Labadee, Haiti

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My 93rd country. I'm counting it even though RCI docks at Labadee, their private peninsula, and we didn't clear Jamaican passport control. We still set foot on the island of Haiti. There is a long narrow pier here with room for 2 ships. As the larger, we arrived first and took the sea side and Empress of the Seas arrived a bit later and took the shore side. There was plenty of space for everyone ashore. We went out about 9 am and returned about 11:30 am. We covered the entire peninsula except for the hilltop. We walked some and took trams some. I laid in a beachside hammock in the shade until I almost dozed off. We stayed out long enough to get sweaty. Clay got a t-shirt. The aggressive vendors ran us out of Artisan's Village keeping us from walking through. We couldn't seem to catch the single tram to the other side of the peninsula so walked out of our way to get there avoiding the Artisan's Village. After we walked to Columbus Cove from Nellie's Beach, we caught the single tram back to the beginning. We opted for the lunch buffet aboard ship rather than one of the 3 ashore. We think it was all the same food anyway. It was a good choice for us.

Day 3 and we finally located this ship's soft-serve ice cream machine. It is on the pool deck center aft near the splash zone. We had a direct pool deck view of Empress of the Seas from our balcony and could see theirs. It was forward on their pool deck. We'd seen people with cones on our ship but couldn't find our machine. After watching theirs in action, we walked our pool deck forward to aft until finding it. We'd been right there on boarding day and it must have been closed then. Anyway, now we know. We plan to have dinner at our reserved time on deck 3 dining room tonight.

All aboard is 4 pm. Shortly after all aboard a helicopter ambulance landed on the narrow pier. They brought a stretcher onboard and evacuated what looked like a 20-30 something man with a broken leg. Terrible and it will be expensive too. Tomorrow is this cruise's final port of Falmouth, Jamaica. Country #94. We're going to get a ship's transfer to and from Montego Bay.

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