Our Favorite Day on the Cruise

After our day, and night, at sea (which you can read about in Continuing the Cruise), we stopped in the Dominican Republic. This stop was probably our favorite day on the whole cruise.

Those guys played music while people were disembarking and coming ashore at Amber Cove.

We had scheduled a "Shore Excursion" that included a shuttle to a private beach area with a freshly cooked/grilled traditional D. R. lunch provided
(it was absolutely delicious!), use of a variety of water activities (snorkeling, paddle-boarding, kayaking, etc.), and not a lot of people around.

Catching a glimpse of the Carnival Glory as we rode the shuttle truck/bus to Coconut Cove.

The drive was about 45 minutes long, but only about 5 miles from where the ship docked.

Jason, who was not used to sunshine after working nights for almost a year. I said he was kind of like a vampire.

I always find the flowers in other countries really pretty.

Our private beach, Coconut Cove.

There really weren't that many people there, even though two or three separate shore excursions utilized this area.

Again, I'm pretty sure this was a coconut tree. They did have fresh coconuts to drink out of for sale, but we didn't splurge on that this trip.

I've always wanted to try paddle-boarding, and I finally got my chance!

It was wonderful and I would do it again in a second! I found it very relaxing. Jason wasn't interested in paddle-boarding, but we did kayak and snorkel together.

While I was paddle-boarding, Jason took some pretty nice pictures while playing around with the settings on our new camera.

Unfortunately, we had to leave our private beach excursion and head back down the dirt road on our own shuttle bus/truck (not this exact one, but very similar), and get back on the ship.

We tried so hard to get good pictures of the scenery/land/life in the Dominican Republic, but it was very hard to do so in the bumpy, jostling, people-filled bus.

We paused at this cemetery to let some of the locals, who drove much faster than our bus, pass.

This was one of the better sections of the dirt road. And the building in the left of the photo was the school.

We found some ocean-front property for sale!

The driver stopped to show everyone our ship docked in Amber Cove.

I think it was on this hill that we met a full-size dump-truck coming up; a tight passing, but they know how to make it happen!

For some reason this billboard was important to Jason. It was after we got on the short stretch of paved highway, though, not on the dirt road.

I splurged and tried their local coffee with some hot chocolate. (It had started raining on the drive back and we got wet.) It had a different taste, or flavor, than the coffee I typically get here in America.

And we returned to a clean room and a new towel animal (a dog, I think), thanks to our steward, Gede.

This was our favorite day on the cruise because we actually got to see some of the real, local surroundings and landscapes, not just tourist attractions, it was relaxing and uncrowded with tons of people, and we got to do some activities that we enjoy besides just sitting in a beach chair. 

There are only two more days left on our cruise, so look for that post on Saturday!