The Saint's Come Sailing In

Cruise #12- Our first run out of Fort Lauderdale absolutely blew my mind. The port we are sailing out of is actually called Port Everglades and is a stones throw from Miami. All the ports this week were better than any one port I have been to thus far. They are beautiful and have plenty to do. I am looking forward to exploring these places further in the coming months. Shows continue to be good and I am becoming a pretty decent floor manager. Still have lots to learn though.

Speaking of learning, I started a new training this week. It is called the Survival Craftsman Course(SCC). It is a three week course that will teach me how to launch, use and survive on lifeboats and life rafts. It should be pretty cool to learn all this. However, it is two hours a day and starts at 8:30 in the morning. This may not sound that early but when your job requires you to stay up past midnight most nights, it isn't very fun. The training will end with a test and a certification exam. The good thing about this is that I am getting it done early. Once I have done it I won't be required to do it ever again. I have Jay and Greg in there with me so I have people to talk to make it more interesting. Our instructor is an officer from Italy named Mario. He speaks in monotone broken Italian English. So he is really interesting to listen to. So if you ever wanted to know how big a dork I am, let me tell you a story. Greg and I got in trouble on the first day for laughing in class. The teacher stopped class and asked what we were laughing at. We didn't want to tell him that we were wondering if the Death Star had escape pod training like we were going through with the ship. Did they have Storm Troopers in a room explaining how to survive in an escape pod? In fairness, he had started teaching without letting anyone know after our break. We couldn't hear him start back over our laughing as we kept adding to the scene we were painting.

The Fly-ons this week were Mike Panzeca, Karen Grainger, Jerry Goodspeed and Will Malfori. Mike is a really interesting guy. He is always fun to hang out with. Karen Grainger is a singer who does vocal impersonations. She is awesome. Too bad she is married because she is very cute. Jerry Goodspeed is a ventriloquist. Will Malfori is very funny. He has cerebral palsey and most of his jokes derive from his disease. He is very cool to hang with and loves football. Last Sunday, he watched football for twelve hours straight. When I saw him that night he was upset that all his fantasy football players were horrible this week.

The first port was St. Maarten. It is the best port of the three we went to this week. It has everything, including beautiful beaches, good food and shopping. We were in port on the dutch side of the island. I think next time we might go to the French side. I hear the food is better over there. Jenn, Ben, Robbie, Greg, Scott, Dave, Jay and myself left the ship and took the water taxi to town. Scott goes on vacation here and claimed to know all the good places to go. We were all hungry so we decided to go for some Chinese. He led us all over town, back and forth until we realized the place we were looking for was no longer there. We ended up eating at some other Chinese restaurant that we all agreed was O.K. The island also has the most inexpensive shopping I have found to date. I saw a watch that I liked for $575. The merchant said he would sell it to me for $350. Scott said I could come back and talk him down to at least $300. I'll have to think about it for a while. That is a lot of money to spend on a watch that I would only wear on formal occasions. It is pretty pimp though. Anyway, we ended up going to a bar and watching soccer with Jenn. After it was over we walked back to the ship and ended the day.

The next port was St Lucia. We caught a cab to Rex Resorts. This apparently where the European big shots go on vacation. It was a secluded beach with hotels all around. We ate lunch in the cabana at one of the hotels. Our cab driver got us in. The beach was surrounded by mountains and there lots of sail boats in the harbor. After lunch we decided to go swimming in the ocean at the resort. Before we got finished putting our sun tan lotion on we were offered some Yayo(cocaine) and Gange(Marijuana). So of course you can see where this is going. We quickly declined and got in the ocean. We swam until we were tired and then caught our cab back to the ship.

The final port this week was St. Kitts. It was the most beautiful of the ports this week. Jenn, Ben, Greg and I took a cab to Shipwreck Beach. This is a place that is not known to tourists and we had the place pretty much to our selves. It is very secluded and only had a shack for food and beverages. Several of the dancers met us there and we hung out on the most of the day. The place was crawling with Monkeys and Mongoose. They didn't bother us but they were all over the mountain we were near. When we were swimming it was hard to believe that I was swimming in place like this. Looking back towards shore you could see the beach, mountains and a volcano. Except for the volcano it felt like I was swimming in the Alps. It had a very Sound of Music kind of feel to it. On the way back we passed several mountains that looked exactly like Boone. For a moment I felt like I was going to an App St. game. Then, I realized that it was 90 degrees outside.

That day was Jenn's birthday. Jenn, Ben, Beth, Greg, Robbie, Malcom and I went to Nick and Nora's Supper Club. This our upscale dining area. The meal comes in courses. I orders es cargo and the lobster bisque as my two appetizers. My main course was the lamb chops. I finished the meal with the apple tart for dessert. To drink, Malcom and I split a $173 bottle of Sartori Amarone. It was a red wine that our waitress suggested. It went with everything I ate including the apple tart. I told Malcom I could spend $20 on a bottle of wine and he said O.K. and then ordered this bottle. When I told him I couldn't afford to split it with him he said don't worry about it and put it on the company card. I guess you can do this when you are the Cruise Director. Everything was delicious. It was really hard to work after a meal like that.

Talk to you soon,

Chris

Picture #1-Entrance into town in St. Maarten. The plaque on the ground is a map of the island.

Picture#2-Cabana overlooking the inlet at Rex Resorts in St. Lucia.

Picture #3-Picture taken form the cab on the way to Shipwreck Beach in St. Kitts.

Picture #4-Shipwreck Beach, the mountain with the clouds covering the peak is a live volcano. Notice the dark sand on the beach. It is from volcanic eruptions.

Picture #5-Green Vervet monkeys at Shipwreck Beach.

Picture #6-Lamb Chops at Nick and Nora's Supper Club.

Picture#7-From L to R: Malcom, Ben, Jenn, Beth and me at Supper Club.

Picture #8-Greg at the Star Wars store in St. Maarten. The guy who owns this place is the same person who did the puppetry for Yoda in the original Star Wars.