Royal Times

So after a drunken 4 days in Miami, I was just about ready for the Caribbean cruise.  The whole family was there (Jessica and Jeric made the flight from Hawaii) and the rest drove down from Atlanta and everyone met up in Orlando where the ship left from.  We were on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas.  In case you've never been on this particular ship, or never seen a picture, look below.  You could call the ship large, but in reality it's a bit bigger than that.

Yep it's big.  15 stories tall to be exact.  Something like 3,000 guests are on board and 1,500 crew.  There's an ice skating rink and a mini golf course, and more stuff that I probably didn't even get to check out.

First stop was Labadee, Haiti.  Now I was pretty excited to go to Haiti.  I mean how often do you get to go to a country where half the population was just brutally killed in an earthquake?  Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that Labadee is just a small island off the coast of Haiti owned by Royal Caribbean.  Yeah, they own an island... Anyone wanna start a cruise line with me?

They chose a pretty damn good island to buy though.  The beaches were amazing and water was just as good.

See, nice looking place.  Now all I need is some wifi out there and I'd be set.  So we did the whole beach thing for a while and then headed over to check out some of the local artwork.  Some of the crew on the ship had recommended this to us.  What a scam it was!  We go down some windy path and see a cluster of huts with tons of "artsy things" hung all over them.  These people have just mastered how to guilt people into buying stuff.  As soon as you get near them they grab onto you and drag you to their hut to show off their masterpieces.  Then they beg and plead with you and tell you how their family won't be able to eat unless you buy the magical necklace... blah, blah, blah.  Eventually I bought a shotglass made out of wood for $10 just so the dude would leave me alone.  He even carved my name into it for me, what a nice guy.

I'm pretty sure at some point in Labadee we rented jetskis, which was fun until someone in the group crashed and we all had to go back to shore.  Cmon guys it's not that hard.  Throttle, break, and don't forget to smile for the camera.  Apparently this guy forgot the whole "don't jump off while you're going 50mph" thing.  On the way back, two other people in the group crashed into each other.    

Damn you people.  Go back to your shanties.

From Labadee we had a day's journey to Ocho Rios, Jamaica.  Sweet, a whole day in the ocean on a boat with 3,000 people.  Hey at least there's an ice skating rink and a mini golf course.  I'm fairly certain I was crowned the ping pong champion of the cruise and have a gold medal to prove it.  The best part of this was I played with a Corona in hand for most of the matches.  

By this point in the cruise (day 3 I believe) the thought of eating the free cruise food was about on the same level as taking a bath in molten lava.  The dinners were pretty good, don't get me wrong, it's hard to mess up a salad.  But the daily buffet was just trash, I'm pretty sure I had better meals at Britain back in the day.

Jamaica!!!!!

I only took one picture in Jamaica, here it is.

In fact, I'm not 100% sure that's even Jamaica.  Now, Jamaican locals are totally different from Labadee locals.  Within 10 minutes of getting off the boat, I'd been offered about 13 cab rides to "the waterfall", 8 different types of weed, and various other items which all ended in "mon".  

This was a typical conversation in Jamaica...

"Yo mon, how you doin mon?"

"Doin pretty shitty, now that you're here"

"Do you smoke mon?"

"No"

"WHY NOT MON!!?"

Rinse and repeat.

Jessica ended up buying a couple of dresses at a local thrift store.  The lady inside said she was giving her a special deal.  Upon leaving the lady followed us and asked why we didn't tip her for getting us the special deal.  I'm guessing countless tourists end up just shoveling money to these people, and these are probably some of those same people that were involved in a jetski crash a few days earlier.

Hey at least they make good chicken.

More drinking, more ping pong championships, more 400+ pounders that let it all hang out by the pools, and we were on our way to stop 3, the Grand Cayman Islands.  Surprisingly, I don't really have anything bad to say about the Grand Caymans.  We went to a beach for a few hours, ate some conch at a local bar, and drank some hurricanes topped off with 151 (in case you haven't figured it out already, getting trashed daily was an integral part of this trip).

I had a picture taken of me in the Grand Caymans, I believe it sums up most of my life.  And yes, that's me.  See I'm making an appearance in my own blog, I can't just make fun of other people anymore.

Moving onward...

The next couple of days were a blur.  I'm not going to try and remember exactly what happened so I will put certain memories in list form.  

- the boat leaves for the final stop in Cozumel

- Jerel and Jeric continue spending each night in the "club" on board.  Nothing good comes of the clubbing

- I wander aimlessly around the ship counting down the seconds until I'm on land again

- $8 coronas are drank like water in a drought

- Jeric mistakes the door of his room for the toilet

- we drink tequila and each nachos in Cozumel

- Jeric has an intimate conversation with the waitress, she is calling him Papi by the time we leave

- I hit a heater at the craps table and then decide I need to buy everything for sale on the ship

- I find the store with 3L bottles of Crown for $50, I quickly spend craps winnings

And that about does it for the Caribbean cruise.  Besides the actual cruising, I had a good time.  My parents slipped a fake bill for $1,300 under Jeric's door the last night.  Hilarity ensued.  There's a video, if I ever get a hold of it I will do my best to post it.

- Dan