January 2023 - Caribbean Cruise

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

I started out the year on a fabulous note - I got to take a Caribbean cruise!

I'd been eyeing a 10 day cruise for a while that looked like a great list of ports.  I wasn't sure it was going to work to take the time off for it, but everyone at work took one some extra tasks so I could take the time off and go.  Well, there were some things I didn't do, but they weren't essential like the rest of it was.

Anyway, the cruise was round trip from Ft. Lauderdale.  The only bad part was my flights.  I took a red eye and arrived very early in the morning, with a couple of hours to kill in baggage claim in the morning.  My flight home was late, and I killed multiple hours sitting in the airport again.

But the rest?  It was fabulous!  There were three sea days, but the rest of it, we were in ports.

One highlight was stopping in Puerto Rico.  Since I signed up at the last minute, all the excursions for that day were sold out, but I reached out to a friend I'd made online who was living there.  We'd never met, but we had a fabulous day hanging out.  He and his wife showed me the island, and I'm sure I saw more of it than I would have with an excursion.

I did have excursions at the other stops.  One was a botanical garden, which was pretty.  I did paddling at two of them.  The paddling through the mangroves was a bit of a challenge due to the guy I was partnered with, but eventually we figured it out - sort of.  The other paddling went much smoother.  And I went snorkeling in St. Thomas.

I also made some friends on board the ship, which helped keep those days from being so long.  That was my issue with the Alaska cruise I had taken back in July 2022.

I was not ready to come home - especially since I came home to discover there had been an issue with some of the files that were run late the week before, and I had to fight people to get them run my first day back, meaning I got delayed in logging out.  Welcome back, right?

And, I've been pointing out duplicates in the cruises I was taking.  This was a new ship for me and a new destination as well.  However, I had the same cruise director as that Alaska cruise.  She is great, so no complaints, but I found it very funny.