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My cruise to the Caribbean As many of you know, my brother David is the casino manager onboard Crystal Cruises (one of 3). Because of this I get to cruise on his ships for a discounted family rate. Since it was nearing Christmas and my birthday, my brother decided to do a 'self-visit' in which he gets to cruise as a guest for a free, and also arranged for me to travel on the same cruise as a family visit guest. We left out of the Port of Miami. Last time I'd done a family visit, it was on the Alaskan cruise and I'd cruised for free because I'd opted to share David's crew room. He slept on the floor while I took the bed. The room was half the size of a one-car garage with a bathroom the size of a phone booth. This time I ponied up the $100/night charge to upgrade to a stateroom with a veranda, and boy, was I happy I did so! I'd sailed the Mexican Riviera with my family as a child, and we always booked inside staterooms without portholes. Not this time, baby!
Look at my room! It's awesome. I was so thrilled with it. The stewardess would bring me a fresh plate of fruit every day and restock my fridge no matter how many sodas I drank.
Check out the bathroom. Pretty nice, eh?
Then I go to visit David, who's been given a handicap room at the front of the ship and discover his room is enormous! Look at all that space! And his veranda looks like it belongs to the penthouse. It's practically a wrap-around. So there's a tip: if you're given the choice, choose a handicap room. It's ginormous. The only downside is that it doesn't have a tub, only a huge shower, but how much of a loss is that?
Heh, the lovely view of Port of Miami from my veranda.
Complimentary champagne for Ms. Owens. Life is good.
The view of Miami right before sail-away. I had a perfect moment: sitting in the darkened dry sauna all by myself, inhaling the clean scent of hot cedar and watching through the huge picture window as Miami at night slowly passed by the ship. It was my first time in a dry sauna and I loved it. It was wonderfully peaceful and meditative, and having a gorgeous view like this while I sat on the benches was too amazing. I will miss that sauna. I will miss it a lot.
Saturday -- Key West, Florida
Ah, nothing like breakfast on your private veranda in Key West.
But bummer, it rained! Out went the catamaran trip, so David and I walked around, instead.
I like the idea of pink taxis (hint hint, partners in crime).
There are chickens all over the place in Key West. Oddly, they all appeared to be roosters, though.
Lovely. What struck me as ironic was above this shelf of gator heads was a sign explaining how the gators had been nearly an endangered species in Florida but were now flourishing. Great. That means we can kill them again. Right on! Hey, Ma, git mah gun!
Sponges. Hundreds and hundreds of sea sponges. Do they really need that many? Is the demand that high? lol
With all those sponges, they had a few left over to make Nasty Sponge Man. While we were walking, we passed the Pirate Soul Museum. At first we laughed, because it was one of the tours that the ship offered and it looked pretty lame. But I saw a shirt that caught my eye in the gift shop window so we went inside. The gift shop was the best pirate shop I've ever been in, so we decided to check out the museum tour, also. And it was great! Wow, what a fantastic discovery museum. I can't recommend it enough. It was informative and extremely entertaining, with hands-on activities and mock-ups of a pirate ship and a really fun 'listening adventure'.. David and I both loved it, so if you're ever in Key West, you MUST visit the Pirate Soul Museum.
The pirate guy and cannon I bought. He's holding a grappling hook but it was still in plastic so I wouldn't break it on the flight home. David and I also found a Key lime pie factory so we shared a slice and it was delicious. We also had Stewart's lime soda, which was good, too. I bought a frozen Key lime pie on a stick, but it melted in my cabin refrigerator.
Monday - George Town, Grand Cayman
The plan for today was swimming with the stingrays at Stingray City and doing some snorkeling. The ship offers shore excursions (tours), which you sign up for the night before we reach port. We didn't bother signing up, figuring we could find a tour on our own. Well, guess what -- the ship's tour was cancelled because not a single passenger signed up. Then, when we went ashore and talked to the numerous tour operators lined up outside the docks, we discovered no one had picked up enough clients to justify a tour. I couldn't believe it. This was my birthday, and I was looking forward to this day like you wouldn't believe. I had to put my sunglasses on so David wouldn't see that I had tears in my eyes and feel guilty about it. But as we were trudging to 7-Mile Beach to make the most of our time (read: lay there and try not to cry), one of the tour operators hailed us down and told us one tour had managed to find four people, so we could join them. Thank. God. While we waited for the transport van, David and I did a little shopping. Grand Cayman is famous for being a tax hideaway. There are over 500 banks in George Town alone. Since we didn't have the requisite $50,000 minimum to make a deposit, we bought rum cakes and magnets.
A gift shop with a sand floor.
Mmm, me cravin' some Big Black Dick. David loved this. I wonder why?
Here's a cemetary along the water's edge. I wouldn't mind being buried in Grand Cayman, come to think of it.
On the way out to Stingray City.
Here we are at Stingray City, which is a sandbar out in the middle of this large body of water. All the boats would form a circle around the feeding area. The water came to waist high or under your armpits at most, so it was relatively easy to stand on the sand bottom (be careful not to stop on the rays!). You'd see these moving triangular shadows under the water and when you ducked your head beneath the surface there they were, swooping in and out between peoples' legs. I'd say there ended up being around 50 rays.
Underwater Stealth Bombers.
Surrounded by stingrays. They were really dense because apparently the boats hadn't been out for a couple of days so the rays were extremely hungry. It was a feeding frenzy, the rays so aggressive they'd practically knock you down. But at no time did I feel scared. It was exhilarating.
It's eating me! The rays were crazy. They were so accostomed to being fed that they'd swim up onto your body, looking for food. It made a bunch of people -- men and women alike, and especially children -- shriek and jump around in the water like they'd found themselves in a tub full of worms. Yep, a lot of screaming went on, lol. It was pretty funny.
Holding a stingray! These things were completely passive when you picked them up. It reminded me of holding Scary. Their skin is a little bumpy on top and extremely smooth on the underside. People kept screaming, claiming the rays were slimy, but they weren't really. It was like holding a giant piece of clam, or maybe squid. The guides would pick up the rays and rub their undersides over peoples' backs, giving them a ray 'massage'. I got to feed them, too, by holding a piece of squid in my first, thumb tucked away. The ray would recognize the position of your hand and know that you were holding out food and it would swim up over the top of your fist and suck the squid into its mouth. The suction felt super creepy, but fun, too.
I love this photo. I made it my laptop background.
You can see all the rays in the water behind me. When I moved away from the cacophany of the group and floated in the water on my own, I noticed that whenever the stingrays swam near, I heard a faint buzzing/hissing noise. At first I thought it was a boat engine, but then I realized it was the sound the rays made. They sounded almost electrified. It was fascinating.
Look at the pretty fish! This is from when we went snorkeling after leaving Stingray City. I nearly drowned at first, trying to mimic my brother by diving beneath the surface, but I caught the hang of it quickly (the key is *very* forcefully expelling the water from your breathing tube, otherwise you end up with a lungful of salt water).
David and I used the front deck of the boat to sunbathe on the return trip.
One of the guides on our boat gave this to me as I was disembarking, telling me that each couple was given one. I found out later on the drive back to the ship that the guy had picked this out of the ocean while we were snorkeling and had then pulled the creature out of it. I wasn't thrilled that he'd killed an animal to give me this, but there wasn't anything I could do about it after the fact. It's covered with algae and other things so I'm going to give it a bleach bath and scrub it well so it won't begin to smell. It's a gorgeous shell and super heavy. |
