Being on vacation, we took a lot of photos. Since we were by ourselves, I didn't like pestering people to take our photos, I opted to take many selfies. It ended up being a source of humor as John and I would try to maneuver our arms to get a decent angle. Here are some of my favorites.
I almost always took a photo on our balcony every night before we headed out to dinner.
Humidity and sunset made for the soft glow effect.
Sometimes whoever was taking the photo wasn't looking at the lens. Too much to focus on- ha ha!
Wearing sunglasses solved that issue. Of course we are both looking at the camera ;)
My favorite silly photo. Surprised duck face.
Perhaps the quality of the photos improved when we asked someone to take a our picture. It wasn't as fun though.
At every port and during the two formal nights, there were ship photographers there to snap a photo. We waited until the last day to make our final selections. We ended up looking through a stack that was several inches high.
Here is what made the cut. There were others that were good, but we did have a budget to follow and these weren't the most economical things to buy.
I couldn't believe that I ended up liking this based on the background/props. I made fun of it every time we went to take photos there. A bit cheesy, but focus on the beautiful couple.
Probably my favorite of the ship photos. If you are my Facebook friend, you have already seen this as my profile pic.
Another successful lounge chair and red roses photo. *Sorry these are a bit blurry- it s a picture of a picture.
Another one of my favorites. This was taken during our dinner service one evening. Happy, in love, and enjoying our time together.
For anyone that has been on a cruise, at least on Carnival, part of the fun of returning to your cabin at the end of the night is to see your new towel animal. During dinner service, the cabin steward goes by each room for turn down service- a little tidying of your room, drawing the curtains closed, and turning down your bedding. Along with that, they leave the newsletter for the following day listing activities, times, locations, and any other news the passengers need to be aware of. Typically, right along side of the newsletter, is a new towel animal. Here is a little photo montage of our animals.
You can see how the bed has been turned down for the night.
A little seal that was too cool and needed John's sunglasses.
Me being goofy and posing with our puppy on night 2.
Mr. Frog
I'm still trying to figure out what this guy is. I see signs of a duck with the bill, but the "ears" and arms are throwing me off.
Why a post about an airport in the middle of a cruise? Well my dear friends, I was all kinds of excited when I discovered that one of the most famous airports was on the island of Saint Maarten. I told John that if we had enough time that I would LOVE to go visit. Luckily for this gal, we had plenty of time and headed over to Maho beach near the airport.
If you aren't familiar with the airport by name, perhaps this sign might spark your memory. Danger signs were abound on the beach area. It stated that serious bodily harm or death could occur if you get too close. No worries, we stayed a safe distance to watch all the other crazy people who wanted to be harmed that day.
At the nearby beachfront bar, there was a listing of the arrivals and departures for each day. Sadly, we were only there for some of the smaller planes. The airport has a few 747's each day that I can imagine are pretty fun to watch.
We had a little bit of time to kill before the next plane came in, so we enjoyed the beach. Pretty small but oh so beautiful!
The water was perfect and I was regretting not bringing my suit. We had been to the zip line adventure earlier in the day, so I only dressed for that. Bummer.
The Plane!!! The Plane!!!
Hard to see here with the photos being shrunk a bit for the blog. Left center of the pic is an approaching plane.
This is why I wanted to come to the airport. The planes get freakishly close to the beach as they land.
Pretty amazing, huh?
As a plane would prepare for takeoff, the crowd would gather along the beach.
These were the people that weren't listening to the Danger sign. They all stood directly behind where the plane would be accelerating their engines.
This was the largest plane we saw take off. I believe it was a 737. On this takeoff, we saw several people lose their hats, glasses, and personal belongings to the ocean. It easily carried some of the items 200 feet into the water.
Video of Plane Landing
This link is footage from our trip that we recorded. For some reason, blogger don't want to let me have a pretty little video box. So click the link to see what we saw first hand.
Since we weren't able to see the big guys during our visit, I wanted to share some YouTube videos of a 747 landing.
Taking off. If you watch just one of the videos on this post, this is the one to watch! 747 taking off- THIS is why the danger sign is posted. People and items flying everywhere- well those who lacked intelligence and stood directly behind the jet.
Another view of the power of these planes. Why people want to do this baffles me, but I was more than willing to stand by and watch. Maybe that makes me equally lacking in decision making skills.
If you think what we recorded was low, just check out this footage! Our taxi driver said the DHL plane is known for their low landings and the fence usually has to be re-welded every week as result.
I couldn't imagine!!! Crazy!!!
Can you believe this is going to fly over my head?!?
John was giving clearance for landing for this plane.
Perfect capture of the latest arrival.
One of my favorite selfies John took during the trip.
For our day on Saint Maarten, John and I ventured out on our own. There was an activity I wanted to do and the ship didn't offer it, so we booked it on our own. We got an early start to our day as we wanted to have as much cushion in our day and time as possible.
For those that haven't cruised before, the ship has a guarantee that if something were to happen while out (transportation breaks down, delay of some sort) on a excursion that you bought through them, they will not leave the port without you. However, if you are out on your own, you "risk" being left behind if not back on the ship in time. This isn't an empty threat either- we have seen people left on both of the cruises we have taken. This was our longest port day, so we felt comfortable that we had more than enough time to go to several places. Top of that list was Loterie Farm!
On the French side of the island, Loterie Farm is a beautiful area with gardens, a pool, covered relaxing lounge/bar area, hiking trails, and what they call Fly Zones.
Lots of beautiful trees everywhere!
While we were waiting for our hike and fly time, we saw this cool lizard.
He put on a little show puffing out his colorful little throat thingy.
While hiking, if felt as if we were deep in the jungle.
Tons of Mango Trees as well.
There were some challenging spots on the hike. See the wire leading up the rocks? That was the "path" to go up the mountain.
The footpath after the little climb up those rocks.
At the top of the mountain, there were fabulous views!
The photos don't do this justice. It was amazing.
There were even wild monkeys on the hike! He's on the trail in the lower/center part of this photo.
Might be hard to see in this photo, but this is a view of the longest zip line that I would be taking very soon.
Time for the Extreme Fly Zone! All of the harnesses on the railing. I was trying out my camera the guide had taped to my wrist since I didn't have a head mount for it.
All strapped in and ready to go!
The Fly Zone wasn't just simply zip lines- there were lots of different obstacles to get to the different platforms.
Of course they were up in the air. These are from the "regular" Fly Zone. The Extreme is, you guessed it, more extreme! I only had the small camera taped to my wrist, so I wasn't always aware if I had just snapped a photo or took a video. The end result wasn't what I hoped for being captured, but there is always next time!
There were many suspended bridges like this. We would clip our safety ropes on each side and walk down to our next platform,
There were a total of 12 zip lines on the course. Some were pretty short and others were pretty long.
I did manage to take one selfie while on the course. It took about 1.5 hours in all to complete.
This bridge had a pretty steep decline.
These were some of the most challenging. I can now say I have walked on several tight ropes.
It was so much fun zipping across the treetops.
A photo of someone else from our group as she came in to her platform.
A view from the beginning of the longest zip line- 1,200 feet long!
A view from the other side after I finished. Hard to see where it begins.
Since my camera was mounted on my wrist, most of my videos were sideways or upside down depending on how I held my arm. Instead of making you all ill from trying to view those videos, I selected a few from YouTube so you can picture some of the thrills we experienced. I can't wait to do something like this again.
