A Magnificat Caribbean Adventure

Our Catholic women's group, Magnificat, has invited us to go on a group Caribbean Cruise. The leadership of Magnificat, the CST (Central Service Team) likes to visit the Chapters. They choose an area of the country and visit as many Chapters as they can in that area. When they were trying to decide how best to visit the numerous Chapters in the Caribbean, they came up with the idea of a cruise. They made it a group thing and invited others to join.

The cruise will take place from Jan. 31 to Feb. 14. This timing occurs while we are spending our winter in South Louisiana. The cruise leaves out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. So we decided we would drive from our home base in Morgan City, La. to Ft. Lauderdale for the cruise. And since we never go places directly, we've (surprise, surprise) added some stops along the way there and back.

A little back story before I tell about our first stop: When I was a teenager, our family took a vacation to various places in Florida. One of the places we stopped was called Spongeorama in Tarpon Springs, Florida. You can imagine what kind of appeal this would have for a young teenage girl; I had no interest whatsoever in visiting a place called Spongeorama. I was angry with my mother for planning this stop to see "a bunch of stupid sponges" and remember throwing a little tantrum, of which I am not proud. Over the years, Spongeorama became a running joke in our family, with my siblings reminding me, sarcastically of course, of my love for the place. Joe was somehow unaware of this part of my past - even though we've been married 47 years, somehow the subject of Spongeorama never came up - and as he was planning our vacation stops on the way to the cruise, he innocently asked me, "Have you ever heard of a place called Spongeorama?" I immediately started laughing, and he was wondering what was so funny. I told him the story and then texted my siblings to give them a laugh too. We are planning to visit Spongeorama, so I am interested to see how much I enjoy the experience as a (mostly) mature adult as opposed to an immature teenager. Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

While in Florida, we are planning to visit Joe's brother Ed and his wife Concetta, who live in Sanford, just outside of Orlando. Then we'll drive to Ft. Lauderdale and board the Majestic Princess cruise ship. Since we are traveling with a Catholic group, there will be Mass every day, as well as "retreat days" on the days at sea. Fr. Tom Sparacino, the Magnificat Pittsburgh Chapter Spiritual Advisor, is the official cruise Chaplain, and will be saying daily Mass. On the "at sea" days, there will be praise and worship, inspirational speakers, fellowship, and prayer. On Sunday, Feb. 8, we will be in Trinidad and Tobago, where a group of Caribbean Magnificat sisters will welcome us and have arranged to have the Archbishop say Mass for us at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. After Mass, there will be a reception where we will spend some time visiting with our Caribbean sisters.

Some of the other places we will visit on the cruise, besides Trinidad and Tobago, are St. Maarten (St. Martin), Dominica, St. Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, Aruba, and Turks and Caicos. We are looking forward to beaches, rainforests, volcanic mountain scenery, rock formations, coastal cruises, country drives, and a whole lot of sun and sand. We'll also experience some of the local culture and history in the towns with their museums and colonial style buildings.

After we disembark the ship, we'll drive down the Florida Keys to Key West, where we'll take a trip to Dry Tortugas National Park. We'll stop for a few days to enjoy Miami and South Beach, along with Biscayne Bay and the Everglades. On the drive back, we'll stop at Pirate City in Bradenton (home of the Pittsburgh Pirates spring training) before heading back to Morgan City.

I'll try to keep the blog updated as best I can, but since we won't have internet access on the cruise ship, I may have to wait until we return to Ft. Lauderdale to update the posts from the cruise. So there may be a two week lag in the blog, for which I apologize. But I'll make up for it by trying to make Spongeorama sound as exciting as possible. Because, after all, "One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." (Quote by Henry Miller)