What Goes Around…featured
So I was going to (finally) sit down and write a little more tonight. I’ve been drowning at work and I chipped a tooth the other week, which has resulted in wayyyyyy more dental work than it should (I may not need a root canal. We’ll know on Thursday. Cross your fingers for me!). I booked a trip to San Fran for next month and I have friends visiting from out of town most of this upcoming week.
Things have been busy.
So busy that we never really got around to figuring out where to go in May. We’ve been throwing ideas around for the past month. I’ve been championing a trip to Paris or London because I’m aching aching aching to go to Europe. Stephanie’s been lobbying for a trip on the Oasis of the Seas. And Mom? She doesn’t really care where we go. She trusts me and Stephanie to choose something she’ll love.
We’ve been at an impasse.
Stephanie Skype’d me tonight with one message:
[9:27] What about a cruise to St. Lucia?
“Carnival doesn’t travel to St. Lucia in May,” I told her matter of factly, thinking back on my knowledge of Southern Caribbean cruises. “I don’t want to cruise in April.” I want to go to New York in April, and my employer’s lenient time off policy would still likely frown upon two trips in one month.
[9:29] carnival valor from puerto rico to st thomas, barbados, st lucia, st kitts and st maarten
A cruise out of Puerto Rico? I hadn’t even considered that. But it appeals on many levels: it allows quasi-international travel (which I’ve been aching for), it allows me to explore many new places and most of all, it allows Mom to go to St. Lucia. If you’ve followed this blog long enough, you’ll know we booked a trip to St. Lucia in 2009, only to get diverted to Grand Turk because of propulsion problems on the Miracle. One of Mom’s dreams is to go to St. Lucia. I’m not entirely sure why. I think she heard it was pretty. Maybe she saw it on The Bachelor. But she’s had this fixation on St. Lucia.
Stephanie started going through the booking process to get a quote while I looked at airfare (American flies direct to San Juan and the prices are decent). She pulled up a balcony room and in the quote, she saw a message that said “VIFP Club Exclusive Offer — Free Cabin.”
Jigga wah?
Her quote for the three of us total in a balcony cabin was $884.11. That’s less than $300 a person.
We booked it immediately.
And then, in a measure of divinity that could only have been sent by grandma, we realized we’ll be on St. Lucia exactly on Mom’s birthday. You know. If the ship actually makes it there this time 😉
I need your help, friends. We’ve spent exactly 10 hours in Puerto Rico, and that was back in 2007 (and the prevailing memories I have left are of taking shots at Senor Frogs and Stephanie walking me back to the ship). We’ve never been to Barbados or St. Lucia. We’ve been to St. Kitts once, and St. Thomas and St. Maarten are our good old friends. If you have hotel recs for Puerto Rico, places we have to visit in San Juan in our pre-cruise stay, and any tour recs for Barbados and St. Lucia, throw ’em at me. I promise I’ll bring back lots of pictures in return.
