Eight days after we were married, Chantel and I found ourselves on the beautiful waters of the Caribbean.  Neither of us had been there before and we decided we would try a cruise and see how it was.  Our first stop was in San Juan, Puerto Rico--this is where we got on board the ship.  Oddly enough, the date was October 18, 1998, exactly 100 years (to the day) from when Puerto Rico became a territory of the United States.    Once we landed here, we were whisked away to our ship The Monarch of the Seas.  The temperature was about 90 degrees that day and we spent most of it getting some last minute supplies before boarding the ship (pop and booze).  Once that was accomplished, we spent the rest of the day exploring the ship a little and getting ready for our first meal.

The Monarch of the Seas is an unbelievable monster of a boat!  It is 880 feet long and has 14 different levels on it (or a height of 170 feet)!  The capacity is over 3,000 people and the ship weighs almost 75,000 tons!!!!  Inside, there are 43 miles of piping, 19 elevators, and ice machines that make 18 tons of ice per day.  For a joke, Chantel and I would gather up a ton or two of the ice, throw it overboard, and then start yelling, "ICEBURG!!!"  It was a good joke the first couple of days, but some of them said it got a little old towards the end of the trip.

Anyway, there were also a million different things to do on board.  They had three different dance lounges, a few different bars, two pools, two hot tubs, ping pong tables, pool tables, a casino (whoo-hoo!), shopping areas, lounges, a gym, and about five different eating areas.  Our favorite places were our main dining room and the casino.  Of course, I had to go in the casino at least once a night, and--believe it or not--we actually came out quite well by the end of the trip.  Most of our winnings came from the craps table because Chantel is quite the hot shooter.  On one roll, she made six points before sevening out!

Here was another popular thing for us--a little bit of drinking.  There was plenty of that available everywhere.  At dinner, in the lounges, in the rooms, on shore, on excursions--almost everywhere.  I'm surprised they didn't run a direct tap into every room.  Besides drink, the next most available thing was food, food and more food.  You could have breakfast starting at 5:30 and that ran into lunch, lunch ran into dinner, dinner ran into the midnight buffet, and then there was always the pizza available 'til about three in the morning.  Between 3:00 AM and 5:30 AM you just have to starve.

The dinners were something to experience.  The food was incredible and there were always too many choices to choose from.  You start with an appetizer, and then have soup, salad, a main course and desert.  This whole process takes a couple of hours and you have more silverware than you know what to do with.  Every meal, you started with ten pieces of cutlery and there were waiters there to tend to your every need.  This is an experience in itself because it is the best service you will ever get in life.  I kind of got used to it after seven days!  The only bad part is that you always had to be a little dressy for these meals.  We had two other couples at our table that were also on their honeymoon!  So, we got to know them quite well and they turned out to be a lot of fun.  They were from Mexico and Pennsylvania--we were quite the diverse group.  I'm sure we will keep in touch.

During the cruise, we had five different ports of calls.  Our itinerary covered the Southern Caribbean and we stopped in St. Thomas, Maartinique, Barbados, Antigua, and St. Maarten.  The ship would sail through the night, and when we awoke, we would be in a new place.  This left us the entire day to participate in many different excursions.  These excursions included snorkeling, sailing, shopping, hanging out on the beach, shopping, biking, touring, shopping, swimming, and shopping.  Now, I'm not much of a guy for shopping, but it turns out my wife enjoys checking out the jewelry shops.  That wouldn't be so bad, except every port has approximately 63 different jewelry shops and we would usually hit all 63.  This sounds like a joke--but it isn't.  Every other store has jewelry because I guess it is a very good deal down there.  We had to gamble heavily in the casino to be able to afford these shopping trips!

Overall, I would say the honeymoon was fantastic!  We had a ton of fun and I would recommend it to anyone.  The only bad part was that the temperatures were always in the 90's, but even that was bearable since we were in the water so much.  What really added to our trip was a gift that my parents had given us.  It was a program called "Crowning Touches" and it included a ton of cool things.  We had a private tour of the Captain's Bridge, a bottle of Dom Perriogne (or however you spell that) when we came on board, a pair of terry cloth bathrobes, a full-body massage, breakfast in bed one morning, and pre-dinner canapés.  Don't ask me what canapés are, because I still don't know, but they weren't half bad.  It included caviar and I kind of got used to that stuff.

Our days were always full and the main problem was that we had too much to choose from.  Once you were on board, you could choose from a number of different shows that included things like comedians, jugglers, singers, and magicians.  Bowser was there from Sha-Na-Na and that seemed to be a big draw, but I can hardly remember the show and didn't recognize the guy.  One of my favorite things from the trip was taking in the sights on Orient Beach in St. Maarten.  It was a beautiful beach and a lot of ladies felt free to go topless.  I was rather offended by this and wanted to leave, but Chantel insisted that we stay.  We walked the entire beach and there was one part where you had to take off all your clothes to continue on.  I glanced at Chantel, but she shot that idea down pretty quickly.

If you want to see a few more pictures from our trip, (sorry--none from the nude beach) you can take a look at the ones down below.  Just click on the little picture and you will get to see the bigger version of it.  To return back here, just click the back button on your browser.