Fam Bam cruise 2: On board and to St. Thomas

On June 22, 2025, we headed to the cruise terminal in San Juan, Puerto Rico, dropped off people with the luggage, and then three of us drove to the airport to return our rental cars and then Ubered back to the ship.

With surprising ease, we were soon onboard.

At dinner, little Eva sat in a high chair and, since her cruise ticket was full price, we had no qualms in ordering her a full meal each night. She would eat some fruit, chicken, or whatever else. It was on this cruise that she became adept at picking up bits of food with her fingers and then shoving them into her face, about half of the food making it into her mouth. Apparently a cruise is just the place to learn how to shove food in your face.

Eleven of us fit at the table.

There wasn't quite room for the other two, so we took turns eating at an adjacent table. They made a candle out of a napkin so that we could have a candlelight dinner.

After dinner, the sun set over Puerto Rico, and then we headed out to sea. We were actually surprised at how early it got dark there, since the sun stays up longer in the summer up north where we live.

Erika and Kyle put together a series of Survivor activities, which was really clever. "Survivor" is a reality TV show where a "tribe" of people participate in challenges to compete with the other tribes (and also vote people out of their tribe, which we didn't do).

The first night, they gave us a photo scavenger hunt around the ship so that we could get familiar with where things were.

One item was to find the best seat at the Broadway theater place.

Another was to find the tastiest thing at the Windjammer Cafe (where we ate breakfast, sometimes lunch, and often late-night snacks).

And the most relaxing spot in the Solarium (an adult-only area of the ship).

We also had to do a lap around the track on the upper deck.

Mikalya posed for their picture of "the most interesting art" that she and Shaylee found.

Jared and Katelyn were the first to find all the things and return to the meeting spot, so they started the competition in the lead. It was a fun activity to help us get to know the ship.

That evening, Linette and I went to see the welcome show by "Max and Olga." Max did some juggling and some amazing strength demonstrations, where he would stand on one hand at crazy angles.

His wife Olga danced and did a silk routine.

After that, we joined the kids in the Centrum (center courtyard) for some 80s dance music and the dropping of balloons to welcome us onboard. Here's a short video showing a bit of that.

St. Thomas

On Monday, June 23, 2025, we arrived at the island of St. Thomas.

St. Thomas, along with St. Croix and St. John, make up the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is a territory of the United States. The islands were discovered by Christopher Columbus, who named them after Ursula and the 11,000 virgins, later becoming the Virgin Islands. These three islands were purchased by the United States from Denmark in 1917 for $25 million in gold ($675 million today, which still seems like a bargain). It was interesting to be somewhere so tropical and foreign and still be in the United States. Pretty much.

Erika & Kyle had put together another "Survivor" challenge for that day, which was a photo scavenger hunt around St. Thomas.

So we hopped on a shuttle and rode into town to see what we could find.

One item was a "colorful building", in which St. Thomas abounded.

Another was the famous "99 steps". They were closed for renovation, but we could get a picture through the fence. These steps were created in the 1700s by the Danish (i.e., from Denmark; not to be confused with the Dutch from The Netherlands/Holland). Fun fact, there are actually 103 steps. :)

We went around another way to get to the top of the steps, and counted over 200 steps on the way up there. Not sure how the math worked out on that.

Here is Shaylee at the top of the 99 steps looking down.

A little further up, we came to "Blackbeard's Castle." It was built in 1679 for use by the Danish soldiers to watch for enemy ships. It was originally named Skytsborg Tower but was later named after the English pirate Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard.

There's a little pirate museum in there, apparently, but it was closed. Arrgh.

We found this scalawag with sort of a black beard. (Also, one of the scavenger hunt items was a street sign with a pirate name).

The palms and ferns there were interesting.

We walked through a garden and some cute paths on the way back to the taxi spot.

Linette had a nice chat with a local lady. It turned out that while she makes art and sells trinkets as a retirement gig, she had a Ph.D. and had done all kinds of stuff in her career.

Here is one of her paintings.

Shaylee took a picture of Fort Christian, which was built by the Danish and Norwegians from 1672-1680, and was important for defense and government in the early days.

We took a shuttle back to the cruise ship, and then caught a water taxi to Water Island. I had to go back to the ship to get my beach stuff, and then had to run for all I was worth to catch the water taxi in time. Apparently that provided some entertainment for everyone watching me just barely make it.

"Water Island" seemed like a funny name to me, because it seems like all islands are surrounded by water, and that the island itself is the part that isn't actually water.

Adam further pointed out that "Water Is-Land" is objectively false. :)

Some of us jumped on a free shuttle to Honeymoon Beach (not to be confused with the Honeymoon Beach on St. John). We had portable chairs and hammocks that made it a lovely place to hang out.

We went snorkeling and saw some fish and several sea turtles! Here is Sienna and a turtle.

In this video, Sienna watches this sea turtle feed on the bottom, and then surface for air and dive again. When resting, a sea turtle can hold its breath for several hours. During normal activity, they come up for air more like every 5-20 minutes.

Here's a video of two other turtles doing a similar thing.

I saw some more fish snorkeling over by the rocks. This 4-minute video shows the highlights.

The hammocks were perfectly in the shade during the first part of our visit, so it was nice to relax after snorkeling for a while. (I realized the netted hammocks are better for the beach, because it allows the sand to fall through instead of gathering under you).

While we were at the beach, Jared and Katelyn rented a golf cart, and took Adam and Mikayla with them to explore the island.

One popular destination is a bunker that was used by the United States during World War II.

After Jared, Katelyn, Adam and Mikayla explored it, they joined us at the beach, and then Jared shuttled me, Sienna, Shaylee and Linette up to see the bunker as well.

Sienna and I had a little while to wait for the other two to be brought up, so I lay down on the cool, shady opening to the bunker with a great breeze blowing by.

Here is what it looked like inside the slit. You can see the top of a ladder there, which we later climbed up.

The view of the bay was pretty from up there.

When everyone arrived, Jared showed us which of the five paths from the bunker led to the secret tunnels. Along the path, we came across the emplacements that were built to house large guns. World War II ended before the guns were ever installed, so it was never actually used.

At the end of the path was a doorway that led into a tunnel.

There was a scary wasp nest at the entrance.

We had to watch our step as we went through.

In the middle of the tunnel was a ladder that led up to the bunker. 

There was another room on the way up that was too short to stand up in. The acoustics were awesome in there, so we sang "Amazing Grace" and "Star Spangled Banner" while it echoed all around.

Up at the top, we looked at all the grafiti.

I also took a panorama with people running around to get in it multiple times, all while trying not to fall down the ladder hole.

Finally, we headed down the ladder and were happy to make it back outside.

Here is a 30-second video clip of walking through the tunnel to the ladder.

Since it was downhill back to the beach, all four of us jumped in the golf cart with Jared and made it back in one trip.

We swam a bit more, and then the hammocks were in the sun, so I moved my chair into a shady spot while I dried off a bit.

On the way back to the ship, we saw this iguana hanging out on the walkway. That was one of the things we needed for our photo scavenger hunt, so that was handy.

Katelyn and Jared found a local fruit market, which was also on the list.

Erika & Kyle went with Kelsi, Chase and Eva explored the town and skipped Water Island. (I don't have pictures of what they did, so I'm not exactly sure...)

Each evening, the cruise had a theme for dinner attire. That night, it was "dress your best," so everyone dressed fancy for dinner.

Afterwards, we took a few pictures.

We found a fun spot in a lounge where we could gather to talk and play while keeping little Eva entertained and fed.

Some of us gathered in our room later on, where we played games and laughed. We didn't have a balcony this time, but our ocean view room was a couple feet bigger than the other rooms, so it was big enough to gather in.

In the next episode, we arrive at St. Croix, which is also part of the U.S. Virgin Islands.