December 24, 2024

We arrived into St. John’s in cloudy weather, and when we walked out to our excursion, the skies opened up and it poured! For about 15 minutes, then it cleared up for a beautiful day.

Antigua is the larger of the two main islands which make up the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua is known for its 365 beautiful beaches, one for each day of the year.

Our excursion today is that catamaran champagne and lobster catamaran cruise that was booked up last year when we tried to go. The boat is the Explorer and the crew was fun.

We went on a long cruise around many of the beaches and heard a lot about the island. We could see Barbuda in the distance but didn’t go there. One of the beach areas is restricted to yachts costing 500 million dollars or more. It is also the beach where season six of Below Deck was filmed. We also cruised into neighborhoods of condos and homes, many that are rented out or are second vacation homes.

We arrived at our first beach. Norm stayed on the boat but I went swimming in the beautiful clear water and then took a walk on the beach and collected many shells.

Of course, the crew served us rum punch.

This tiny shell had a tiny crab inside! You can see it is on one of my fingers. It is only about 1/2 inch long.

After that beach, the crew had set up tables and served us a wonderful lobster lunch. Norm is enjoying it!

We were almost ready to leave for the second beach when a passenger sitting right next to us had a medical emergency, he stopped breathing and turned blue. His wife is a nurse and was right there. He recovered but it happened a second time, so the crew called an ambulance and they went to the hospital. I didn’t hear the outcome but will check in with the general manager, as of course we were concerned.

We moved on to the second beach and again, Norm stayed on with the rum punch and I went swimming and walking.

Vendors had stands selling all kinds of dresses, etc. They didn’t follow us around on the beach. Beautiful spot.

This is one of the two forts we saw on the way back to the ship.

Mark and Ramsay did the sting ray experience and Mark took lots of pictures. We did that on a previous trip here and really enjoyed it.

Our Christmas Eve plan was to have a cocktail party in our room with the family. Our butler, Atanu, brought all kinds of goodies. I arranged to have a cake to represent many wonderful things in all of our lives.

75 is for both Norm’s birthday in November and mine coming up in January. 50 represents Adam completing 50 marathons, one in each US state, and 17598 represents the altitude at Mt. Everest base camp, the trek that Mark and Ramsay completed in November. We toasted with champagne to a remarkable year for all.

We went to the terrace for dinner, and our favorite server, Melissa, made it fun as she always does.

The entertainment staff presented a special holiday show tonight and at the end many of the ship’s staff came on stage and sang with us. Afterward, they lined the hall as we left the theater and clapped for us!

Some of the ship’s departments use their imaginations to create Christmas trees. Here they are on display.

I forgot to mention that last night’s dinner at Polo, I had the most amazing gigantic shrimp that tasted just like lobster. And the mini Baked Alaska for dessert. Delicious.

Tomorrow and Thursday we are at sea on the way back to Miami. I will be taking a cooking class each day and of course there are the blackjack tournaments and many more fun things to take advantage of, but the best is being with our family.