Adventure of the Seas--St. Kitts

Well, we are down to our LAST cruise stop--St. Kitts! And this blog post is going to be proof that I shouldn't wait six months to tell the story of our adventures...as I seriously forgot so much.

For St. Kitts, we hired a private tour guide with an air conditioned van so we could get around the island with ease. Here is what I do remember... We first stopped by an old sugar cane factory. I think.

Then drove by the Carribelle Batik Factory and watched how these beautiful cloth fabrics are created.

Mark drank some water from the shop at the visitor's center and we all hoped he wouldn't get sick (he did not)

Then we drove to the Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, a UNESCO Heritage Sight, built in the 17th-18th century for the British as their colonies expanded. 

At the highest point of the fortress.

A steep path up to the top. 

Our comfortable ride. And my arm.

We stopped by at a few other beautiful places.

And then we ate at a touristy trap for lunch.

But the views were gorgeous:)

We were back to the boat around 3 pm. Did a bit of shopping at the souvenir shops in port and that's it. 

That's our group with the guide. 

I believe I've had some boring posts before, but this one has got to be the winner of them all! 

😂😂😂

Bye for now, 

Lyana. 

Adventure of the Seas--St. Maarten

So! Our stop at St. Maarten was probably one of the biggest highlights of the cruise! We booked an island hopping/snorkeling tour for our family for the whole day! And that's what we did--rode the speedboat with fun music blasting, snorkeled/swam and chilled.

We had maybe sixteen people on our tour, so it was very comfortable! And our kids were big enough that I didn't worry for someone to fall out:) This was the second time for the kids to be in a speed boat like this one--first time was in Thailand and the older ones don't remember very many details from that tour...

We got on board at the St. Maarten port and were whisked further away from the main island towards the smaller islands. We drove by the mansions and beaches of the French part of St. Maarten and then pass the Dutch ones. Hurricane Irma had destroyed a good chunk of the island and so they were still rebuilding...the Dutch were definitely better at that.

We stopped in some snorkeling spots. 

Although the water was very clear, there wasn't much to see at the very first one.

Then we stopped at a small French island. We parked the boat off shore and walked to the beach with our shoes in our hands:)

That's the whole family on the island:)

One thing this island is famous for is IGUANAS! And what's crazy is that they are not afraid of people (and apparently Mark is not afraid of them!:)

And neither is Robert...our iguana whisperer.

That's Katya and Alex walking back to the boat. 

Oh wait, before we left the island we took a happy family picture:) Everyone feels better at the beach.

Back on the boat, the kids just chilled till we got to another snorkeling spot. 

We had a ton of fun at this spot as there were a lot more to see underwater! 

And finally we moved to our last stop with crystal clear water.

We did a lot of jumping off the boat here. 

As the final exciting adventure, we got to see a couple of airplanes land on one of the most famous air strip in the world at the St. Maarten airport. We were in the water, of course, but the planes still come so low and close to the surface!

And that's us at the end of the tour, around 4 pm. 

Good bye St. Maarten! 

To Be Continued...

Adventure of the Seas--San Juan, Puerto Rico

Our stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico started like this.

It wouldn't be blog worthy if it weren't such a rare occasion for Mark to throw a tantrum over a silly thing like his parents making him find and wear a hat as they don't joke with the sun! Maybe that's the side effect of eating too many shrimps...we don't know...

In any case, our first half an hour in PR was not particularly fun, but now we all can laugh about it and remember Mark's little episode because he is HUMAN!:)

And this is how we ended our stop! See? Everyone is happy (and Mark is still wearing a hat).

But let me backtrack a bit. Puerto Rico was not a stop where we had a tour or anything, and we only stopped there from 1-9 pm. So we decided to take our own walking tour through the streets of San Juan to soak in the atmosphere. 

The town is definitely unlike any American town I've seen. I know Puerto Rico is technically a US territory but it was quite beautiful and sort of South European in a way. 

We tried to find the less travelled streets but it was hard. 

Everywhere we turned, we could see the cruise ship people. 

Here is a neat place in the Old Town. 

Katya "went to town" with these umbrella selfies-haha. Or should I say "to Old Town"? I'll just be cracking myself up here is the corner, don't mind me:)))

We also walked towards the Fort San Cristobal but somehow we didn't get any awesome pictures by the fort! Everything looks kind of like this...

Anyway, we walked around that area some more--having a hard time telling you what in the world we learned...

There was a cemetery by the sea, right next to the fort. 

Oh, here we go! A semi normal picture of the fort in the background and lots of people flying kites and running around. 

Well, after walking for quite some time in this humid heat, we found an open church to sit down and cool down a bit. And then we walked over to one of the kiosks to get some shaved ice and churros.

We finished our walking excursion with eating popsicles overlooking the beautiful city of San Juan. 

And again all was well in the Watson family:)

To Be Continued...