October 3-12 San Juan & Cruise

Nancy and I spent two days in San Juan prior to departing for a cruise. When you're retired, you've got to take a few days off before a cruise to unwind from the stress of retired life. :-) We stayed at the Embassy Suites, which was very nice and even had a casino! Two blocks from the beach, complementary cooked to order breakfast, and two hour open bar happy hour. We learned the optimum number of free rum drinks was 5. 6 was too many to enjoy our wine with dinner and 4 was too few for the two hours of open bar. The hotel was very nice with a great pool. We relaxed, read by the pool, and watched the Coppertone girls give out free samples of Coppertone. On Sunday we met Adam & Nicole and Jimmy & Sue on the ship. We had three balcony rooms next to each other on the port side of the ship. The ship departed at 8 pm. Our next stop was Aruba. We did an enjoyable kayak-snorkel tour, even if it was raining. The next stop was Curacao. We went on a boat which they called a "semi-sub". The hull of the boat had windows from which we could view the sea-life. The seats were only two wide, so you could have a great view of fish and coral. Afterwards we went on a short tour of the island with a stop at the Curacao Liqueur distillery. And all the shots you could drink. The next stop was St Maarten where we did a catamaran snorkel tour with complementary rum punches followed by some shopping. The last stop was St Thomas where we went to Magan's Bay. We were on Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Sea which is a real nice ship even has an ice rink! The food was outstanding and there were many activities available. We had a great time and thanks to Adam and Nicole for planning the trip and to Jill of Keller Travel for making it happen. The only down side was that we sure missed our precious granddaughter!!! They change and grow so much in just two weeks!!