It was a
great voyage, time together, relaxing, and fun. You can’t ask for more than
that except for the fact that having all our children and grandchildren with us
would have made it more special. I hope you liked the 55er’s, I did. Sorry to
end with “Tears,” but as Fred Zweig, celebrating his 94th birthday
has always told me, “It is what it is.”
Highlights include the rainforest on
St. Lucia, breakfast on the veranda of Ben & Jerry’s in San Juan, the port
city of St. Maarten’s, our Junior Suite looking at the stars off our spacious
balcony, the Thermal Suite in the spa area, workouts in the fitness center, a 4th
of July celebration on the ship, the beautiful blue sea and white sand beaches,
our tablemates Frank and Gina, reflecting, meditating, the 55er’s, and watching
the World Cup matches, especially USA versus Belgium.
Lowlights include missing our children
and grandchildren, not being able to see “Olie” on a regular basis and Chewy
too. I was disappointed that no one showed up for “Bill W.” meetings on the
ship; out of 2,000 passengers or more, there had to be 20 or more recovering alcoholics
and three times as many active ones. Several ports-of-call were very
disappointing. St. Croix is rundown, poorly developed, and has suffered from
the closing of an oil refinery and the economic collapse of 2008. Antiqua is
simply one main avenue with herds of orange-clad taxi cab drivers grabbing you
as you made your way through the gauntlet. On these two islands the best thing
to do is take one of those taxi’s to one of hundred’s of white sand beaches and
spend the day there. And finally, to be fair we didn’t leave the ship in
Barbados, but there too the beaches seemed to be the only positive attraction.
The Capital and port city of St. Lucia
was also a disappointment; going inland to the rainforest high in the mountains
made that stop enjoyable but the city itself was rundown with poverty amuck. My
favorite port city was on St. Maarten’s. It was clean, upscale, with beautiful
beaches right there at the waterfront; the Kingdom of the Netherlands is thriving
in an otherwise collection of suffering Caribbean islands. We were told the
French side of the island was equally nice and worth visiting. If one were to
return to the southern Caribbean, I would highly recommend flying to St.
Maarten/St. Martin and staying there for a week, it has everything you would
want and expect of a first-class Caribbean island.
We are anxious to get home and begin
planning our next adventure. Life is good.
Hasta la
vista,
David
Just fun photos from St Lucia that we did not have time to post.
Just fun photos from St Lucia that we did not have time to post.
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| Our favorite eating place |
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| Davids dream- to ride again- he's working hard at it |
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