Caribbean 2025
Months of planning and scheduling had brought us to the point of only having a few days left until we were on our family cruise. That’s when my wife read a Facebook post that passport cards weren’t going to work.
All of us have passports except for three of my sons' four children. The other one had gone to Europe with her mom, so she had a regular passport.
At first, I didn’t believe it, but I researched it. It wasn’t looking good. We had four days until we flew out. Absolutely no time to get passports. Deb called the cruise line the guy said we were fine.
I had researched it. Closed-loop cruises, you can use a passport card on, but since we were leaving out of Ft. Lauderdale and going to Puerto Rico, it was an open-loop cruise even though we left a U.S. port and went to a U.S. port. I call Royal Caribbean back. It was true, my son’s family was going to be denied boarding when they arrived at the ship. I may have fussed at the guy. Maybe even a lot. I said things like, “Why weren’t we told? Passport cards have different numbers than passports; your computers should have flagged that when I put in the paperwork to sail. I even tried talking to a manager who was even less help. I tried to switch our cruise to a closed-loop cruise, not caring what it would cost at that point. No dice, it was too late to book a cruise that close in. The guy on the phone said we could replace the children.
“What!” I wasn’t happy with that comment.
I called my son and broke the news to him. He was at church but still ducked into a side room to talk.
My wife and my heart were breaking. We didn’t want to worry our daughter, so we tried to leave her in the dark. It didn’t help that she had spent four hours the day before packing, not to mention all the excitement of going on a cruise with the grandchildren.
My son texted back. “Don’t reschedule, I have a plan.”
In the back of my mind, I could picture the twelve-year-old babysitting for the other two kids for two weeks, or getting their cousins to send passports of kids close to my grandkids' age. That would work for the two, but the youngest has my son’s black hair and not my daughter-in-law’s blonde hair. I couldn’t even imagine what his plan was. The government was shut down, he wasn’t getting passports anytime soon. Even if the government wasn’t shut down, it takes two weeks to get an emergency passport. We didn’t want to go without him.
He called us after church and said he had an appointment to get passports in the morning. It seems the passport office was an essential service, so they were working. He was able to get an appointment for the next day at 8:30 in the morning. My daughter-in-law took the kids to get passport pictures while my son printed out all of the birth certificates and airfare itinerary to prove he did indeed need an emergency passport. It happens that there was a passport office in Chicago, just an hour away from where he lives.
After picking up my jaw off the floor, I had a glimmer of hope. There were still things to worry about, but those don’t end until you actually step on the ship. My son called the next day and said everything went well and that he would be picking up the passports on Wednesday. That was cutting it. He flies out on Thursday.
Two Days Before We Leave
It's not the day before the cruise, but the day before we leave on the plane. We are going to my daughter's house as she lives close to the airport and might need help getting the kids out of bed at three in the morning. We are still in the middle of a government shutdown, and the TSA agents we are dealing with just missed their first full paycheck. I know they're not going to be happy.
I got up in the morning, thinking that how the day felt normal. I'm packed, but I'm still worried something might go wrong with the passports. Did I pack for nothing? I know I'm being silly, but I call my son anyway. Relief, he has them, and he's on his way home. Yeah! It still cut it very close. When we go to leave, we put the suitcases in the car and drove off. The house sitter knows we're gone, so the plants will get watered and the packages will get brought in.
My daughter has three pizzas and a salad for dinner. There will be no breakfast that early, but she is going to have snack items, leftover pizza, and sandwiches to eat on the plane. We were able to get to bed early. It didn't help.
They surprised me with a birthday party and presents before we left. They didn't want to pack the presents and take them all the way across the country. I don't even know how we would have gotten the cake there.
The Day Before
The wife and I are downstairs, and the rest of the family is upstairs. I begin hearing footsteps around midnight. I'm trying to ignore them, but there are more every time I roll over. After half an hour, my wife and I got up to see what was going on. My daughter and all three of her kids were awake and talking. I lay down on the couch, trying to take a nap, but that doesn't work because they are so tired they get the giggles. Might as well load the car and get the show started at that point.
My daughter's van won't start. It was good to have extra time to fix that, then get on the road. It's the first airplane ride for the three kids. We arrive at the airport later than we expected to, but still in plenty of time. We dropped off the luggage and the families at the terminal and then went and parked. When we do, my son-in-law disconnects the battery to the van so it won't discharge while they are parked there. I thought it was a great idea.
The women have the luggage tags printed and attached by the time we arrive at the ticket counter, so all we have to do is show ID and give them our bags. We take up one row across the plane from window seat to window seat with one extra right in back. I have the two boys with me. The older boy is deathly afraid of heights. I sat him in the middle. When we were taking off, the older boy gasped when he saw we were gaining altitude, so he reached over and closed the window blind. The younger one wanted to see out, so he opened it back up. Shut, open, shut, open. Finally, the older kid moaned, but gave up. When the plane leveled out, he was much happier. The two boys watched a movie. When it came to landing, he shut the blinds again. The younger boy just sighed and sat back in his seat. We touched down, and the older one gasped. “I didn't like that very much.”
“You survived your first flight, only four more to go,” I told him. He didn't seem that happy to hear it. The next one, at least, he knew what to expect. We then boarded our second plane of the day.
When it landed, we found the luggage and called the hotel to get a shuttle. Only, I guess I called the wrong hotel. Instead of the long name with a north in it, it was a long name with a south in it. Only the one to the south doesn't answer their phones. I called six times, my daughter called three times, and my wife called twice before we were able to get through. We booked the shuttle and waited. This older van pulled up with the name of a different hotel on it. The guy had a hand-held sign that he was putting on his dashboard with a name similar to our hotel. I talked to him, and it took a minute to figure out he was the van we needed. The only seats left in the van were the ones in the way back and the passenger seat. I took that because I wasn't going to fit back there. The rest crawled back there. The driver was from Jamaica, and he talked about the hurricane that had just hit the island. He played a lot of Jamaican Music all the way to the hotel. We checked into the room and then went down to the pool. I didn't want to pack a wet bathing suit, so I just dangled my feet in. The kids loved it. We swam for an hour, then dressed and headed across the street to the Cuban restaurant.
The original idea was to just eat an appetizer and wait for my son’s family. That didn't work. The waitress paced back and forth, and we had already eaten the appetizer. I called my son, and he wasn't close. The kids were hungry, so we ordered. They finished up and were walking back to the hotel just as my son arrived, checked into his room, and headed over to the restaurant. They met in the middle. Deb and I were waiting for the son and family to order. I asked my son if it was still the same Jamaican driver we had. He said it was, and then said they had eighteen people in a van that held only fifteen. The seat belts didn't work in the back, and the brakes were going out. He thought this was the end. I'm glad he made it. We went back to the hotel after that.
First Day of the Cruise
My daughter and family, along with my wife, went to the beach just to hear the ocean roar and watch the waves. I stayed with my son and family as they went to the pool. Again, I didn't go in as I didn't want to pack a wet swimsuit. They played up until it was time to check out of the hotel.
Deb and I took an Uber to the port. My son and son-in-law had a hard time finding an Uber big enough for their families. A shuttle driver came up to them and told them that his ride had just been canceled, so he offered them a discount to take them to the ship. Right after they agreed and climbed into the van, the family that had scheduled the shuttle called back and tried to uncancel. Too late.
We met them at the terminal in front of the ship and went through together. It was a breeze compared to a lot of the other embarkations. I was happy about that. We headed to the buffet. It was a scramble to find tables for everyone, but we managed.
I tried to go to my room to drop off my bags, but the door to the hallway was closed. Right as I stood there wondering what to do, an announcement came over the speaker that our rooms were ready, and the door swung open. That was good timing, I thought.
The luggage arrived shortly after, but didn't get put away yet. The women went to a spa presentation. I saw the other two ships leaving, so I knocked on my son’s door and invited them to watch their departures from my balcony. Our sail away was delayed due to an unspecified maintenance issue.
When the women came back, it was time for dinner. We have two tables in the dining room next to each other. We plan on mixing and matching during the cruise. After, we put the kids in Kids Club; the only problem there was that it's hard to get them back out.
It was Halloween, so a lot of us dressed up for the occasion.
The adults went to the family feud game. My son didn't feel well from the waves, so he left early. My daughter stood up and played. Her group came in second.
Day 2 Sea Day
Slept better than I had slept in a long time despite the hard mattress. We played morning trivia with my daughter and did pretty well. We were only one off the winners. When my daughter-in-law showed up, we asked her the question we had missed, and she knew it. Darn, we could have won. Oh well, I didn't need another Royal Caribbean key chain. I have dozens at home.
We played mini golf after that. The golf balls are rubbery. Deb calls them fish food because they are biodegradable. We found two real golf balls and would use the fish food one only to mark our spot, and used the real ones to play. We were bored on the last two holes and turned the club sideways to hit the ball with the narrow part on hole eight. On hole nine, we used the club like a pool cue. We didn't keep score but declared my son-in-law the winner because he had a hole-in-one.
At lunch we ate in the buffet. My granddaughter said one of the waiters called her “Princess.” She smiled. “I liked being called princess.” My daughter-in-law said that when the kids club crew member asked what her daughter's name was, she told them, but then said, “You can call me princess.”
We had a boys and girls table at dinner. The food is really good on the ship. One of the reviews said the ship had a new chef, and the food was flavorless. I don't see it that way. I had to add a little salt to a couple of my meals, but big deal.
The show was a Broadway hit type of thing with singing and dancing. I would have liked a story line, but the cast is very talented.
Day Three Grand Turk
As I wake up this morning, the wind across the deck is howling and the seas are rough. You can tell there is a hurricane nearby. I'm wondering if we are going to make this port. Things settle down after breakfast, and soon we dock alongside the pier. By the time we leave the ship, there are no waves to be seen.
I had been to Grand Turk earlier on another cruise ship, but we weren't allowed onshore. A lady was having a medical emergency, so we skipped the port and took her to the nearest island with an airport. We sat there offshore looking longingly at those beautiful white sand beaches. It took a long time, but I'm finally here.
The kids want to dip their toes in the ocean, so I talk to a couple of locals about how bad the hurricane was. They say it wasn't bad, but Hurricane Ike came through here, and the Coast Guard only brought body bags because they were so sure no one had survived it. When they found survivors, they went back and brought food and supplies. One man who rode out the hurricane said he was looking at his ceiling one minute, and when it blew away, he was looking up into the sky the next.
Deb has the confirmation number of the tour company, but not the name of the tour company, so we ask everyone in the gated area if they know who this is. It turns out that they are outside the gate. There is a group of people just outside the gate waiting for anyone to show up. The major tour companies are inside the gate and have new equipment. When the equipment is old, they sell it, and these lower-cost companies buy it. The problem there is that the equipment almost always has problems. This was true in our case.
The lady who represented the tour company greets us just outside the gate and takes us on a long hike to a rundown area of buildings near the beach. We sit and wait for half an hour. Finally, we get a guy to call the tour driver. Our phones don't work on the island. He says they are here, and we look up to see him, so we start heading that way. The lady with the clipboard tells us he has to turn around, so we stop. I'm thinking it doesn't take fifteen minutes to turn around, so I wander out of the parking lot and onto the main road. There is the van high-centered on the edge of the road.
“It'll be just a minute.” I'm told, so I walk back and tell the group, “He's stuck.” It was another fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, a drunk and his buddy come up to us and give us a history of the island. It seems the U.S. Military, Navy, Army, and Air Force used the island as a base during the Cuban Missile Crisis. To make it easier for soldiers, the local currency is the U.S. Dollar, even though it was a British colony.
The tram finally arrives. The PA system on the tram isn't working, so the driver doesn't say anything until we come across the John Glen capsule. He stops and yells so everyone can hear him about how John Glen splashed down by their island. They have a replica of his capsule, but the original is in the Smithsonian. He then drives out to the lighthouse.
My son didn't want to take the tour, so he and his family rented a golf cart. The island is seven miles long and one mile wide. Most of the day, we can see both coasts at the same time.
When we arrive at the lighthouse, there are donkeys in the parking lot. The driver says not to go behind the donkeys and remember that they are wild animals. One kid didn't get the message because the next thing I know, the donkey is trying to stomp the kid with its front legs. The kid is down on the ground, and I'm quite sure he has at least some broken ribs. I talked to the mom later on, and she said the kid was fine.
We walked around the lighthouse because we couldn't go up inside. There is a zip-line there, but that, along with a lot of the buildings, were casualties of Hurricane Ike. There are a lot of bird nests on the poles, as the thing is abandoned. There are a lot of roofless, empty large buildings on the island.
My son passed us as he was coming back from the lighthouse, so he turned around so he could be with us, even though he had already explored it.
While we were there, the driver and an audio technician “fixed” the sound system. He talked as we drove back towards the port. All I heard was a buzzing sound as he drove, but the people in the back of the tram could hear. We arrived at the Grand Turk sign and took pictures. My son drove up again, so he was able to get into the picture also.
We all climbed back on the ship to have lunch, and then we headed back out to the beach right next to the pier. The snorkels came out, but mine didn't work so good because of my mustache. I kept getting water up my nose. For the rest of the day, every time I leaned forward, the salt water would drip out of my nose unexpectedly. This happened three times in the state room and one time at dinner.
My son and I decided to explore the south side of the island because the tour and their golf cart ride only covered the north side. We ran out of asphalt quickly and were bombing down dirt roads. I'm surprised we didn't pop a tire. I complained about his driving and then took over. He then complained about my driving. I guess it's a control thing. We kept running into dead ends. On the way back, I kept forgetting that I'm supposed to drive on the left side of the road and kept having to move over when another car came along. We made it back to the place where we checked in the golf cart and walked back to the ship.
During dinner, we switch up tables every night because we have two right next to each other. Dinner was great, and the juggler afterward was fun and talented.
Day Four Sea Say. Also, Birthday
I heard tapping on my stateroom door late last night. I thought Deb was trying to get in, so I opened it. There was my son and two of his kids sitting in the middle of the hallway with all sorts of papers in front of them. “Go away,” my son said, so I did. I suspect that they were decorating my door, but then Deb came back, and I'm not allowed to open the door until morning. Two of the last three years, I've celebrated my birthday at sea. I'm liking it.
I was met in the buffet area with a crown (Burger King) and a button that said, “It's my birthday.” I've been getting strange looks and smiles from the people around me. Those who read the button wish me a happy birthday. The kids were dropped off at Kid's Crew, and the six adults went out to brunch together. Afterwards, we went to trivia. The lady running trivia asked me about my crown. I admitted it was my birthday. I thought for a second the whole group was going to sing Happy Birthday to me. That didn't happen, but we came in second. The lady who came in first gave me her prize. A bag in a bag and wished me a happy birthday. So, it was like we won.
We went up to the buffet area to play games, then they had to pick up the kids. It was lunchtime by the time we finished. Deb asked if we should eat, then said, “Not yet.” We were still full from breakfast.
I do light lunches, so I don't fill up too much for dinner. In the past, on cruises, I always felt stuffed. I don't do that anymore.
We met on deck twelve, the sports deck, for fun. The boys played soccer until the adult dodgeball people took over the court. Then they played in the kid pool until some kid pooped in it. They made everyone get out, and they drained the pool. We went rock climbing after that. In using the term 'We', I don't mean me or my wife. A lot of them went all the way to the top. I was rather proud of them.
Dinner had an adult table along with a kids' table tonight. It worked, mostly. Having the kids order their own food was a little difficult, but besides that and a few visits by some of the kids to the adult table, it worked surprisingly well.
The waiters were told it was my birthday, so at the end of dinner, when I thought I might have escaped, they all gathered around me to sing. I even had happy birthday written on my dessert plate and a lit candle in my lemon tart. Of course, the grandkids sang along too. We serenaded the whole floor of the dining room.
We went to the library to play games. I ran up to get the games, and when I entered the elevator, I was accosted. A lady across from me said, “Is it really your birthday?” I still had the “It's my birthday” pin on. The lady next to her pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and the first lady took off my pin and stuck the ten-dollar bill on it, and then put my pin back. “We're from New Orleans, and if someone has a birthday pin on, we give them money. Leave the ten on the pin, and maybe someone else will contribute.”
Sigh, nobody did. It was a weird day with wearing a crown, and then when I finally was able to lay the crown aside, I got pinned. One of my most memorable birthdays for sure.
Day Five St. Kitts
Deb and I stepped out onto the balcony when we saw that we were coming into port. There were mountains that dominated the island, obviously volcanoes, hopefully dormant. We then went on deck to get the full effect.
When I went to the buffet to find the family, a guy passed me, and he said, “Good morning, your majesty.” I'm still getting it the next day
. At least he didn't pin anything on me. Okay, I'd be alright with more money. There are three cruise ships in the harbor. A small one-way out in the bay and then us and Mein Schiff. Both docked. The Mien Schiff is larger than us. It's a German cruise line.
We ate and then headed down to the dock. We had several drivers try to snag us. One guy told us $35 per person, then dropped it to $30 as we were walking off. Bjorn found a guy who would drive us around the entire day for $15 each. We went with him. His name is Jay Jay, and he was very pleasant and agreeable.
The first place we went was the ruins of a sugar plantation. They don't grow it commercially anymore, but at one time, sugar cane was the crop of the island. Everywhere we went, vendors had set up tents with their wares displayed. We did buy bottled water and soft drinks from them.
The driver then took us to a batik factory where they make fabric. It's a slow process that takes sometimes eight days to finish a cloth. It's expensive. To buy a shirt cost $89, but the process was interesting.
Next, we went to an overlook where we could see the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean at the same time. He then took us to a beach that had a restaurant at it. The place was open air with crooked, nailed-together, posts that held it up above the beach. Very rustic. Deb ordered us lunch while I went and rented some beach chairs so we would have a place to park our stuff. There was a nice swimming area, and next to that was a coral reef with lots and lots of colorful fish.
I don't have good luck snorkeling. My masks always leak, and such was the case this time, too. I have a full face one, and it didn't go up my nose, but it went in my mouth. I was able to see a lot, but I had swum a long way and my mask stopped working, so I couldn't breathe through it. I flipped over on my back to go back to the swimming area, but then my very old swimsuit tried to fall off. I grabbed it and swam along with one hand holding my mask and the other holding my swimsuit on. Then one of my fins fell off. I had to dive down to retrieve it. I retied my swimsuit before heading to shore. There were monkeys near the restaurant. My daughter-in-law wanted a picture with them, so she sneaked behind them and posed and my son took the picture. When the monkeys saw her, they took out after her. I didn't know she could run that fast.
We made it back to the van, where he drove us to the shopping area around the ship. Deb went into shops that gave you a free pendant if you showed them your cruise key card. I didn't want to go in, but I knew my wife likes pendants, so I did. While I was in there, I found they had inexpensive Hawaiian shirts and bought four. All of us made it back on the ship, but only half of us made it to dinner. Afterwards, some of the waiters danced the Macarena. I guess that was instead of the show, because there was no show otherwise tonight.
Day Six St Lucia
This port, my wife and I have been to before. She wanted to book the same tour that we had taken years ago. Luckily, the company was still in business. We booked it online weeks before the cruise. It did not disappoint.
We had to get off the ship quickly, as the tour started right as the ship docked. We had breakfast in the buffet and then headed down to the dock. There was a little confusion as to where to find the tour, but we managed and soon, Sieca (I think that's how his name is spelled) was taking us around his island. We drove up a winding road that took us higher and higher. We found a viewpoint where we could take pictures of the cruise ship and the bay. From another viewpoint, we could see another island nation in the distance. He told us that a third of the island is rainforest and nothing could be taken out of the rainforest except bamboo because it grows so fast.
We then stopped at a place where we tried banana barbecue sauce and banana ketchup using banana chips to scoop it up with. The banana wasn't as fresh as the last time I had one. I don't normally eat them, but this one was good, just not as good. I wonder if it was a different species of banana because the last one I had was larger and creamier, too.
We then went to the volcano. Some of us went to the mud bath at the bottom of the hill and the rest of us walked up to where the volcano was steaming and bubbling. It was better than the last time we were here. Last time we drove by, this time there were steps up close to where it was steaming.
We then went to the dock and boarded a boat. We spent an hour snorkeling and swimming in the ocean. They had a floating trampoline and the kids gravitated to that. I feel like such a failure with snorkeling that I didn't try. I did have fun swimming in the ocean between the twin peaks of the Piton Mountains. A place called Sugar Beach. Those who did snorkel were so happy with all the fish and sea creatures they saw.
He then took us to a lunch place where we tasted some of the local food. After that, he dropped some of us off at a shopping area while the rest of us waited in the car.
One of the grandkids told Deb that he did not know a tour could be so good.
We made it back to the ship in plenty of time to get ready and go to dinner. The table next door to us made a lot of noise and commotion. Okay, it was my grandkids. We did an adult table and a kid table again. It worked okay, but I worry about disturbing the other tables. Then I looked and saw the two tables nearest the kids didn't show up. I wonder why?
We watched a dance contest where my son and his wife and my daughter and her husband, volunteered to dance in it. It was the ship's version of Dancing with the Stars. My son didn't actually volunteer. It was more like he was coerced. He wasn't into it at all, but to my surprise, he made it past the first round. My daughter and husband made it past the second round. I thought they should have won, personally.
Day Seven Dominica
I have never been to Dominica before, so it was a great experience. We left the ship a little sooner than my son and his family. We went shopping at the dock in front of the ship. Every five feet was a man asking to take us on a tour. They all had similar signs telling us where they would take us. I finally found a guy named Jefferson who had an open-air van. “Nope, I need air conditioning.” It happened that his twin brother drove a van with air conditioning. His name was Henry. I went back to tell Deb and had five more drivers walk up to me. “I'm with Jefferson,” I would say. The only problem was that one of the other drivers was also named Jefferson.”
Jefferson was Johnny Depp's driver while they were filming the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Part of it was in the same waterfall area that we were in.
When my son came, we all climbed in Henry's van and took off. We went to a waterfall that you had to swim to because it was in a narrow slot in the hill. It's called Titou Gorge. I had a hard time because I had fallen the day before and messed up my knee. The water was cold. I'm surprised that Deb went into it because she hates cold water. Someone said it warmed up later on, but they were lying. It got colder. Moving upstream halfway through the trip became harder. The river was too deep to walk and you were fighting the current to get up there. When we arrived at the last little part, it became shallow enough for us to walk. The waterfall area was super uneven. I was the first to stick my head under it.
When I went to come back out, there were too many people in my way to get out of the area. Okay, they were my people as we had the area almost to ourselves, but they were still in the way. I was finally able to get back up to the shallow part. My youngest granddaughter was unhappy about being there, so my son said,” Jump in.” When I did, he handed her to me. I had her ride on my shoulders as I swam out of there.
We all made it safe and sound to the end. A lady was walking along the edge of the starting pool. She mentioned that she couldn't swim.
“You can't swim?” my son asked.
“That's what I said.”
We arrived back on the ship to have dinner together. We did a boy table and a girl table and had lobster for dinner and baked Alaska.
Day Eight St. Marten
It was an easy day today. Some of us had already been to St. Martin. Most of the adults, anyway. We didn't want to do an island tour, so we had extra time in the morning for a leisurely breakfast. We left the ship after ten. That didn't play to our favor. Most of the taxi drivers already had fares, and those who didn't were getting pushy. I had one guy follow me four blocks trying to offer me a tour, and another guy interrupted him, trying to rent me a van. When I was able to get past those two, a third guy came up to me and followed me for four blocks. Then he went back to get his van and stopped in the road to try and talk me into taking his tour. The car behind him honked at him. He then pulled over in front of me and talked to me again.
I couldn't commit to anything as my son was trying to rent a van. They failed. We finished our walk into town. Some of the family wanted to tour the Star Wars Museum. It was up a stairway and the youngest granddaughter thought it was too dark and scary to go up, so she wouldn't. Deb and my daughter decided to shop. My son and I waited outside for the son-in-law and three boys to tour the museum and come back out.
We then decided to walk to the beach. The locals said it was up and over a mountain to get there. The pesky taxi driver said it was way too far away. Finally, we decided that some of us were walked out, so Deb found a van driver and talked to him. Unfortunately, the guy who had followed me for four blocks and then chased me down in his van was right there. He began to complain that we didn't go with him and continued to complain while we boarded the other van. He was still complaining when we shut the door and drove away.
We made it to Little Bay Beach and all the way there, I kept thinking how glad I was that I didn't walk it. It wasn't a mountain that we went over but it was a large foothill without a sidewalk on the road.
The beach was nice. There were rocks to snorkel over that had lots of fish to see. I did manage to snorkel. I figured out some of the things I was doing wrong. We played for hours just swimming and floating in the waves. Our driver came back to pick us up around four in the afternoon. My son and his family were not ready to come back yet, so he told the guy at the resort to call another cab. When my son was ready, the cab driver said, “Are you Bjorn?” My son was happy for the ride.
It was our last dinner on the ship altogether. We played games and then went to the liar's club game show. After that, it was packing up and putting our suitcases in the hall.
End of Cruise and Puerto Rico
We went up to the Windjammer to have breakfast, but it was insanely crowded. I saw a family leaving a table that was only six steps away. I tried to reserve it, but someone else got to it first. So, we retreated to the main dining room. It was so much nicer and quieter.
We walked off the ship to a taxi line a mile long and slow-moving. Sitting sweating in the hot sun, but my son walked over to one of the waiting taxis and made arrangements. It was outrageous what he charged us to go only a few miles.
Afterwards, we dropped off our suitcases at the hotel and went into town. We walked up the hill to the smaller of the two forts that guard San Juan. When we arrived at the gate, the park ranger said, “It's free today.” Normally, it would be ten dollars per adult.
When we asked why, the other ranger piped up and said, “Government shutdown.” They commented that the local tourist group was funding the fort so it would stay open.
The fort was neat. It had tunnels so that the soldiers manning the walls could go from one part of the fort to another without being seen or shot at. There were different levels to it and it had been used through the Second World War.
We ate lunch at a burger place right off of Columbus Square. The food trickled out. It took twenty minutes for my son to get his milkshake. Then a burger would come out five minutes later. Then another one. A few minutes later, another milkshake. We got our waters fifteen minutes later. Just a few at a time and not all at once. I was one of the last three to get a milkshake over an hour after I ordered it.
We wandered into a street vendor market. The ladies shopped and then we found a playground for the kids to let off some steam. My son headed back to where the shuttle would pick us up, but the rest of us meandered back, shopping at different stores along the way. I mostly stood where the AC vents were blowing on me.
When we arrived back at the shuttle stop, my son and family were still there. They went and played in the hotel pool when we arrived back, but I took a nap. A banging on the door woke me up. My son was there, saying we had to go pick up the cars. We had rented two SUVs to get around town and the national park and then the next day, get us to the airport. I told my son I would follow him, but we hit rush hour traffic and I thought I saw him exiting, so I did, but it wasn't him. I was able to get back on the freeway, but I had lost my son. I tried to use the GPS to get back to the hotel. It took me down some very sketchy streets that had cars parked on both sides and I had barely enough room to get past them. Then it stopped in front of an old abandoned building and said, “You have arrived.”
I reset the car GPS and then set the phone GPS. They didn't agree with each other, so I had to pick one and hope for the best. The GPS tried to have me cross over five lanes right as I pulled onto the road. I couldn't make it as now I was in the middle of rush hour. Then I missed another turn. It was dark by this point and my phone battery was down to 20%. I couldn't turn around because the road was one-way. Finally, I made it back on the freeway and found the road again. This time, I was able to pull into the driveway. My daughter said she was going to Olive Garden because my son and his family were going to do after-dark kayaking in the luminescent bay.
We were eating dinner when my daughter asked if the speed limits were in kilometers per hour or miles per hour. I said, “I don't know. I just went with the flow.”
We had my son’s smallest daughter with us because she was too young to go kayaking. Dinner was spaghetti with meatballs we ate in the hotel room.
Puerto Rico
When we had researched the El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico, they said that we would have to get there early, as the forest would close to visitors after a certain number was reached. After my son and his family went kayaking, they came back and reported that it wasn't the case. It must have been a COVID thing, I'm guessing. Instead of getting breakfast and seven at the morning and rushing over there, we had a leisurely breakfast and then headed toward the forest, first stopping at Walmart to get some picnic lunch stuff. We then headed toward the rainforest.
I do have to say the roads in Puerto Rico are a whole lot better than those in the other Caribbean islands and as an added bonus, they drive on the right side of the road. Having said that, however. I didn't drive on any of the other islands except for a brief stint with a golf cart over largely very light traffic. The roads in the forest were very narrow and winding. There were times when I wondered how I missed a car coming in the opposite direction on a blind curve.
We drove to the visitor’s center. That's where you have to pay, but if you don't go there, then you can go to all of the sites in the forest for free. At the visitor's center, they had a video about the forest. I normally fall asleep in this type of video but this one was interesting. There were all sorts of displays and people were there to answer our questions. My family went upstairs, and when I went to follow them, the deluge hit. I didn't dare follow them and had to wait until it slowed down to make my way up the steps. I did get a couple of good videos of it.
We made our way to a waterfall and took pictures. Then we found a tower and climbed up it. There were 96 steps. I counted them on the way down. The tower had amazing views of the lush mountains around us. Then we went up to a swimming area. I started to follow, but I wasn't feeling well, so I went back to the car and waited with the AC on. I felt worse and worse, so I drove up the road until I found a porta-potty at a construction site. When I drove back down the hill, they were all waiting for me. They tried to call me but the reception was very bad in the forest.
We found a picnic area and ate the lunch we had brought with us from Walmart. Afterwards, we drove back down to the visitor’s center because I had reception there and I needed to check in for the flight back home as we were taking Southwest and I didn't want the family to be spread out all over the airplane.
We then went to another place where we could play in the pools but were stopped by a guy there who said the water was too high and to come back tomorrow. Instead, we tried to find a beach, but the one we were aiming for didn't have any parking. We drove back to the hotel and used their awesome pool. We stayed there the rest of the afternoon. We ordered DoorDash from Panda Express. The original plan was to sample restaurants from the local area. We kinda did that at the rain forest's visitor's center. They had a little cafe in there with sampler plates and we ordered two of those.
We ate our Panda Express by the pool and then the kids jumped back in. When the kids went to bed, the adults went down to the lobby and played games.
Puerto Rico and Flying Home
We were able to spend the morning together, as our plane rides didn’t happen until that afternoon. We found a beach where we could park, so we drove there. My wife, me, my daughter, and her family played on the beach. The rest had an easy morning and then played in the pool. We went down to the pool when we arrived back. After getting out, we went up and finished packing. I had tried to rent a Ford Explorer, which would have let us have plenty of room to store our bags, but instead, they gave us a Durango. We didn’t have enough room, so we sent two of us ahead to the airport in an Uber while the rest of us followed in the rental car. Even with my daughter navigating, we almost missed several turns. “Oh no,” I thought at one point. We took the wrong road.
My daughter double checked. “No, we’re good.” I think she got a taste of what I went through the other day. We managed to get the car back to the rental company in one piece. I don’t know how after all the narrow roads and crazy traffic I went through.
I had even, at one point, complained to the lady behind the counter at the hotel. “No, we are terrible drivers,” she admitted.
The flights were no fun. There were three of them. One from San Juan to Orlando.
I called the first plane the miracle plane. There were nineteen people in wheels chairs getting onto the airplane. They board first, but only five people needed a wheel chair by the time they got off. It didn't take for one guy as he was back in a wheel chair for the second flight pushed by his girlfriend. He did manage to walk off all on his own a second time so his miracle just took a little longer.
The next to Denver. Our final plane was delayed, but only by half an hour. We arrived after midnight. We stayed the night at my daughter’s house and, since it was my son-in-law’s birthday, we took them out to breakfast.
It was an amazing trip, but it’s nice to be home.
For more information about cruising, here is my wife's books.
