Honeymoon Cruise | Part II

Day 5: St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands

Early in the morning, our ship arrived at our first destination: St. Croix. We immediately got off the ship to line up for our planned excursion: The Rum Tour. Our small bus drove across the tiny island; we passed miles of ruined buildings that had not yet been repaired following the most recent hurricane that hit the Caribbean islands. Although the government had received some help from the United States for the most immediate repairs, many civilians were still left with their homes in an unlivable condition. It was eye-opening to see how much help this island needed, and how little attention they received from the United States.

cruzan rum distillery tour st criox cocktail drinks

Our group soon arrived at the Cruzan Rum Distillery, where we learned about the company owned by Jim Beam and how they received most of their supplies and barrels second-hand from their father company. This was an especially interesting experience as I have actually been to the Jim Beam distillery in Kentucky. We learned how the rum is aged and the process it must experience before landing on our liquor store shelves. They treated us to delicious piña coladas and other rum-based drinks before herding us onto another bus headed for the Captain Morgan distillery.

It began to rain so we weren’t able to see the distillery part of the Captain Morgan Tour, instead walking through the visitor’s center and being treated, yet again, to a long menu of rum drinks. Some of the old retired couples we made friends with on the bus gave us their extra drink tokens, so Austin and I were double-fisting it the entire time. Needless to say, I was a bit intoxicated on the bus ride home as I sipped our remaining drinks—and we still had three drink tokens left over!

After returning to the ship and enjoying a buffet lunch, we set off for the beach. All in all, it was the “worst” beach of all the islands, which just goes to show how amazing the rest of the stops were because our photos of St. Criox look like paradise!

That night was the Love and Marriage game show in the theater—the most popular event of the entire cruise. They choose one honeymoon couple, the couple who has been married the longest (about 60 years), and one couple that has been married for about 20 to 30 years. Our table mates at dinner (the frequent cruisers) were insistent that we volunteer, and we didn’t want to disappoint. After a kissing contest against the other honemooners (which involved Austin scooping me up and praying I didn’t get dropped), the audience chose us to participate in the game show! We sat back-to-back and wrote down our answers to a series of questions (some of which involved divulging now not-so-private information to an audience of hundreds), hoping our answers matched. By some miracle, we had the highest number of matching answers and won the game! First prize—a set of nearly $200 bamboo bed sheets (and they are the softest bed sheets I have ever felt!). Not only that, but the game was broadcast ship-wide on all the room TVs for the remainder of the cruise…let’s just hope no kiddos were watching!

Day 6: St. John’s, Antigua

The next morning, we docked at St. John’s, the capital city of Antigua. For our “Island Escape” excursion, we hopped in a van early that morning, which took us to a local beach-side resort. Our small group of about eight boarded a boat and sped off for a private island, which looked more like a green hill of shrubbery connected to an equally minuscule sandbar. In all, there were roughly fifteen other people on this island, which provided beach chairs, snorkel gear, a buffet lunch of local cuisine, and unlimited fruity rum cocktails. We spent five glorious hours sunbathing, searching for coral and fish in the sea, and talking up the other cruisers (some of who recognized us from the Love and Marriage show the night before!). This was, by far, the best beach of the entire cruise. Once our time was up and we returned to the ship, we crashed. Who knew laying out on the beach all day could be so exhausting?

We decided to dress up nice for dinner and take some photos with the sunset. While getting ready, we found that our cabin attendant surprised us with yet another towel animal. Later that night, I even spotted us on the TV—it’s probably the closest we’ll ever come to stardom!