Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas Cruise Part 2: Weather and Ports

Time to get into the cruise a little bit more! You can read Part 1 here! 

So... the weather. The weather on our cruise was not good. I mean, really. It was often BAD. Bad enough that the people who are scared of the water stayed for hours and hours in one seat, in the middle of the ship, close to their emergency meet point. Bad enough that things were falling over as the ship rocked side to side. And, by things, I mean usually people. People were stumbling everywhere. People were seasick. There was vomit involved. People were unable to sleep. Basically worse case scenario for anyone with reservations about cruising.

All we had heard was that you never even know that you're on a big ship, it's SO BIG that you never feel it. Well, you could feel it SO MUCH our entire week that it became a running joke between hubs and me after we'd walk into a wall or something "Wow, you'd never even KNOW you were on a boat." I was at home sitting at the computer 36 hours after getting off the ship and noticed I was STILL swaying inside.

I know that the weather is out of the ship's control, but it was the way the weather was dealt with that was kind of an issue. The ship was unable to go into port at our first stop, Nassau, since the water was so rocky. And it rained and rained nonstop. And it was SO WINDY that you couldn't even walk outside. All of this resulted in 5,000+ people stuck indoors in artificial light on a ship that massively rocked from approximately 6pm Sunday until we docked at St. Thomas at 7am or so on Wednesday. Seriously.

And for those 2.5 days... things ground to a halt. Many of the shows couldn't go on because of the weather conditions. No ice shows, water shows, etc., (understandably). The entire massive boardwalk area was mostly useless. No rock wall, no surf machine, no zipline, no putt putt, no basketball, no kiddie splash park. Every pool is outside and each one had a net thrown over it to keep people out. All of a sudden, having almost every activity OUTSIDE didn't seem like such a brilliant plan. I know, I know, sh*t happens, but the entire ship spent 2.5 days of our cruise bunkered down indoors with little to do.... Not a great start for those of us who weren't completely sold on a cruise to begin with! 

Blowing away on the top deck! 

Then.... on Wednesday. We docked!! And the sun was out! And everyone ran off the ship and kissed the ground! LOL! 

Hubs and I were married on St. John and we have talked forever about taking our families back to see the beach where it all began. We were so excited to use this day to show our girls! We took a taxi across St. Thomas to the Red Hook dock and took the ferry across to Cruz Bay on St. John. This was definitely a lengthy and somewhat expensive process, but was totally doable. 

Sea turtle spotting on the ferry ride between the islands! Gorgeous!! 

Lunch at Across the Street on St. John

Of course my little one thought this was serious (and a great idea! LOL)

Sweet wild deer at Hawksnest Park

Hawksnest Beach where we were married was just as lovely as we remembered. Seriously. It is pretty much perfect. The WAVES, however, were out of control and we all got knocked around and lost a few things. Everyone was talking about how uncharacteristic this is.... Oh well. One more crazy weather situation to add to the trip! LOL! 

We caught the return ferry just in time for it to start pouring rain again... Ugh. St. Thomas is kind of gross so we were actually excited to get back on the boat!! Haha! 

The third and final stop was St. Martin/Maarten. The grandparents took the girls on a day tour of a local butterfly farm (was kind of a long and uneventful day for young kids) and the hubs and I caught a taxi to Orient Beach. We just randomly picked this beach off a map and it was really gorgeous. It is on the French side, so there is a nude section (um... def too much old man nudity, as expected... hahaha). 

It was interesting to hear our Dutch taxi driver ranting about how much she hates the French. The island is divided in half between the two countries and it is obviously VERY divided. She spent lots of time talking about how the French try to get you for every dollar they can. This was 100% our experience as a guy tried to charge us $20 a chair on the beach for a couple of hours (we sat on a towel on the sand) and a lady at a gift shop ran our credit card in Euros instead of dollars (made it 1.5x more expensive, we didn't notice until on our way back to the ship). And, of course, it rained while we were there... but it was pretty! haha! 

View of St. Martin from our room's balcony!

Orient Beach, St. Maarten

I was surprised that hubs didn't want to try these water jet pack boot things!

So... the ports were SO nice for a change of scenery. All of a sudden, when we could get on/off the boat, cruising made a lot more sense. We have already talked about how cool it would be to cruise an area of the world with fabulous cities that are maybe not the safest to spend a long amount of time in (like Turkey, for example!). 

Stay tuned for more info on the ship itself - food, shows, activities! Let me know if you have any questions at all! I'm so happy to share!! 

Long Weekend in Mexico, Part 2!

Time for the rest of my thoughts and photos from the long weekend hubs and I spent in Cancun! Yay! Here's the link to Part 1, if you'd like to get caught up!

So the "all-inclusive" at ME Cancun was one of the nicest we've ever experienced! Lots of cool decorating touches and nice shops that carried pretty fancy things. We had super fab sit-down dinners each night at a wide variety of restaurants, from Brazilian to Japanese! As covered in Part 1, we stayed in "The Level," so we also had unlimited top shelf drinks the entire time that were for real top shelf! Nice!  

Swanky random photos in the elevators

LOVE a hotel that stocks you up on Aveda!

Rain shower was to die for!

Sushi served with jalapenos to top... Life changing.

My awesome bedazzled Chucks purchase!

One of the additional perks of The Level was a free pay-per-view movie and room service movie snacks! Fun! We rented Wedding Crashers and were a little confused by some of the random condiments that came with our M&Ms and popcorn, but whatevs! LOL!

We mostly just spent lots of time on the beach and one rainy day on a Bali bed around the pool. We were soaking wet from the pool in the elevator and a guy grimaced said "Ooo, how was the pool in the rain?" Um, WET? It's not like it was cold! LOL!

Rainy day view from the Bali bed

Happy in paradise

Sea turtle eggs all up and down the beach!
Would love to see them hatch!!

Fresh kiwi margaritas  = health food ;)

So so many unfortunate bathing suit choices...

Loved all these friendly little sea birds!

As I covered in part 1, I was disappointed that this trip wasn't going to include the swimming pigs of the Bahamas, so I packed a piggy of my own and went "swimming" with him! He was such a good sport! ;)

Look!! I found one!

SMOOCHES piggy!! I was so looking
forward to meeting you! ;)

Swim was a bit stressful... fancy drink and..

Some time in the sun! Ahhhh! 

The one time we ventured out was to spend some time in La Isla, the massive shopping center across the street. The girls swam with dolphins there years ago but I had forgotten how nice it is! We had pizza at a waterfront place to celebrate my birthday and hubs made me drink beer by the yard... I wasn't as tortured as the pics may suggest! Haha!

This place had a LOT of facts and info on the walls... A LOT.

Last swig was a bit rough :-/

Birthday chocolate mousse! <3

Sketchy souvenir shopping... LOL

Placed in our room while we were out! :D
So many nice, personal touches! 

All in all such a fun, relaxing, relatively inexpensive getaway! I apologize, Cancun, for thinking you're average. Your people were incredibly wonderful and our experience was second to none. We will be back! Gracias!! 

Mexico Part 1! Fun long weekend in the sun!

Hubs and I recently spent four nights in Cancun to celebrate my birthday. Honestly, I know it's spoiled of me, but I was super disappointed at these travel plans. We were booked to go to The Exumas, Bahamas and play with the swimming pigs and had to cancel last minute because of a tropical storm. Seriously, last minute. As in completely different country, hotel, flights, everything about 18 hours before we were scheduled to depart. Have you ever done this?? It was nuts. 

The path of the storm didn't leave many options, nor did the last-minute plane tickets, so we wound up in Cancun. We have been to Cancun 3 or 4 times and it's been fine.... never outstanding, and the drug cartel situation continues to freak me out about Mexico (I know, I know, far from Cancun, but still). So, my expectations were pretty low....

The travel from Louisville to Cancun is a piece of cake. One layover in Atlanta, about 5 hours total travel time. Great, except for the fact that OUR BAGS DIDN'T MAKE THE CONNECTION (again!!). OMG. This JUST happened on our trip to Santa Barbara in May and, as we were leaving another airport with no suitcases, I honestly couldn't believe it was happening again. United was a nightmare in May (and still are, situation remains unresolved) but to Delta's credit, they were super nice. They gave us little travel bags of toiletries - even a crappy thin t-shirt that I wound up sleeping in that night just to have something clean. Not off to a great start BUT a Delta agent delivered our bags in the middle of the night (impressed!), so the situation could have been much worse. 

Toothpaste and deo are always a bonus.

We were booked on one of the top two floors at the ME Cancun. These floors are called "The Level" and offer concierge services and all kinds of extra amenities on top of the all-inclusive package. Hubs and I had seen this resort of Rock of Love and were excited to see it in person! Are we the only ones who watched and loved that show??? LOL!

Exclusive check-in and concierge desk for The Level

View from lobby on The Level 

First impression of the beach? GORGEOUS. Seriously. The walkable sand goes on FOREVER in both directions, the sand is super clean and soft, the water is crystal clear. Why have we been so negative about this place?? It's pretty much perfect.... At night the hotel transforms into all kinds of little specially lit bars and seating areas and looks so much like Vegas or Miami. So impressed. So, so impressed. More to come soon!! :D

View to the left

View to the right

Happy to be there! And happy I put a bathing
suit for each of us in my carry on! LOL! 

First sunset, from our room. Ok, I was wrong, Mexico. You're fab!

California love, Part 3, The Wrap Up *sigh*

So I've let more than a week pass since I started this Santa Barbara trilogy. It's getting harder and harder to think about writing about California.... I love it so much and would seriously love to live there. We looked at some real estate and could buy a nice house, but is a decent lifestyle sustainable?? I've heard that tax rates can be 60%?? ugh.... At least the weather here in Kentucky is GORGEOUS for now!! So sunny and hot and fabulous!! Now, the final Santa Barbara chapter, let's get to it!

One of the very best things about Santa Barbara is the fact that you can walk everywhere! Our resort, discussed here in Part 1, was right across the street from the gorgeous beach and beach walk. I LOVED getting my exercise in each day on this wonderful paved trail! It was packed from dusk till dawn with people enjoying the nice weather in every way thinkable, from jogging and pushing strollers to driving rented pedal buggies and rollerblading! So, so nice to just be OUT, you know?? Even the dogs were laying around and happy! One thing that cracked me up was the population of the most fat ass squirrels I've ever seen in my life. Even for rodents, life in santa Barbara is apparently good! ;) 

When we walked by the historic beachside carousel for the millionth time, hubs asked, are you wanting to ride it?? Of course!! I had been DYING to ride it! :) It was $2 each and lasted SO long we were in tears from laughing so hard by the time it stopped. Hubs noted that it was probably the most entertainment we would ever get from $4! LOL!

We made a day trip to Michael Jackson's Neverland. Very, very interesting. The place is in the middle of nowhere, 7 miles down a two lane road that runs through some of the most breathtaking countryside we've ever seen. It looked almost like Africa, really. Wide open spaces but still moments of greenery and lushness. Cattle and horse ranches that I would guess are in the hundred million dollar range. So quiet and serene and lovely. Can you imagine what they thought when MJ started moving in tractor trailers full of carnival rides and circus animals?? Omg. It was shocking to think about. I don't know what I was expecting but I was so surprised by the setting. 

We fully intended to park the car, jump a fence and roam around. What's the worst they could do? Ask us to leave? When we got there we were totally caught off guard by how much security is here 24/7. Manned guard booths at the gate. Cars parked all along the road. A car that runs constant circles round and round the property. Who pays for all of this?? When you read online about the situation it definitely sounds like there is no money involved. If I had known what to expect, I would have brought cash and slipped the guard a fat bribe to at least drive us around in a golf cart! I'll be putting that tip in my Trip Advisor review! ;)

So we had to settle for pictures at the gate, which is covered in handwritten notes and gifts to MJ. The whole place is just weird, weird, weird and if/when it's opened to the public, I'll be first in line (but I hope for the people that live around there that never happens!). 

We had a couple more stand out meals, dinner at La Playa Azul and awesome brick oven pizza and Italian beer at Olio Pizzeria.

cucumber margs! yum!!

And at one point we happened into a benefit that featured a contestant from the voice that we had never heard of, Orlando Napier. He was good! Reminded us a lot of Remy Shand. We figured out after we had paid admission and been talked into raffle tickets that the benefit was for a Jewish charity. Our kids go to catholic school... Were we allowed to be there?? Hahaha

All in all, SUCH a fun trip. The hubs is my best friend and such a perfect travel companion!! I heart you California, and miss you always! See you in September when we are there for the Emmys!! Xoxo