Carnivals and Sunshine 11-20-15: Welcome to St. Maarten! 11-24-15

It is a beautiful morning and it feels good to be warm. We all decided to get off and go have a look around the port area to let the kids shop for souvenirs. Our excursion is not until 12:30. After taking photos and letting the kids buy their souvenirs, we were all soaked from perspiration. We head back to the ship to change, have lunch and head to the pier to meet our tour. I had gone to lido looking for a piece of pizza and apparently everyone else did too because they were out. The kids were told to finish lunch and go meet their own family in their own cabin. We go back and get our things together and tickets and we are missing Chris. He also has left his phone in the cabin so we can't text him. Teresa assumes he is with Kevin and we head out to the pier. We arrive on the pier and find our tour group when the Kramer's get off the ship and Chris is not with them! Now we are down to just a few minutes before the tour leaves. Kevin says he left Chris on Lido going to the deli for a sandwich. Hmmmmm. We had just finished eating and he was getting a sandwich? Bryan and Teresa run back to the ship and take the stairs two at a time. Teresa tells Bryan if he doesn't see him to go back outside and go on the tour. Teresa goes to the cabin. Larry our cabin steward says Chris was there but had just left. Teresa says she is running down the hall calling his name. She finds him carrying a plate with two cupcakes just meandering down the hall. All of us outside are anxiously watching the gangway for them and the girls are saying that he won't get in trouble with Teresa because he is her favorite. We all laugh and agree. At the very last minute she comes off the gangway with Chris with her finger pointing and her mouth going. After they get his tickets and waivers taken care of she takes him aside again and was letting him have it until he finally said "will you please stop yelling at me"? The group started walking to the pier where the catamaran was and the kids are behind us. Teresa never uses fowl language with the kids...ever. She said when she found him she asked him what the *&%# were you thinking and what did he think she meant by go back to the cabin? Then she said she told him to run because if they missed this tour she had spent $80 each for, he was going to be in even more trouble. Now is when the picture of this whole event gets funny. She said he started running with the plate with the cupcakes on it! She said she turned and yelled at him to put the plate down...on the floor...anywhere and run! We were all dying laughing as we could all picture him doing that...he doesn't want to give up on the cupcakes!

The catamaran was wonderful and everyone enjoyed the afternoon. It was fun and relaxing. We had done this tour before. They take you to snorkel first (no Shrekie I didn't snorkel) since you can't drink alcohol before the snorkel. Then they serve rum punch and we headed to watch the planes land over the famous Maho airport beach. We didn't see any big jets land but did see several take off. After watching that I have decided never to fly into St. Maarten. You will see one photo where I caught the plane going straight up to avoid the mountain...yikes! We then went to a beach where everyone could swim or float on a noodle and then back to where we started with dancing on the deck that everyone enjoyed. As we walked back to the ship, the sun was starting to set and the Adventure of the Seas that was docked next to us on the starboard side was already leaving. It was us and the Disney Fantasy still there. I got some great photos of the full moon from the balcony as we were leaving.

We had an enjoyable dinner and the boys all went to the Red Frog Pub to play the games while the girls went to the Mardi Gras party in the atrium. They came back with lots of beads then went to meet the boys to play games in the pub. They have the ring game, foosball and shuffleboard. They loved playing back there or at least the boys did. I went to bed since it was a long, hot day and we were in San Juan tomorrow. I went back to the cabin and straightened up things and got things ready for the morning. Day 3 is now in the books.

So far we have lost a car, a cell phone and a child....what could be next? Oh and while on the tour Teresa made some reference to Chris about not following orders and he said "mom, I thought we had moved past that"...the end.