JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Day 5

On Valentine's Day, we docked in Sint Maarten, the Dutch side of the island.  The French side is spelled Saint Martin, if you're concerned about island spelling. 

I was really excited to see a Holland America ship when we arrived in St. Maarten.  Zooming in confirmed that it was the Westerdam in the port, which is the boat that I was on last year on JoCo Cruise Crazy 2!  

Still love the blue hulls, even if the average passenger age is 82.

We queued up to get off the ship extra early that day, given our experience the previous day. While in line, we met Jen, who I only knew from internetting with Sea Monkeys.  It was great to finally be able to meet her in person! Hooray for name tags!

No, the fisheye lens isn't getting old anytime soon.

We had booked a tour on the island separately from the ship excursions through Bernard's Tours.  I'd read good reviews on the internet, and knew that they went to both Orient and Maho beaches.  I really wanted to see both of those places and there wasn't a ship excursion that went to both of them.  Booking the island tour through Bernard's was only marginally more expensive than taking  cabs would have been.  We boarded our bus and were greeted by our guide for the day, named "Sexy," who I had read about on the internet, but not in a creepy way.  He had an excellent knowledge of the island and shared interesting facts as he drove.  

Our first stop was to see some iguanas. From pictures on the internet, I was guessing it was just a bunch of dirt with some iguanas, but apparently they have been working on turning it into a proper park and have been putting a lot of effort into landscaping and fencing.  It looks like it's going to be very nice when it's finished.  As promised, there were quite a few iguanas.  The guide fed them iceberg lettuce. 

Technically touching the iguana, but only technically. 

In addition to iguanas, there were quite a few ducks and roosters, which seem to be strangely common in the Caribbean.  

I am such a badass.

Our next stop was brief, at a scenic overlook.  As promised, it was scenic.  

I was pleased to see the clouds were largely clearing off by the time we got to Orient Beach.  We spent about 1.5 hours here, which was a good amount of time to enjoy the beach.  For $10 we had the use of two beach chairs, and umbrella, and received one drink each.  It's not a Caribbean island until somebody has handed you a rum punch.  It rained for about 10 minutes toward the end of our stay and the bathrooms ran out of water (which of course precludes toilets flushing), but the beach itself was beautiful.  

We hopped back in the bus and were driven to plaza-type place that had a pastry shop that our guide recommended (at times we wondered what kind of kick-backs the tour company gets from all the places they took us to, but they were all quality places so I really can't complain).  We were hungry after the beach, so decided to take him up on his recommendation. 

As promised, the pastries were very good. 

Finally, it was time for the entire reason that Jay bought a fisheye lens and what I'd been ecstatic about seeing since I first learned that we were going to St. Maarten: Maho Beach!  The airport on the island is directly across the street from the beach, so approaching planes are flying very low.  Mostly smaller planes fly in, but they do get a few large jets every day.  Our guide had timed the visit so that we would be able to see a flight from Air France arrive.   There were a few planes before the Air France jet, including a Delta jet, so we were able to get quite a few shots.  It was awesome.  The ones that Jay took with the fisheye lens are fantastic. 

Boring lens, but exciting airplane!

After about a 7-hour tour, we were back at the ship.  After, of course, stopping at a little souvenir shop by the port where they had KINDER EGGS!!  And I did stuff my pockets full of choke-y chocolates that are banned in the U.S.  As I didn't particularly want to find out how serious the U.S. is about the $300 Kinder Egg fine, rest assured, they were consumed before we arrived back in the U.S.  And nobody choked to death even a little bit. 

I like to toe lines like that. 

Not only is that a semi-appropriate segue, but it's also the last photo that I took with my camera before dropping it on the concrete pier.  After dropping my camera, it took photos like this one: 

It's artistic, I guess. 

My camera has been sent off to hopefully be repaired.  Jay was kind enough to lend me his Canon point-and-shoot camera. 

Due to not having a camera that could take good low-light photos of movement, I don't have any pictures of that night's concert, which featured Joseph Scrimshaw and Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett.  All performers were great.  It was the first time that I had seen Scrimshaw because his show on the previous cruise was a late-night  thing and I get very eyes-closed-and-dead-to-the-world after about 10 PM, so I was glad to be able to see him this year.  Incidentally, all of the performers from that night are Minnesotans.  :^)

That night, we returned to find that our room steward had gone all out for the Valentine's Day towel animal!

Aw!

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Day 4

Busy day!  We docked in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, but not until 11 AM or so, which means there was a morning to pack full of stuff, and boy was it ever!

We decided to do room service breakfast because our day was packed from 8 AM on.  It was a little tricky to figure out how the menu worked.  Apparently "1 toast" literally meant one slice of toast gingerly wrapped in a napkin on a plate, under a plate cover, which probably has a name.  On the other hand, "1 pastry plate" meant 4 pastries.  I ordered eggs, which turned out to be smart, for it would be a while before we would see food again. [FORESHADOWING]

First we had the group photo up on the pool deck.  One of my least favorite features of the ship was the giant blaring TV behind the pool that prevented us from being able to hear anything the photographer said.  This is why I tended to prefer the adults-only Solarium pool and hot tubs-- no obnoxious TV to get in the way of swimming in a pool on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.  I was never even cognizant of what was actually on the TV; it had the same aural effect as late-night infomercials. 

So yes, the photo.  It was taken.  At 8 AM.  I'm kind of surprised that so many people showed up, but it certainly wasn't all 700mumblemumble of us. 

At 9 AM, we had the entertainer Q&A, which is always a lot of fun.  And by "always" I mean "both times I've gone."  It basically extrapolates to always.  The Q&A started off with Wil Wheaton being almost-eaten by a horse. 

It was vicious. And nobody could stop it. 

David Rees led the Q&A by moderately ridiculing the question-askers and sometimes his fellow performers. There was a grumpy cat, which is about how anybody feels about being up at 8 AM on vacation. 

David Rees, suspiciously chipper at 9 AM.

Kevin Murphy, John Hodgman, John Roderick, Paul Sabourin, Jonathan Coulton, Storm DiCostanzo,
Bill Corbett, Joseph Scrimshaw, Wil Wheaton, Mike Phriman, Angela & Aubrey Webber  

Immediately after the Q&A, we stood in line to get off the ship in St. Thomas.  The line was ridiculous, and we had an excursion scheduled for 15 minutes after the ship was cleared to let people off.  I couldn't remember the ID requirements for the USVI, so I packed my passport card, but I'd forgotten to tell Jay to do the same, which I still feel bad about.   He went back for his ID, and it probably took him about 45 minutes (which is the amount of time that I use for something that is indeterminately long-ish).  Meanwhile, I had retrieved our wristbands from the person in charge of herding us to our excursion and received instructions that I may need to run.  When Jay finally got off the boat, it was about 5 minutes after everybody else had gone to the little boat that was going to ferry us to St. John.  I had a back-up plan (using the municipal ferry), but didn't particularly want to resort to that because we'd already paid for this! Fortunately, we made it onto the boat, slightly sweaty and grumpy, but we made it!

It was about a 40-minute ferry ride over to St. John, during which I'm sure the driver was telling us many fascinating things about the islands that we could not hear at all.  When we arrived at the island, the people who were on the Shopping/History tours left the boat and we were able to move up to the top to enjoy actual fresh air for our cruise up the coast.  The guide pointed out all the major beaches up the coast of St. John, which was handy in deciding what to do later. We also learned about some hiking trails, which sounded wonderful if I was inclined to go hiking in mountains in 80 degree heat.  Which I was not.  

After the coastal tour, we were let off next to the National Parks visitor center for about 3 hours of free time.  So, yes, this was my ulterior motive in the excursion to St. John.  In my quest to visit ALL the national parks, I can now cross the Virgin Islands National Park off my list.  :^)

Oh, did I mention that we hadn't eaten a single morsel of food since breakfast at 7 AM and it was now about 1 PM?  We walked a few blocks and found a nice deli-type place with some nice drinkie-type things. 

Worst best pun ever.  Also, the root beer was tasty. 

Ah.  Much improved.  :^)  We started looking for a cab to Trunk Bay after lunch, and apparently had the lost look of people with money in need of transportation to exchange it for, so that took all of about 15 seconds.  We were assured that not only was she a taxi, but she was the best taxi on the whole island!  Taxis in St. John appeared to be universally pick-up trucks with the beds modified to have three benches and a canopy.  Shortly after we left, she picked up three women who spent the entire ride complaining about how she was going too fast and was too close to the center line and was too close to the edge of the road and they felt like they were going to die and wanted to get out.  We were glad to be rid of them when we exited the taxi in Trunk Bay. 

I was really excited to go to Trunk Bay because I'd read about their snorkel trail with underwater signage and beautiful coral and tons of pretty fish.  Unfortunately, the snorkel trail was closed that day due to rough surf.  Considering the ouchiness of rocks and coral, I wasn't too inclined to ignore the closure.  I was a little bummed, but we were assured by some men leaving that the beach and water were still fantastic and worth the $4 admission fee. 

Oh, and it was. 

There couldn't have been more than 15 people on the beach.  It was fabulous.  We spent an hour frolicking in the waves, ingesting more than a little salt water, and generally having a good time.  Definitely worth it; St. John is a place I would love to spend more time exploring.  But alas, it was time to get a taxi back to our boat that would take us back to St. Thomas to our bigger boat before said bigger boat left without us. 

The sun was setting as we approached St. Thomas.  A beautiful end to a beautiful day. 

Our dinner seating was at 5:30 and I think we got back to the ship around 5 or so.  Not terribly inclined to get cleaned up for dinner, so we headed straight to the Windjammer buffet for food.  We caught the last glimpses of St. Thomas at night before we sailed away. 

I promise he's just tired, not grumpy.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3, Day 3

Hooray!  Sea day!

After the hectic embarkation day and slightly less hectic day in the Bahamas, we had a relaxing morning/afternoon with nothing scheduled until the concert at 2 PM. 

After breakfast, where we were thankfully seated far from the Dreamworks Character Breakfast, we explored the ship a bit, ending up far aft on the sports deck, where the Flow Rider surf simulator resides.  I had not the slightest inclination to try it because I figured that being bruised and achy wouldn't make for a very fun rest of the cruise.  It was fun to watch, though!

Incidentally, also a great non-crowded place on the ship

I didn't photograph anything else before lunch, so I'm guessing that we suited up and went in the hot tub and/or the Grown Ups Pool. I probably had some ice cream from the poolside softserve machine, named Sprinkles.  It does not have sprinkles.  

Before we knew it, it was time for concert number 3! This one featured Mike Phirman, John Roderick, and Zoe Keating. 

Every day is Mike Phirman's birthday. Now I know why.

I bought Jay an album by the Long Winters, which is basically John Roderick, in advance of the cruise.  I think he liked it.  And I think he really liked Roderick live, because in between songs, he leaned over and asked "is anything he does NOT awesome?"  The answer is very much no. He does nothing not awesome.  We were also treated to a new song by John Roderick, which was a pretty great surprise.  And, of course, no show would be complete without Roderick Tunes Things.  

Tuning like a ROCK star

And then there was Zoe Keating.  Zoe plays the cello.  Understatement of the year.  What she does is make interwoven threads of magic waft from her cello that entrance you into losing yourself in her music. She records loops live and adds/substracts them using her computer.  It's so seamless that you wouldn't notice that she was doing it live unless somebody told you first.

She's a magician!

We had a little time after the concert to stop by the 24/7 JCCC3 game room and peruse the various offerings and signage.  One of my favorite additions this year was analog Yelp.  Here are some of my favorites.  And you'd better believe I reviewed "Sprinkles," land of NO sprinkles!

"A Waste of Cool Whip."

"Technically it's food."
If you added enough crushed pepper, you didn't have to feel the pizza in your mouth.

Dinner was decidedly more food-like than the promenade pizza. Whenever a cold soup is offered on a cruise ship, I take it.  They're almost always delicious.  

Kind of like if melted ice cream were the salad course

The vegetarian fare so far was impressive, and Tuesday night was no exception. 

Spinach-stuffed shells

Finally, the only reason that anybody ever eats dinner (or maybe it's just me), dessert.  It was like a meringue except not except yes.  I don't know, it was fantastic. 

And pretty, too!

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Day 2

Hooray for tropical beaches!  Day 2, Monday, we anchored at Coco Cay, which is Royal Caribbean's private island in the Bahamas.  I noticed that we were very near the Norwegian Pearl, which means that CoCo Cay must be close to Great Stirrup Cay, NCL's equivalent Bahamian paradise.  A fact that I feel the need to comment on due to the amount of brain space that not remembering the name of NCL's island took up on that morning.  The curse of the Wifi Temperance Brigade* is that you sometimes have to settle for just not knowing something. The horrors!

[*] Oh, yeah, I may have neglected to mention that on Day 1, Jay and I took David Rees' pledge to abstain from all internetting during the cruise, including the ship's WiFi, WiFi on the islands, and even the local Twit-ARR client that fellow sea monkeys set up on the ship for inter-seamonkey communication.  Being disconnected is great, and cruises are one of the few reasonable vacation options remaining that incentivize fully disconnecting from our information tethers. 

So anyway, beach day!  Hooray! The day began with a beautiful view of the sunrise from our balcony. 

On the previous JoCo cruise, I discovered dining in the main dining room for breakfast rather than the buffet on the last couple of days.  It's much more relaxing and the food is a bit better, so this time we decided to start the week off right away by breakfasting in the main dining room.  The French toast was delicious.  

OM NOM NOM

After breakfast, we took a tender over to the island.   

The itty bitty ship in the distance is the Norwegian Pearl

My big plan for the day was snorkeling.  I wasn't really planning on seeing much in the way of fish, because there's not really any coral action at CoCo Cay, but being from Minnesota, anytime a body of water is not murky and the bottom not sludgy, I get really excited.  Also, water warmer than 50ºF is a huge bonus.  I'm really easy to please. 

Look at me!  I'm in water!

There was lunch, and sandcastles, and swimming, and lounging.  The only moderate downside was when I ended up with a slight hive-like rash.  It went away shortly after we returned to the ship, after I'd been out of the sun for a while. 

Chess pieces.  Because, hey, geek cruise. 

We headed back not too long after lunch, because we needed to get ready for the evening festivities.  

Boat! It's a boat!

Dinner that that night was tasty, but dessert stole the show.  That cheesecake featured heavily in my dreams that night.   

Monday was the first formal night aboard and was also the Third Annual Paul F. Tompkins Memorial Mustache Formal and Fezstravaganza.  He's not dead.  Mustaches were provided. 

The mustache, I've decided, is only a good look for Magnum P.I.

Immediately following the Fezstravaganza, there was a John Hodgman vs. David Rees DJ-off dance party.  I'm surprised that I stayed awake for as much of it as I did. 

The Hodgman

Eventually, I did have to call it a night.  It was a tough call, but at some point during the week, sleeping needed to be done. 

Towel dude stole my shades!

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Day 1

This was a day of much chaos.  First, there was "ALL the people leave the Radisson at once."  We were on the 10:30 AM shuttle over to the cruise port.

Canvas bags of swag! They contained  totem animals.
I was a moose and Jay was a fox. Do with that what you will.

Once we made it to the cruise port, the wait was fairly reasonable.  It was about 45 minutes before we were on the boat, Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas.  Then there was the chaos of feeding ALL the people simultaneously at the Windjammer buffet on board.  I was just happy that the four of us found a place to sit. Forks proved a good defense against would-be chair thieves.  Normally I'm a fan of taking the first day to explore the boat, but there was just too much boat.  We had our carry-on bags with us and were tired and wanted to relax.  I'd had the foresight to pack my bathing suit in my carry-on and instructed Jay to do the same, so we were able to take advantage of the completely vacant cantilevered hot tubs. That's right.  The hot tub hangs over the side of the boat.  On Deck 11.  And holds 22 people, in theory, though probably only if they *really* like each other in practice.  It was not as scary as I thought it would be, and what a view we had.

Mostly the view was parking lot. 

After that, it was time to see if our stateroom was ready, and lo! It was.  The Freedom doesn't have as much shelf space as the Holland America Westerdam did last year (on JoCo Cruise Crazy 2), but it was plenty workable for two people.  Which is to say that I commandeered all of the shelves.

Room built for two.  Barely.

We then changed over to our evening attire and this is where I need to rely on my photos to remember all of the fun that transpired.

On our balcony in port, already exhausted and the fun hasn't even begun!

First we headed to the complimentary JCCC3 socializing with tropical beverages hour in the place that is normally the boat's ice skating rink, which is insane.

I spy a JoCo!

Then there was dinner, which was relatively tasty considering that cruise lines don't really cater to vegetarians.

I think this was called "tortillas." Really.

Next up: our first concert of the week courtesy of The Jonathan Coulton Band.  It was a great way to start off the week.

Fog for extra rock star glamour. 

    

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Day 0

Last week was my second time on a JoCo Cruise.  You can read more about the cruise and entertainment here.  The information is currently for JCCC3, but will change over to the soon-to-be-announced JCCC4 in due time.  In any case, the idea is the same: 700 geeks go on a boat ride and awesome transpires. 

Owing to unpredictable winter weather, we decided to head to Port Canaveral a day early to ensure that we would not miss the boat.  This turned out to be a good thing for myself and the two friends traveling with me, as the Twin Cities was due to get a snow storm on Saturday night, about 8 hours after our flight out. The timing did make things, however, a little iffy for Jay, who was flying out of Philadelphia the morning after the Blizzard to End All Blizzards was due to hit the Northeast.  Fortunately the foul weather stayed far north of him and we all made it to Orlando in a timely manner. 

By the time we picked up our luggage, I had been in the Orlando Airport for long enough to already be sick of everything Orlando had to offer, all of which seemed to involve over-stimulated, over-tired children.  Which is to say, about 20 minutes. Fortunately, our pre-arranged shuttle was there, and we gleefully hopped on with a few fellow Sea Monkeys, which is how we refer to ourselves in the third person.  We marveled at how easy it was to identify groups of Sea Monkeys amid the chaos at MCO. The nerdy t-shirts, beards, long hair in braids, Five Fingers, and fezzes were pretty good giveaways. 

45 minutes or so until we were at the Radisson in Port Canaveral, which has a pretty fantastic pool.

Water! And it isn't frozen!

Unfortunately, we spent over an hour waiting for our room to be ready, but Jay managed to get the front desk to give us free drinks and breakfast for the wait.  So that was nice.  

And then ice cream headaches happened. Worth  it!

Dinner that night was at the pizza place next door, which actually turned out to have decent food.  I don't remember what I ate.  I was hungry. It was food. I devoured it.  After that, a little hanging out in the hot tub and then off to bed to sleep the fitful sleep of a child on Christmas Eve...