Warning: This post is very long and there will be lots of pictures! It's not every week that we go on a Caribbean Cruise. :) Here's the recap:
Saturday: Frank's parents arrived safely on Friday night
and we took them out to dinner. I mowed the lawn when we got back because I
found out it was supposed to rain the next day. Saturday was a crazy chaos day
because we were trying to pack and get everything ready for our trip. That
meant we were doing laundry and buying groceries and making last minute trips
to the store to get things we forgot and so on. I also wrapped Seth’s birthday
presents and cleaned the kitchen floor and Frank went to the post office to mail
Scott’s new phone to him because Sprint was stupid and sent it to our address
even though we specifically told them NOT to do that. We were running around
all day and it was exhausting but we got everything done. We also had pizza for
dinner in honor of Seth’s birthday and we sang to him and ate his birthday
cake. Sam stayed for the birthday cake and then he headed home.
Sunday: Seth opened his presents that morning. He mostly got
Lego sets!
We all went to Sacrament Meeting. The topic for the talks was
“raising a sin resistant generation” (based on that talk in General Conference)
and all the talks were really good. After Sacrament Meeting we had to leave because Frank and I
had to change clothes and leave for the airport. Our flight was on time and it
was actually a super pleasant flight because the plane wasn’t even close to
full. That is the first flight I have been on in probably 15 years that wasn’t
completely packed. It was so strange, but in a nice way! We had assigned seats
and we had picked an aisle seat for Frank so he could put his left leg out a
little and I was next to him in the middle seat with someone else in the window
seat. However, the row right in front of us was the exit row and after everyone
got on it was completely empty (on both sides of the aisle) so we asked the
flight attendant if we could move up there and she said sure, so we had extra
leg room and a lot of space to spread out. Super nice!
Once we got to Miami, we
had to wait a long time for the shuttle from the hotel to pick us up…we
actually saw it go by once, but in a far lane and it didn’t stop. No idea why
the driver was way over there and not looking for us since that was where they
told us to wait. Anyway, he finally picked us up and after 2 or 3 awkward
attempts to start a conversation with the driver we realized that he didn’t
speak English! So we gave up. The lady at the hotel that checked us in was
super nice, though. Frank mentioned that we were on this trip to celebrate our 25th
anniversary and so she said we could have an appetizer and two cocktails for
free from the restaurant. Well, we didn’t get cocktails of course, but we did
get some juice and they gave that to us free. We also got an appetizer and a
salad to share (because it was late and we were hungry, but didn’t really want
a full meal) and when we got our bill later we found out they just gave us the
whole thing for free instead of just the appetizer, so that was nice! We had a
nice room with a balcony overlooking the pool but we just went to sleep because
it was pretty late by the time we finished eating.
Monday: We were supposed to be picked up by a shuttle to go
to the port of Miami to our ship at a certain time, but they messed up and were
late so the lady at the hotel chewed the driver out and he agreed to take us
there for half price so that was nice. We still got to the port in plenty of
time so no worries. The driver this time talked so much that it was hard to get
a word in edgewise! He did speak English, but with a pretty heavy accent so it
was sometimes hard to understand what he was saying. (Honestly, I think more
people in Miami speak Spanish than English.) Anyway, we got on the ship. It’s a
lot like getting on an airplane—you have to go through security and “check”
your larger bags. There was also a check in process where they took our
pictures and we each got a card called a Sea Pass card, which we had to have
scanned every time we got on or off the ship. They were also the keys to our
staterooms and could be used for purchases onboard (although we never bought
anything). Right after we got our Sea Pass cards, we were thinking we should
have a lanyard to put them on so we didn’t lose them and right there they had a
bunch of them for sale. (Not too surprising!) They had tons of choices including professional sports
teams and colleges also and they actually had two BYU ones, so we got those,
which made us happy. When we got on the ship, we couldn’t go to our stateroom
immediately because they were still cleaning them but they had a big buffet
lunch ready so we ate lunch (with a superb view of the harbor) and then found a
quiet place to sit down until our stateroom was available.
(I was reading Dr. Zhivago on my tablet while waiting...I did finish it before we got home!)
Our room was pretty
nice; we had a king size bed with two night stands and a couch and table as
well as a large desk with a mirror. We also had a closet and a tiny bathroom,
and a balcony with two chairs and a table. The room was pretty narrow, but
fairly long. There were lots of drawers and cupboards crammed in wherever they
would fit—we kept finding new ones! (I forgot to take any pictures of our room, though.) We unpacked and got settled and then we had
to go to a safety drill so we would know what to do in an emergency. After that
the ship left the port so we went out on the balcony and watched that process
and took lots of pictures.
This is the building we used to board the ship.
A drawbridge in Miami Harbor
US Coast Guard cutters
We went through a long channel to get out to sea. If you look closely, you can see a big cargo ship out in the ocean.
It was Memorial Day, so the beach was packed with people. A lot of them waved at us when we went by.
We watched the pilot get off our ship and get onto this little boat to go back to shore, after he got our ship through the channel and into the open ocean.
Then we changed clothes because you’re supposed to
dress up a bit for dinner. We had dinner in the main dining room every night,
and let me tell you, it is an event!! It took 2 hours the first night and about
an hour and a half the other nights. We were assigned to a table with 8 other
people and we had the same waiter and assistant waiter every night. Dinner was
always a 3 course meal. We started out with rolls and appetizers, then had the
main entrée, and then dessert. There were always several choices for each of
those things and it was fun to try new things that I have never tried before.
What was really awesome was that you could try more than one appetizer or
dessert if you wished, and if you tried something and didn’t like it, they
would bring you something else instead. The food was all delicious and looked
all fancy and elegant. Fortunately, the portions were fairly small (especially
the appetizers and desserts) so we didn’t get too stuffed. But we were
definitely full before dinner was over!! All the people sitting at our table
with us turned out to be really nice and we enjoyed getting to know them. There was a brother and sister with their mother--they had given her the cruise for her birthday present. The adult daughter of the sister was also there. Then there was a man and his wife who were from Orlando (her native country is Brazil, though)--he is a chaplain at a hospital (can't remember what church he is from) and she works for Disney. There were two other women who are friends with each other--one of them is a singer and she has been on a lot of cruises. The other one works for the government. After
dinner we stopped to watch a gameshow in progress where people were finishing
the lyrics for various songs. They used a huge variety of songs from modern to
classic. I told Dad he should have entered the contest because he knew so many
of the lyrics. I wouldn’t have done too well! After that we enjoyed looking at
stars from our balcony (you can see them a lot better when you’re out in the
middle of the ocean) and we also went up on the top deck so that we could see
even more stars. Then we went to bed—it was late and we were wiped out!
(Beautiful sunset from our balcony on the first night)
Tuesday: The boat was moving all night so that in the
morning we arrived at Nassau, in The Bahamas.
We had signed up to go on a tour
of Nassau so that’s what we did all morning. I can’t remember all the stops
now, but here’s what I do remember: we visited a rum cake factory, where we got
to sample the cake (the rum was baked in) and it was really moist and yummy. We
visited Atlantis, which is a really high end resort place owned by Marriott, we
visited a rum distillery (they had samples there too, but obviously we didn’t
try that), we visited the beach for about two minutes, we visited a really old
fort, we stopped at a restaurant where we ordered conch fritters (it took them
forever to bring us our food, but they were really yummy and they were hot and
fresh), and we finished up at a place called Straw Market. In between, we
passed a lot of other places and the driver gave us a lot of information about
Nassau. One thing I thought was really interesting is he said all the
government buildings are pink and all the police stations are green. In The
Bahamas, they drive on the left side of the street and they are kind of crazy
drivers. It was really freaky sometimes!! Along the way we bought a couple of
things—some postcards, Bahama stamps, and a Christmas tree ornament at Atlantis
and a carved wooden shark (for Seth) and some salt & pepper shakers at a little stand
next to the fort. There were lots of people selling things at little stands all
over the place. At Atlantis everything had set prices, but at the little stands
you could barter with them. Frank wasn’t afraid to barter! The tour was supposed
to be 3 ½ hours but ended up being more like 4 ½. It was fairly hot that day,
but not miserably so. We wore sun hats and that helped a lot. Still, by the
time we got done with the tour we were ready to go back to the ship! We had
some lunch (not a lot because the conch fritters were really filling) and then
we both took a nap!!
Pictures from the tour of Nassau:
Atlantis:
See the Bahamas flag?
This is the fort (I can't remember the name of it now!):
There were 3 cruise ships there that day. Ours is the smallest. The Disney cruise ship was HUGE!:
We took this picture because of the name of the street. Maybe you can't read it. It says "Frederick Street":
The Rum Distillery:
Coconuts!!:
Conch fritters:
The beach. Sorry for the finger in the picture! It's the only photo we have of this beach, though:
Dinner that night was “formal night” so Frank wore a suit
and I wore a nice semi-formal dress. It was actually kind of fun to get dressed
up, I thought. I mean, how often do you get dressed up in nice clothes and eat
a three course meal at an elegant restaurant with white table cloths and
napkins?? That night after we finished eating, our waiters brought Frank and I
another dessert and everybody sang to us to celebrate our anniversary. We were
really surprised; didn’t know they were going to do that! The lady at our table who is a singer also sang a song for us which was sweet. After dinner we
changed back into casual clothes and went to a show where they sang and
danced—all the songs were from Broadway musicals. It was really good—I thought
the performers were quite talented. Frank wanted to watch the boat leave the port
so we stayed up pretty late to see that because we didn’t leave Nassau until
about 11:30. It was really nice sitting out on the balcony looking out at
Nassau, though. (Oh, but we saw a HUGE rat run into one of the warehouses next
to the pier!)
Nassau at night:
(The police cars seemed to be just patrolling the streets. They never had their sirens on, but they circled around with their lights on.)
Wednesday: That morning we arrived at CoCo Cay, which is a
private island in The Bahamas owned by Royal Caribbean (the cruise line).
There
is no dock there, so the ship anchored a ways out and we all got on smaller
ships (called tenders) to ride to the island. We spent the day at the beach,
snorkeling, swimming and relaxing. I had never snorkeled before. It was
awesome!! We saw lots of coral and all kinds of fish—some as long as a foot or
two. The flippers hurt my feet a bit, though. We had rented a cabana for the
day and it was really nice. We were in a private area with about 10 cabanas and
they had a buffet lunch just for the people in that area so we weren’t in a big
crowd for lunch which was really nice. It was a beautiful day; not too hot. Frank and I both got a little sunburned on our faces. He forgot to put sunscreen on
his face and I forgot to re-apply sunscreen after snorkeling the first time,
but we didn’t get badly burned. After we got back to the boat, we had to take
showers to wash off all the saltwater before we went to dinner. We went to
sleep earlier that night because we were really tired.
The view from our cabana:
Frank enjoying the cabana:
Lunch and the view. Does it get any better than this?:
Some birds hoping for a handout:
Going back to the ship:
When we got back from dinner that night we found this guy on our bed:
The sunset that night, and me on the balcony:
Thursday: We arrived at Key West Florida that morning.
We
had signed up for a trolley tour of Key West which included admission to a
butterfly conservatory. There were 8 stops on the trolley tour and the
butterfly conservatory was the fifth stop. We got a guided tour of that (it was
really awesome—so many beautiful butterflies!) and then we were free to get
back on the trolley and go to as many of the other stops as we wished and spend
as much time as we wished at any of the stops.
Butterfly pictures:
Butterfly eggs
There's a very large butterfly in this picture. Can you spot it?
There were birds there, too:
We could hop on and off the
trolley as many times as we wanted. However, the weather in Key West was
extremely hot and humid so after walking around the corner to get a picture of
the “Southernmost Point in the United States” (we didn’t get a picture of us in
front of it because there was a line that would have taken a half hour at least
to get through) we decided to ride the trolley back to the starting point and
get back on the ship.
It was lunch time anyway, so we ate lunch on the ship.
Then we braved the heat and humidity again long enough to visit a few little
shops near the port to get a few more things (bracelets for Frank’s mom and I
and a stuffed turtle for Seth) and we also wanted to try chocolate dipped
frozen key lime pie on a stick. (It was pretty good, but not as frozen as I
would have liked. Plus it melted really quickly in the heat.)
While riding the
trolley, we did hear a lot of interesting things about Key West and we saw tons
of really cool old houses. It is actually a very beautiful place, but I would
not want to live there because of the heat! I wouldn’t mind visiting Key West
in the fall or winter. :)
The Southernmost house in the USA.
I loved the seahorse trim on this house.
You know how they call wooden trim on old houses gingerbread? Well, this house has gingerbread men for its gingerbread trim!
Look how huge this statue is!
We spent
the rest of the afternoon on the phone with Sprint because when Scott tried to
activate his new phone he found out that they had set up two new lines for us
instead of upgrading two of the current lines, so we had 5 lines on our account
instead of 3! Yes, they really messed things up for some reason. I *think*
it is all cleared up now but we’ll see. After dinner that night I took a shower
and we packed our bags—we had to have our bags outside our stateroom by 11:00
pm so they could be removed from the ship the next morning more efficiently. We
just kept out the things we would need for the next morning and put them in our
carry on bags.
Friday: We arrived back in Miami that morning. We got
dressed and had breakfast and checked over the room again to make sure we
hadn’t left anything. We were assigned to the first group to leave the ship so
we didn’t have a lot of time. We got off the ship, picked up our luggage, went
through immigration / customs, and got on the shuttle bus that was taking us
back to the airport. When we got to Miami it was very cloudy and looked like
rain.
While we were waiting on the bus for everyone to board, the heavens
opened and it rained torrentially the whole time we were sitting there and all
the way to the airport. Our flight was not until early afternoon, so we had
quite a bit of time to wait. Then our flight ended up being delayed nearly an
hour because some of the flight attendants were coming in on another flight
from Boston and it was late because of the storm in Miami. We did finally get
on our way though. This flight was a lot more full (but not completely full)
but the guy sitting next to us was nice and he even gave us some cookies. It
was great to get back home—to see Seth and Frank's parents and Snickers
again. We spent the evening unpacking and telling them all about our trip.
(Believe it or not, I left out a lot of details).
Today: It’s been another really busy day getting caught up
on all the things that needed to be done. It was a lot like last Saturday,
actually—more laundry, more grocery shopping, etc. I also planned meals and
mowed the lawn and took Seth to a birthday party and back. (They played laser
tag at the party.) I also took Seth to Target so he could use a gift card he
had, plus some birthday money from Grandpa & Grandma Pew, to get another
Lego set. (He already put it together.) Tonight we took Frank's parents out
to dinner again. We are very thankful that they were willing to come stay with
Seth and they took very good care of him!
So what happened while we were gone? I don’t know a lot of
details but Seth had field day at school on Tuesday and he played with the
carpool boys after school on Friday. We talked to Seth on the phone at least
once every day except Wednesday because there was no cell phone service at CoCo
Cay. (We didn’t have cell phone service when we were out in the middle of the
ocean, either.) Seth was perfectly happy while we were gone. I think he spent
the first couple of days building Lego sets that he got for his birthday. I
know he and Frank's dad went on long walks with Snickers. While Seth was at school, Frank's parents got a lot of genealogy research done. They say that Seth was
no trouble at all and I think they all enjoyed spending time together while we
were gone.
