We’re back for part two!

Coming off the high of Labadee mixed with the low of being forced to leave early, Sean and I were a bit nervous going into our last port stop. The weather seemed to be promising, and the port area seemed to have some quality activities nearby. We were wired with anticipation as we disembarked the boat.

Our port was Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. It was the most city-like and populated of our three port destinations, and we had our eye on the cable car that would bring us to the top of a nearby mountain.

As we entered the main port area, though, we were confused to find ourselves in a cordoned-off, cruise line-owned outdoor shopping mall. There were souvenir shops, chocolate shops, bars, a lazy river. The middle of the walkway had a few parrots (one of them liked me), but we couldn’t figure out how to actually get out of this place. At first, it looked like our only option was to book an actual excursion, but those cost money-money, and I wasn’t in the mood.

We finally found a spot where the excursion buses were departing the private area, but we were yelled at for trying to walk around in there and exit through the vehicle gate.

After some searching and general mayhem, we were told we had to walk all the way through the shopping area (clever), before we could find the taxi waiting zone. This, too, seemed to be organized by the cruise lines. The fares were set and definitely over-priced, but Sean took the reins and found us a cab. I was pretty bitter about the pricing, but I’m glad we just went for it in the end. A wise man once told me, “When you go on vacation, plan as best you can, and bring lots of money.” This is now my mantra whenever I have to pay for things I don’t want to pay for on trips.

Life outside the silly shopping mall gates was vastly different. Hustling and bustling, people were driving and scootering to-and-fro among small, colorful buildings and busy streets. Our driver, Anna, explained that she would wait for us at the bottom of the cable car so she could drive us back to the port. Seems like a weird system with a lot of waiting, but I guess that’s how they run the round-trip taxis. She also offered to come up the cable car with us, but Sean said no thanks. She was a little sad about that, haha.

When we arrived at the cable car facility, disaster struck again. We were told the cable car was under “reconstruction” and wouldn’t be running for another hour. We could sit and wait until it was ready.

We were devastated. Sitting for an hour in a tiny sterile terminal was not how we wanted to spend our time on this pretty island. Anna chatted with the employees and secured us a spot on the first car up, and then we sat feeling sorry for ourselves.

Lo and behold, the cars were ready to move again in about twenty minutes, and we were immediately in much better spirits.

The views from the cable car were breathtaking, with lush forests beneath us and the city and ocean beyond.

The views from the top were just as amazing! You know I love me a good birds-eye view!

The rest of the surrounding area was Isabel de Torres National Park, which is basically just a giant botanical garden. Again, you know I love me a good botanical garden! I was basically in heaven, and this day was quickly making up for all the bad weather of the previous days.

There were all kinds of beautiful tropical plants, wandering paths, and one of the longest plant archways I’ve ever walked under! Sean had to duck the whole way because he was too tall, haha.

There was another great viewpoint around the back of the gardens that allowed us to see the other side of the island, away from the ocean. So much lush forest!

This was seriously one of those great days that just leaves me with a big smile on my face. It’s kind of like we were transported to a different place and a different time, and it almost felt like we shouldn’t be there because it was so magical. We hardly ran into any other people once we left the main unloading zone for the cable car, which, again, is one of my favorite things! A private tropical botanical forest garden all to ourselves? Yes, please!

Can you spot the little gecko in this picture? He’s camouflaged pretty well!

Even though I was high on cloud nine, we butted heads a bit because I wanted to dilly dally the heck out of the whole day, and Sean was trying to be “responsible” about getting “back to the ship” “before it leaves us,” or some silly thing.

I had to keep running ahead so I could see extra things and then run back to him. I’m a problem.

When we reluctantly made our way back to the cable car, we were shocked to find some fog had moved in, completely occluding our view.

We made the mistake of claiming the back of the cable car so we could at least see the trees directly underneath us, but after about thirty seconds, it turned out we were just in some low clouds, and we then clearly had the worst view of the lot. Hahaha, oh well. Still very beautiful views of the forest!

Our sweet taxi driver brought us back through the colorful streets to the cruise-ship-outdoor-shopping-mall-place, and we had time to get a couple drinks. I think Sean had a standard lime margarita and I had passionfruit. We also split a shot of some sweet local liqueur called Mamajuana.

After that, it was back on the boat!

Unfortunately, something really weird hit Sean after the drinks, and he ended up feeling super nauseous. It was strange because we were basically sharing both drinks, and I didn’t feel anything. Before we even boarded the boat, though, Sean was worried he was going to puke. He went straight to the room, and I grabbed my kindle and headed up to the pool deck. I felt pretty guilty…. I just hate puking sounds!

Poor guy felt better pretty quickly, and didn’t actually throw up, but he needed to rest it off for a couple hours. I stayed up on the pool deck, got some nice views of the coast as we pulled away from port, and made a good dent in my book.

I was pretty excited about dinner that night – Italian night! I had risotto and some kind of coffee custard plus tiramisu, and Sean had the lasagna.

I think it was that night that we witnessed a “perfect couple” game show, which had a couple who’d been together for 53 years lap dancing on each other. (The man had to put his cane down beforehand, bahahahah.) It was one of those “can’t look away” kind of moments.

Day six was our last day on the ship – another Sea Day. We wanted to maximize the onboard activities, so I finally got around to trying the climbing wall. There was a blindfolded climbing activity the day before where I had to wear a blindfold and listen to Sean’s directions to climb. Very fun, but very tiring! This day, we got to climb with our eyes open, and I managed to make it to the top without tiring out.

I also got up the courage to try the surfing simulator. I had a pretty great time on the boogie board! I was third to last of the entire cruise to get to try – that’s how much of a procrastinator I am!

Afterwards, on the high of a successful boogie boarding session, I decided we should also try the waterslides!

I liked the yellow one better because I kept getting stuck in the blue one, and Sean liked the blue one better, so it worked out for the best! We probably went five or six times, and every single time, when I got to the bottom, he would already be standing on the deck waiting for me. I don’t know how he was going so much faster than me!

On our last night of dinner, we got a sweet photo with Singgih and Anam – such cuties.

There was one last comedy show, and then we managed to win fifty dollars at the on-board casino slots! Woohoo!

We lounged out on the top pool deck late that night, and Sean snuck up the last of our champagne for us to finish off. Not a bad way to end the cruise. It wasn’t quite as wild as my last cruise in high school where my sister and I stayed up playing cards with some other kids until four in the morning, but I’m not so young anymore! Hahaha.

In the morning, we had a hectic time getting breakfast and then being told we were supposed to have checked out of our room at 8am. This information was literally written nowhere in our check-out instructions! Pretty frustrating.

Then when we got off the boat, the ships were so tall at the port that there was no cell service, so we had to walk around for 20 minutes until we could call an Uber. Then the Uber took forever because of traffic in the port, and in the end we spent nearly two hours from departing the boat to actually getting the heck out of there. I was pretty cranky by the end of it.

Our last stop in Florida was the Kennedy Space Center. I had to be talked into this, but I’m glad we did it. The sheer size of the rockets was enough to send my head spinning. There were also several cool videos and some interactive exhibits where you could feel like you were experiencing this or that takeoff from sometime in NASA’s history.

There were model Mars Rovers and several actual space capsules, rockets, etc. Lots of space suits, and we touched a (very smooth) moonrock.

We only had a couple hours to spend here, but we could have easily spent more time if we had a longer day and more energy. Definitely lots to look at!

On our way out, we saw several alligators and a flock of flamingos hanging out in the swampy waters near the road! So that was fun. Unexpected wildlife is always a nice surprise. (Our Uber driver was very confused by the flamingos. “Huh. I’ve never seen that before.” Bahahaha.)

Back at the airport, we got a nice cocktail while we waited for our flight, and then we had a beautiful airborne sunset on our way home.

A fun trip in the end, once the weather turned up and we figured out how to spend our time on the boat! I think we’ll probably be land-travelers for the foreseeable future, but who knows?

Until next time (which is not actually that far in the future),

-Lizzy-wa