Matt and I saw this cruise itinerary that we really loved about a year and a half in advance. It was cheap, so we booked it. Then we decided to take advantage of the fact we’d be leaving from San Juan, and take a side trip to Vieques, which I’d wanted to see since I learned about the bioluminescent bay there.

Our cruise was great, despite some seasickness, and Matt celebrated his birthday in St Lucia. I got to see some things I’d always wanted to, like the Pitons and Maho Beach in St Maarten, where the giant planes come in right over your head. And then we went to Vieques, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I can’t wait to go back.

(The entire photoset is here on Flickr.)

Read from the beginning below, or jump to each day:

• Fri 2/21: A Nearly-Miraculous Escape to San Juan
• Sat 2/22: Revisiting the Cats of San Juan (and boarding the ship)
• Sun 2/23: Seasickness is No Joke – Day at Sea
• Mon 2/24: Pon di Beach in Barbados
• Tue 2/25: Matt’s Birthday with the Pitons in St Lucia
• Wed 2/26: Hangin’ with Admiral Nelson in Antigua
• Thu 2/27: Low-flying Planes in St Maarten
• Fri 2/28: Secluded Beaches and Local Beer in St John, USVI
• Sat 3/1: From a Giant Ship to a Tiny Plane (and a Hacienda!)
• Sun 3/2: Wherein I Fall in Love with Vieques
• Mon 3/3: Kayaking the Bioluminescent Bay in Vieques
• Tue 3/4: That Time United Forgot to Supply Pilots (Going Home)

We had a very very early (pre-6AM) flight from Minneapolis to San Juan via Chicago, and given the dangers of flying in February in the Midwest, I started worrying about a week in advance. As the day neared, it became clear that we were in for a substantial amount of snow right around the time we’d be leaving for vacation, and I figured there was no way we’d ever make a 45-connection in Chicago, even we even managed to escape Minneapolis on Friday morning.

Thursday afternoon, the blizzard rolled in. Matt put his car in the garage in preparation for our trip, and I parked on the snow emergency route alongside our house, which meant I stood the best odds of getting my car out even in bad conditions. Usually Minneapolis waits until a storm is over before they declare snow emergency, but this time they were panicking in advance, too: they decided to start it at 9pm, which means my car had to move or get towed.

So let’s just forward to 8pm Thursday evening, when we and two neighbors spent an hour digging and pushing my car out of the intersection it was stuck in. We finally maneuvered it into a spot where it would be safe from towing til 8AM Saturday morning, but it was clear there was no way we were taking that to the airport. The snow was still coming down like crazy. We instead dug out the driveway as best we could, snowblowed the walks, and crossed our fingers before heading to bed. It never occurred to me that there was the possibility we wouldn’t even be able to make it to the airport in the morning.

I got up at 3AM Friday, put on my coat and boots, and went out to shovel the driveway again. I then came in and showered, finished packing bags, and we hauled everything out to Matt’s car in the garage. Thankfully, he was able to back it out onto the street, which had been cleared enough that it was driveable. I ran through the new snow on the sidewalks (it had been constant all night, and still hadn’t stopped), stashed the garage door opener and keys where our friends and family could find them (they were stuck with the job of trying to get my car free, and then shoveling), and hopped in the car to go to the airport. The roads were in terrible, icy shape, and it was actually a good thing it was so early in the morning, because nobody was out to crash in it. Matt drove very, very slowly, and we got to the airport on time. The flight was still scheduled on time, too!

We dumped all our winter gear in the car and went to the terminal. Pre-Chek was a breeze, and we stopped to get coffee and water for the flight. We boarded on time, but then we had to wait for de-icing. I occupied myself with the Skymall shopping list.

It was light by the time we de-iced, and we knew that we weren’t making the flight in Chicago unless they held it. Talking to the people around us, though, it sounded like many of us were headed to San Juan on the same flight, so that gave us hope that we’d make it.

Did you know the de-icing is orange? I’d never noticed that before.

We were indeed late to Chicago, but TripIt notified me right away that our second leg was delayed as well. They were clearly holding it for us. Matt and I were the first from the MSP flight to get there, and the gate people looked relieved that we were finally there. A whole bunch more people crowded on, and the flight ended up being entirely full.

It was a 5-hour flight, which is over my general limit for sitting still, but somehow it wasn’t that bad. (One of the reasons I prefer Delta is that you always lay over in Atlanta heading to the Caribbean, and that breaks up the time pretty well.) We had seatback TVs for entertainment, so we flipped around and I finally decided on Runner Runner, which killed a bunch of time. For the first two hours there was enough turbulence from storms that they couldn’t even get the carts out. They finally served food and drinks, so we got meal boxes and switched to the USA-Canada hockey game. And that’s when the inflight television cut out, because we were over the ocean. Sigh. (It’s probably for the best, since our team lost.)

Since they still had movies showing, I switched to Real Steel. I only made it half an hour before I had to turn it off and switch to the flight map. It was that bad.

We landed in San Juan only half an hour late. It had just rained there, but the sun came out as we landed, which I appreciate. We got our suitcases and grabbed a cab to Casa Blanca Hotel in Old San Juan. The lady at the desk told us they were working on something in the area so the power was out temporarily. They also had no elevator, but I knew that from the reviews. The porter brought our bags up for us, so that wasn’t really an issue (nor was the power, since we just wanted to head out again anyway). The hotel wasn’t anything fancy (the decor is nice), but it was a great price in a really excellent location in OSJ. God forbid you’d have to drive anywhere there, or even sit in the back of a cab in traffic.

It was late afternoon, so we decided to go get a beer at Old Harbor Brewery. The rain arrived there at the same time we did, but we weren’t terribly sad about sitting inside at the bar. We sampled their offerings and got tostones while we waited for the rain to let up. We ended up talking to one of the locals at the bar, who started exclaiming about how much he loved Prince when we told him we were from Minneapolis. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that someone has that association with my city, rather than the Mall of America, our mediocre pro sports teams, or a bunch of people living in igloos.

We decided to make another stop before dinner, mostly because we didn’t want to go to two dive bars in a row. I’d read really good things about El Farolito, so we walked over there, stopping to see some sights along the way.

It was a tiny place, with 6 seats at the bar and a balcony of questionable stability with a table on top. Matt and I sat at a chess board at the bar and ordered drinks. Then we started asking the bartender about the rums we hadn’t seen before, so he put together a tasting for us. I didn’t expect a really young guy to know much about them, but he absolutely did. We enjoyed the Brugal Anejo and Ron Barcelo quite a bit.

From there, we went off in search of dinner. I’d wanted to try Cafe Puerto Rico because they had some vegetarian versions of classic Puerto Rican food, but they were closed due to the lack of electricity in the area. (Thankfully, we’d seen that it had returned at our hotel.) Our bartender had recommended Cafe Berlin for vegetarian food, so we went with that instead. It had a monstrous menu, and was totally not what I’d expected at all. We got a seat on the patio, and ordered mojitos. The menu had tofu criollo, in addition to other vegetarian food. I was thrilled.

After our surprisingly good meal, it was time to head to El Batey, one of the greatest bars on earth. I had to use the restroom right away when we got there, so I took a picture so you can see the ambiance in there.

There were only a few people there when we arrived. Our bartender was Filipe, and he was something. He decided he was Matt’s best friend, and would come over and spend several minutes discussing films with him while other people waited for drinks. It was pretty entertaining.

We ordered Barrilitos, but somehow Filipe misheard and we ended up with a Medalla as well. We gave it to Bally.

While seated at the bar, I was also sitting inside a lamp that had a million business cards taped to it, forming a growing chandelier. Matt was wearing his Mac’s Club Deuce shirt (in honor of another excellent dive bar), and we found a Mac’s card taped inside the lamp. I verified that the pool room was not a dirt floor, as I’d remembered, just concrete. We also managed to locate our names on the wall from our previous visit. They’d been written over a bit with other graffiti, but they’re definitely still visible.

A group came in loudly, and I ended up talking to one of them who was next to me at the bar. They’d decided on an impromptu three-day trip to San Juan, which sounded like an excellent idea to me. The guy was drinking Dimple Pinch, which struck me as really strange… later we started to see it at every bar, and I’m still not sure what’s going on with that.

After a while, Matt went to the bathroom and the tab appeared in front of me. I didn’t take it personally; Filipe was kind of in a state. We paid up and headed back in the direction of our hotel, but weren’t quite ready for bed yet. We decided to stop into a too-brightly-lit bar called the Douglas Pub (which I’d coincidentally seen earlier and made fun of because it looked so crappy). I was ordering a rum and diet just as Matt pointed out the Fireball tap, so of course we had to partake in that too. And after that, it was definitely time to go across the street and up the many stairs to bed.

Saturday morning, we hauled our bags down to the lobby, checked out, and left them with the staff there. We headed down the street to La Mallorquina, since La Bombonera is currently closed for renovation. When in San Juan, you must have a mallorca for breakfast.

I had a mallorca con queso, and Matt had the standard jamon y queso. And, god, their coffee is fantastic. I don’t know why it’s so good, but it’s probably something to do with full-fat milk. Delicious.

After lunch, we did some more shopping and wandering in San Juan. It was raining on and off, but not much.

At some point I’ll remember where everything is in San Juan (OSJ is small, after all!), but I still can’t get it right. I at least know what general area I can find things in.

We headed up in the direction of El Morro to see La Iglesia de San Jose, because it’s the second-oldest church in the Americas. I know I’d see it before (I have photos of the statue of Columbus nearby), but I didn’t really know the history. Along the way, we encountered the customary cats hanging out on the street. I think this guy was annoyed that I woke him up for a photo.

The church is under renovation, so there’s a lot of scaffolding and you can’t go inside. Still, this time we knew what we were actually looking at.

I’ve been in El Morro a couple times, so we didn’t go in. We wandered around the giant park surrounding it, where tons of people were flying kites. The rain was now totally gone, and it was gorgeous outside.

We headed back through cat alley (there were at least 12 of them in there), walked through an awesome neighborhood, and came out along the city wall.

Seeing La Puerta (the city gate) never gets old. This walk at sunset is amazing.

We were near the Cathedral de San Juan, so we decided to actually go inside this time. I’d read that the remains of Ponce de Leon were in there, and I was set on finding them.

The cathedral is amazing, and in really good condition for a building that’s been in use for over 500 years.

We circled the outside, checking out the alcoves and many creepy shrines. (I can’t help it; religious stuff makes me nervous.) We found Ponce de Leon along the left side, near the back of the church:

Since we were across the street from Hotel El Convento, we decided to stop in for a drink. We found a very lovely courtyard full of tables, and had a seat at the bar. While we can’t afford to stay there, we can at least afford a mojito there. We sat and watched them setting up for a wedding that night. (I’d be shocked if they didn’t have weddings there every weekend.)

From there we headed back over near the city wall, because I also wanted to revisit Cappila del Cristo. I’d only recently learned the legend about it (that they used to race horses down Calle Cristo, and one rider couldn’t stop and went flying over the city wall at the end of the street), plus the gates were actually open this time.

The altar was amazing. This is to the right as you go into the chapel, behind gates.

The left side was photos and history, plus this impressive array of milagros:

After that, it was time to find some lunch. Because we’d walked past it earlier, we knew that Cafe Puerto Rico was still closed. We walked back down Calle Recinto Sur toward the middle of town to see what we’d find along the way. We finally decided on Lupi’s, because we were dying of hunger and knew they’d have something vegetarian. We got a table on the street, so we could people-watch while we dined.

After lunch, we walked down to where the cruise ships docked when they’re stopping in San Juan. That was boring, so we wandered back up in the direction of our hotel. We decided to stop and have a beer at the Jamaican restaurant there before going to get our suitcases. We hung out talking to the girl working at Blessed Cafe about other parts of Puerto Rico for a while, and then headed across the street to Casa Blanca. We got our bags and a taxi, and it was time to leave San Juan. SIGH.

The check-in process on our ship was really quick (it was 3pm, so we were fairly early), and we were on board in no time. They gave us glasses of champagne as we got on, and we decided to go directly to the cabin to check it out. As usual, we had carry-on bags and our suitcases would be delivered later.

We had cabin 7047, a veranda room on the port side near the forward elevators. Our cabin steward, Socorro, stopped by shortly after we arrived to introduce himself. I made sure to tell him it was Matt’s birthday that week. I’d also ordered the birthday package for him for our sailaway that day, so I expected to find champagne and a cake and such awaiting us, but it wasn’t there for some reason. I figured I’d wait and see if it showed up before telling Matt about it.

We’d sailed on the Celebrity Summit before, so we knew what to expect. The only big difference this time was that we had the beverage package; we’d gotten the basic drinks package for free with the booking (it covered anything up to $7, and if you ordered something more expensive you paid the entire amount, not the difference.) Based on my research, we’d decided to upgrade to the premium package, which covered everything up to $13. Plus if you went over, you only paid the difference. Based on our tab at the end of the last cruise, it was worth it.

There were also a few changes to some of the bars and public spaces since our last cruise, so I was excited to see that. But having sailed on the ship before, we didn’t have to devote our first day to exploring everything, like we usually do.

We headed up to the pool bar to get a drink. I ordered a mojito, and ended up with this, which ended up being a frozen margarita. At least it was pretty good.

We did some more wandering around the ship, and then headed back to the pool area when our drinks were empty. This time we went up and got seats at the Mast Bar overlooking the pool (and the entire port area). We marveled at how much better the drink menus had gotten… they were way more sophisticated, with less focus on ‘boat drinks’ and more on actual well-thought-out cocktails. And the best part was we had already prepaid for them, so we didn’t have to deal with that part at all.

After hanging out there a while we were starting to get hungry, so we tried the burger bar. There was a 10 minute wait for a veggie burger there, so we went into the buffet next door instead and got pizza. From there we went out to the bar at the back of the ship and learned that they had awesome Jamaican bartenders. Marlon quickly became our favorite.

We got drinks and took them down to the room to see if our bags had arrived yet. They had, so we unpacked and got our room in order. We hung out on the balcony for a bit as we started to sail away, and then went upstairs to Marlon’s bar again. It was already dark, since we sailed at 8:30, so there wasn’t too much to see from the deck.

For dinner we didn’t care much for dressing up for the dining room, so we went back to the buffet. Matt had sushi, and I had a giant salad and Indian food that was pretty decent. After that we went down to Michael’s Club, since it was one of the bars that had remodeled since our last trip. Then it was the cigar and scotch bar, and this time it was the craft beer bar (which also had scotch). That seemed pretty much perfect for us, and there were several things on the menu I’d never tried before. We had some beer, and hung out talking to an awesome couple we met from Pittsburgh. Also, we noticed that there were Canadians EVERYWHERE on the ship, and it made it especially easy to identify them because (in addition to their hilarious accents), they were all wearing hockey-related clothing. It was in the middle of the Olympics, so that at least made some sense.

We headed to the casino, where I went to play craps and Matt blackjack. I did well at craps for a bit, and then everything went badly. I took the rest of my chips and joined him at the blackjack table, where I got wiped out the rest of the way. Thankfully, he was at least doing well. When we were done playing, we went to grab a beer and take it up to the room.

At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up and threw up like crazy. Hello, seasickness!

I slept really late on Sunday, and felt terrible. I got up and threw up some more, dressed, and we headed up to the buffet to eat. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle eating anything, but I had some coffee and a slice of cheese pizza. (It was already after 11, so they didn’t have breakfast anymore.)

I’ve had trouble with seasickness plenty, but I get the head-spinning vertigo kind, not the nausea. I have inner ear problems, so I figure that’s just par for the course. (I also feel like I’m rocking for weeks after every cruise.) The worst part is at night, because the head-spinning has weird effects on your brain and you have trouble sleeping. Generally Dramamine helps with that, though, so I wasn’t too worried about it. Being sick to my stomach, and really sleepy, was entirely new, and a horrible feeling. I spent the entire day wondering who I was going to throw up on.

We got mojitos at Marlon’s bar, and I drank very very slowly, mostly just to have something to do. I also got a giant bottle of Evian – one of my favorite perks of the premium drinks package was the ability to get a liter of Evian anytime I wanted – and worked on downing that in case I was dehydrated.  Matt got lunch eventually, and then we went downstairs to play shuffleboard. I felt slightly better walking around barefoot in the sun, at least. (It also helps being able to see the horizon, and having that movement match with the sensation of it in my head.)

After shuffleboard, we went up to the Mast Bar and sat in the round booth next to it to play Hive. After a while we went to go sit at the bar, and ended up talking to a Minnesota Vikings fan and a guy who used to work on cruise ships, and now just hangs out on them a lot. From there we went to the room, because I was feeling crappy again and needed to nap, and then throw up again. FUN TIMES FOR ALL.

Later we went to Rendezvous to play canasta. People were dressed up for formal night, so we decided to have dinner in the buffet again and then dress up afterwards if I felt up to it. I was able to eat some salad and Indian food again and felt slightly better, so we changed and then headed to Revelations, the lounge at the very top of the ship, for Motown night. The band was really great, and I was happy to sit and do nothing and be distracted from being so sick.

I only made it til 11pm that night, which was almost a stretch anyway. Thank god Matt is a good sport… he insists that he doesn’t mind if I have to go back to the cabin and feel crappy! I’d brought along Sea Bands from my parents, so I put those on my wrists and took a Dramamine before bed. That at least made it so I was able to sleep through the night.

On our first visit to Barbados, we had intentions of going to the beach. We saw Bridgetown, visited the Mount Gay distillery, and then planned to go to the beach after lunch. Those plans were derailed when I left my camera in a cab going to lunch. Thankfully I got it back, but we never made it to the beach. I aimed to fix that this time.

We got up early, got breakfast and an excellent cappuccino from the coffee cafe (another big improvement on this cruise), and then went down to get on the shuttle bus in port. That dropped us at the pier shops, which you have to wind your way through in order to make it outside. From there, it was a short walk to the taxi stand. They piled everyone heading to a certain location in a minibus – Matt and I got the cramped front seat with our driver Roberts – and we were off to Rockley Beach (otherwise known as Accra).

I was feeling much better than the previous day, thanks to Dramamine and my Sea Bands (which I only wore overnight). I was still dizzy, but at least didn’t feel nauseous constantly.

We drove through Bridgetown, where Roberts confirmed that Big John’s, the awesome roti place where I discovered the loss of my camera, had indeed closed. Sigh. We dropped some people off at one stop south of town, and then headed onward to Rockley. There were some older Brits in the back, and all one of them did was ask semi-uncomfortable questions about the differences between England and its former Caribbean holding. He also complained about the price of everything, including the cab ride, which I thought was pretty reasonable at $15/couple.

Our driver dropped us at the Tiki Bar, and made arrangements to pick us up at  3:15.The deal there is you pay $30 for two chairs and an umbrella, and you get $40 (Bajan, which is $2-t0-$1 USD) ‘tiki bucks’ to use at the bar. Since we had no other plans besides beach and beer, that sounded fine to us. Plus the place was nearly empty when we arrived. We got chairs and a couple of Banks and hung out looking at the ocean.

I could look at this forever. It’s amazing.

We went for a swim after a while, and discovered there’s a sand bar a ways out that you can swim to. From there we were able to walk most of the way down toward the other end of the beach. We hung out in the water for a really long time, and then retired to our chairs again for more Banks. The Bajans are proud of their local beer because the reef-filtered water is so different from the volcanic water on the other islands, and for good reason: it’s delicious. We started ordering them in fours at the bar, because it was just easier.

After a while we went to swim again, and then switched to their delicious rum punch. I wanted to stay there longer, but Roberts started milling around the bar around 3pm. We went to use their bathrooms-in-a-cave one last time, and then climbed in the van. The Brits for some reason hadn’t used their tiki bucks up, so they were rushing to use them while a group of us sat waiting in the van. I was not a huge fan of them, but at least it started raining on them while they were still outside.

In the van, we ended up talking to a lady who was on the British P&O Oceana ship in port. She said she was in the middle of a 28-day cruise from Southhampton that was delayed for a few days because the weather was too bad to leave port. I felt like we got really lucky with just a blizzard!

Roberts dropped us at port. It was too late to go back into town, so we got a Mount Gay and coke at Coconuts, the bar at the dock where we’d previously celebrated having recovered my camera. We hung out there for a bit, eavesdropping on dumb girls. There was a wedding that had just taken place, apparently involving people from the Oceana, who got an ovation when they wandered into the bar. Awesome.

We headed into the port shops to look for interesting duty-free liquor (they had nothing special), souvenirs, and snacks. We got a set of the same awesome Banks dominoes we’d brought back for my father-in-law last time, because they’re the best; they have a little metal tack in the center that makes them slide well, and they’re really heavy. We picked up some snacks from the grocery store, including a pack of Go Ahead, because they’re my favorite British snack.

We ended up on one of the last shuttles back to the ship, around 5pm. We watched sailaway from our balcony, then took showers.

We then headed to Rendezvous to play canasta again before dinner. It was finally time to act like civilized people and have dinner in the main dining room, so we went down there about 7:30 and had hardly any wait for a two-person table. (The change in the way dining works on cruises the past few years is my favorite… it works like a regular restaurant now. You don’t have to show up at a fixed time and sit at a big table with strangers if you don’t want to.)

I had a porcini mushroom napoleon that was incredible, and really good potato masala curry. Matt had scallop crudo, French onion soup, a ribeye and red wine. We were way too full for dessert.

After dinner, we headed to the martini bar. We’d expected to find it packed – it was by far the most popular bar on the ship – but we had no trouble getting seats at the bar. This was another of the newly-redone spots, and it was great. The bartenders did flair, things like pouring 7 small cocktails from stacked shaker glasses all at the same time, and they were adorable. Also, the bartop was frozen… it was cold metal that they drenched with water, so it frosted over completely. It was a great setup. Their drinks were excellent, too!

The couple we’d met from Pittsburgh showed up, so we re-introduced ourselves again, as we’d of course all forgotten each others’ names. We ended up talking to them for a long time, and realized we have a ton in common. They even got married in Key West, and talked about moving there too!

They headed to bed, so we decided to do the same. After grabbing a to-go Manhattan, of course. We had them on our balcony, and then went to bed.

Tuesday was Matt’s 35th birthday!! We got up early since we had a date with a catamaran at 8:15. Getting up to this view from the balcony was pretty excellent.

Since we were in a hurry we’d pre-ordered room service breakfast the night before. While many of the room service items (and delivery) are free, we had $150 on-board credit to burn, so we went all-out for his birthday. I got a truffle omelet (I’ve seriously never seen so many truffles in one place before), and Matt got a salmon and caviar omelet. We ate on the balcony overlooking Castries.

After breakfast, we got off the ship and met up with our tour group. This was our only pre-arranged excursion through Celebrity, so I kind of forgot how it works. You all stand in huge lines waiting for people to show up, and then you usually pile on a huge bus to wherever you’re going. (It’s not that appealing.) Thankfully, our catamaran was docked nearby so we could walk there. We hopped on board, and got a seat around the netting at the front.

My seasickness was definitely less than the first couple days, but it was still always there. I felt a constant sense of motion no matter where we were, and it was exhausting. Still, I was in the Caribbean. That makes everything better.

We headed out of the bay where Castries is located, and turned south. The crew told us a lot of interesting facts along the way, including some strange things about the history of the oil-storage (not production or processing) industry in St Lucia. It was entertaining.

Our first visit was to Marigot Bay. It was gorgeous! It’s a very narrow bay, lined with resorts, restaurants, and docks.

I decided I should probably own this bar. (I like any bar you can boat to.)

This was the Sandals resort, which I tried not to judge too hard because it looked super-nice. Plus, you know, I arrived on a cruise ship, so it’s basically like a floating Sandals resort. Hopefully without all the swingers.

We sailed around in the bay for a bit, and then headed back out and south again. After a while, we turned into a smaller cove with a beach, called Anse de Cochon (i.e. Pig Beach). I don’t recall why it was called that… something about wild pigs, I’m guessing? Anyway, there were a couple other catamarans there with people swimming and snorkeling.

We pulled up near the beach, and the crew threw the rope to a couple of the locals, who tied us off to a tree. Then the locals all jumped in their kayaks and paddled out to the boat to sell their wares (mostly turtle trinkets, bead bracelets, and every purchase came with a free coconut). They paddled around the swimmers, too. So funny.

Matt and I went to swim for a while, and the water was surprisingly cold for how far south we were. We did a loop around the boat, then hung out bobbing in the water and watching the hardcore snorkelers.

After a while, we all climbed back up the stairs onto the boat. The kayakers took their boats out of the water, and untied us from the palm tree. Then the captain announced that the bar was open, with free rum punch and beer.

So you can imagine how it went after that. It was awesome. Here are a bunch of Minnesotans we met, taking full advantage of the rum punch. (We did too.)

Bally chilled on the cargo net.

We headed south again. The crew pointed out Soufriere, one of the main tourist spots in St. Lucia, nestled amongst the hills. It was clearly a former volcanic valley.

Along the way, we spotted a gigantic sea turtle and pilot whales jumping in front of the boat. So awesome!

Next up was the main attraction: Gros and Petit Piton. I’d wanted to see them since we first started visiting the Caribbean. They’re a UNESCO World Heritage site, and they’re really incredibly impressive.

I took about 400 pictures of them; rum punch may have been a factor. I’ll spare you and just post the one here.

The boat turned to head back to Castries, so Matt and I turned around and hung our legs over the side so we could see the coast. There was plenty of rum punch going around, and we got to talking to an old lady who really wanted to tell Matt everything about her life. We noticed we were starting to get sunburnt, so we put on more sunscreen (we’d been really good with the SPF30 so far, or at least that’s what we thought).

We arrived back in Castries around 12:30 or so, and decided to stop back on the ship quickly to change and reapply sunscreen, and get a gigantic bottle of water for the walk into town. We did that quickly, then got back off the ship in search of food and shopping. It took a bit to get through the cruise port (in that area with the red rooftops on the left), but we escaped and headed down the road. We asked someone for directions to an ATM so we could get Eastern Caribbean Dollars, and they pointed the way into town.

There was a shortcut through what appeared to be the fishing docks, and a guy there asked us if we wanted to buy water. (It was a million degrees out, or so it felt.) We said we preferred rum, so he took us into a little shack of a shop that looked to be abandoned. There was a lady behind a counter, who apparently didn’t have rum but could sell us a couple Pitons (the local beer). We asked if we could take them with us on the road, and she said yes. (I’m still not sure it was actually legal, but whatever.) We got them in plastic cups and headed toward town.

Coincidentally, it was also St. Lucia’s 35th birthday!

We walked to the bank that had been pointed out for us and got EC$ from the ATM, then noticed a big open-air ‘sports bar’ restaurant nearby with three different names on it. (That’s how you know things in the Caribbean are good.) We went up to the window by the kitchen and I asked the lady if she had anything vegetarian; she said she could do rice and peas with a salad, and that was good enough for me. They didn’t have a full order of jerk chicken left, so Matt got a plate with the remaining pieces and some curry goat.

The food was excellent, and we got a couple more Pitons at the bar. They had semi-functional wifi there, so we took advantage of our first phone signal in a few days.

After lunch, we walked over to the craft market nearby. As we walked in, there was a pair of Americans sitting on a bench in the shade, looking exhausted. They held out a baggie with a couple aloe leaves in it, saying, “We bought this and can’t use it all, do you want it?” We very gladly took it, since we were burnt to a near-crisp at that point.

We found a lady in the market with a spice stand, and bought half of what she was selling. We refreshed our nutmeg stash (the huge collection we had from Grenada was aging), got some tamarind, hot sauce, peppercorns, and various other things from her. Then Matt wanted to check out the local rum selection, so we were standing there wondering where we should go for that when a guy came up with a rolling cart full of water and soda, and asked if we needed anything. We bought water, and asked him where we could find a nearby liquor or grocery store for rum.

Not only did he show us the nearest one, he took us there, along with his rolling beverage cart. He led us across the street to the grocery store (he said it would be the cheapest spot… we took his word for it) and brought us to the rum aisle. We thanked him and gave him a tip, and he headed out. The store was air conditioned, so I thought about standing in there forever. Instead we picked out some Chairman’s Reserve Forgotten Casks (seriously, they had a fire at the distillery in 2007 and lost several barrels, only to discover them later and bottle them), which was indeed REALLY cheap locally.

It was getting late and the sunburn was really starting to hurt, so we headed back toward the ship again. We cut through the fisheries complex and went back to the port, then stopped in a few shops there to get the required souvenirs. I was really excited about the fact that we had fresh aloe to cover ourselves with as soon as we got back to our cabin.

We did that, and then covered ourselves with sheets and blankets to keep the sun off us, because it was streaming full into the cabin. No, I don’t know why we didn’t just close the curtain. Sometimes these things don’t make sense. Matt had certain feelings to express to the sun as he hid under a robe:

We’d also arrived in our cabin to find a bottle of wine and plate of shimp for Matt’s birthday, from our cabin steward Socorro. It’s possible that Matt laid in bed with the shrimp plate and drank directly out of the bottle of wine, but I’ll never tell. Socorro had also arranged some towel swans on the bed. Bally was a fan.

We watched sailaway from our balcony, and then showered and got dressed up for dinner. We had reservations that night at Normandie, the fancy Titanic-themed (I know) restaurant. We’d had dinner there before, and it was excellent.

They didn’t seem to have quite as much in the way of vegetarian food this time (or were just slightly less accommodating), but I was happy regardless: I had a really good mushroom risotto, then a goat cheese souffle. Of course there was a pile of bread always at the ready, and we had good champagne to drink. I couldn’t even finish the souffle; while it was excellent, it was so rich I couldn’t handle it any more. (That concerned our waiter, so I had to reassure him that I was fine.) Matt decided to go super-oldschool with Dover sole, which they delivered to the table on a rolling cart. The server prepared it tableside, removing the bones with two giant serving spoons, rather than knives. It was incredible.

We were stuffed after those dishes, and figured we’d manage to make room for their awesome tiny dessert assortment. (Since I’m not really a sweets-eater, I like any time I can taste desserts without wasting a bunch of them.) But then the cheese cart arrived, and it was basically a small deli case full of amazing things. I picked out one cheese, and the guy talked me into three of them. He then made a plate with honey, dried fruit, nuts, and various other things before handing it over. Holy crap.

And then the birthday cake arrived. We didn’t know about or expect the birthday cake, but there it was: a big 6″ square chocolate thing with candles in it and ‘Happy Birthday’ on top. Matt did a good job of being appreciative, because we were dying of fullness. After he blew out the candles, they took the cake away, cut it in half, and brought it back for us to eat. Then they brought the tall tray of dessert appetizers, and finally the tiny desserts we were actually expecting. It was dessert torture. I mean, you definitely get your $40 worth out of the meal, but holy crap. It would take six people to eat the entire meal we had. And everything was great.

After dinner, we tried to get into the theater for the burlesque show, but it was totally full already. Instead we decided to just grab a beer at Michael’s Club and go back to our room to hang out for the evening. Between the gigantic meal, the sunburn and my seasickness, we were exhausted. We ended up watching trick-shot pool on one of the sports channels, which I then fitfully dreamed about all night. I finally woke up enough to take a dramamine and ibuprofin for my sunburn, and was able to sleep after that.

Between the seasickness, the painful sunburn, and the overnight storm we rode though, I didn’t sleep very well again. We got up at 9 and went up to breakfast, which included my traditional gruel (mueslix) and a mini-croissant with cheese. The coffee in the buffet was so bad we decided it was called Maxwell’s Foreclosure. Blech. (Thank god for Cafe al Bacio, with their excellent espresso drinks.)

It was raining quite a bit when we left, and a lady in the elevator said the ship was refunding pre-booked excursions. People who had just gotten off the ship were all huddled under tents waiting for the rain to stop, but we were prepared with our umbrellas. We walked through the cruise port part of St John’s, looking for something resembling a cab stand. Eventually a guy approached us asking if we wanted a tour, and I told him we just needed a taxi to Nelson’s Dockyard. He told us there wasn’t much to see there, maybe only an hour’s worth at the museum, and that we should take a tour. I insisted that we just wanted a ride there, and finally he agreed to take us for $40. That was higher than other islands, but it was also a lot farther.

On the way, he told us about Antiguan history, and a lot about their local dishes. Matt and I made mental notes. They use pumpkin a lot, which was really interesting. In other respects it was very similar to Trini food.

By the time we reached Nelson’s Dockyard, the rain had stopped. We paid $16 admission, and asked about an ATM, since we didn’t have enough cash for a cab back. The lady at the desk said there was one in the market at the entrance, so we stopped into the booth. We both tried our Schwab debit cards, and the machine said it could not service our request at that time. That made us a little nervous, because we hadn’t had trouble at the ATM elsewhere. We decided to look for another one, or stop back later.

Nelson’s Dockyard is really incredibly scenic.

The weather had become perfect, though it meant we had to be really vigilant about sunscreen and shade with our sunburnts. We were just on the edge of being sick from them already. We decided to head to the museum first.

I feel like we’ve seen about 20 different British naval exhibits at this point (thanks to my nerdy husband), but it was still really interesting to hear how miserable island life was. Between the heat, humidity, bugs, and tropical diseases, I’m shocked anyone survived.

They had some pretty excellent old artifacts, including this set of wooden doors with soldiers’ names carved into them.

This was my favorite: “England expects that every man will do his duty.” Especially you, Antiguans whose country they stole!

There’s a wraparound patio on the upper level of the museum so you can overlook most of the complex. In the back there’s a little bakery:

From the museum, we went to wander around the grounds. There are docks encircling the whole peninsula, full of an incredible number of expensive yachts. We tried to figure out how many of them were charters or for hire, and how many private. There were definitely lots of both. Also, there was a mansion on a little island in the bay:

Bally had his obligatory cannon hangout there, too. (We also reapplied sunscreen at this cannon. It was critical.)

We decided to have some time in the shade at one of the bars along the marina (which also used to be part of the complex). We got a couple Wadadli, the national beer of Antigua, and hung out. I liked that even though it was a historic site, it still had writing all over the ceiling from past visitors. (While we were there, a group of women piled off a yacht and came in to climb on a chair and add their names.)

A bananaquit came to say hi while we were there, too.

It was unclear whether they had food there, and we didn’t feel like asking, so we decided to wander over to one of the other spots in the dockyard. We took the route along the marina, gawking at all the yachts. They were incredible, and it drove me crazy to not know all their stories.

We came across a small restaurant that I initially thought just served ice cream, based on the signs. Then I noticed a menuboard out front that listed roti! We went in and asked if they had vegetarian roti, and they did. Then it was officially my favorite day. Wadadli and roti for lunch, while hanging out watching yachting people do their thing.

After lunch, we walked over to give the ATM a try again. I got the same message, which made us officially nervous, since we’d have to get a cabbie who was willing to take us to an ATM so he could get paid, and what if we couldn’t get cash? Then I thought to try choosing ‘savings’ instead of ‘checking’, even though I only have a checking account at Schwab. That worked!!! We both got out some more EC$, and could then relax about the trip back. We headed back out to the dockyard to wander some more.

I’m not sure why the taxi driver had told us there was nothing to see there. There was a ton, and we’d barely scratched the service. There were a couple nicer restaurants, shops, and all the waterfront activities. There’s even a hotel there. It was really pretty, and I wish we’d had more time.

This is the side entrance to the hotel:

It was getting late in the afternoon, it was really hot, and the place was definitely emptying of tourists, so we decided to get a cab back. We could tell it was past tourist time, too, because it took us a while to get a driver.

This is one of the very old churches we saw along the way. I want to see more of Antigua.

Our driver dropped us back in St John, at the entrance to the duty-free area that every cruise port has. We stopped into a liquor store and got a bottle of English Harbour, and since we had some EC$ left and a bit of time to kill, we found a table at a bar a block from the ship called Cheers (of course). That’s where everyone from the three ships at the dock was sitting, too, but as long as we had a table and some barely-functional wifi, I didn’t mind. Presidenta and rum punch helped, too. Also, the place was run by a Syrian family, and we really wanted to know the story with that.

This white-rasta-jesus-looking dude was out dancing on the street and posing for pictures, then he came in for a beer. Haha.

Close to boarding time, we decided to head to the ship. There was an actual line of people down the block, all waiting to reboard. I’ve never seen that before.

We went to our room to clean up, then headed upstairs for pizza and a drink for Marlon’s bar, which we took back down to the cabin for sailaway.

We’d showered off our sunscreen, so we did our best to protect ourselves from further sunburn. Matt made himself look like an invalid. (I’m still laughing about it, too.)

I made a tent from my sarong and hung out under it. How cute are those sad octopi?? I love them.

Antigua was probably the most scenic island to sail away from in the sunset. I really want to see more than just the ‘former British colony’ part of it.

Once we were out to sea, we went down to the martini bar. It was shockingly uncrowded again…shocking because it’s a legitimately good bar. We also needed caffeine, so I ended up with the trifecta of awesome beverages.

We hung out watching Ivo and Neuman work their flair magic for a while, then headed to dinner in the main dining room. We got seated right away at table one, so obviously we were very important. I had broccoli soup and another really excellent Indian dish, and Matt had crab cakes and Cajun drumfish. We split creme brulee for dessert, and then went down to Michael’s Club for their scheduled Scotch tasting.

As far as we could tell, we were the only ones there for the tasting, which was fine with us. We had Highland Park 2001, Macallan Makers Edition, and Glenlivet 12. We hung out for a while after that chatting with the bartenders (they’d become our favorites since we spent most of our time in there), and then grabbed a to-go Manhattan to take to the room, so we could go sit on our balcony and enjoy the stars.

I felt terrible again Thursday morning, because of the seasickness. The Sea Bands were helping me sleep, but they had no effect on the head-spinning exhaustion during the day. I ate a very small breakfast of gruel, and we stopped at Cafe al Bacio for cappuccinos before getting off the ship.

There were six ships in port that day, something we didn’t even think possible. They were the Holland America Eurodam, which we’d sailed on in the Mediterranean (it was pretty exciting to see it again), a second Celebrity ship, Princess, MSC, and one of those gigantic Royal Caribbean ships. Which meant at least 12,000 tourists were wandering around the island that day. That’s kind of incredible.

We walked through the port shops to the taxi stand, which was of course a gigantic mess. We found the line for cabs to Maho Beach, and waited there for 20 minutes or so because a van showed up for us. We piled in, and it started raining almost immediately. The driver tore up and down hills and through towns on the way there, and it was all I could do to not throw up all over the place. I was glad I had a gigantic bottle of water along with me.

The driver dropped a group of people at Mullet Bay first, which was at the end of a potholed road through a golf course. Then he headed back to Maho Beach and dropped the rest of us at Sunset Bar and Grill. As expected, there were people everywhere, and I doubted we’d find anywhere to sit. However, the place is gigantic, so we were able to get sets right at the bar. We ordered a couple rum and Cokes, and went to check the flight arrivals on their board.

I had learned of Maho Beach after our first visit to St Maarten, and I was really excited to go back and see it. I remember seeing the first photos of it and thinking they had to be photoshopped, because that couldn’t possibly be real. But no, there’s a tiny beach at the end of the airport runway that regularly has huge jets landing. The largest ones are those coming from Europe, obviously.

There’s a road separating the beach from the airport fence, with constant taxi traffic and people walking back and forth (especially on such a busy tourist day). There’s the Sunset Bar at one end and the Driftwood Boat Bar at the other, and the beach is packed with people swimming and watching for planes. When they’re arriving, everyone lines up with their cameras, and when they’re leaving, the brave (or stupid) people cross the street and cling to the fence. When the planes fire up their engines for takeoff, they get blown across the street and down the beach. Then everyone has to scramble into the ocean to retrieve whatever items got blown in there by the jet blast.

So I’d read all of that, and thought it was hilarious, and that I had to see it. I didn’t realize just how incredibly great it would be.

While the bigger jets didn’t come in til afternoon, there were small planes landing constantly.

We had another drink, then decided to get an appetizer. Our plan was to hang out there for a while and then walk over to have lunch at the resort across the beach, so we figured we’d do that a bit later. There were planes to see, after all.

It rained really hard a few times, and everyone came in to huddle in the bar. We were under the shelter (which made our sunburns happy), so we were already in a good spot. We ate and sat around watching for incoming planes. It was easy to figure out when they were coming despite the umbrellas in the way, because everyone would get out their cameras.

Around 1pm, the big jets started to come in. Delta was first, and it BLEW MY MIND. It was fantastic, and everyone cheered as it landed.

The sun came out, and it was gorgeous outside. We had another round of drinks and waited for the Sun Country plane.

The Delta plane turned around at the gate pretty quickly, and went back to the runway to take off. People clung to the fence for their lives, and a lot of them ran across the street propelled by the jet blast. (It gave me fond memories of being blown out the doors at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. RIP.) Other people lost their hats in the ocean and had to run after them.  I was laughing hysterically. It was the best.

Then an American flight came in, and I got video of it. I’ve only watched this twenty times already.

There was a while until the AirFrance jet arrived, and at that point we knew we had to see it. We decided we might as well just commit to spending the day there, and ordered lunch. I was glad they had a veggie burger on the menu. (It was really good, too!) A band set up on stage and started playing reggae, so it was basically my favorite place ever. Beach, rum, good food, and reggae… that’s all you need, right? That goofy Captain Morgan statue didn’t hurt, either.

Then it was time for the big plane. We could tell it was coming in because there was a mass rush to the edge of the patio. I’d never been so excited for a plane to land… at least, a plane I wasn’t on at the time.

It was awesome.

Then it was time to head back to Philipsburg, because we wanted to do some shopping and hopefully revisit Juggie’s Place. We found a cab driver wandering around the bar, and he gathered up a few more passengers before leading us to his van. Along the way, he kept trying to poach fares from other drivers. It was really entertaining, but the other drivers weren’t thrilled about it.

He dropped us in the center of town, and we set off to wander (after reapplying a heavy coat of sunscreen). The only directions I had for Juggie’s Place read “by Diamonds International”, which seemed like enough until I noticed they had Diamonds International on every third block. We knew it was in a courtyard off an alley and figured we’d recognize it, so we walked down Front Street peering down every side street along the way.

We didn’t find it going one direction, so we turned and went back the other way. Still nothing, and I was getting really worn out. (Stupid seasickness.) We decided to stop into a duty-free liquor store to see what we could find there.

They had a massive collection of scotch, and there were a few rums we’d never even seen before. We sampled and picked up a bottle of HSE rum aged in sherry casks from Martinique there, and they wrapped it up for us to take back. We then decided to just go find a place to sit at along the boardwalk, since we couldn’t find Juggies.

Our ship was the last to leave that evening; we had a departure of 6pm, whereas most of the rest of them were 4:30 or 5. That meant the town was fairly empty at that point, and it was interesting to watch the locals closing things up. I remember what it was like being in Bermuda after the cruise ships left… it felt like a ghost town for a bit until local life resumed.

We got mojitos at the Blue Bitch Bar, and sat facing the ocean. The bartender was really entertaining. We hung out there watching people pass by, and then the rain started up again and everyone scrambled. (The bartender had a good point… why do people come running out of the ocean and try to hide when it rains? That’s the best place to be, isn’t it?)

Finally it was time to go, so we walked over to the water taxi stop and rode to the cruise port to board the ship. A few of the other ships had already left at that point.

We stopped at the martini bar for the drink, then went up to the room for sailaway on the balcony, followed by a shower. On the way out of port, we could see the end of the runway and the beach where we’d spent the day.

Later, we went up to Marlon’s for a caipirinha, then went to get dinner at the buffet. I had my usual salad bar and Indian food, because they didn’t have a lot of variety. (I was fine with that.) We then got seats at Rendevous to watch the Latin band. They were fantastic, as were the dancers – we had a few really good salsa dancers on board, apparently. That was followed by karaoke, which we were pretty excited to see until we realized just how godawful some of the singers were. It was so bad it wasn’t even funny, so we decided to move on.

Around 9:30, we headed to Michael’s Club again. There were a ton of Canadians at the bar (as usual), and we saw our Pittsburgh friends hanging out on the deck smoking. We hung out talking to them, and ordered beers. The bartenders seemed to be in an especially good mood that night, handing out snacks and a bunch of Chimay samples.

Round about 11:30, it was time for bed. We had to be up early for St Thomas the next day!

7am came way too early, despite our fairly early evening. It had been a week, and my seasickness was pretty much a permanent fixture at that point. It’s exhausting.

We’d at least planned ahead and ordered breakfast in the room, so we ate quickly, showered, and prepared. Our goal was to make the 9am water taxi at Red Hook, and we knew that would mean rushing off the ship. It was 8:15 by the time we disembarked, and Matt thought there was no way we should even bother hurrying at that point. I wanted to try, though, so we headed off in a hurry.

It had been pouring for a few minutes, and when the rain started to let up there was a huge double rainbow over the harbor in Charlotte Amalie. We left the port and headed through the duty-free shopping area, which was all closed since it was so early. We finally saw a parking lot full of really large taxi-shuttles, so I walked over and asked if we could get a ride to Red Hook. They put us in the backseat of the cab of a truck that had a penned-in bench area full of cruise people in the back, and headed off.

The lady driving the truck was in a HURRY. Which was awesome, because she knew we were in a huge hurry, too. I felt bad for the people in the back, though… we were seatbelted into an enclosed area, and they were sliding around on wooden benches in the back while she tore up and down hills, around tight curves, and slammed on the brakes repeatedly. But she got us to Red Hook in under 20 minutes, and we were just barely there in time for the ferry. I almost puked from seasickness and the ride, but that was fine.

We found Jessie (my former coworker) and her wife Kate in the ferry terminal. They were there on their honeymoon, so we’d planned to meet them and go over to St John. That worked out well!

We hopped on the ferry and were at the dock in Cruz Bay in 15 minutes. That was far preferable to the 45-minute ride from Charlotte Amalie, on the 10am ferry. (It runs hourly from Red Hook, and only a couple times a day from Charlotte Amalie.) We had plans to go pick up some beer and head to the beach, so we walked into town to find a grocery store. We couldn’t find one (despite the town being very tiny), but a local pointed us in the right direction. We picked up St John Brewers beer, plus some SPF 50 sunscreen so we didn’t fry again.

Kate said they’d been there the previous day to do some scouting, and found a beach that was a 5-minute walk. We figured we’d take a cab to Trunk Bay, but that sounded fine to us. We set off toward the entrance to the National Park (the island is almost entirely park) , and Kate led us to a trail head. It promptly turned into an actual dirt and gravel hiking trail.

We climbed up a hill over rocks, and at that point I was questioning this decision. I was so seasick that it was all I could do to stay upright, and we were both wearing flipflops. I figured it would only be five minutes, though, so that was fine.

Twenty minutes later, we got to the sign pointing down a steep hill to the beach. Our water was gone, but at least we had beer. We climbed down carefully and found Solomon Beach. It was nearly empty.

We set up in a shady spot under a tree, and sat there on the beach talking for a good long time with our beers. I started to feel less like throwing up as soon as I sat down. Seasickness is definitely NOT my favorite thing in the world.

After a while, Matt and I went to snorkel near the rocks. Then we all hung out in the ocean for a while, until we finally agreed it was time for lunch.

The hike back didn’t seem as arduous, but I still really wish we had water. We’re generally prepared, but the hike had been a surprise! Kate seemed fine, though:

We climbed back down to the visitor center, where I was perturbed to find a nonfunctioning drinking fountain. We headed into town for lunch, in search of St John Brewers. We found their brewpub on the second floor of a little mall.

I couldn’t decide if I was more excited for air conditioning or water, but I enjoyed the hell out of both (plus their beer). We had lunch there, then went downstairs to their gift shop for some souvenirs.

We still had a bit of time to kill before we had to be back on the ferry to St Thomas, so we went to a bar in Cruz Bay that they’d been to before. It was right on the beach, and we could see the ferry dock from there so we were unlikely to miss it. On the way there, we ran into our friends from Pittsburgh, who had come over on the ferry from Charlotte Amalie with the cruise excursion.

We had drinks there, watching people load up the ferry. Then we realized how late it was getting, and it was time to hurry. We said goodbye to Jessie and Kate, because they’d decided to stay til the next ferry. Matt and I boarded, and went up to the top to get the seats with a view. Probably not a great idea with the sunburn, but it was nice being up there.

Back at Red Hook, we piled into cabs back to port. I ended up in the back seat next to a couple from Georgia. The husband was hilarious, and kept wanting to talk about rum because he’d drank so many of them in St John. His wife kept shushing him, telling him he was bothering me. He wasn’t at all; it was good entertainment for the ride back.

We ran into traffic heading into town (the traffic we’d been warned about, that could make your ride to Red Hook take 45 minutes instead of 20). The driver dropped us at the duty-free shops, which were once again mostly closed because the ship was leaving soon. We walked back to the dock.

This is all I’ve seen of Charlotte Amalie in my two visits to St Thomas. I’m sure it’s a nice town, but there are way more awesome things in the USVI!

We boarded the ship with a six-pack of St John Brewers beers, figuring they’d probably take them from us and then we could bring them to Vieques. They didn’t even care, though, so we took them to the room and had one for sailaway.

It was a little sad leaving the Virgin Islands because it was our last night on the cruise. At the same time, I was sick to death of feeling like crap from the seasickness, so I was excited to be on land again. It helped that we had the post-trip planned, so we didn’t have to go home right away.

We showered and started packing our bags, because they had to be ready for the porters by 11pm. It was a long, involved process due to the many breakable souvenirs, including three bottles of rum. We took a break after a while and went to have snack in the buffet (I had a salad), then got a drink at the pool bar to take back to the room. We finished packing, then went up to Marlon’s bar to play dominoes.

After a while, we went down to dinner one last time in the main dining room. The meal was fine, but they seemed totally half-assed about everything since it was the last night. Our bread had no butter, Matt got the wrong entree, and service was slow. We didn’t really care, though. The food was mostly fine.

We stopped at our room to put our bags in the hall, then went to the martini bar for one last cocktail there. We sat around watching the awesome flair bartenders, and then headed to Michaels Club, where of course we found our Pittsburgh friends waiting.

Matt had been eyeing the Yamazaki the entire cruise, and he’d decided he was going to have it on the last night. (It was something like $45.) I had a Fin Du Monde while he had that, and we all got to taste it. When we went to close out, the bartender neglected to charge us for it. I’m not sure that was intentional, but it really seemed that way.

We exchanged contact info with our new pals, got a to-go Manhattan for the room, and headed to bed.

We got up at 7:15, which wasn’t that pleasant, but we had to be out of the room by 8am. Technically we were supposed to get off the ship at 8am (they send people off in groups depending on where they’re going afterward), but since our plans involved a cab to the airport for a 12:30 flight, we had plenty of time.

We went up to the buffet for one last gruel and Maxwell’s Foreclosure, and the place was absolutely packed, to the point we had trouble finding a table. I’ve never seen anything on a cruise ship so crowded, so I was amazed. After eating, we took our carryons down to the 4th deck, where we were supposed to exit. There was a line of people standing there, so we joined it, not really knowing what was going on. (I mean, they were pointed toward the exit.) After standing there a long time without moving, we decided to go to the spot we were originally supposed to meet before debarkation.

We got to the theater and I asked one of the staff about whether we should wait, or if we could get off. She said they were having trouble with the gangway, so we should join everyone in the theatre. We went in and got seats, and ended up waiting there for a very long time. I was glad we’d decided to leave the line, so we could at least sit down.

They finally announced that we could leave, so we headed off the ship and down to the building with all the luggage. The gangway had obviously worked at one point, because ours were the only suitcases left in our disembarkation group. We then took them over to the customs line, and proceeded to stand there FOREVER, because it was run by the most distractable lady on earth. At least it was fun watching the cute drug-sniffing dog running up and down the line.

Finally we were free of the cruise terminal. We got a cab to the airport and went to check in at Cape Air. They told us how to find the gates, took our bags, and sent us on our way with a couple hours to kill. We got coffee at Starbucks, and had a surprisingly decent lunch at Mango’s, which had the only vegetarian food in the terminal. We then went to hang out at Air Margaritaville for a bit, enjoying the airport’s free wifi and a Medalla.

Then it was time to catch our flight, so we headed back to the small-plane terminal. They called our flight time, and directed us down an escalator to the lower level. There we met up with two other couples, and then an agent led us out onto the tarmac. I love any day I get to walk on the tarmac!!

As expected, the plane was tiny. It had 4 rows of seats, but they only let us use three of them. Matt’s seat folded down, so that the front row could exit more easily. They took our carry-ons and stowed them in the nose and over the wings, and of course I forgot to grab my phone or camera. We strapped in, and our pilot (Captain Jim!) just turned around in his seat to tell us about the exits in case of emergency. It was awesome.

And then we were off to Vieques! We took off over the ocean, and hugged the coast of Puerto Rico all the way around the east end of the island. We could see El Yunque National Forest, and Fajardo, the port where the ferries to the islands depart. (We had considered the ferry, but it’s apparently unreliable, slow, and you have to get to Fajardo. Flying was much easier.) Within a few minutes, we could see Vieques, and then the airstrip we were landing on. Seeing the approach and landing out the front window of an airplane feels a lot like a video game. (While I’ve flown an airplane before, I’ve never landed one. I don’t even remember what it’s like.)

We climbed out onto the tarmac at VQS, which could not be more different from the airport in San Juan. It was tiny, with a single building and four circles for airplanes to park. (We were parked in the spot reserved for the W’s private jet – it’s the only resort on the island.) They handed us our carry-ons, and the pilot told us to grab our suitcases off the world’s smallest conveyor belt.

We went inside, and the conveyor belt was no joke – it was maybe 10′ across, with half outside and half inside. Awesome.

We had a Jeep reserved from Maritza’s Car Rental, which I’d chosen because they were the only one advertising airport pickup. The booth was there, but nobody was in attendance. (It had a sign saying it was closed 12-1, and it was after one.) I called them, and they said they were on their way over. In the meantime, a guy sitting there at the airport saw us looking at the tourist map, and came over to talk. It turns out he and his girlfriend were leaving after three days in Vieques, and he wanted to give us some advice. We appreciated that like crazy, because there is hardly anything about Vieques on the internet beyond the usual TripAdvisor stuff. No good maps, no restaurant menus, no great advice beyond which beaches to go to and “you need a Jeep to get anywhere”.

They gave us loads of advice on getting around, on beaches to visit (he verified the Jeep thing), about the BioBay, and even which restaurants had good vegetarian food, as they were also vegetarian. He showed us everything on the map, too, and we lamented that that awesome tourist map wasn’t online anywhere. (Vieques is small enough that they can draw almost every single business on the island on the map. Really.) He also told us what he’d been told: Vieques has 9,000 people and 3,000 horses, so watch out for them on the road. Our car showed up a few minutes later, so we thanked them profusely and headed out.

I was expecting a crappy beat-up Jeep, but what we got was fantastic. It was basically brand new! I was super-excited to drive a Jeep, too, because I never had before. We named it Captain Ron, following our longstanding ‘Captain’ tradition.

We’d decided to do a VRBO rental in Vieques, based on advice from other people and the fact that they really don’t have much in the way of hotels beyond the W (which was $600 a night, and really not our style). It was about 1:45 and we couldn’t check in at the house til 3, so we decided to drive into town to the grocery store before calling the owner to get directions.

Vieques has two towns – Isabel Segundo, where the ferry lands on the north side of the island – and Esperanza on the south side. They’re barely even towns, really… Isabel is larger and is maybe 10 square blocks. There’s one main road that runs across the top of the island, from the airport and the W, just past Isabel II. From there, there are three main roads that go north-south, all ending up in Esperanza. The entire eastern half of the island is protected nature preserve / former bombing range, and a lot of it is still closed due to the very real possibility of land mines. (The US military rented out Vieques and Culebra as bombing grounds up through the 1960s, which is why they’re still so undeveloped.)

We took the main road into Esperanza (passing a cockfighting facility along the way), looking for the grocery store the couple had recommended. He said that it looked sketchy, so we decided it was the bodega on the corner. We parked the Jeep, locked everything (we’d been warned), and went to the store. We ended up with an overfull basket, a bottle of rum, and some $3/bottle Kona beers, and a huge backup of people in line behind us while they run us up.

They didn’t have everything we wanted at the store, so we went down a couple blocks to the other grocery store we’d seen. That was the actual grocery store, we realized as we entered. We stocked up on more supplies for tacos, plenty of drink mixers, coffee, plantain chips, and other things we needed to stock up at the hacienda (our name for the rental house, based on the awesome photos). We grabbed a 6-pack of Medalla, too.

Once we were fully outfitted, I called the owner. My signal kept going in and out, and I barely had an internet connection, despite T-Mobile’s assurances of 4G LTE in all of Puerto Rico. I got his voicemail, so I left a message and we decided to drive on and see things until he called back. A little ways down the road, my phone rang, so I pulled over and grabbed it. It wouldn’t connect, of course. Finally, we found a spot where my phone worked, and I got the owner on the line. It turned out he was in Maryland at the time.

His directions to the house were something like this: “Go down the road until you see mom&pop store, and then there’s a two-story wooden building that looks like it’s falling down, but it’s actually a store. Turn there. Go by some mailboxes and turn there. Look for a house called ____ and it’s right past there. There’s a really steep driveway.” Then he told me where to find the key. We went over the directions again since that stuff was not on my tourist map (as far as I could tell), and then Matt and I set off to find it. Since I’m godawful at landmark-based directions (I like cardinal, thank you very much), I told Matt twice what he had told me, so we wouldn’t forget it.

We found the first grocery store, and then the falling-down building was unmistakeable (it would later become known as “the ramshackle”). We found the mailboxes, and the house he’d named, so we knew we were in the right place. It was at the top of a very tall hill, and the road up there was gorgeous.

We turned the only direction we could go from the house, and looked for a steep driveway. Down the road a little bit, we came to the top of a cliff. It wasn’t a road, it was what you see when you get to the top of the biggest hill on a rollercoaster, and can’t actually see the track below you. I flipped out. There was no way in hell I was taking a vehicle, or anything, down that gigantic steep hill. That kind of road would not even be legal on the mainland.

(This was only the top, and doesn’t do it justice. But hey, you can see the ocean and the bioluminescent bays from there!)

We sat there parked at the top of the hill, and decided we had no choice. He’d said it was a really steep driveway, after all. This was more of a road than a driveway, but it was also the steepest thing I’d ever seen. So we started off.

I rode the brake the whole way down, unsure whether to let up and tear down the hill to get it over with, or whether I’d hold on too long and we’d tumble onto the roof. I’ve never been so terrified driving before. We were leaning back as far as we could, because I was sure we were going to flip right over.

But we made it!! At the bottom was a whole big crowd of peacocks waiting for us. I was so upset about the hill that I didn’t even bother taking their picture. (Mostly it was the prospect of having to drive down that same hill every single day, even at night, while we were there. We’d never leave the house.)

What was not at the bottom of the hill was the house we were looking for. There was a dead end, so we turned around (which was a challenge). We looked around, and the house was definitely not there – I’d seen pictures online, and these were not it. We’d have to drive BACK UP the same damn hill.

Part of the way up, we saw a guy hanging out in his garage, so we stopped and asked if he had any idea where the place might be. He wasn’t sure, but thought maybe it was back up at the top by the ____ house. We hadn’t seen anything else up there, but we had to go back up there anyway. Unbelievably, we made it back up the hill. At that point, I absolutely knew for sure why people drove 4WD in Vieques.

We ended up back by the ____ house, our last known waypoint, and I found a spot where I could get a signal again. We called and talked to the owner, and he said we’d gone too far; the driveway was immediately past the ___ house. When he said that, we recalled the gap in the fence  at the end of the wall, and I knew that had to be it. I thanked him, and we turned back around.

By the time we turned, there was a horse walking out of the driveway to our hacienda. He was showing us the way, obviously. I nosed the Jeep into the fence-gap, and then we could see the house at the bottom of what was indeed a very steep driveway. But that driveway was nothing like the road we’d just driven down, so that made it seem easy. We parked the Jeep, dragged out our bags and groceries, and I went to retrieve the key.

Our hacienda was AMAZING.

There was a patio that wrapped around two sides of the house, and the one with the grill and coconut palms had a view of the nature preserve and the ocean. It was perfect.

There were geckos all over the place, too.

The place was gigantic, and decorated with African masks and furniture that had obviously been acquired over many years. There was a full kitchen (we were looking forward to cooking after a week), and a washer and dryer so we could do the laundry. I got on that right away, of course.

After so many days of constant motion, always having to make transportation plans and stick to schedules and cut short our time in places, I was really excited at the idea of just staying at the house for the rest of the day. It was exactly 3pm, we had all the groceries we needed, and we were alone on top of a hill overlooking the ocean. It was  perfect. We opened some beers and sat in deck chairs on the patio, watching birds in the trees. (I was on the lookout for more horses in the yard, too.)

The palm tree over our heads had a couple really big coconuts on it, but they were well out of our reach. Since the VRBO listing had mentioned picking your own coconuts, I was determined to make it happen. I knew we wouldn’t be able to open them without a machete, so I went poking around the laundry closet where things seemed to be stored. I found two machetes in there, so I brought one out and we started swinging at the coconut. It was still too far away to reach the branch holding it, though, so I went back to the utility closet and found an extendable painting pole.

We had to stand on a planter, and it took a good half-hour or so to make it happen, but we got that damn coconut off the tree. Then we took turns hacking at it til we got it open, and drained the juice out. (We managed to open it the rest of the way after that.)

Then Matt made cocktails with the coconut juice and Barrilito, and it was the greatest thing ever. (He named it the Caribella: Barrilito, lime, soursoup juice, simple syrup, and coconut water.) We sat on the patio for a very long time, just staring at the forest and the ocean beyond it. We had some plantain chips, and watched a huge team of ants carry a tiny piece of chip away at an alarming pace.

Round about dinnertime, we headed to the kitchen and made tostones and tacos with sofrito rice, beans, cheese, and huitlacoche. Matt made flank steak churrasco on the grill. We ate on the patio with a mosquito coil burning, but didn’t really see much evidence of bugs at all, which surprised me. There were super-loud frogs (particularly the Puerto Rican mascot, who yells COQUI!) and geckos running everywhere, and the weather was absolutely perfect.

While we were playing dominoes outside, I started to feel like I was getting a cold. OF COURSE. We decided to go inside and turn on the bedroom A/C and hang out. Matt turned on the TV to see if we could find the Gophers hockey game, since it was on one of the ESPN channels that night, and the place had satellite. Well, apparently they turn off the service when they’re not there, because all we got were a ton of free channels (which were mostly home shopping). Thankfully, DirecIV was doing a free preview promo, and one of the included channels was the NHL Network. So we got to watch some hockey after all.

I had a lot of trouble sleeping because of my cold and seasickness (oh no, it never goes away right away!), but I still got up at 9:15 feeling much better than I had on the ship. I went to make coffee, and we had breakfast on the patio. I was so happy to have decent Puerto Rican coffee, too.

We showered and got geared up for the beach, which required more work than you might think: we needed towels, cooler, beer, lots of water, some snacks, sunscreen, cold medicine and kleenex, and beach chairs (which we found in the closet at the hacienda). We piled all those things in the Jeep and headed toward Blue Beach, the one the people at the airport had liked the best.

I noticed when I turned the Jeep hard to the left that the steering wheel kind of caught, and I had trouble steering. I figured maybe that was just a Jeep thing, but I wasn’t sure. Driving that big bouncy thing around with vertigo was pretty entertaining, too.

The turnoff for the nature preserve was a few miles down the road toward Esperanza. From there it’s a few miles on a potholed, washboard road covered in horse poop, because there are wild horses wandering around everywhere. It’s fantastic.

There are a few beaches along the way, but we wanted to go to the one that was known for having signs about unexploded bombs. There was a mysterious detour along the way, near some mysterious gates with multiple ‘no trespassing’ signs. We got to the beach access road, and drove until we found a little parking area that had the fewest cars (there are 13 beach access spots, and apparently 11-13 have gazebos; they were the most crowded. We went to 7, right by the road closure.) There was a sign there warning us to stay on travelled paths, because otherwise we might be blown up by 1950s bombs. SERIOUSLY.

We’d been told by the people at the airport that theft was a problem at the beaches, with all those untended cars sitting around. The solution was to take everything with you, and just leave the windows of the car open so they didn’t get broken.

So, yeah, check out just how crowded Blue Beach was.

There weren’t any shady spots to be had, so we set up our beach chairs and cooler and covered ourselves in SPF 50. We cracked some beers and just hung out looking at the ocean. There was an island that was fairly close to shore, and there were signs all over it warning people to not go onto the island because of unexploded ordnance. (Pictured in the header above.) Snorkel boats were bringing people to swim at the reef right next to it, though.

We went to swim for a long time, which mainly consisted of bobbing around in the water. The temperature was perfect. After that we sat in our beach chairs again, and decided to cut open the mysterious fruit I’d picked up at the bodega the previous day. It turned out to be the world’s largest yellow avocado, so we ate that with a bag of plantain chips.

A guy named Brandon (who Matt termed the “one-man brodown”) showed up with three women, and they picked a spot far too close to us, since we could hear all the immense douchiness Brandon was broadcasting around the beach. We decided that was a good opportunity for us to go get lunch, so we packed up our stuff, threw it in the Jeep, and headed toward Esperanza. We met these horses along the way:

The town was about five miles or so from the entrance to the nature preserve, on the south side of the island. It was right in the middle of the lunch hour, so the tiny town was crowded. There were a bunch of food trucks and some trinket tents set up in the parking lot at the pier, and a few open-air restaurants facing the malecon. We drove slowly through town checking out our options, and had to go down a few blocks to find parking. We ended up parked next to Lazy Jack’s, a combination hippie restaurant and hostel. (I’d decided from their ad on the tourist map that I didn’t like it, but I really have no idea why.)

We wanted to have lunch at El Blok, a new Jose Enrique restaurant that was also illustrated on the map. It was about three blocks down the malecon, so we headed that direction. We rounded the corner to find the spot that El Blok would be, once construction was finished. It wasn’t even close. (Don’t ever change, Puerto Rico.)

We turned around and decided on Duffy’s (another place I’d judged as a crappy bro-bar based on their tiny ad on the map, but that wasn’t true at all; I don’t think that’s really possible in Esperanza). We got a seat, and were greeted by an awesome server. Their menu said they had the island’s largest selection of craft beers, and that was no joke; there were some selections from the Old Harbor Brewery that we’d visited in San Juan, and a beer fridge full of craft beer from all over the place. I ordered an Abita Turbodog and a veggie burger; Matt had a Stone IPA and a pastele with pork. (Pasteles are traditional Christmas food in Puerto Rico, but the server said they had the guy who made them chained up in the back because they were so good. The tostones were amazing, too.)

After his beer, Matt ordered the house special, the Parcherita, which was a passionfruit margarita with a salt and demerara sugar rim. I just tried his, since I had to navigate a Jeep on the world’s narrowest roads. Our server said people loved them so much that they’d had them as the cocktail at their weddings in Vieques. I couldn’t argue with that, because it was delicious.

By that point, I’d started to realize just how much Esperanza reminded me of Negril, just much tinier. It was really laid-back, everybody was friendly, there were locals drifting in and out of bars, and everywhere you looked there was an amazing view. Even better than Negril, it was clearly gay-friendly… there were rainbow flags everywhere. I was suddenly very, very happy to be there.

We wanted to stay all day, but we had more beaches to visit. We headed to the Jeep and made some phone calls, both to the house’s owner who was checking in, and to make reservations for the BioBay tour on Monday night. Esperanza was one of the few places on the island where we reliably had a phone signal, if not internet connectivity. The owner said the house had wifi and that we just needed to get the password off the router, but that it was also very common for the phone company to “accidentally” cut the lines for DSL, and it would take forever for them to repair it. I told him we’d check and let him know.

The Jeep was still having that weird steering issue every time I made a tight turn (like a u-turn, which I did a lot in Vieques), so I was going to call the car rental place to ask them about it. Matt suggested we just drive over there, since it was only a few miles away. Vieques is indeed tiny! We headed over there, along one of the roads that ran north-south across the island. The road was very windy and forested. We saw a couple places along the way that we wanted to stop – one was an awesome-looking bar with a corrugated aluminum roof, and one was the place we were planning to have dinner later.

We got to Maritza’s, and I stopped into the office to describe the steering issue with the Jeep. They summoned the mechanic, and he took it for a spin (literally) in the parking lot. He said it was just low tires, so they filled them up and we were on our way again. Everyone there was super-friendly, too.

On the way back, we decided to stop into Tin Box (the corrugated-roof place) for a drink. The parking lot was fairly empty, but it appeared to be open. We parked and as we walked in, a older lady working there barked “WE’RE CLOSED!” I asked when they’d be open, and she said “Tuesday”. As we left, there were a few people walking up in obviously wedding-related clothing, so we were pretty sure it was closed for a private event. (That would be the one crabby person we talked to on Vieques.) We got back on the road and headed to Red Beach/Caracas (every beach in Vieques has two names – a color, and a local name).

It was down the same road as Blue Beach, inside the nature preserve. It was “crowded” when we got there, in that there were probably 50 people on the entire beach. A lot of them appeared to be packing up to go, though, since for some reason morning is beach-time. There was a large group of hippie-looking people partying at the far end of the beach, and also there was a nun. A BEACH NUN. I was so excited.

We also saw Brazilian Derek Jeter strutting up and down the beach in his Speedo. He kept going in the water to splash his crotch. I have no idea, but it was pretty entertaining to watch. We hung out and had some beers, then went to swim until about 5:30.

This is my absolute favorite time of day on the beach, when the sun starts to get low:

When we’d been in the water long enough to get cold, it was time to head out. We very nearly had the entire beach to ourselves at that point, too. We dried off at the car, put clothes on over our bathing suits, and headed back toward Esperanza for dinner. When you’re on an island, you don’t have to be that classy. (I did tell Matt I thought we were under-dressed, but he disagreed.)

Next Course was on the road near Maritza’s, and I was glad we’d driven that way before, since we’d have to drive it in the dark. Between the narrow, curvy roads and the lack of street lighting, I was pretty wary of having to do that.

The place had a steep driveway going down to a hairpin turn to a parking lot, which had a line of four or five Jeeps that were basically identical to ours, all backed in to the spots. We did the same, laughing because the one next to ours was even the same exact color. The place wasn’t too busy yet, but it was small enough that reservations would definitely be required later in the evening.

They gave us a spot on the balcony, overlooking the line of Jeeps, a valley in the middle of the island, and the coast of Puerto Rico in the distance. It was hard to complain about that.

Their menu was excellent, both food and cocktails. It was sort of California-style Caribbean cuisine, with lots of local ingredients. I had broiled watermelon with goat cheese and radish greens, and Matt had oysters Rockefeller.

Then I ordered a wild mushroom pizza, and he got butter-poached lobster with crab risotto and fennel cream. We didn’t want dessert, but when the menu arrived, we noticed that one of the options was to buy the kitchen beers for a dollar apiece. Our server said there were four people working back there, so that seemed like a pretty solid investment for four bucks. They deserved it.

The place was pretty much full by the time we left, and Matt was right – there was a wide array of dress there, though people did tend towards fancier. (I was wearing a dress, at least.) When we got to the Jeep, I understood why everyone had backed in – the parking lot was full, and there were cars parked along the wall across from us. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to get the Jeep out of there, but after a few well-executed manuevers we escaped.

The drive back was as harrying as I’d expected. I was driving slow enough to have cars stacked up behind us, but I didn’t care. It was hard to navigate by landmarks at night, too, but luckily the road in Destino had some streetlights. We found the ramshackle, and decided to drive up to Colmado Mambo, the not-as-shady-looking bodega, for Barrilito and a few other things. As we passed the road to our neighborhood, there was a car sitting there with running lights but without its headlights on.

I pulled up in a spot out front, and Matt said he’d run in. I looked over at another vehicle parked there, and saw a bunch of faces looking at me. It was super-creepy, to the point where I was conviced we were going to be robbed. I decided to prepare for it, by hiding the only thing we could not lose: Bally Basketball. I put him under Matt’s seat and then played with my phone, not looking at them, til Matt FINALLY emerged from the store. It seemed to take forever.

He said that nobody in the store could be bothered to do anything, and that though there were a bunch of cars out front, there was no one in the store. I pulled out of the spot, passed the creepy van, and went to make a U-turn in the street just past the parking lot. Just as I did that, someone laid on the horn and freaked me out. I didn’t think they were honking at us (since we weren’t in anyone’s way), but then I remembered the headlight-less car waiting by our hacienda and decided that we were most definitely going to be murdered.

I was trying to figure out what to do if we got there and the car was still waiting, because the police station was most definitely behind us, and ahead was a whole bunch of marshy, empty area and the ocean. We were totally dead, and someone was going to steal Bally. I was so freaked out by the whole thing that I missed the turn by the ramshackle, and  the car wasn’t even there anymore. Somehow we had CHEATED DEATH.

I didn’t tell Matt about this non-murder-plot til we were back in the house showering, because it was too embarrassing. He agreed that the people in the van were definitely shiftless and creepy, though!!

Our hacienda hadn’t been hard to find in the dark, so that made me feel better about driving around there, since our BioBay tour wasn’t until 10pm the next night.

We hauled our leftovers and other things into the house, did dishes from the previous night, and I started laundry. Then we went to play Moby Dick, the nerdiest card game ever, on the patio. It calls for a “measure of grog” to pass back and forth as an indication of whose turn it is, and Matt had conveniently purchased an actual half-gill measure at Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua. Our nerdiness was absolute.

After our game, a moth flew up onto the patio and started flying all over the place like it was crazy. We decided it was horny, and headed inside before it attacked us anymore. While we were bringing our things inside, we discovered a little coqui that had taken up residence between the slats of the chair to spend the night. So cute!

Matt played an Indonesian drum in the house for a while (because why not?) and we went to bed around midnight. I was smart this time and took dramamine, which meant I slept far better. I still had my cold, but there was something about being on an island that made me barely even notice.