all the free food. We went with him to work and got the freshest breakfast one could ask for...all free. Omlet bar, fresh squeezed orange juice...the works. Then on top of it, by his office is a break room with endless free packages of chips, dispensers that dispense jelly bellys, free cokes in the bottle, San Pellegrinos, Odwalla Juices and Izze drinks. Basically all the expensive things you see at the grocery store and it was all free to take. We must have look like hobos as we were grabbing all that we could before we hit the road. We will be visiting Rob again at work shortly.
