Updated for Goofy Mom - Mini-trip report from our Celebrity Cruise About This Page:

[PrincessJ9]

Glad to see I made it into the trip report Can't wait to see more pictures...Frank cracks me up

[JoanW]

You know, we saw that "stacked rock" thing in Hawaii at the volcanoes. Hmmm. Wonder what it all means. What a nice trip you had!

[SarahJ]

Sounds like you had a great time! I'm impressed you were able to cruise at all with having had such horrible morning sickness. Did you have any trouble on the ship?

[lkmom]

Great report! Do they still have the donkey rides in Mexico?

[Courtney]

First, some comments on the responses...glad you guys are enjoying it so far!

Sarah - Frank is only a character when he is on vacation...normally *I* am the goofball, but he usually takes the cake after he's been off his ship (the Navy ship that is) for a few days.

Bill - I have forever been trying to get Frank to request Key West for our next duty station. I would love to live there, go everywhere on a scooter, wear flip flops every day...I just love it there! I'm so jealous that you lived there!

Donna - we would go back to Aruba in a heartbeat. It was really beautiful there. At the end, I will get some more pictures of Aruba up for you - we took a ton. We only really saw the north half of the island, and we were there for almost 24 hours. Everything except the casinos closed at 6pm though, which was a little frustrating, but it really was a great place to visit.

Lynn - We came home to practically non-stop rain. We really miss the nice, hot, sunny Caribbean!!

Joan - I certainly hope it isn't a bad luck thing! For all we know, we all look like idiots stacking rocks, but it was fun doing it! The cruise director narrated about a 15 minute Power Point presentation on each port that was replayed on the in-room TV in a continuous loop, and he said that nobody knows why anyone does it, they just do.

Sarah - At that point, my morning sickness had really dwindled down. I was only getting sick about once or twice a week, instead of all day, every day. And Frank and I had gone on a cruise in October, when my morning sickness was just kicking in, and it was atrocious (well, so was the cruise itself, but that's another story for another day). My doctor had given me Phenergan for motion sickness, and I tried to NOT take it unless I really needed it. There was one sea day that was particularly bad, but I think it was more motion sickness than morning sickness, and I didn't keep anything down for 24 hours, and ended up going to the ship's doctor for a shot of Meclizine. I did have a few run-ins with the toilet during the cruise, but not every day. We cruised when I was in my 13th week (I think), and my symptoms started really dwindling off that 12th week, or we really would have considered cancelling it. (Because the morning sickness had about 400 other symptoms going along with it.) I think that the cruise got the last of my morning sickness out, because I haven't gotten sick since then! (Knock on wood.)

Okay - back to reporting!

Curacao was our last port, and was a last-minute substitute for Grand Cayman, which was limiting the number of cruise ships allowed in port on any given day, since they are still recovering from the hurricane season.

Curacao has this funny bridge - instead of a bridge that RAISES to let boats underneath, the bridge is a FLOATING bridge, and will move across the waterway to allow boats to pass. This is a picture of the "city" across the waterway, as we waited for the bridge to head back over.



We visited a synagogue there that had a sand bottom - to symbolize the Jews walking through the desert for 40 years, which I thought was pretty neat. (Not the best picture - the lighting in there made it tough to get good pictures of the sand.)



We traveled in the first half of December (and, looking back, feel like we sort of missed Christmas this year), but there were touches of Christmas in Curacao - this is a Christmas tree set up in one of the shopping areas.



And just some random pictures - us on the last formal night (lobster tail and prime rib - that was one fantastic dinner!)



Frank and his new friend Alec.


Another touch of Christmas from the Grand Buffet on the last formal night (yes, that is bread)


And the full-length shot from the first formal night (Not only did I really fit into this dress about two months prior, but I was afraid it would be too BIG. Truth be told, I took a lot of shallow breaths that night!)

[Courtney]

And some final thoughts on the cruise.

First of all, Celebrity is a top-notch cruise line. Everything was in great shape, always being cleaned, everyone always smiling and helpful. We never ran into any staff members in anything but a great mood.

Our cabin steward, as I mentioned before, really went above and beyond. Not only did I have to have a shot for motion sickness, but I also got tonsillitis and an upper respiratory infection while on the cruise. (Sidenote - Thank goodness for travel insurance, because that medical bill was NOT small. Definitely recommended!) There were softer tissues in the public bathrooms than in the cabin bathroom, and we nabbed an almost empty box of them one night after the show. Our cabin steward must have noticed, because I had a brand new box of the soft tissues in our room the next day. He was fantastic - we didn't see him often, but when he did, he always called us by name, asked how our day was, if we needed anything, etc.

Our waiter and asst. waiter were also fantastic. Kim (my fellow pregnant traveler/tablemate) requested a larger salad one night, and then we all started to follow suit. At the end of the cruise, we started calling our table the "table of special orders", because between our special salads, ordering two (or more!) entrees/desserts/appetizers, we felt like we kept our guys on their toes. We also made good friends with the bartender, who kept us floating in sodas the entire time. (They have such small glasses for sodas, but none of us ever had an empty glass.) We would always catch him in other parts of the ship - in the nightclub, on the aft deck area, and he would just go get our sodas without even asking.

We ate at the buffet for breakfast and lunch mostly, and had a lot of hamburgers and hot dogs poolside at lunch time. As with any cruise, we never went hungry. We did order room service for breakfast one day, and it came hot and on time. Belgian waffles every morning, bagels and nova (my FAVORITE breakfast), pain perdue (I'm sure I spelled that wrong, but the FRENCH way to make french toast) every morning made me one very happy girl.

We did eat lunch in the dining room one day, and after ordering just a salad and an entree, the waiter looked at us and asked if we were on a diet! If only he knew how we emptied the bread basket at dinner every night!

The maitre'd, who, on other cruises, sometimes doesn't get around to your table until the second to last night, visited us EVERY night. One night, he said that if we ever wanted something special, as long as we gave them a day's notice, we could get it. Kim and I had been talking about our craving for grilled cheese sandwiches that day, and one of us looked at the other and said, "Should we ask for grilled cheese?" - completely joking around.

10 minutes later there were 4 grilled cheese sandwiches on our table. So, needless to say, the maitre'd took good care of us as well.

The activities staff was a lot of fun as well. As I mentioned before, the average age skewed a little bit older on this cruise, and tends to skew older than some other cruiselines, but the activities staff were all in their 20's. Between daily battle of the sexes (when our respective teams would get REALLY excited when Frank, Alec, Kim, and I would show up, because we could answer the questions about rock groups from the 80's, and Strawberry Shortcake) - which, by the way, the women won at the end of the cruise - the hula hooping contest that wasn't (I held onto my ice cream cone while hooping by myself, only because one of the staff recognized me while I was heading in to get some ice cream and asked me to play so maybe someone else would, but nobody did!), bingo, poolside "Name that Tune" every day (Kim and I won the 60's Name that Tune!), Pictionary (Frank and I won this one time), Family Feud (our team of Frank, myself, Kim, and Alec won this too!) they started to really get to know us toward the end. We even played Name that Tune one day IN the pool, and our team was everyone in the pool...and still managed to lose!

Our particular cruise had 12 children on it, and we didn't see even one of them until the last two sea days, when a couple visited the pool. We were told that there were 10+ times as many on the next (Christmas) cruise. They had a sock hop one night, but other than that, there really wasn't any "nightlife" on this cruise. (And we usually didn't get out of the show until 11pm - midnight anyway, so we would crash at that point.)

Ports were as scheduled and on time, and we only had to tender in one port (and it was one heck of a tender...I was green by the time we made it off), and everything ran very smoothly. We are definitely looking forward to our next Celebrity Cruise in October of this year, where Jeannine (PrincessJ9) and Kelly (kv3291) and some more of our buddies will be joining us. Hopefully, we'll be able to talk more of you into coming with us, because it should be fantastic!

Hope you enjoyed the mini version of the trip report, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask away!

[Tara O'Hara]

Thanks for sharing you wonderful experience, Courtney! You guys look awesome in those pictures!!

[loobyoxlip]

Gorgeous pictures, Courtney. I Costa Rica - I was an exchange student there for 10 months. I would love to go back some day. So cool that you found some stuff for the baby's room.

[GoofyMom]

Wow! That really sounds like it was a heck of a cruise!

(And don't forget -- you promised me more photos of Aruba! )

[Tink and co.]

Thanks for sharing--we love cruising too--And I'm so glad your morning sickness seems to have passed, been there, done that!

[luvnwdwgal]

Thanks for sharing your cruise with us Courtney!! You two look awesome in your formal photo!

[disneyknut]

LOVED reading your mini TR & your photos are excellent... love your dresses..

[Courtney]

More Aruba pics!


Whoops - forgot to upload them all first - back in a minute.

[Courtney]

Ooookay, here we go...

These first few are of the northwestern part of the island...not really a place for sunning and watersports.


Looking toward the south


The northern coast




Plaque outside the California Lighthouse (the pic of that is earlier in this thread)



Alto Vista Chapel - had the "Our Father" prayer on signs leading up to it.



Road leading to the chapel

[GoofyMom]

Wow! Awesome photos! It looks like you can really get away from everybody there! Thanks for adding them, Courtney!