The end of the cruise

I think Dave and I are finally over our PVD (Post Vacation Depression), it's hard to get back into the swing of things!!! We both got sick last week, and are finally starting to feel better. Yay for feeling better!! Now the warmer weather can kick in any day - this afternoon Dave thought I told him it was going to be 70 degrees tomorrow. Wishful thinking, I guess!!

Thursday morning we woke up in the Ocho Rios, Jamaica port. It was another beautiful day, and the view outside our ship was gorgeous as well. There were pristine white houses and mansions on the hillside where our ship was docked. We had bought an excursion through Carnival to do a garden tour and the Dunn’s River Falls adventure. We headed over to meet our group and get loaded onto our bus. Our driver was Howard (Howie), and our guide was Marguerita, who was very knowledgeable and gave us an interesting history about Jamaica and its geography. We went to the gardens first, and we both enjoyed the beautiful plants and flowers. Quote of the day: “Rach, can you believe that these are only ANNUALS in Minnesota?? These are PERENNIALS here!!!” (Can you guess who that quote is from? Hint: He is posing like a goon in the doorway picture)

Our view of Ocho Rios from the dock where our ship was

The Cool Cool Runnings boat

Our tour guide at the garden tour (I forgot her name - oops), and some pretty plants. Dave knows the names of each and every one of them.

The namesake of our last puppy...
Dave and I posing in front of the falls at the gardens
Crazy peacock

After finishing at the gardens, we walked around a Jamaican shopping center for about half and hour, then we were off to Dunn’s River Falls. You can’t go to Ocho Rios without visiting this place, there is nothing like it in the US! I don't have any pictures of this printed yet, as we used a water camera to get these pictures. Let's hope they turned out!!

There was a guy leading us up the falls, and another guy videotaping us the entire way up the falls. These guys are amazing because they can just run up the falls at full speed WITHOUT FALLING DOWN. It’s crazy. There were probably 1000 people on the falls that day, it was so crowded, but our guides did a great job guiding us up. At the end of the climb they told us that we could purchase the DVD of us climbing up the falls for $40. We thought that was pretty steep, but our dinner friends mentioned that they would split the cost with us if we would be able to copy it. We jumped on the chance, and purchased the DVD. The company was recommended by the cruise line, so we thought we would get a good quality product – WRONG!! The actual footage of our group climbing up the falls was a whopping 1 minute 48 seconds. Criminey. We are attempting to get our money back, mon.

That evening was the second elegant evening, so we got all dolled up again and ate dinner. We watched a dancing/singing show that night that was a tribute to the Beatles. We had so much fun singing along to the songs, and then we headed off to bed.

On Friday we had another sailing day, and it was great to just relax in the sunshine all day long!! We meant to go play bingo one last time, but decided our tans were more important and stayed out on the deck all afternoon. We ate lunch in the dining room (I discovered that I liked doing this waaaaaay better than eating at the buffet). There we met a couple from New Jersey, and a guy from Central Washington. He explained to us that he lives in the desert part of Washington state. I didn’t even know that there was a part of Washington or Oregon that wasn’t rainy!! It was fun to chat with all of these people. That evening we ate our last dinner with our tablemates. By that evening I was having a hard time eating my supper. We spent so much time eating this week that I felt like I couldn’t eat anymore. However, I was able to fit in one last Chocolate Melting Cake (my absolute favorite dessert on the cruise).

Our favorite place on the boat (during the daytime)

Lucie (our phenomenal waitress) singing a song, I guess she blinked a lot b/c I don't have an open eye picture of her

Our cozy room The tiny tiny (but very efficient) bathroom

After supper there was a show with the “Carnival Stars”, and we watched fellow passengers who had won karaoke contests perform as different stars. Some were hits, and then some were misses. The guy who was Elvis forgot the words, and then spoke them instead of singing them. It was pretty funny. We headed to bed after that so that we could wake up bright and early to debark in the morning. We were feeling ready to be home that night (although not ready to face the cold weather!!), and see our Gus.

On Saturday we ate breakfast at the buffet, and then waited in our room until our floor was called to get off the ship. We headed down to get off, and had to go through customs. We waited in a loooooong line, and the guy scanned our passports. We got through in record time, and the customs guy even WINKED at me J We got a kick out of that. Once out of customs, we waited for a bus to transfer us to the airport. We waited for another long period of time for that bus to come, then waited in a very long line at the airport to get our tickets. We got on the flight with no problem and were happy to get off the plane in an almost warm Minnesota!!

Goodbye CRUISE!! We miss you!!!!