St. Maarten!

I had heard beautiful things about this island and couldn’t wait to get off the boat here.  This time Roy and I decided it would be a “whoever wanted to come” kind of thing, so Corey and Addi opted to stay on the boat (a decision Corey later regretted because all his friends got off!). Their cousins, Tyler and Sara, stayed on too.  My only rule for them was to eat lunch together. Really so I could make sure Addi ate something.

So, getting off the boat it was Roy, Joe, Dean, Hayden, and I.  My sister in law, Tanya, and her husband, Shawn, along with their daughter, and my mother and father in law rounded out our party.

I wanted to walk to the beach, sure that there would be something to see along the way.  Little shops, something.  I was wrong… we walked from the harbor along a busy street for about ten minutes, but then we got to the beach, and little shops and bars were everywhere.  About this time I started feeling horribly sick.  Not sure if it was just because I was dehydrated, and it was very hot or what was going on, but Roy knew something was wrong and slowed down to walk with me.

We got to the beach and found that we could rent two lounge chairs and an umbrella for 8 dollars. Unfortunately, we passed up that deal and ended up paying twelve dollars, but I felt too ill to haggle to the death.  Roy and the kids hit the beach, and I sat under the umbrella waiting to feel better. Not 10 seconds after Roy plunged into the water, he came charging out fussing under his breath. He had accidentally left his “old” iPhone (it is a 3G, which Roy replaced with a 4) in his pocket. While it is no longer an active phone, Dean uses this iPhone to play games. Oops! Roy dried it off and mentioned that he wanted to grab some dry rice to try to revive it - a trick that has worked with other wet electronics in our household. Once I felt a little better, I wandered up to the bar nearest us and got some bottled water. Once I drank most of one, I felt better. Problem solved! So I then set out to find some dry rice from a local restaurant - they were very generous and gave us a cup full. Roy immediate plunged the wet iphone into the rice to begin his venture to save the phone. We set the phone aside and resumed our fun.

Dean wanted me to swim with him, so I ran into the water and bobbed in the shallow water with my little boy.  Dean decided that I needed to help him find seashells, so we sat on the beach and dug in the sand to see what we could find. And let me say, this beach was full of shells - unlike St. Thomas.  

Roy decided to get a ‘bucket of beer’ and asked if we wanted to walk with him to the bar.  Hayden, Dean, Joey, and I soon regretted our decision to walk around barefoot… boy was it hot!  I was ok, but the little boys felt it and opted to walk in the sand.  Roy got his bucket of beers, and the boys all got sodas.  I decided to stick to my water.

We ran back to our lounge chairs, and I got back in the water.  We played around for another hour or so, but everyone got hungry, and we all decided to wrap things up and look for some place to eat.

Right down the road was the Hard Rock Cafe, and my mother in law wanted to treat us all to a snack.  We decided not to eat a big lunch as it was later than we realized.  

The wait wasn’t unusually long - I think we stood there for about 15 minutes.  We were finally shown our table, which was out on the patio. Great view of the beach.  And that was the beginning of the worst service of my adult life at any restaurant.  I will say that we have been to a number of Hard Rock Cafes and we have NEVER had good service at any of them, but this one took the cake.  It took us about 15 minutes to place our drink order.  Roy and I stuck with soda. Joe and our niece, Crystal, ordered milkshakes. Dean wanted chocolate milk, but soon changed his mind to a milkshake too. And everyone else got mixed drinks or beer.  For some reason our waitress only brought out one drink at a time… ok, whatever, but it took about 20 minutes for my inlaws to get their drinks, and then about 10 more minutes for the kids to get theirs.  Ok, maybe the bar was packed. (I looked, and I don’t think that was the problem.)  But what really confused me was why it took longer than that for Roy and I to get a couple of Sprites!? We got our food before we got the sodas!  And when we finally got them, I am pretty sure mine was not Sprite.  Not sure what it was, but it wasn’t Sprite.  To make matters worse, there was some strange film floating on top of mine.

Roy knows I get migraines in the heat, so he offered me his and our niece ran into the bar and asked for another one, so we didn’t need to wait another hour. She came back out with a fresh one 20 seconds later. Hmm!

The nachos were tasty, though I suspect that was because by that time, we were all starving.  Bottom line, I think I am done with Hard Rock Cafes.  They are over priced, and though the food is serviceable, the service is not.

HOWEVER, we did get a picture of Roy and I at the Cafe that I really like!  So that is an upside.

We all decided to walk back to the boat, and then Dean fell asleep.  Roy ended up carrying him most of the way.  35 pounds is rough when it is dead weight like that!  His back hurt for the rest of the night.

When we finally got on the boat, we decided to rest for a bit before we got cleaned up for dinner.  I bought a sundress on St. Maarten and decided to wear it to dinner.  It showed off the lovely tan lines on my back (a huge “X”).

After dinner we hung out with the little boys for a bit, and then Joe decided he was tired and offered to watch the little boys for us, so we could go have some fun.  

That night it was ‘color’ night on the boat.  We were separated into teams based on what deck our cabin was on.  Our entire group was ‘blue,’ so all the adults decided to ‘lounge hop’ and try to earn some points for our team.  

In the first lounge, we did karaoke.  Let’s see… the ladies sang, “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor.  The men did some Bon Jovi song that I can not remember, and we all sang “I Gotta Feeling” by Black Eyed Peas.  (Now, I wanted to go to Target.) Lots of fun, and then it was off to the next stop.

We ended up learning some silly dance routine, but again, lots of fun. And then on to some more dancing (My father in law won the contest!) and some more singing.  We sang “Summer Nights” from Grease - one of my favorite movies ever, and easily my favorite musical.  

So, I knew the words.  In fact I was one of the only people that knew the words on the ladies’ side.  And then I was called out to come sing along with one of the only guys to know the song… and I forgot the words. And so did the guy.  But it was all in good fun, we scored some points for our team and had a lot of laughs.

The party ended up on the Lido deck with a laser show, more singing and dancing and of course pictures plastered on the HUGE movie screen.  There were a few pictures of us looking goofy, but I don’t remember ever doing something like that before without being embarrassed. I had a blast, and it was all in good fun!  Right there on the Lido deck as I attempted to get Dean to do the Cuban Shuffle with us (a much cooler version of the electric slide… ok, maybe it isn’t any cooler), I decided that I would stop being embarrassed and just have fun - not just on the boat, but in my life.

We ended the night with some pizza and ice cream, some more laughs and some aloe rubbed onto our backs. Got to love the sunburn!