el crucero (The Cruise)

Denise and I decided to go on a cruise to celebrate our significant birthday. :) Neither of us had ever been on a cruise before so it was an entirely new experience. We had a great time and beautiful weather. We took a 4 night cruise to the Caribbean.

We sailed from Port Canerval, which is about 45 minutes east of Orlando. After smooth flights and a short bus ride, we got in line to check in at the terminal. Everything was very organized and we were on the ship by about 2:30. We had a mandatory safety drill around 3:45 and set sail around 4:30. Our dinner seating was 5:45, and it was a weird feeling to look outside the window and seeing the water going by. One frustrating thing is that they take your luggage and deliver it to your room (so you don't have to carry it through the check-in process). We didn't receive ours until right before suppertime, and it was so nice to be able to change out of clothes we traveled in all day.

Our stateroom - small but very functional. We had a great window!

The center of the boat

Tomato and mozzarella salad. Yummy!

Animals greeted us each evening after we returned from dinner.

Our first stop was at Coco Cay, a private island in the Caribbean owned by Royal Caribbean. This was basically our beach day. We anchored offshore and then were boated in ("tendered"). There was a barbeque lunch on the island that day. We laid in the sun for a few hours and read, ate lunch, walked the island and explored, and then went back to boat late afternoon to get ready for supper. There were a few spots that I didn't cover very well with suntan lotion that ended up getting slightly burned as the week went on.

My view from my chair at Coco Cay

The beach at Coco Cay, with our boat in the background.

The next day we were docked at Nassau, Bahamas. It was nice to be able to easily get on and off the boat and be right on the edge of the city. We explored the busy shopping district on Bay Street, shopped at the famous Straw Market, found the Queen's Staircase, and did a lot of walking, enjoying the nice weather and some Diet Coke! (it was extra cost to have pop on the boat). One highlight was meeting some of Denise's friends from home who were vacationing in Nassau for the week.

Our boat docked in Nassau.

Four cruise ships docked in Nassau the day we were there.

Wow - I really was in the Bahamas!

The Queen's Staircase

Straw Market in Nassau - overwhelming!

That night they had a midnight buffet under the stars by the pool. We stayed up to partake, mostly because we wanted to see the boat leave port, which it was scheduled to do at midnight. We actually started moving around 11:35, so we had to boogie a little bit to get from our room all the way to Deck 12. It was really neat to see the lights of Nassau slowly disappear behind us. The music was too loud and we didn't see anything too tempting on the buffet, so we left after about 1/2 hour.

Our last day was a day at sea. It was nice to relax and explore various areas of the boat. We spent about 2 hours laying out in the sunshine by the pool (a very popular place!), then ate lunch, took naps, then spent a few hours walking around Deck 7 and reading. Deck 7 was the one place you could walk entirely around the ship on an outside deck. 3.5 times around was 1 mile.

At the pool deck on the ship.

Dinner!

One of the shows by the singers and dancers on the ship.

Beautiful sunset

We had our last nice dinner and show, then had one more overnight on ship before arriving back in port early Friday morning. Overall it was a wonderful vacation that I would highly recommend. You can basically make it what you want it, and participate in as much or as little as you want. We did not do much shopping, gambling, dancing, or hanging out in bars while on the ship, but some people did!

We had some flight complications on the way home but finally made it home around 2:30am on Saturday morning. It was nice to fall into my own bed after a wonderful week!