We made lays with fresh flowers at the Hilton Hawaiian village. Then we walked around for 2 days with our custom necklaces so we could be official Hawaiians. After that the flowers started to wilt and generally fall apart. Beauty is fleeting. The circle of life. Nature is fragile. Insert catchy idiom here.
We arrived on Saturday and everyone was pretty exhausted from a full day of travel. 7PM Hawaii time felt like midnight. We woke up at 5am Sunday morning and set out into the dark.
After walking down the beach we reached another hotel where tons of tourists were lined up on rocks jetting out into the ocean, where you could see the sun rise over Diamondhead.
Epcot was fun and educational. It was slightly less crowded than the Magic Kingdom. It was our last stop of the trip and everyone’s legs were shot. They should rent Segways…with a seat…
After we returned to port, we spent a few days in Orlando visiting Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Legoland. Legoland was the most fun and interesting because the lines were not insane and every line has a station for kids with legos to build while parents wait. Ingenious!
I hope to never visit the Magic Kingdom again as it was overpriced and way too crowded. The line for some rides was 3 hours. I’m not sure who would stand in line for 3 hours for a 3 minutes ride. There are streets that are 40 feet wide and you come to a complete stop shoulder to shoulder with people as you wait to move.
Legoland had a massive area with replicas of famous places including D.C. Epcot is more educational and we took a simulator ride to Mars, learned about the history of communication, and how to grow food in a more sustainable way.
The devastation of Puerto Rico was still evident. Our cabbie refused to take us father than the closest beach and commented that only 10% of the city had power. We stayed for a bit at the first beach and then ventured further.
Boarded windows could be seen in the major hotels. About 20% of the businesses were closed. Cracked glass windows hadn’t been fixed and no tourists were anywhere despite it being a week before Christmas. There were debris piles that had been gathered but not yet picked up.
Too many photos from our day at the Dominican Republic for just 1 post. BTW – that sea lion coughed / sneezed / snorted and it went all over Skylar – who now has super hero powers. Guess it would be better to be bitten by a spider.
Our stop at the Dominican Repulic consisted of going to their version of Sea World – which by the way is awesome! We swam with Dolphins and got kisses and hugs from a giant Sea Lion (800 pounds).
We went to St. Kitts and there are monkeys everywhere. They’re cute, wear diapers, and if they aren’t being carried by the locals near the tourist spots you can find them scurrying across the roads and settling in for the evening in trees.
We visited Cockleshell beach – a white sand beach at the tip of the Southeast part of the island. St. Kitts was much larger than Grand Turk (40,000 people). The kids had a fun day on the cruise ship with a day at sea in between destinations.
Grand Turk was the smallest of the islands we visited – they should have called it Tiny Turk. Both geographically small and with a population of only 4,000 what it lacked for in size was made up with via sting-ray massages. The belly of a sting ray is the softest thing I have ever felt in my entire life.
I bought some wine duty-free, which for some strange reason people think is a deal. The prices didn’t seem that great, but my goal was to drink it on the ship, however, the alcohol patrol caught me bringing it on and I was told I couldn’t have it back until the last night. Ugghhh…
After our departure from Grand Turk, we had an emergency medical event by one of the passengers that required a helicopter landing. That’s not something you see every day!
For our Christmas vacation this year we went on a cruise and then visited Disney World in Orlando. We almost missed our flight as it started snowing around 7:00 AM the morning of our departure. Our take off time was 8:30, so we were just early enough to only suffer a mild delay.
We had bought the kids wetsuits which came in handy as we had a couple cruise days that weren’t that warm. The kids were able to use the pool and slides with almost no one else around. Daddy shivered…
The boat had a lot to do including a breakfast with Dr. Seuss and a holiday show for kids.
