The date for our cruise to Bermuda draws nearer - about a month away now. We haven’t gotten our documents yet, but other people who are on the same sailing are starting to get theirs, so ours will turn up any day now. I ended up finding out our cabin assignment anyway, because it showed up when I logged into the Celebrity website. We’re in #9033, which is a full deck of cabins, below a full deck of cabins, and above the casino (approximately). I don’t think the casino operates when we’re in Bermudian waters, so we’ll only have to worry about it on the two sea days - and it’s unlikely we’ll hear anything anyway.

I’m not sure yet where my in-laws’ cabin turned out to be - I think they booked a guarantee, as we did. The point of booking a guarantee is that you will hopefully get bumped up a category or two. On the Zenith, though, there are only oceanview cabins anyway - no balconies - so there wouldn’t be a big difference if we had gotten upgraded.

I am now the proud owner of the best sweatshirt ever. (The chest detail is here.) It was astonishingly expensive, but it is fleecy. And I maintain that it is awesome. I like Emily the Strange well enough even if she is all over the place, but I don’t see her much among the people I hang out with so I will be the only one with this awesome piece.

I also got an outfit that I might use as formalwear for the cruise. It is a camisole-like top with a pencil skirt; put all together they become a matching outfit (I don’t have the choker, bracelet, or boots, obviously). When I tried it on in the store it looked much nicer than the punked up girl from the website wears it (I had to stitch that together from a series of closeups), so I think it could be worn elegantly. I wouldn’t wear it on a “normal” cruise, but I think on this gay cruise it just might be okay. I’m not 100% sure I’ll keep it, though - the skirt was only available in a size below and a size above what I need, though the salesgirl repeatedly offered to have one sent over from another store. I tried on the size top that I thought would fit and it was a bit too tight, so I bought a size larger without trying it on. I’ll see how they look at home, and if they’re good I’ll get the right size skirt; if not I’ll return it all. But I’m keeping the sweatshirt!

Oh, and Hot Topic is now $115 richer…they were all impulse buys.

Oh wow! I just talked to the interpreter coordinator for RSVP, and I get to go on their early September cruise to Alaska on the Oosterdam! I will be interpreting, of course, but he made sure to emphasize that I would have a lot of time for fun too. They mostly need interpreting for the nightly shows, some shore excursions, and occasional activities like The Newlywed Game. They pay for everything except my bar bill (and presumably my soda card) and any shore excursions I want to take independent of interpreting. I wear an RSVP shirt and represent the company, so I’m allowed to have cocktails but not get riproaring drunk. I have slightly mixed feelings because the cruise ends on A’s birthday, but she doesn’t care about that and she is happy for me. Also she is taking a cruise with her mom for the last week of September, so we won’t see much of each other that month, which I don’t like at all! But I am really excited to be going on this cruise…oh, and did I mention that RSVP is a gay travel company? A ship full of queers - how cool is that?!

I started our last day in Puerto Rico by writing postcards in a Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins. (It was 8am, so I had doughnuts and coffee rather than ice cream!) I had missed a couple of names on my list, so I wrote those cards and added stamps. I went back to the hotel and woke up A, then watched a cheesy show called “Beyond Belief” on the Sci-Fi channel while she got ready.

We had to check out before noon, so we did so and left our bags in a storage spot in the hotel. We caught the bus to Old San Juan and did some last minute shopping - I even scored a nice Italian charm with the Puerto Rican flag for $4! We went in a jewelry store and I almost got a “Caribbean topaz” necklace for $70 but backed out because the stone wasn’t quite right.

We were afraid we’d have to wait as long as 25 minutes for the bus back to Condado, but we lucked out and caught it just as it was leaving. We collected our bags and took a taxi to the airport, where we had to wait in line to check our luggage. Our main meal of the day was none too healthy - crap from The Taco Maker! For the first half of our flight I was bothered by two girls in the row behind us, who were watching a movie on a personal DVD player - without headphones. The flight attendant finally got them to turn it down, and we landed in Fort Lauderdale without incident. We didn’t get to leave the plane and walk around, but we did spread out a bit for a few minutes. The rest of the trip was fine; early in the flight to Washington A and I played Scrabble on my Palm Pilot, but after a while I got antsy and we didn’t finish the game. After landing, we caught the metro and took a cab, arriving home right around midnight.

Today involved a whole lot of traveling! First I woke up at 7:30, thought it was much later (apparently I have lost the ability to tell time), and woke A up too. Once we figured out the actual time, we went back to sleep! I woke up again shortly, and whispered to A that I was going to check out the “Bookworm” store. It turned out to be pretty cool, with both English and Spanish books. It is a gay-owned bookshop, and had several of those books, as well as plenty of new age and self-help titles. There were at least five books I could have gotten, but the best find was a brochure near the cash register for bioluminescent bay tours with a gay tour guide! I ran for a pay phone and was delighted to find that he would indeed be leading a tour tonight. I made a reservation and went back to the hotel room.

Because we wouldn’t be kayaking until the evening, we headed for the Bacardí factory. Our trip started with a bus ride, and then we walked to the Acua Expreso ferry terminal. We had a long wait for the ferry, and when we finally set out it was for Hato Rey and then Cataño, where the factory is. Once we reached the right port, we had to take a $5 cab ride to get to the factory. An English tour was leaving as soon as we arrived, so we joined in. Most of the tour was conducted through audio guides that looked like telephone handsets, but there was also a short movie and a demonstration of how to make a mojito. We sent “videomail” to our parents and then returned to the tram for the rest of the tour. In the gift shop I bought five 50mL bottles in each of the special Bacardí flavors. We redeemed our free drink tickets for tiny mixed drinks, and then took a cab back to the ferry terminal. We had to go by Hato Rey again before returning to Old San Juan.

We were supposed to be back at the hotel by 4:30 to meet the van at 5 for the kayaking trip, but the B21 bus driver said he wasn’t leaving for 25 minutes! We cut it very close but managed to catch the van. We picked up one other couple, and then settled in for the long ride out to Fajardo. For me it seemed very long, because I’d had a big soda before leaving! We finally arrived at the park and I ran to a nearby restaurant. The door clearly said RESTROOMS FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY but I ignored it and nobody bothered me.

Our guide was Robert, working for Island Kayaking Adventures. After the requisite mini-lesson, we got onto our sit-on-tops and headed out. The stronger paddler sits in back, and the front paddler sets the pace, but I told A to sit back and relax (and navigate, because I couldn’t see around her!). We paddled through a long mangrove channel and then emerged into Laguna Grande. The other tour company was right - the moon made it nearly impossible to see any phosphorescence. Robert had brought a tarp, though, and the five of us huddled under it and splashed around while Robert explained how the plankton glow. We couldn’t see very much, but what we could see was impressive! We’d heard it’s nearly impossible to photograph this, so we’d left the camera behind. I was the only one who jumped in when it was time to swim, but the water was great! My PFD didn’t fit me very well, so it rode up on my chest (the one I have at home is designed for women) and made swimming difficult. The three kayaks moved with the current but I couldn’t keep up, so after I splashed about for a while A paddled over to pick me up. We chatted with Robert for a few minutes, and then he helped me back into my boat (and we didn’t tip A out of it!). We paddled back through the mangroves (it was very dark, I couldn’t see a thing - not good for the person in charge of steering!) and then had fruit and other snacks back at the pier. The ride home seemed much shorter than the ride there, and we arrived back at the hotel by 10:30pm. [See also my trip report for this excursion.]

Has it really been less than 12 hours since I woke up? The boat was already docked in San Juan when our requested wake-up call came, but we weren’t due to leave the ship until 9:30 (we got an appointment card the night before) so we got to eat first. It ended up being a “hurry up and wait” situation anyway, as when we got to the theater at 9:15 we were told the customs agents were running behind. When we checked back at 10:00, they were telling everyone to go ahead and leave, probably because the guests staying on for the next cruise were anxious to get out and explore San Juan, which they couldn’t do until all disembarking guests had left. The wait in customs was not long (I forgot to declare the apple I’d gotten at breakfast) and we didn’t have to wait too much for a taxi to our hotel.

The trip to El Canario by the Sea was short, even though we had to stop at the Wyndham Conado first to drop off another couple. We expected to leave our bags at the reception desk and go for a walk, but they switched our room to one that was “almost ready,” so we hung around and then brought our luggage upstairs. We figured we’d just go for a walk, but I was keeping my eyes open for the Puerto Rico Breeze, the islands gay-newspaper. I ended up finding it in a store called Condom World, which also carried delightful adult party supplies like pecker-studded leis and napkins printed with boobs. We decided to go to Old San Juan next, and ate lunch at a Subway restaurant before catching the bus out of Condado.

We walked around Old San Juan for several hours, mostly ducking into shops that looked interesting. I’d found out that paying for a kayak tour in the bioluminescent bay was pointless due to the full moon, so we asked at the Tourist Information Center for the name of a kayak rental shop near our hotel. After more walking, we visited the Catedral San Juan Bautista where A lit a candle for her late grandmother, who was Catholic. On our way out, a homeless man made an interesting plea. He said we didn’t have to give him money - he’d just like a soda from a nearby machine. He said he’d like a regular Coke because he needed the calories, and we bought him one. By this point we’d been walking around a lot and I was ready to rest a bit before dinner. We weren’t sure where to catch a bus, so we began to walk back to where we’d started. We stopped in more shops, and then as we emerged from the very cool Moon Dance I spotted the green trolley we thought we needed to catch.

The trolley was very crowded, and we had to stand for quite a while. We finally got to sit down, but many other people were still standing. Just when we thought we were about to head out of Old San Juan…the trolley turned back into it. I opened the guidebook and realized we were on a loop route. We ended up staying on for another entire trip, then switched over to the bus station to catch the B21. We’d gotten on earlier on a one-way street, so we weren’t sure exactly where to get off, but we figured “this looks close enough” - and happened to get off at exactly the right stop!

After cooling off in our room for a few minutes, I read restaurant options out loud. We selected Cielito Lindo, a Mexican place just a couple of blocks away. It turned out to be a great choice - the service was very fast and the guacamole was great (and I’m not normally a fan!). The total bill, including sodas and dessert, was $25. We decided to skip our planned nighttime stroll on the beach because we’d walked so much during the day, and returned to our room instead. We do get the Sci-Fi channel here, so I am enjoying my customary Monday night Stargate marathon while A browses the guidebook, which she hasn’t had a chance to read until now.

Today was a whirlwind tour of St. Thomas, an island I’d like to come back to. Our morning trip was called “Coral Land and Coral Sea,” and it began with a jitney ride to Coral World, a “Marine Park and Underwater Observatory” - that is, a really cool aquarium complex. We started in the Nautilus semi-submarine, which looks like a normal ferry on top but has a very cool underwater bubble with big viewing windows. We spent about 45 minutes cruising around Smith Bay, but most of the pictures didn’t come out so we just paid attention to the views (including a diver feeding fish ). When we were finished on the reef, we climbed back on deck and returned to the dock.

When we entered the Coral World area, A and I headed for the gift shop first. After buying a few souvenirs, we toured the exhibits: the Caribbean Reef Experience, the Underwater Observatory (I mailed a postcard in the underwater mailbox), the turtle and ray pools, and the Marine Gardens. By the time we finished, we had to hightail it back to the bus. The trip back to the pier was a more direct route than the scenic trip we had on the way out, but I still got a good picture of a roadside stand.

After lunch on board the boat (free, as opposed to paying on land), we went out to the Havensight Shopping Mall. This is actually a collection of eight strip malls, filled with a mixture of touristy stuff and expensive jewelry. I did note that the crap in St. Thomas seems to be higher quality than the crap in St. Maarten! I happened to spot a set of St. Thomas pieces for the Cat’s Meow Village, and I picked one out for my collection. We also stopped in at the Sanrio store, where I picked up an adult-size pair of peacock slippers that actually fit me! We investigated the Paradise Peak skyride, but decided $16/person was much too expensive. After visiting a few more stores, I was tired and went back to the ship.

Our last dinner was reasonably pleasant; we ordered two rounds of drinks and got a bit tips. We struggled to deliver a gratuity envelope to the bar server we dubbed “Soda Guy” - he always had sodas ready for me before I asked for them - because he disappeared just before we gave the envelopes to our waiters! We visited the photo gallery to pick up our two formal portraits (at $25 per 8×10, we will be making color copies for family!) and then returned to our room to pack. One of the TV channels is airing a preview of the “Cruise in Review” video - and we’re in it! It’s a very brief shot, but now I really want the video. I’m hoping we’ll be able to put in an order for it after the cruise is over, so I don’t have to decide right now if I want to cough up the $25.

Today was a busy day! We had room service for breakfast again (they left out my pastry and coffee, the scoundrels!), and waited for the announcement that we were cleared for disembarkation at St. Maarten. When we saw people walking along the pier, we figured we’d missed the announcement and left on our own for the tour. We were on a tour bus again, but I didn’t feel as much like a tourist as I had in Charleston. I did feel a little bit like I was being driven around (well, I was), but it wasn’t as bad, and our driver was informative.

The butterfly farm was beautiful, and the guide, Willy, was very knowledgable but spoke awfully fast. I breezed through the exhibits, perhaps guided by a sixth sense, and made it into the gift shop mere moments before the skies opened up. A came inside a few minutes later, utterly soaked, and produced a reasonably dry camera from underneath her purse. Everyone waited under the carport while it rained, and we had free rum punch. Two cats turned up out of the rain; one of them was in pretty scruffy shape (evidence of ear mites, fresh cuts on his back) but when I lifted him onto my lap he seemed well-fed and immediately began tenderizing my leg and purring madly. He rebuffed the advances of two very young children, but they were happy to pick on the calico instead, who was much more docile - she just lay there and took it! After the rain stopped we all piled back into the bus and set off for Marigot, the capital of the French side. We were only given 45 minutes to look around, but it was raining again anyway so we didn’t care to spend much time outside. We headed straight for a very tiny mall, and when we had exhausted its few possibilities and when we had exhausted its few possibilities we decided to check out the flea market the driver had mentioned. It turned out to be an open-air market, and many of the shops were closed, but a few were toughing out the rain and I was able to buy a few things.

The ride back to the ship was pleasant, but I think we caught a midday rush hour. We boarded the ship again and had lunch, grabbed our umbrellas from the room (and agreed Celebrity really should inform guests of the latest weather forecats), and went back out to the ultra-touristy shopping area just off the pier. I bought a few things, but avoiced purchasing a t-shirt for $15 that would benefit the St. Maarten Animal Welfare Society. I dropped 50 cents in the donation box, but I may send them more after we get home.

We had a little bit of time before dinner, so I wrote a bunch of postcards. After eating our main course but before dessert, our waiter told us there would be a parade of Baked Alaska - and sure enough, there was! Once the parade was over, he served us our portions, proudly giving A the “end cut” - which was bigger than her hand! I helped the best I could after finishing my own, but we ended up leaving some on the plate.

We watched Gothika in the cinema and got ourselves scared (well, startled) and then returned to the room. It’s now 11:40pm as I write this, and I will be going upstairs shortly to view “Le Grand Buffet,” which is so spectacular they invite you to take pictures half an hour before the midnight buffet actually starts!

So much for not having enough money for using the Internet terminals! But first, the morning. We had a rather late breakfast and skipped the “important disembarkation lecture.” We decided to spend some time in the casino, and started off with $1 in the Ms. Little Green Men slot machine (5 cents/play). Once that was done, we fed a $20 into the same machine. We had no major wins and I decided I wanted to try a different machine. I punched the “cash out” button and got cash…320 nickels! I scooped them all into a bucket and we tried a few other machines. I mostly worked the Cleopatra machine, and at five cents/play it took the two of us about 90 minutes (on two machines simultaneously) to burn through the $20. We decided not to spend any more because the return was useless, but I’m glad I gave it a try.

We decided to get a drink before lunch, which we did by bringing our tall glasses to the buffet, filling them with fruit punch, and bringing them back down to mix with the rum we brought in a Deer Park water bottle. I ended up having two drinks and I felt a little silly as we went back upstairs to actually eat lunch. We had our usual post-lunch nap (ah, the joy of vacation) and when we woke up we started getting ready for dinner. It feels like we’re constantly eating on this vacation. We put on our formalwear and had our pictures taken again; the photographer tried to put us in “friends” poses so I told her we wanted the usual couples poses. She was fine with that, but then stopped short of the “gazing into each other’s eyes” picture everybody else was getting. I called her on it, and she took the picture, but she seemed a little unnerved. Too bad, lady! We skipped dessert again and returned to the room to collect a few things.

At dinner we had talked about doing some things online, including getting a BookCrossing number for a book that A finished a few days ago and doesn’t want to bring home. So we went to the Internet terminals and I logged in. I got the BXing number and used my company’s online scheduling system to request next Friday off. I looked in at CyDy Blog to see how Zille was doing with it, and e-mailed a note to her. I had almost 500 messages in my inbox so I didn’t bother going through them all, but I did search for Shaix in my e-mail and I found that she had e-mailed me with her address! She also reports that Lambda may be down for a couple of weeks, yikes! I signed off and got my usage report - 14 minutes for $10.50.

Not very much happened today, which was spent entirely at sea. We had both breakfast and lunch at the buffet, and finally got the cinnamon ice cream we missed out on yesterday. I gave up on reading Katherine V. Forrest’s “Daughters of a Coral Dawn” and passed it on to A, who had already finished reading the sequel, and I switched to Pat Cadigan’s “Synners” instead. I read and dozed in the morning while A attended seminars on shopping in Caribbean ports and Majorca pearls.

After lunch, we put on our swimsuits and went to the open pool, but we immediately realized we’d forgotten to wear sunblock so we got out after a few minutes (which was fine with me anyway - it was a saltwater pool!). We read our books and got drinks (total: $11.25) and enjoyed the mild weather from under a shaded area. A went to do her workout and I went back to the room and attempted to rinse out my hair, but I didn’t have much luck because the provided shampoo and conditioner is very weird.

We had dinner in the restaurant and skipped dessert because we were full, then read our books some more while waiting for the 8:30 showing of Love, Actually to start. It took me about an hour to get into the movie, but I liked it at the end. The music in the movie made me want to visit the onboard disco, but it was late and we are tired so we came back here to the room.

While we were reading before the movie, I observed people using the computer terminals. One man was having an IM conversation (he’d logged into his AOL account somehow) at 75 cents/minute! I would have liked to get online too - I do miss it - but I don’t have that kind of money.