Cruise Day 5

Ok, so this was a see saw of a day. We landed in St. Thomas and had tickets to take a ferry to St. John's and go snorkeling in Trunk Bay. This is something that Neil and I have wanted to do for a LONG time. We weren't 100% sure we'd be able to go with Devin feeling so yucky. But he felt ok enough in the am to eat a little breakfast, take some motrin and off we headed for St. John's at o'dark thirty in the morning.

The weather had been unsettled, and the smallish ferry ride was VERY rough. Julia made it about 10 minutes before she looked green. I, feeling very much the same way, took her as close to the bow as we could get, but it didn't help so much. I had to finally hand her off to Neil, who seemed to be doing better than the rest of us.

It seemed like it took forever (only about 40 minutes) but I was soooo relieved when we finally got there. However, Julia was still not feeling fantastic and the bus ride to Trunk Bay was not so fun either. Fortunately we got to stop a lot for photo ops, so she got a chance to walk around a little and fight off the queasies. I was a total basket case by this point. So NOT relaxed it was crazy.

We made it to Trunk Bay in one piece. What an amazingly gorgeous island this was. Stunningly beautiful. Neil and I have been to enough islands now that we can both say this was one of our favorites. Sadly, with no airport, ferry is the only way to get there. I told him if we ever went back, he'd have to leave me there because I'd never want to get back on that ferry again. So, if you hear I moved to St. John, you'll know why...

The bay was gorgeous, and despite a little hesitation on both kids' parts we all got to do some snorkeling. (Ask Devin what a one horned butt fish is sometime.) The trail is pretty big and Neil and Devin went all the way out to the end of it. One of the more fun moments for me was going out to the second buoy with Devin and seeing some fish in the water. One swam right up to me like he was checking me out. I was cracking up and trying to snap pictures at the same time.

We only had a couple hours at Trunk Bay which was too bad, but we had really made the most out of this trip we weren't sure we'd even be able to make. I force fed Julia a kids Bonine and she slept for both the bus ride and the ferry ride back to the ship. The ride home was much smoother, so I actually got to enjoy it a bit. We saw Michael Jordan's house, Madonna's house and a little rock island called Alligator Island. It looked, from tail to snout, just like, well, an alligator.

It was only about 1:30 or so when we got back to St. Thomas. Julia wanted to go to her kids club and Neil wanted to go shopping. So, loaded up with motrin dose # 2 Devin and Neil went trekking around St. Thomas. I took advantage of the good signal in the USVI and started madly texting my friend Jeanne to see how long her daughter's fever had lasted. (4 days was the response - ack!).

One blissful moment of the day was as we were setting sail from St. Thomas. The band we liked was playing by the Goofy pool and Neil and Julia were swimming. I was on deck, having a much deserved cocktail and watching us leave port, listening to the music.

That night Devin made it to dinner, but didn't feel great and wasn't really eating. Our amazingly sweet and thoughtful Willy brought him an extra tablecloth to put over his shoulders to keep him warm. So so sweet.

Cruise Day 4

We docked in St. Croix while we were sleeping and woke up to the beautiful view out our window. We had intentionally left the day open to explore the island on our own. We ate and walked into port to shop and explore. We got some great views of our ship. We went to the Fort museum that was right there and got a interesting but rather stream of consciousness rundown of the history from the curator.

As we walked around Devin seemed out of sorts. My mom radar was on high alert. Sure enough, this is when Dev started to spike his fever. So we abandoned our plans to take a cab to the beach and just hung by the pool. After a dose of medicine Devin was still not totally himself, but felt good enough to sit by the pool with us. Julia went to her club for a bit and got her hair braided. While she was sitting in the chair Stitch came over and mauled her again. Neil said it was pretty funny and couldn't quite get the camera going in time to capture it.

As dinner time arrived Devin was feeling pretty crappy, so Neil and Julia went down to dinner and Devin and I stayed in the cabin waiting for his motrin to kick in. The bummer was that it was pirate night. So, we missed the pirate dinner, but got him feeling well enough to head to deck 10 for the Pirate party and fireworks! We partied like it was 1699!!! Devin still talks about how we were "on the big screen". During the party they did crowd shots up on the Ariel view tv and there we were!!

Again, looks like we had nothing but fun, but the photos didn't capture how yucky Devin felt, how anxious I was feeling about it all, and how disappointing it was to miss dinner with the kids as well as our adults only late dinner at Palo. Also didn't capture my heart breaking when Devin apologized for making us miss our dinner. I told him there was no place I'd rather be than with him while he needed me.

Cruise Day 3

This was our second full day at sea. After a late wake up and breakfast on deck the kids hit the clubs and Neil and I had a couples massage. Ahhh...bliss. We had a few minutes to ourselves at the Quiet Cove pool (adults only) and then it was time to get ready for our formal night dinner! We got to eat in Lumiere's on formal night which seemed very appropriate. After dinner the kids hits the clubs again and we got some quiet time in the Sessions piano bar. A little too quiet, so we headed to Rockin' Bar D for a little more night life.

The weather got warmer as we headed further south, so it was a nice day today as we sailed towards St. Croix.