Tim & Denise Tiner Travels: 2019 January Hunter Cruise - Day 01 - 03

Well another cruise has begun. This is a Hunter Family cruise in honor of Bruce and Nanette's 40 year anniversary and Dale's request to join him and Julee on the cruise. The cruise begins in Port Canaveral, Florida and will go to Amber Cove (Dominican Republic), St. Thomas VI, San Juan Puerto Rico, and then Gran Turks Island. We boarded on the 19th of January and it will conclude on the 26th of January. Actually, from Salt Lake City, we began our journey from Utah on the 18th taking a red-eye flight on Jet Blue that left at 10:30 PM arriving at 5 AM in Orlando. We had the opportunity to accompany Dale and Julee, which is so fun and always full of surprises like, "I can't find my Fitbit cord."...which came to us at 7:05 PM from their home when they were supposed to be on the road to our home...and then on the plane having just landed, Jullee blurting out, "where is my tablet?" then getting Dale, Tim and Denise on all fours on the floor looking for it while people unboarded from the plane. Crazy! Fortunately, the flight attendant at the head of the plane came on the speaker system saying a tablet had been found clear up at the front of the plane. I guess Julee set it on the floor and the tablet went skipping under seats when the plane hit its brakes. And oh....I forgot the trip from our house to the park-n-ride where the inside temperature was a sweltering 100+ degrees and Dale was looking like it was Alaska inside with a large sweater and large coat on with a blanket on his lap. I guess I have to cut him some slack since his chemotherapy causes crazy things to rage in his body. We are so grateful he is feeling well enough to go with us and look forward to getting him on the boat so he can rest.

As we left the plan was to meet Michelle and Jeff at a hotel they had booked near the Orlando airport. Well that all changed when their flight was delayed out of SLC and they were told they would miss their connecting flight out of Dallas to Orlando. So Southwest booked them on a 6AM flight the next morning from Dallas, so no hotel in Orlando. After re-arranging our shuttle to Port Canaveral to pick us up from the airport and at an ealier time, Denise, Julee and Dale checked themselves into one of the lounges that Denise's credit card covers. She can get 3 guests into the lounges in airports around the world. But Tim, he was the wicked step child who ended up as a pauper child, begging for food and sleep just outside the door of the lounge! But no worries, Tim struck up a nice conversation with a nice man from Las Vegas who apparently was retired and loved to sail boats all over the world. He was going back to Vegas after having been sailing in many of the Caribbean islands since Christmas. He seemed to be quiet wealthy talking about ranches he owns in Utah and boats he has purchased to meet his sailing needs. I also eave dropped on a women's rowing team from Rhode Island, I believe. Time went by really slow, but I survived. Eventually my travel mates came out of their palace, well slept and fed, grabbed the wicked step child and took him to baggage claim. Fortunately we got there just as the Jet Blue team was starting to contact people whose bags were never picked up. We never left the terminal after arriving for about 4 hours. We hoped our bags would be there. They were. So we grabbed them and waited for Jeff and Michelle to arrive. They showed up about 10:30 AM and our driver arrived around 11:30 AM to take us to the boat.

The 50 minute ride to the Carnival Breeze Ship went by quick. It was so good to get on the ship and begin the over indulgence that would go on for the next 7 days. The boat embarked around 4 PM. We were all pretty tired but we had early dining so we could not just go to bed. Plus it was funny trying to figure out how to get Dale around in a wheel chair since we got off on the 6th floor and all the elevators were only supposed to stop on the 5th and 10th floors where the food was. One elevator finally stopped that had some room on it that was going down, but it had a bride on it and the people would not let the man in the wheelchair get on. It was pretty cold by them. Anyway, Dale eventually had to walk down the stairs while Julee and Kami packed the wheelchair down the stairs. Pretty crazy it was for them. Denise and I had left to try and figure out where to go to get the food more easily and then we lost them. Anyway, we all ended up eating at different locations. I thought that was pretty funny.

After dinner, Denise and I arrived back at our cabin at 8 PM. I kid you not, this guy was snoring at 8:10 PM having been up all night the night before. Day 1 was in the books.

Day 2 was a sea day. We started by meeting for brunch, at least some of us, around 10 AM. We then headed to Latin dance class where we all started to learn some steps. It was kind of fun. It was funny watching Julee fixate on Kami and Jenny dancing trying to get videos of them dancing. Denise and I got tire of showing everyone how it was done and left. We went up stairs to just sit and watch the ocean go by for a while. We went to the Serenity area (adults only) and got a cabana...only because it was about to fly off the boat the winds were so great. But our large behinds held it in place for about 20 minutes and then the security came and set our behinds were not big enough for the winds that were happening and asked us to leave...they were closing the area. At that point others, were indicating that they wanted to go to Guy Feiri's BBQ place on the boat...which we did. Pretty darn good BBQ it was. After that, Denise and her sisters went and bought an unlimited 4D movie pass ($15). They have a bank of shows that the can watch over and over. They are all like the Star Wars ride in Disneyland...something like that I guess. Jeff, Dale and I found some chairs on the deck and watched some of the Saints\Rams football game. We watched that to about halftime and then we had to get ready to get pictures and go to dinner. It was Prime Rib and Lobster Tail night! Yum! It was also formal night. And adding pictures right before didn't cause it to taste bad. We made it through getting pictures done with only a few folks not able to quite make the event. Nonetheless, pictures were taken and the food was good. After dinner, some of us went to the Motown Show. They actually do a pretty good job. This theater is much better than the last theater we had on our last cruise. But this ship is significantly bigger. Anyway, after Motown, the girls wanted to go do the 4D movie thing again so I went to the pool deck and watched the Chiefs choke a win away from the Patriots. I'm sick of the Patriots. They are SO LUCKY! The Chiefs had them beat but a defensive lineman lined up offsides that nullified an interception with a couple of minutes to go. Go figure. Anyway, I was snoring again at 10:30 PM.

After waking up 5 times to use the bathroom through out the night (and I'm not exaggerating), we had arrive to Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic. Most of us had purchased the excursion to go on a Catamaran to sail and snorkel. It was a beautiful day here. Seas were calm, Blue skies...just really nice. We drove through Puerto Plata and then to a cove where we exited the bus after a 45 minute bus ride. We then walked into the water to board the boat. We did two snorkel stops. The first one had some pretty nice corral formations where the sea life was pretty good. But the 2nd one had a lot better seal life. The water clarity was really good and lots and lots of fish. At the 2nd stop, I took the GoPro out. And I'm glad I did because this time, my wife, with only a waist belt flotation I device swam and snorkeled all by herself! She swam all the way back to the boat and had a GREAT experience doing it. I'm so proud of her and overcoming her deep fears of swimming in deep water. It was amazing. We are now going to get her a mask and snorkel so she has better equipment next time we do this. It was really great. After baking on the boat for about 45 minutes, we headed south towards Puerto Plata, sailing for about 1.5 hours while we ate lunch, tanned and relaxed. WE eventually pulled up to a beach, got off the boat, and walked to a waiting bus for a 25 minute bus ride back to the cruise ship. It was a nice afternoon doing things that I really love to do. And I think Denise is starting to like it a bit more too.

Upon getting back on the boat, we were all pretty tired. It was about 3 PM. I wanted to see how my GoPro videos turned out. So I pulled out the SD card and started to upload them to my IPad. At some point, I got an out off space condition and then my IPad would not function. I forced a re-boot but that took almost an hour or more to finally get to a point where I could kind of interact with it. I figured out what I could delete and started deleting things. Eventually it began to run better having more space to operate in. But as I waited for this thing to re-boot, I kept dozing off. It was pretty relaxing. We all got a lot of sunshine and that caused some of us to burn a little bit, but not too bad.

Everyone joined us tonight for dinner. Last night Bruce and Nanette preferred to go to a comedy act instead of eating with us during formal night. I think they knew of the comedian and really wanted to see that person again. After dinner, some of us went to the comedy club to listen to the PG version of the comic. We took Dale with us and I think he really enjoyed it. The guy was so quick on his feet with his comments. I don't know how they do that. Apparently he was runner up on some show called Last Comic Standing...a comedian competition.

After the comedy show, we went upstairs to the buffet area (not to eat a given...thank goodness) to get a large table there. It started with Jeff, Michelle, Dale, Jenny, Mike, Denise and I playing cards (Fingers and Five Crowns). Soon Kami and Julee joined us after a shopping spree that she and Kami took at some bargain store (buy 4 things, get 5th item free). Can't pass that up. Anyway, it made Dale's lanyard purchase small potatoes compared to what Julee spent. I think Dale has about 30+ dollars to spend to get equal with the spending habits of his better half. Anyway, it all just keeps us laughing. We are having some nice fun with Denise's family.

Pictures:

Another plane ride....red-eye no less!