I’m at the airport. Again. I was here last Tuesday. Then I was here the Sunday before that. Then eight days before that. I’ll be here tomorrow, too.

Since I have some free time, I’ll use the opportunity to recap our cruise vacation.

Day 1 – San Juan, PR

First, a quick note about USAir. They changed the departure time of our flight and didn’t notify us. It was moved up 25 minutes. Oh, they also changed the equipment type from a 3-3 to a 2-3-2 seat configuration. Didn’t tell us. When you’re on a 3-3 plane with seats E & F, one person is sitting by the window. When you’re on a 2-3-2 with E & F, you’re both on aisle seats. Naturally, the flight was completely full and there were no seats to change. We managed to negotiate onboard with the people around us for a seat by the window for Sherri. But thanks, USAir. More on USAir later, by the way.

Anyway, we landed in San Juan around 1:30 or so, picked up our luggage, met our transfer, and made it to the cruise terminal about 2:30 or so, give or take.

Once onboard, we went up to the top deck to lay out for a bit, and promptly got sunburned.

Day 2 – Dominican Republic
Beautiful country, depending on which direction you’re looking from the ship. Strange place to dock, too. Here we did the Romantic Sunset Cruise excursion, which was a lot of fun. Many photos will accompany this trip, once I find time to link to them. We didn’t see much of the island from land.

Day 3 – Sea Day
Sea day. What can I tell you. Some people like ‘em, some people don’t. When I worked on the Wonder, I didn’t like sea days… it’s a lot better when people get off the ship, and that’s not so much possible on sea days.

Day 4 – Grenada
Welcome to Grenada, our first port. We didn’t book any shore excursions for today. Our adventures on shore consist of us walking off the ship, looking around for about 10 minutes, then re-boarding. Maybe if we’d booked an excursion we would’ve found Grenada more interesting… but in this case we judged it by what we saw right out the terminal and were not impressed.

Day 5 – Barbados
Our second shore excursion of the trip was a tour aboard the Jolly Roger. It’s soooooooo touristy, but we had a good time. There’s a whole pirate theme going on and they ply you with rum drinks. We docked near a beach and they ferried us in. After an hour or so, back to the ship for swimming and rope swing. All in all, a decent excursion, and profitable for the tour operators, I’m sure.

Day 6 – St. Kitts
St. Kitts was my favorite stop. Beautiful country, and you’re not mobbed by locals as soon as you get off the ship. We did a Mountain Bike Tour excursion here and, besides discovering how truly out-of-shape I am, it was a lot of fun. Our mountain bikes were able to go places other tourists, on their air-conditioned buses, couldn’t.

Day 7 – St. Thomas, USVI
Immigration process was this morning. No problems for me or Sherri. Our shore excursion — Turtle Cove Snorkel and Sail — was rescheduled from 1pm to 9am, right after immigration. If we had gone at the original 1pm I’m sure we would’ve scalded, regardless of the amount of lotion used. Plus, if the excursion was at the original time, I’m almost positive Sherri wouldn’t have made it to dinner in one piece.

Day 8 – San Juan
Back to San Juan. Another early start as we vacate our stateroom by 8:30. We spend the day in San Juan, touring around Old San Juan. We spend the night at the Sheraton. Dinner was at an amazing outdoor restaurant alongside the bottom of the city wall of Old San Juan. Mojitos: great. Food: great. Live band: so so.

We paid by credit card, so I’ll have to try to find the name of the restaurant and post it.

Day 9 – San Juan and home
We roll out of bed and catch a quick lunch at Senor Frogs before heading to the airport. Most. Terrifying. Cab. Ride. Of my life.

USAir pulled their shenanigans again with the flight time and equipment. And why not? This time Sherri couldn’t trade for a window seat, so we sat across the aisle from each other. Oh, and they lost her bag. Somehow it didn’t make it onto the plane with us. Even though we checked them at the same time. More than an hour before the flight. *shrug* I could’ve done without the hour-plus wasted at the airport waiting for a bag that would never come. Still, not enough to ruin our vacation, but you have to give them credit for trying.

So all in all, a great vacation! The perfect mix of activity and boredom.