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 We chose to spend our day at Tortolla on Treasure Island. We exited the ship directly boarding a speed boat called Sea Thunder. As we left the Paradise, we could see the Sea Thunder's captain snickering as he prepared to get up to speed knowing all those who had positioned themselves in the back were about to become soaked. The trip took about 15 minutes and was extremely wet. The captain of the boat new exactly how to get people in the boat wet. |
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 Preston likes the fast ride back to the boat. The captain turned up the Calypso music and again knew exactly how to get the passengers in the back of the boat extremely wet. |
 Returning to the ship, the Costa Romantica was docked next to our ship. This is a new liner that Carnival has recently purchased. This ship came from Guadalajara, Mexico. It was interesting to be so close to another ship. They looked at us, and we looked at them trying to decide which ship was more impressive. |
 Once back on board, as soon as we got a shower, we still had two hours to enjoy the island, so off we went. Since we deployed directly onto a boat that morning, we weren't able to get our picture taken debarking onto the island. With the help of a fellow passenger and some creative photography via a curb, we took our own shots that day. We walked a little ways into town only to discover soaring prices on merchandise, so we quickly returned to the Paradise.
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  Although it was an active day of swimming, Preston and Brooklyn feel like they have too much energy and decide to try out the jogging track. They ran around the track enough times to equal almost a mile. We were impressed until we learned that Preston had been cutting across the track where Greg and Susan couldn't see him. |
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We skipped the dinning room dinner that night choosing instead to watch the sunset as the ship left Tortolla. After retiring to our stateroom, we were greeted by a a cobra snake towel animal. St. Thomas, about 12 miles away, was our next stop, however, it would take us about 12 hours to get there. Someone told us these towns charge ships approximately $1200 an hour to dock, so even though we could have stayed at both ports longer since traveling between the stops would only take an hour, it's cheaper be at sea. |
We woke up at 6:00 as the ship stopped about 10 miles short of Tortolla. Here, some passengers off- loaded onto tender boats to visit another island named Virgin Gorda. Soon after, the ship began to move towards Tortolla, a new stop for Carnival which had only been porting there for six weeks. The island was very barren although some said it was a lovely if you went inland.
Arriving on Buck Island, we walked around the corner of the bay and found our own piece of beach-front property. The beach was not sandy, but covered in pure sea shells which felt strange to walk on. We were just off of a coral reef which gave the kids a good look at marine life. All the other tourists stayed closer to Billy Bone's pirate cantina which made for a very quiet and relaxing day for us.
After snorkeling and swimming, Preston and Brooklyn talked Dad into blowing up their inner tubes.They spent the last part of the day floating together letting the tide take them around. However, once Preston heard the island was famous as a favorite hiding place for pirates to hide their treasures, he was off on a treasure hunt. He and Brooklyn started climbing the cliffs off the bay, that is until they climbed too high and Brooklyn had to be rescued by Dad.
The "Sea Thunder" soon blasted its horn and we began to load in. The dock that they used was rickety and only one person could walk on it at a time. Of course, many of the tourists were a little intoxicated and didn't follow directions. Soon after, the dock began to sink and so did the tourists. The captain then had to use a dingy to pick up the tourists from the beach and load them into the boat.
