L'Ecole Nouvelle Royal Caribbean - International Critters Delivery 2011

[Elizanessie]

This will be a long thread, please bear with me while I upload all the pics etc,thank you for your understanding.

On December 6th 2011 Critters First Officer Donna and I went to L’Ecole Nouvelle Royal Caribbean on Labadee to make a special delivery to the school on behalf of the International Critters from Cruise Critic, musical instruments for the children. But before I show the photos of the visit, let me go back a little in the story.

We had decided that all the money from the sale of our custom made lanyards for our Allure 12/4 sailing would go towards buying instruments for the school and we told our family and friends about our Project for the school this year.

Well let me say this, Donna could sell ice to the Eskimos, the instruments she collected from her family and friends were out of this world and what a fantastic job she did of collecting, packing and labelling them all up.

Donna even persuaded Fed Ex to again ship all the boxes from her house in Rhode Island to the Embassy Suites in Fort Lauderdale for free !!

The Embassy Suites then stored the boxes for us until we were ready to go to the Port to embark on the Allure of the Seas 12/4 sailing.

The boxes all had to have new labels put on them before going to the ship. I had arranged with the ship’s onboard staff for a secure storage area for the boxes and Donna had made labels with the storage area details on them and so, soon after Donna arrived at the hotel on December 3rd we began re-labelling the boxes. Some of the boxes were in my suite at the hotel as we had some late instruments given to us and the rest of the boxes were down in the back office.

[Elizanessie]

So a couple of hours later we were all done with the boxes and could relax for the rest of the day.

We took the boxes in our shuttle to the Port on Sunday 4th December, oh I have to say 27 boxes and 8 people in the shuttle was not easy but hey it was fun.
At the port we handed over all the boxes to a porter and off we went to board the Allure, this was the last time we saw the boxes until 7am on Tuesday 6th December.

[Elizanessie]

And so the day begins that Donna & I have waited for for a year, back to the Labadee School to see the children.
Just after 7am we were taken off the ship down to the dock to await the boxes coming off.




As we waited we suddenly spotted coming towards us Harri our translator, anyone looking over the side of the ship must have wondered what was happening as Donna & I ran towards this gentleman on the dock to give him big hugs we were so happy to see him again. We also had the pleasure of the company of Peter who is the Labadee Assistant Site Manager and of course our good friend David Southby who is the Site Manager. We heard later that our Critters Second Officer Nanci, heard us laughing from away up on her deck 10 balcony, we were just so happy to meet up with these guys again and very excited about our return to the school.

[Elizanessie]

Our boxes were the last ones to come off the ship after the supplies for Labadee.
Finally we saw them come off and they were loaded up on the vehicles to go up to the school where we would see them again later in the day.

[Elizanessie]

Our vehicles for the trip up the mountain to the school.






And so our journey began to the school.

Oh my goodness me what a sight we saw when we entered into the school yard....the children were all out of their classrooms to welcome us.
They were singing to us and cheering and waving, it was such amazing experience and one we did not expect as last year the children were all in their classrooms when we arrived.
Many many tears were shed by Donna & I, we were so overcome we couldnt speak or take photos for some time, even now it brings a lump to my throat to think back to the beautiful welcome we got.

[Elizanessie]

There were some speeches made by the younger children to welcome us back.

[NorbertsNiece]

Awesome pics Liz. Brilliant job.

[Elizanessie]

[Elizanessie]

And there to the side of the courtyard we see the boxes.



And it was time to open them so everyone could see what the International Critters had sent them this year.

[Elizanessie]

[Elizanessie]

[megr1125]

THAT is amazing!! And how cute the kids are!

Thanks for sharing....I bet they were VERY happy...and how cool of FedEx, the hotel and Royal to assist in your project!

[Elizanessie]

At this time Donna presented the photo album she had beautifully made of all the instruments we had handed over.





And here we have the music teacher join us. Carl was just recently taken on at the school and a music room was assigned to him for his classes.





After all the excitement of the instruments it was time to walk around the school and have a look at the cafeteria that had been added since we last at the school and chat more with the children.

[Elizanessie]

[Elizanessie]

[CarefreeCruising]

Looks like an awesome project! Would you mind answering a few questions for others like myself who are probably a bit confused? Who are the international critters? What school is this and what is the affilitation to Royal Caribbean? How did you get involved in this? Looking forward to more pictures!

[Elizanessie]

After lunch it was back to the classrooms for the children.

We visited one of the classrooms and what a difference from last year's visit. The children had been busy decorating the rooms for Christmas time,last year their classrooms were bare.

[Elizanessie]

And so it was time for Donna & I to leave the school and start back down to Labadee.

We did mange to have a look at the new generator that was recently installed at the school.



The view on our return back down



Umm the road...sadly the photos don't do justice to all the potholes etc

[Elizanessie]

We gather with David,Harri & Peter down in the Information Office to say our goodbyes.



And then the final farewell with Peter on the dock.

[Cruise_Kitten]

I couldn't think of a better way to spend a day......!

CK x