Bermuda

Bermuda, June 12-19, 2009:

Well this definitely was a highlight of the summer! For one thing, it rained nearly the entire month of June (I've never seen such a rainy, gloomy summer in all my life). In fact, it was raining on the Friday morning that we headed down to the cruise terminal. For another, we almost didn't get to go, because Raine came down with a flu-like virus (not swine flu) the Monday before our trip, and we didn't know if she would be well in time or if the rest of us would come down with it. On Wednesday morning, Raine woke up, felt much better, and wanted to go to school. Fantastic!! Then I saw her eye and realized it was... pink. Off to the doctor we went, and as luck would have it, the doctor discovered she had an ear infection (nice catch--bring on the antibiotics), and that her pink-eye was viral and not bacterial. This meant she was not contagious on either front, could go to school, and we could go on our cruise. Thankfully, the rest of us stayed healthy, too!!

As I said, the weather was terrible the morning we left for the cruise, but as we were sitting out on one of the decks waiting for the boat to depart, up in the sky the clouds parted and we saw....THE SUN!! It took us a few minutes to figure out what the light and that big shining object in the sky was, and then we took it as a good omen.

Leaving Boston Harbor

SATURDAY: We woke up the first day, and it was a beautiful sunny day. The kids headed off for the Kids' Club, and Jay and I found a couple of chairs up on the top deck. We had lunch and dinner in the Windows restaurant, and while the food was okay, it was disappointing that it wasn't as good as the food on our previous Bermuda trip on the NCL Majesty. During dinner, we sailed through a quick thunderstorm, and that was pretty neat. Amazingly, the waters didn't get rough. Later that night we saw a Broadway Review-type show with the kids, and then we headed to bed.

SUNDAY: We were having breakfast in the Windows restaurant at around 9:30 a.m., and I looked out the window and saw Bermuda! We were not supposed to arrive until 11:00 a.m. so I had to scramble to finish my breakfast and head up to the top deck to photograph our arrival. We figured we'd first do some exploring around the Dockyard in King's Wharf as the scooter rental place was probably going to be mobbed. We walked around the Snorkel Park and found it to be incredibly disappointing and not worth the money to rent snorkel equipment. Bermuda has so many beautiful beaches, but this definitely wasn't one of them. The Dockyard in general has a sort of run-down feel to it, even though efforts have been made to spruce it up, and I much prefer docking in St. Georges. After wandering around some of the shops in the Dockyard, we made our way to the scooter rental place, took our test run, and then we were ready to do some exploring.

Wide-angle view of the Dockyard at Kings Wharf

Vertical close-up view of the Dockyard at Kings Wharf

Heritage Wharf building where we went through "customs" each time we embarked or disembarked the boat. The Commissioner's House Meritime Museum is in the background.

The Norwegian Spirit docked at Heritage Wharf

First we went to Fort Scaur Hill which offered some great views of the island. Despite having taken a scooter lesson here in MA, I was a bit shaky taking turns. In my lesson, I only did wide turns, so the sharp turns I had to make were really difficult, especially with Raine on the back. Also, while we were at the fort, it started to rain, so we took cover until it passed so we wouldn't have to drive in the rain. Luckily, Bermuda rain showers blow in and out quickly so it wasn't a problem.

Entrance to Fort Scaur

Early Bermuda Weather Stone--too bad it didn't warn us it was going to start pouring in about five minutes.

After Fort Scaur Hill, we headed to Horseshoe Bay Beach. The kids and I had gone to this beach with Jay's mom on our last trip, but this was Jay's first time, and he loved it. To the left and right of this beach are all sort of caves and coves made from coral rock formations. The one to the left is called Horseshoe Baby Beach by the locals and while we were there, some young guys were jumping from a 30-foot high rock into the ocean. Jay really wanted to do it, but I was totally against it as I didn't want to experience a Bermuda hospital on this trip. By the time I agreed to let him try it, the tide had gone out, and it was too late. Darn. We returned to the boat for dinner, dancing and sleep.

Looking out at the main beach from Horseshoe Baby Beach

The caves at Horseshoe Baby Beach

Horseshoe Baby Beach

Not Jay!!

MONDAY: Jay wanted to go back to Horseshoe Bay Beach this morning. He was hoping the people doing the rock jumping would be there so he could try it, but unfortunately no such luck. Darn. We spent a couple of hours playing at the beach, but then the sky started to look threatening. I was still very nervous riding the scooter, so we asked a cabbie how much it would cost to get a ride to the Bermuda Zoo and Aquarium. Turns out $50 was a good motivating factor to get me back on the scooter. I'm glad I did because the ride up to Flatts was very beautiful and easy to manage. Well except for the rotary. I knew I had to go left into it, but it wasn't a true rotary, and I had no idea if the person on the inside lane was going to go straight as I was turning into the rotary. Luckily, the rental scooters scream "tourist", and all the locals came to a dead halt as we navigated around the rotary. Still, totally not fun. The zoo/aquarium was nice, and even though there wasn't anything truly spectactular there, I'm glad we went.

Tyler posing in a cave at Horseshoe Bay Beach.

Tyler and Jay in a cove looking for fish.

Raine at the beach.

Glad to see the shark at the aquarium and not at the beach!

Tyler got this great shot of "Big Bubba", as he likes to call this fish.

We stopped at The Swizzle Inn for a late lunch on the way back to the boat. This is one of the local highlights, and we didn't get a chance to go there on our last trip. I had a Wahoo Burger-- wahoo is apparently some kind of fish I'd never heard of. It was very good. We didn't dare try the rum swizzles since we still had a ways to drive back to the boat. Maybe they would've helped, but we didn't want to find out the answer to that the hard way!

View from the terrace of the Swizzle Inn restaurant.

Tyler took this lovely photo of us looking a little rough after a day of beach and scooter riding. That's NOT a rum swizzle in front of us.

Good thing we didn't try the rum swizzles!! Just as we passed Horseshoe Bay on the way back to the boat, the sky unleashed, and we got drenched. Several times we pulled our scooters over to take cover in the protected busstop areas, and then finally we gave up and kept riding. We rode slowly and carefully and made it back to the boat without incident. I viewed it as baptism by flood.

Back at the boat, we had dinner at the buffet and then the kids went off to the Kids' Club. Both kids made lots of friends on the boat. The Kids' Club offered late night hours while in port, so Jay and I went to a couple of the adult-oriented entertainment. Nooo, not that kind of entertainment. The first was called Newlywed/Not-So-Newlywed Game which featured three couples chosen from the audience to represent the full spectrum of well...the newlywed to not-so-newlywed. The not-so-newlywed couple was celebrating their 62nd anniversary, and they were by far the funniest and most outrageous of the couples! Guess that's the secret to long and happy marriage.

Sunset on the Spirit in Bermuda

TUESDAY: You guessed it, we took the scooters back to Horseshoe Bay Beach, and once again nobody was jumping off the rocks. Darn. And we had to have to the scooters back by 1:30 p.m. so that was pretty much Jay's last chance on this trip. Better luck next time!!

Tyler building a sandcastle.

Jay and Raine jumping waves.

We got the scooters back at 1:27 p.m., had some lunch, showered and then wandered around the Dockyard for awhile. We went into the Frog and Onion Pub as I'd read that there was a game room in the back that I thought the kids would like. It turned to be kind of old and seedy-looking so we didn't stay. Somehow we never made it to the Dolphin Quest area which was right in the Dockyard. It was sort of tucked away, and we're used to the American way of things being right in your face so we missed it.

The Moon Gate sign reads, "Couples who kiss under our moon gates, the wedding-band shaped arches found throughout the island - will, according to local legend, be assured a long and happy life together. Walk through one of our lovely limestone arches, make a wish and look forward to a long and prosperous future."

Inside the courtyard of the abandoned Dockyard Fort.

Bermuda's equivalent to our squirrels and chipmunks. Geckos are everywhere and locals laugh at tourists (umm, me) taking pictures of them.

A Dockyard signpost with the Dockyard Mall in the background.

Jay's Dad has friends on the island, so we called them when we arrived and invited them out to dinner. We took the ferry over to Hamilton, and then we had drinks at a place I can't remember the name of. After drinks, we drove a few blocks over to a restaurant called Mad Hatters. The restaurant is lined with hats of all kinds, and you can ask to wear them. Jay wore a British bobby hat, and Tyler had a dragon hat. Fun! The food and company were awesome. Bermudians are some of the friendliest people you can ever meet and one of the reasons why we love this island so much.

View of Front Street in Hamilton from the ferry terminal.

Debbie and Blip

Steve and Connie

Tyler in the dragon hat. This hat doesn't have anything on Jay's dragon hat!

Back at the boat, the kids had another late night at Kids' Club, and Jay and I went to the White Hot Party. Everyone wears white and they use black lights so everything glows--very nightclub like. Jay and I are way too old for this thing, but we went because it was there. It was everything we expected, and we left after a few horribly annoying songs (Celebration, 1999, and Hot, Hot, Hot, etc.). We were very sad to have it be our last day in Bermuda.

WEDNESDAY: The boat left the island around 6:00 a.m. so we awoke out to sea. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and we spent the day out by the kids' pool. This area was far less crowded than the regular pool.

For some reason we couldn't fathom, the afternoon and evening saw rough waters. Jay was the only one who was feeling a little seasick; Tyler doesn't get seasick, and Raine and I faithfully took Dramamine so we felt fine. Still, we were all pretty tired and went to bed early.

Each night the cabin stewards came in, turned down the beds, and left a towel animal. This is a little mouse made from a couple of wash cloths.

We loved coming into the cabin each night to see what animal we'd find. Here is our towel monkey.

THURSDAY: Another nice day out by the pool, and the seas were totally calm. This was our last day on the boat and on the one hand, I was sad our trip was almost over; on the other, I was looking forward to being home. In the afternoon, we went to Bingo since NCL was kind enough to suck us in by giving us a raffle ticket for a free cruise. Yeah, we didn't win. And we got sucked into buying these pull-ticket things because we were tricked into thinking it was the last chance for the $2,000 giveaway, but surprise, surprise, there was another bingo session that evening and just coincidentally nobody won the $2,000 at our session (or any of the other prior multiple daily bingo sessions). Go figure. Thankfully, this was the last day we ever had to hear the bingo dealer's spiel--"Guess what time it is? It's BINGO time!! Bada, bada, bingo! Bingolicious! Bingo, baby, bingo! Come on dooowwwwn!! (insert your favorite annoying game show host voice for that). It was amazing how many people were shelling out BIG, big money for Bingo. No wonder NCL was hawking it every chance they got.

Our last night on the boat, we went to Steakhouse Charlies which is a surcharge restaurant. For $25 each we had shrimp cocktail and a 10 oz. filet mignon with garlic mashed potatoes that was soooo good. They allow you to order more than one entree, but we were so full we couldn't eat another bite. Jay was so disappointed (and a little bit ashamed); all you can eat filet mignon and he could only eat one! We also went to see the cruise ship's talent show. This is a fun show as the crew features people from all around the world, and everyone's feeling a little nostalgic that the cruise is ending. Sadly, we went back to our cabin and started packing up our stuff.

FRIDAY: We got up early, packed our last minute things and disembarked. And guess what, it's raining. Vacation over. We got back to Tewksbury by 9:30 a.m. so we dropped Raine off at school since it was her last day. She was so excited to be able to say goodbye to her friends and teachers, get her report card, etc. Tyler couldn't care less, so we just stopped by his school to pick up his stuff. Both kids had awesome report cards, and Tyler got the teacher I had requested--so happy about that!