New Years – 2018 – Day 4

Beautiful St. Thomas and again temperatures in the 80’s.  We are blessed.

We had not plans so we got off the ship at about 9am and walked into the shopping area by the pier.

We were at a new port in St. Thomas that is exclusively Royal Caribbean’s or which Celebrity is part, so we did not know what to expect.  After looking around and not finding anything very interesting, we took a jitney into the main town.

We explored it for a while and then took a jitney back to the ship.

At this time it was 11:30am so we went up onto the deck for some sun.

At 12:30pm we met Jeff and Vera on the back of the ship for lunch.  Several years ago before we knew them, they had met a casino manager who had been promoted and is now the Guest Relations Manager for this ship.  His wife and 2 children are with him over the holidays and they all joined us for lunch.

Then it was back up to the deck for more sun until about 3:30pm when it started to rain a little so we went to the cabin to clean up and get ready for the New Years Eve celebration.  

Tonight, for New Year’s Eve, everyone was in a party mood, so it was just really a lot of fun.

We went to the 7pm show before dinner and it was a cast production number that was very good.

Then we went to our restaurant called Blu for dinner and had a great dinner with Jeff & Vera.

Of course, next was the casino where Ed did very well and Barb broke even so it was a very good night in the casino.

New Years Eve was amazing.  It looked like the entire ship, which is over 2,000 people were jammed onto the pool decks for the New Years party which started at 11:30pm.  There was also a full moon out and it was a fun way to celebrate New Year’s.  Then probably 5 minutes after midnight, it started to rain so we headed down to the casino to wish the staff a happy new year’s also.

Tomorrow is a sea day and it will be fun just relaxing around the ship

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Bye the way, the pictures are not a good as we would like them as the photo editing program that I used is not available now that I updated browsers.  Sorry about that.

To all our family – please know we are thinking of you all and have a Happy, Happy New Year to one and all.  Hugs and Love – Mom and Ed.

Just have to shop here!!

Our ship

Getting ready for some sun - note the lotion on the knees.  Too hot for oil yet.

Ready to party on New Year's Eve

New Years – 2018 – Day 3

After a good night sleep, we woke up at 8am and went out for breakfast to the local café that we had eaten breakfast the day before.  Such a neat place and not another tourist in the place.

Then we went back to the hotel room and finished packing, contacted an Uber car and made our way to the ship.  What would have been a $12 cab fare was only $3.39 on Uber – what a wonderful service.

We got to the ship the earliest we had ever, and we were the 8^th and 9^th people in line.  They opened the doors at 11pm.  We were in our room and dropped off our luggage and were up on deck 10 waiting for Jeff and Vera.  They showed up at about Noon and we spent the next hour talking and eating.

Then back to the room to change and up on the sun deck we went for a couple of hours in beautiful hot (86 degrees) sun. 

When we got back to our cabin our luggage was outside our door, we unpacked cleaned up and went to the casino to meet our host, Andrea, whom we had never met.  Seems like a nice person.

The fire drill was at 7:45pm and after that we met Jeff and Vera in Blu, the restaurant for the group of rooms we were in.  The casino had upgraded us, so we are on the top floor in the category Aqua which get us access to the wonderful restaurant called BLE.

We had a good meal and then went to the show which tonight was a comedian who was very funny.

After the show we went to the casino where Ed lost just a little and Barb broke even. 

All-in-all a fun day.

Tomorrow we arrive in St. Thomas for the day.  Stay warm everyone.

The local diner for breakfast

Packed and ready to board the ship

Lunch with Jeff & Vera on the back of the ship

New Years 2018 – Day 2

We got up late and Barb go ready while Ed went to the gym.   We did get a complimentary breakfast at a Courtyard, so we walked about ½ block of a local restaurant and had a good breakfast for little money.

Then we took the local bus for 35 cents each to the main area of Old San Juan.   An Uber was going to be $6 and a taxi $9.  Then bus got us there in 10 minutes!

We then spent the morning walking around Old San Juan shopping at stores we had been to before and seeing how the town survived the hurricane.  Basically, the small local stores who did not have enough money saved up before the storm have closed, remodeled and it their places were brand new shops and a lot were high end shops – totally different from what was there before.  Lots of building still empty but the town looked pretty good with a lot of new paint.

Barb bought some shoes, a skirt and several items so it was a fun day.  We also ate at the famous restaurant that has Mallorca’s, which is a sweet bread with cheese, ham and toasted then topped with powdered sugar!!!  Just fun to eat and not very expensive.

Late in the afternoon we took the bus back to the hotel and dropped off our packages.  Then we walked to the hotel with the biggest casino on the island, the Sheraton at the convention center.  Wow – what a neat hotel with an amazing infinity pool on the 4^th floor.  As this is now a Marriott property, this is where we will stay if we ever come back to San Juan.  Ed played in the casino and started with a bank of $60 and we walked out 15 minutes later with $125.  A good start on gambling for the cruise!!

As it was getting late, we took an Uber car back to the hotel get ready for the evening.

We took an Uber car to La Placita, the #1 entertainment area in San Juan which is at the site of a market and is only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.  

We have visited the market there a number of years ago, but had never been there at night when they close the market, open the bars and restaurants and bring out the music and everyone dances.  It was really, really a lot of fun.

We met Jeff and Vera there and ate dinner at a local restaurant surrounding the entertainment area.

We got to La Placida at 7:30pm and made reservations at 3 different places with all 3 having a waiting time of about an hour.  At about 8:30pm we finally found Jeff and Vera.  They had tried to call us, but we were not getting a signal, so we didn’t know they were there – but it all worked out.

The place was jammed with people.   We have never been to a place this busy with this many people outside in the streets surrounding the market all with a drink in their hand!!

Every one of the 17 – 20 restaurants had a waiting list also.  Jeff said the place made Bourbon Street look like the Vatican!!

We ate at a wonderful neat restaurant that specialized in fish.  We shared a number of appetizers and the main course was a 2-pound Red Snapper that we shared.   We ate from 8:30pm to 11:30pm and when we left the restaurant, the place was even busier!! 

To get a Uber car, we had to walk about 1/3 of a mile to a place without people and cars.  The Uber car arrived quickly, and we were back at the hotel right at midnight – a wonderful day and a great evening.

We have taken 3 Uber cars today for a total cost of $17.50 and two bus rides for a total of $1.40 and had three wonderful meals at true Puerto Rico restaurants. 

Night for tonight and tomorrow we board the ship.

Barb likes to look into open windows

Lunch - Ed's Mallorca

Buying another Christmas oarnament

Barb's purchases for today

New Years - 2018 - Day 1

New Years - 2018 - Day 1

The day started with the temperature below zero at our house at 3:30am when we got up. 

We quickly had breakfast, took showers and left for the airport at 4:30am for a 6:00am flight to Atlanta and then on to San Juan.

We knew the connections in Atlanta were going to be close and the schedule said there was a 49 minute time between arrival and departure.  Of course, they start boarding 30 minutes before.  So, the boarding was to begin at 9:01am and we were to arrive 2 concourses over at 9:02am.

When we were late by 29 minutes in taking off we thought we would never make connections – guess what – we made it.

Basically, we made it to the plane and about 5 – 10 minutes later they closed the door.

The flight to San Juan was 3 ½ hours so Ed watched Dunkirk and Barb slept.

After retrieving our luggage, we took a taxi to the hotel, except the car driver took us to the wrong one, adding about 30 minutes.  The neat thing was that we had a nice tour getting to the correct hotel.

You can for sure tell that there is a lot of hurricane damage; however, it was not as bad as we thought it would be.

After checking in we walked around to look at restaurants and on advice of the desk clerk went to a local place that he said he ate at.  No question, it was a local’s restaurant and we enjoyed it.  We had rice and beans, chicken in a fried plantain (banana) bowl and then another dish we don’t know what it was, but it was good.

After dinner we checked out the gym and went to our room to get a good night sleep.

Night from San Juan

In our living room of the hotel - ready to go out

Dinner - Rice and Beans at top, left is Chicken in a Plantain bowl with lettuce and on the right is Fried ??