We spent the first half of the month doing the routine stuff here at the Co-op. On the 2nd I went to the dentist and got my dentures repaired and relined. On Saturday, the 14th, I was working in the shed, getting stuff together for our cruise at the end of the month. I was opening a folding ladder to get something off a high shelf and clumsily had my left pinkie finger too close to a "pinch point", and it ripped a pretty good chunk of skin off the side near the end of the finger. Bled pretty good but didn't hurt too much. I just wrapped it up in gauze and tape and it was OK. On Sunday I looked at it again and decided that I needed to go to the urgent care to get it looked at because it was a pretty large area torn open and I didn't want to get an infection. Urgent care wasn't busy and I was in and out in a half hour with a cleaned wound and new bandages. The only problem was I can't bend the finger, so I can't play guitar. I had to cancel my participation in the jam session at the park and my normal Wednesday jam session.
I went to the eye doctor and got new glasses just in time for the cruise. On Friday, the 20th, we were picked up by our ride share at 8:00 to take us to the airport for a flight to Houston, Texas. We are ultimately headed to Galveston, Texas, which is where the cruise ship is going to be. The flight went well and we arrived in Galveston in the late afternoon. We got an Uber ride from the Houston airport to Galveston and the Residency Inn. I had booked this place through Expedia because it looked nice on Expedia, it was not outrageously priced, and it was close to the cruise port. It was horrible. The hotel was junky, beat up and dirty. It is clear the owners are not doing any maintenance. Outlets and lights in the room didn't work, everything looked old and beat up. I did check the bed with our black light, and the linens were clean and no sign of bedbugs, so we stayed for the two nights. That's the problem with booking through a site like Expedia, you pay in advance, so it is tough to just say no and go somewhere else without losing money. We did find a really nice place to go for dinner just a short cab ride away. On Saturday we took a cab to the movie theater in the afternoon and watched Hail Mary, which was a good movie even if a little confusing.
The next day, Sunday the 29th, we took a shuttle to the port and boarded the Regal Princess cruise ship. We have never been on this ship which is a little larger than the other two Princess ships we have sailed on. We had a really good time on the cruise, drank and ate a lot and spent a lot of time with activities. We had two sea days to start, then stopped in Cozumel, Mexico for the day. We went ashore to do some shopping but didn't go too far. We had rented a little scooter for Jackie to use on the ship, and she took it off the ship for our shopping in the port area. We then had a couple more sea days before we docked in Aruba. I had been to Aruba back in the early 80's and had fond memories, but we took a bus tour around the island and found it to be a little run down and junky in most areas. The next day we stopped in Curacao, where we took another tour. This one included a semisubmersible boat where we could view the reef. It was a lot of fun. After another sea day we were in Antigua, where we took a four-hour catamaran trip around the island. It was great and I got to do a little swimming in the beautiful water. The next day was the last stop, St. Maarten. We took a bus tour on this one. This island is actually split and has a Dutch side, St. Maarten, and a French side, St. Martin. Two separate governments, but one island and the only way you know which side you are on is by the signs where you cross the dividing line. We had a great time on this tour as well. We visited this island on the 31st of March. We had two more sea days to return to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Saturday, April 4th.
That was pretty much the highlights of the month, here are some pictures.
Bye
