Tales of the Great Holt-Ysses - Part 3 "St. Thomas"

Ahhhh! Waking up to a beautiful island and a warm coastal breeze. St. Thomas was our first stop on our cruise. We were already there when we woke up and I decided that a morning jog was in order. I worked out, showered and ate breakfast. Amy just enjoyed sleeping in. We decide to check out the shopping in St. Thomas since that is what it's famous for. I think it earned this reputation years ago when it was probably actually cheap. Now it's just as expensive as full scale retail place in the states. Oh I imagine you can find a deal here and there but for the most part it is pretty expensive. In every island we stopped at the same people own the same shops, selling the same old thing: Jewelry, linens, liquor, cigarettes, beach wear, and overall tourist crap. Notice I put jewelry first, that's because over the stretch of 7 days we probably passed up 100+ jewelry stores, all with the same stuff and most with the same name. It would be like going to a strip center with say 12 stores and out of those 12 stores 9 of them are jewelry stores and 6 of them with the same name. Weird!

We ended up buying a few little souvenirs here and there but the fun part of the trip was going up on a sky tram that took you to the top of a tall mountain. Up on top was of course more places to shop but also a restaurant. We ate a chicken sandwich and listened to a one man band. The singer looked like Bernie from Weekend at Bernies. He sang island/beach music and was pretty good. Cheesy island songs galore but hey when in Rome!

It was in St. Thomas that you get your introduction to what was in store for the rest of the trip. Everything cost money and everybody has their hand out. Go loaded with $1 bills because you're going to have to tip everyone you get near. It's pretty amazing. Here's a scenario: Brian walks up to a local to get directions to the market. The local turns around with a "deposit cash here" sign and a bucket to drop the money in. He tells you where to go but before you know it, he has already signaled his cousin in a nearby taxi cab to come and pick you up to go to the market. Before the cousin arrives three guys have already propositioned you to go to the market in their own taxi. You get in the car and before you know it your giving that guy taxi fare and tip. Of course, he's dropped you off at a location where his cousins can hit you up to show you where you "can find the best price on diamonds". You avoid this place because if you're like me you don't have money to buy diamonds. My wife wishes we had the money but hey I also wish I was on the PGA Tour and notice that neither one is a reality. In any case, we run from there and look around trying to find a place to avoid having someone hit us up for money when we finally find ourselves in a safe place (so it seems). But no within 10 seconds someone will approach you about going on an excursion and the price will "only be" $120. At this point you give up and give the excursion man his $120 and he signals for you a cab. The cab of course is driven by one of his friends or relatives and you have to tip that guy! He takes you to the excursion and you tip those guys. By the time you get back on the boat that afternoon you have spent $1.2 million in $1's and $5's. I should have bought diamonds, they would have been cheaper.

Ok so we liked St. Thomas but it wasn't our favorite island. That's coming in a future episode. The next island is St. Maartin or as the French call it Sint Maartin or something like that.

See you there.

Tales of the Great Holt-Ysses - Part 2 "Take off Eh"

Ok so were on the boat and we get all unpacked and ready to eat....That's because on cruise ships all you do is EAT! But before you eat you get to have a deck party with everyone one else from the boat. This isn't an ordinary party this is the Muster Drill. Muster-what? Yes the Muster Drill! This is a very special time where everyone on the boat gets to grab his or her life jackets and head for a specified Muster Station. There you put on your life jacket and stand in a big honkin pile of fellow cruisers. My wife called it the Munster Drill because one she couldn't remember the name and two because with the big life jacket on you, you feel stiff like Herman Munster. While you Muster you get the opportunity to meet some fellow cruisers. Conversations spark up and there you are....hanging out on the deck, elegantly dressed for dinner, having intelligent adult conversation with a guy from Cleveland all with this a bright orange foam filled life jacket around your neck. It's truly a site to behold.

Well we make it to dinner and we are sitting with Amy's dad, step mom, her two twin step-sisters and their husbands and five other couples who are all friends or relatives to the two sisters. 18 people total I think at two tables. We get to pig out on some tasty food and the service is great. Two waiters to your table! If you take a drink of water, they fill it back up. If you use a sweetener packet, they practically pull it from your fingers after the last granule falls. 99% of the crew on the boat are from different parts of the world. Our head waiters were from Turkey and Philippines. Our assistant waiters were from India and Dominic Republic. Only a couple understood English well enough to get by. The others simply smiled and nodded in agreement with everything you said. Everybody was great!

The boat we were on, "The Seranade of the Seas" is a mid-size cruise ship but you could have fooled me. That sucker was big and it had a lot of cool things on it. Indoor and Outdoor pools, a putt-putt course, a rock-climbing wall, a great gym and spa, a disco complete with spinning bar (cheesy but cool). It had a basketball/volleyball court, a complete kids water park area, two eating areas and a heli-pad for those late night helicopter rides we all take so frequently.

Well the time has come! At 10:30pm that Saturday night, we took off from San Juan and we spent the night at Sea. It was so cool to get our "Sea Legs" on that first night. Everyone feels like they are drunk but without the alcohol! The ones who are drunk walk in a straight line....it's a strange anomoly. I'll talk about the next day in the next blog.

Tales of the Great Holt-Ysses - Part 1 "Getting There"

As with any long voyage, their is a certain amount of preparation that takes place in order to begin your voyage. For your sanity and mine I'll skip the week before the cruise that Satan hosted and dished out for us. Let's just say that he did his darned-ist!
I'll start with the plane ride to old and historic San Juan, Puerto Rico. We got on our US Airways flight with a smile and within minutes we were on our way to San Juan via a plane switch in Philadelphia....Yea that confused me too but you know how goofy the airlines are.

We made it to San Juan about 9:30pm San Juan time and then proceeded to the taxi counter located outside. Before you get to the counter you have to go through the barrage of "luggage guys" who are there to take your luggage and put them onto a taxi for you. They do this for tips but you would think they were doing it for steak. They are like hungry dogs attacking everyone who gets near. We ask for a taxi among the chaos and they make you pay for it right there. They make up the prices based on how American you look and how many bags you brought. The taxi guy pulls up, the bag man loads it up and off you go. Our taxi driver got lost to our hotel but we got to see most of San Juan in the process. Very third world mixed with modern day conveniences. What's funny is to see a MacDonalds with gang signs written all over the sign. That's not really that funny unless you see it. Anyway, we make it to the hotel which was downtown Old San Juan. This is the party district so by the time we made it (11:30pm) we were smack dab at the beginning of party time. That's right the beginning! The party starts at 11:30-12:00 and doesn't end till 4:00am or so. Crazy stuff. We are greeted at the hotel by Amy's dad and we promptly get to bed. Of course, I couldn't sleep but that's because of all the party noises. You know BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM - club music. I was also very excited to get on the boat.

Next thing you know we are waking up. We eat and get packed and with some time to spare we walk around Old San Juan. The place is pretty cool because it's so old. Shops everywhere mixed with apartments and other businesses. There is this fortress wall built around the entire city that is at least 50 - 100 ft tall and No kidding - 25ft thick. It was really cool. Old Forts are at each end of the island. This was cool too. We ended up walking around for 3-4 hours and then we headed for the boat.

We get through the customs without a hitch and on the boat we go. We had a great cabin with a balcony...ooh la la! Nice furnishings and a cool round shower. So far so good.

Check out the next blog for more on "cruising with Brian".

Tales of the Great Holt-Ysses - Introduction

Welcome to the tales of The Great Holt-Ysses! It's many tales of fun, excitement and adventure of our Caribbean cruise. I've broken this tale up into bite size portions so that those who actually waste their time reading my self-indulgent rant can digest it and not get too sea sick. These tales will be in chronological order so that you too can experience the thrill and chills of a Caribbean cruise as seen through a crazy persons eyes.

I hope you really enjoy taking this trip with me but I must warn you crazy people see things differently than the rest of the world so many of the descriptions or anecdotal visions of events that took place are probably less nutty than they really are.

So hang on let's set sail. The next blog will start the voyage.

Brian