The Cruise Destination and Little Mountains of Labadee, Haiti

January 06, 2014

Our most recent family vacation started as a long story:

We originally planned to take a 7-day cruise in the summer to celebrate several milestone birthdays, graduations, and a few other special events in 2013. Our vessel, the Grandeur of the Seas, had just received $40 million in renovations, but experienced an electrical fire while en route to the Bahamas a few weeks before we were to depart. Sadly, our cruise countdown (formerly at about 12 days) became indefinite. Thrown for a loop, our trip planner was able to juggle some things around and secure a 10-day cruise for us around the holiday/New Year time. Schedules were shuffled and new plans were made. Cruise day finally came! It was a snowy day in December as we pulled away from the Port of Baltimore, bound for the Caribbean.

In addition to many on-board amenities like a spa, pools, hot tubs, a sauna and steam rooms, theater, dining facilities, casino, piano bar, central bars and lounges, and food all the time, we found the upper deck shuffleboard and I played a bit with my brother and father. The ship also had a 1/4 mile track (in red, above), fitness center, rock climbing wall, and table tennis.

(Photo by my father)

Two days after the initial cast-off, it finally looked like this outside:

We were blessed with either cloudless, 80-degree weather with a slight breeze, or bright and shining 75-degree weather with a few white fluffy clouds in the sky.

Our first port of call was Labadee, Haiti, Royal Caribbean's private piece of the island.

Watching the first passengers disembark

Our ship at port

Our first excursion was a high-speed rubber boat tour around the islands and this was the color and clarity of the water. It looked shallow, but it was about 20ft deep. We zipped around the coastline at 50 miles per hour and saw the vacation homes of the wealthy and creatively-assembled sails and fishing boats of the locals.

This little island was a resting point for fisherman who came from the mainland to fish. We saw a few fishermen who had docked their boats and were sitting in the shade.

Our guides were telling us about the history of Haiti and its hurricane-filled past, and we stopped at this sailboat, which the guides said was one of the fastest and most expensive sailboats on the market but its owner has never used it.

We finished our excursion and got to hang out on the beach for a few hours before returning to the ship for dinner. We found this little (rocky) "lagoon" I want to call it, for lack of a better term, and there were fish, conch, and snails of sorts that called it their home.