20th Anniversary Southern Caribbean Cruise

Ammon and I celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary by taking a trip to the Southern Caribbean.   We love taking cruises and spending time together in new and beautiful places.  We hadn't traveled to the Southern part of the Caribbean yet, so we planned this trip with our good friends, Jill and Garrett Larsen.  We visited many islands, all of which were beautiful and fun.  We flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico and headed right to our ship.  We weren't able to see much of Puerto Rico aside from the town from our taxi.  While cruising, we visited St. Thomas, St. John, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Barbados and St. Maarten.  We only had one day at sea where we didn't get off the ship. The rest of the days we got up, ate breakfast and headed in to see all that these beautiful islands had to offer. It was a WONDERFUL trip and a great 20th anniversary. I love my husband and I am so grateful that he is willing to take me on these trips so that we can spend time together.  We feel the importance and  need to do more things that involved time together with each other as well as our children, as we never know when the time may end. We don't want to wish we "would have". Instead, we want to say, "we did."

Below are many, many photos of our trip. Enjoy.

San Juan, Puerto Rico

St. Thomas Port

 Taking a ferry from St. Thomas to St. John

  Sights of St. John

 While swimming in St. John, we saw this Sting Ray close to shore.  We followed it for a while and Ammon even touched it.  He wanted to pick it up, but felt that maybe that wasn't the wisest thing to do.

  Dining on board

Sights of Barbados~ Probably our favorite stop.

  

Snorkeling with  green sea turtles and hawksbill turtles.

Ammon chased them around and was able to touch them.

  Barbados had such clean, clear, warm water. 

It was so fun to swim there.

 More snorkeling pictures.

 "Iceman" from Barbados was the guy that hooked us up with our snorkeling fun.  I found a chair that 

I saw sitting lonely on the beach. Photo op. 

 The people on the islands have monkeys as pets and want to charge you for a picture with them.  I had to sneak these photos while he wasn't looking.

  Sights of Barbados

  I loved the looks of these next couple of photos. I edited them to look more retro. They turned out fun.

 More of Barbados

 

More dining pictures and more goofy shots!

  Our towel animal creations in our room each day.

  Dinner and a show~ our typical evening out.

  Comedy Club with our friends the Jill and Garrett

 Sights of St. Lucia~

 St. Lucia~ Piton Mountains Below. We saw them as we came in, but didn't have time to take the excursion over to see them close. We wanted to, but chose a different excursion. They are a neat attraction of St. Lucia. 

We took a 4 X 4 excursion tour through the hilly island countryside to a beautiful beach. 

  St. Lucia Governor's Home

 Beach in St. Lucia

  Night on the ship~ Watching a show inside and then a movie outside on the big screen.

 Sights of St. Kitts.

  Left side is the Atlantic Ocean and on the right is the Caribbean Sea. We drove the Caribbean Sea side and played at a beach there.

  More Monkeys. We saw a couple wild monkeys roaming the land, but these ones were in captivity at the beach. The small baby one is a pet used for taking pictures for money.

  

While at the beach in St. Kitts~

Fun water sports and mountain goats.

 Playing in St. Kitts.  It rained on us off and on. Jill and I were glad we had the umbrella by our chairs. 

We put it up and down quite a few times. 

 We met a young man there that had many sea creatures in a bucket. So, we talked to him a bit and found out that he lives there.  He is from Hawaii and just moved there because his dad is a big shot with  the Marriott resorts. He knew all about the ocean life and creatures. He is living the life.

 This guy was  a taxi driver at the beach in St. Kitts. I just asked for a photo due to his colorful appearance and he was more than happy to do that.  

The guy on stilts also wants money for a picture.  I didn't know that when I took this picture until after when I was told by his money collector (maybe his mom). 

 St. Kitts downpour!!! It lasted for 15 minutes or so, but it was so much rain that it flooded the streets.

  Sights of St. Maarten~ St. Marrtin

This island is own by the Dutch on the St. Maarten side and by the French on the St. Martin side.  We stayed on the Dutch side. We had been warned that the French side was more snotty and also had nude beaches. So, we opted for the closest side to the port which turned out to have great shopping and beautiful beaches. 

  Final night of dining. We took a picture with our head waiter- Edgard.  He is from Panama and has been doing this since he was 19.  He is almost to his 15 year mark and says that he hopes to retire from it and go back to Panama where he has a taxi waiting for him. He doesn't have a wife or family, but hopes that he can start one when he gets back home.  For most of the crew members on these ships, they work the ships to make enough money to survive, send home, and save since their isn't much opportunity in their own homelands to work.  I can tell that it is tiring on them and they get sick of this kind of life, but they do it to make ends meet. It is interesting to meet some of the crew and hear their stories.  It makes me even more grateful for my story.