Southern Caribbean Cruise: St. Maarten

In case you didn't sea (see.. haha I know that must be the best joke you've seen today) here we took a 7 day cruise in February which I will be recapping over several posts. This one is about Day 2 St. Maarten on Feb 13th.


For the day in St. Maarten, we had a relaxing morning and after eating an early lunch headed off the ship. The Caribbean Princess and a Fred Olsen ship below (UK cruise line) were in dock that day too too.

At the dock shops area, I had to get a picture with this same St. Maarten sign we got a picture with during our first cruise in 2007. (That was the Carnival Glory and we went to Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten with a bunch of friends)

Then we grabbed a taxi to Divi Little Bay which Megan had researched as a nice beach where you could rent umbrellas and chairs and was only about 15 min away. We decided to just do a nice beach day since we had been to the island previously and all our other port days had excursions.

 

We had a great time laying on the beach and walking in the sand and taking pictures. We were in a little cove like area with mountains around so the views were gorgeous. There was a bathroom and little restaurant/bar right there too. Get ready for picture overload... or just skip down further.

ahhh beach... oh how I've missed you

 

The boys swam out in their snorkel gear but they said there wasn't anything to see.

We left the beach a little before being due back on board to take some pictures of the ship from where we picked up a taxi back. The Serenade was the big ship behind the other 2 ships.

The whole time we were in St. Maarten we wondered about the foggy island we could see in the distance. The taxi driver on the way back to the dock told us it was Saba Island and that it is known for scuba diving. It is about 30 miles away from St. Maarten hence it being hard to see so if you are ever there wondering now you're in the know. The driver also said there should be no need for Valentine's Day (it was the next day) because you should show love every day. So true.

super foggy outlined in the distance - look VERY closely to see it

We lucked out and got a shot of the 4 of us in the shopping area of St. Maarten close to the dock.

Once aboard we headed up to the Seaview cafe on the back of the ship on deck 12. It was this place that was open from like 2pm-midnight and had burgers, sandwiches, small bites, etc. We liked to get the guacamole and chips and the fruit/cottage cheese plate for a nice snack to hold us over until dinner and watch the ship as it left port. It was a great spot for that!

Farewell St. Maarten!

We got cleaned up and were off to dinner.

My shrimp salad appetizer

Megan's quiche

We took some of the professional pictures that the cruise line sets up for you to take in different areas on some of the main floors that you can choose to buy after looking at them later in the week. Some of the 4 of us turned out hilarious due to the poses they have you make. We also took some ourselves below.

We were both rockin' purple dresses (although not planned). This was outside one of the lounge/bar areas on the ship.

We had our first towel animal awaiting us that night in our room from our steward Al. We took some photos with our new pet elephant and gave him a snack.

I was super disappointed this ended up fuzzy when in a printable size but that's what I get for not checking it close enough.. I have a non fuzzy one of us 3 but we don't have the glasses on.

Megan and Keith's pet was a bit of a cabin drinker.

I really am enjoying reliving our trip. Next up is St. Kitts and then Dominica which was our most adventurous day!

LaForce Likes #10

This edition of LaForce Likes are these fun friendship bracelets I saw on pinterest. I definitely made some friendship bracelets back in the day for my BFFs!

I could totally see myself making these with my niece Abby - she is only going on 5 but likes everything crafty. A girl after my own heart! I seriously cannot wait until she gets a little older and I can teach her more.

I really like this one the best but it's only the picture someone uploaded with no instructions. But perhaps someone with more crafting expertise a.k.a mom  could figure it out. It looks like it only uses rope and ribbons.

It's possible that these (which do have instructions) might be put together the same way as those above. Regardless, they are cute too!

Have you DIY'ed any great crafts with kids lately? Do share!

Simple Creamy Pasta Salad

I love pasta salad and it is such a great side dish for cookouts and to take anywhere since you can make it ahead of time and it even keeps for a couple of days just fine. It's also one of those dishes most everyone likes.

I did some searching for a new pasta salad while I was planning for our Cinco de Mayo get together. The easiest kind is just using zesty italian dressing over everything but I wanted something creamier without using mayonnaise so I came up with this.

Simple Creamy Pasta Salad


Ingredients:
16 oz box of garden rotini (or other pasta)
1 medium cucumber
1 bell pepper - I used a sweet orange pepper but red would work great too
Creamy Italian dressing
Zesty Italian dressing
1/2 cup or more Kraft grated parmesan cheese
pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to the directions and rinse with cool water. While pasta is cooling, chop your cucumber and pepper into pieces about half the the size of a piece of pasta or smaller. Add pasta and veggies to mixing bowl. Add parmesan cheese and both dressings - 2 parts creamy italian to 1 part zesty italian until pasta is coated and to your liking. Then include ground pepper to taste. Refrigerate for a few hours before serving. Check to make sure pasta is still moist - you may need to add a little more dressing before serving.

The great thing about this is you can easily adjust the vegetables - diced tomato, red onion, black olives, celery.... the options are endless!! Or add in cubed turkey or some grilled chicken to make it more filling.

I definitely would have used tomato but we had it in a bunch of other dishes at the cookout so I decided against it. This makes plenty... I think we had 14 people and there was more than enough served with other items.


Hope you enjoy!


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Southern Caribbean Cruise: Departing and Tortola

I am finally getting around to writing about our Southern Caribbean Cruise from the middle of February! What can I say... travel posts are more work due to all the pictures and the story but better late than never :)

We went on Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas departing from San Juan, PR on Feb 11 with our trusty travel partners/family, Keith and Megan (Eric's brother and his wife). Eric and I flew down to San Juan on the 10th originally planning for a day before the cruise and a buffer for travel. Unfortunately I ended up coming down with a cold a couple days before we left so we didn't do anything in San Juan other than rest but fortunately I did not let having a cold ruin our trip at all.

Here was the schedule for our cruise:
Feb 11 Depart from San Juan
Feb 12 Tortola BVI
Feb 13 St Maarten
Feb 14 St Kitts
Feb 15 Dominica
Feb 16 Barbados
Feb 17 Cruising
Feb 18 Disembark in San Juan

Eric and I arrived at the ship right after noon on that Saturday and were on the ship less than 20 minutes later with our ship cards and all.

The rooms weren't ready just yet so we went and had lunch in the buffet area called the Windjammer.

out the window of where we ate lunch

Then we went back to the room to relax and unpack and our 1 large suitcase arrived shortly after.

Once Keith and Megan arrived later that afternoon we did some exploring around the ship which was good to figure out where everything was and enjoy the serenade. Then it was about time for dinner.

We did My Time Dining which is a really nice option and usually you can just tell them your time for the next night as you leave the dining room but since there was a large group of like 500 on our ship as part of a company rewards program they must have booked all the MTD slots around 7pm so our options were usually either 6:30 or 8. Not a big deal since those are better than 6 or 8:30 (first and second seating times) but now we know how it really works. Next time I will book them all in advance and just change them later if needed.

Eric's chocolate mousse dessert

We then had the muster drill but sadly they don't make you wear your life jacket for it so we didn't get any fun life jacket pictures.

The ship left around 8:30ish (it was a little late leaving) so we went up to the highest deck on the front of the ship and sat in lounge chairs enjoying sail away.

One of the forts all lit up

The other fort which was not as well lit and you can see a cruise ship that left right before us in the distance.

Sunday was Tortola. I had researched (YES I did lots of research for this vacation too just like Italy since being better informed really pays off making the best of your time and money based on your interests thank you cruisecritic) our options and we decided on a trip to the Baths in Virgin Gorda on our own which many said was easy to do.

Shortly after ship docking, we walked to the Tortola ferry dock to purchase round trip ferry tickets on Speedy's ferry. It included a round trip open van ride to the Baths upon ferry arrival in Virgin Gorda. The ferry trip was around 30 minutes and 10 minute taxi ride.

At the Baths we wandered down through many rocks on this trail. We had read comments about it being wet and cave like which did not match what we saw.

Once we got down through that trail there was the beach, bathrooms, and a little restaurant. We saw a sign to some more rocks that said to Cave and Devil's Bay and decided to check that out since the first trail was a bit of a disappointment.

Well this certainly was not a disappointment and must have been the cavernous waters we read about so don't be turned off by the first little trail to get to this. We heard a guide from a group that was there explain that this is where a photo shoot led to Tyra Banks really making a name for herself. With the rocks and water it would be a gorgeous but difficult place for a shoot with the mixed dark and bright lighting due to the caves.

 It was beautiful and magnificent to see how the rocks had formed and how there were ways to get through albeit hunched at times back out to the beach but further down with many more rocks to climb on.

Megan and I climbed up on some rocks and sat and enjoyed the ocean view while the boys did a little snorkeling. They said there wasn't a ton to see there and the rocks made it harder. Later we went back to the beach/restaurant area to sit in the shade and have some snacks.

Knowing what time our ferry back was (there are only a couple of ferry trips each day) we left time to hike back up to the road and catch the taxi van back and board the ferry. We arrived back in Tortola around 2 and headed to the Windjammer for a late lunch.

Sunday night was one of the formal nights so we got all dressed up for our dinner in the dining room.  Even with MTD you usually get the same server each night which is nice. Ours was okay, not the easiest to understand or talk to. Before dinner we took a ton of picture of course.

This is Eric's "I'm so hungry" pose while I was adjusting camera settings.

Of course we took plenty of posed shots but we really got some great candid ones that I think are so cute.

And I think this is one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip since it has all 4 of us looking fabulous... as I was trying to set up my camera to do the timer, a nice man offered to take it instead :)

I will leave you with a couple of food shots from dinner. We always ended up with great appetizers and meals but the desserts really could have stepped it up a notch. There were a couple of good ones but the rest were not good and few of those were even really bad. If only they had offered chocolate lava cake every night!

Next up will be St. Maarten and then St. Kitts!