May 3, 20162 min read

St. John

Updated: Nov 20, 2018

After arriving back on the mainland of Puerto Rico, my mom, my aunt, my uncle, and I said goodbye to Nico and then headed aboard our cruise. We were sailing on the Adventure of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship. Even though this was an older ship, it still had a lot to do and was able to get us from point A to point B without any problem. On the ship we met up with Carol, George, Kyli, and Travis (Kyli's boyfriend), the Streckfuss's whom we'd travelled with at the beginning of Second Europe.

Puerto Rican Sunset before setting sail

Me and Mom

Our interior stateroom

The first official port for the ship was St. Thomas but Jeff and Laura had been to the Virgin Islands before and remember preferring St. John. So, we decided to take a cab across the island to a ferry that would take us across to St. John. The cab driver tried to convince us that we would much more likely prefer a beach that he knew of on St. Thomas. He said that it was a private beach, unknown to tourists and he could take us there for a cheaper price. Instantly, this sounded like a scam to me. Perhaps he was being paid by a restaurant or a vendor at the St. Thomas beach trying to bring in as much business as possible. Although he almost convinced others in our party, we eventually all decided to stick with the original plan and take the ferry to St. John.

From the ferry

Once on St. John, we went to Trunk Bay. It was a pretty beach with turquoise blue water. There was good snorkeling off the beach but I mostly stayed on land because it was a little chilly and the rain was coming down on and off. After hanging out at the beach, we walked through the little town and then returned to the ship .

Carol & my mom

My mom & Kyli

Once back on the ship, we hot tubbed and played a board game called Sequence (a family favorite). For dinner we had our first formal night, an event where everyone dresses in nice clothes, enjoys dinner, and gets family portraits done. I saved our family money by just taking pictures of everyone with my DSLR camera.