Day 1: Friday, Nov 15th: SLC->DEN->ORL
We flew to the Orlando, FL airport and met my parents there. Juliet didn't care much for either of our flights and wanted to get down and run around most of the time. After the short first flight, we realized that if we sat in the aisle seat, she could get down when no one was coming through and that made her more happy. We got a rental car at the airport and drove to our hotel for the night. We had dinner at Denny's (Chase's request, of course) across the street from our hotel.
Day 2: Saturday, Nov 16th: Embark Ship
We had breakfast at the hotel, made a quick stop at Walmart for some essential (Dr. Pepper and bottled water to take on the ship with us), and then headed over to our ship. Dad and I dropped Mom, Chase, and Juliet off at the terminal and returned the rental car. After taking the shuttle back, we were finally able to go through the boarding process to get on the ship. We got our room key cards, had our pictures taken, went through security, and were finally able to start our cruise. Of course, we headed up to the Lido deck for some lunch and explored the ship. I'm pretty sure this is Chase's absolute favorite thing to do each cruise. He likes to become well acquainted with the ship as soon as possible so he knows where he's going for the rest of the week. We got a room with the double bed and then a bunk bed higher up. Juliet slept up there for 1/2 a night, but we decided we were too worried she might fall off, so she slept with us the rest of the nights. We did our safety drill and were finally on our way, with the help of the sail away party. We had dinner in the dining room that night and had a great wait staff that loved on Juliet so much. We went to a trivia, family face off, and murder mystery after dinner.
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| She did not want her emergency bracelet on! |
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| Cruisin' the decks |
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| She stuffed herself so full at dinner every night! |
Day 3: Sunday, Nov 17th: Nassau, Bahamas
Had breakfast in the dining room and then anchored in Nassau. We decided to walk to the nearby Junkanoo Beach for some relaxation. It was roughly a 15 minute walk from the ship and wasn't too shabby. I was a little concerned walking through town on our own because it didn't feel very safe, but we made it. The beach was small, but there weren't very many people there either. We were able to snorkel a bit and saw a few schools of fish and one particularly different fish (never did find out what it was) that we followed all around. It was a good place to go since we only had 4 or 5 hours at this stop. We stayed there for a few hours and then went back to the ship for lunch. Spent the rest of the day on the ship and had dinner (formal night) in the dining room that night. After dinner each night, we tended to find some type of trivia, visit the piano bar, and/or hit up the comedy club. We poked our heads into one of the grand productions one night, but realized we really don't enjoy them, so we never went back.
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| Look closely at the sign above our heads |
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| Beach baby! |
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| My daddy did a great job watching over our things |
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| My cute mom! |
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| Outside Senor Frogs on the walk back |
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| Baby in her formals |
Day 4: Monday, Nov 18th: Day at Sea
I honestly don't remember everything we did on specific days at sea. I know we all rode the water slides and that we played a round of mini golf. We hit up the BBQ one day, but were very unimpressed, so never went back. We did more trivia games (Chase and I did especially well at the 90's music trivia) and tried to find some other events to go to. We spent some time in the (not so hot) hot tubs and napped on the outside deck.
Day 5: Tuesday, Nov 19th: St. Thomas
We didn't know what to do here and while we were looking at a map of the island, we started talking to a woman that had been there before. She invited us to join her in a cab ride (they are all pick up trucks with rows of benches in the beds) over to the other side of the island to Magen's Bay Beach. It was a pretty frightful ride over there! The drivers drive so fast on a very narrow two lane windy road and you feel like you are going to fall out of the bed of the truck since there's no doors on it. It was a very beautiful beach (it claims to be one of the world's most beautiful beaches). There were tons of people there, but not too overcrowded. The water was nice, the waves weren't too big, but the water was too murky to be able to snorkel. We stayed there for a few hours and bought some pizza for lunch at the snack bar nearby. We took the $8pp cab ride back to the ship (it cost $4pp to get in to the beach) about an hour before the ship was to leave. We got cleaned up and ready for dinner.
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| The "taxi" |
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| Baby chick made from a cloth napkin made by one of the waiters |
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| A bunny made from a cloth napkin - it jumped at her and made her giggle so much! |
Day 6: Wednesday, Nov 20th: St Maarten
This day was the only day we had booked and excursion and we were so excited. We booked it with the same company that we had done a previous excursion with and it was awesome, so we had high expectations for this one too. Unfortunately, we were very disappointed. They picked us up in a van and drove us around for a tour of the island. The tour guide's accent was so strong, it was really hard to understand a lot of what he said. If you didn't get a window seat, you didn't get to see much. We stopped at a pretty lookout for a few minutes and then he drove us up to Maho Beach. This is the famous beach that is right next to the runway of the airport and the planes come very close to you. We were especially excited for this part of the tour. In the description of the excursion, they made it sound like we were going to spend a while there after the rest of the excursion and that we would be able to see a plane land. Instead, they took us there at 9:30 in the morning and told us we had 20 minutes before we had to be back at the van and "hopefully you'll see a plane land". We were expecting to be able to swim at this beach and really enjoy it. We were very disappointed that the first plane of the day to come in wouldn't be until 10:30. It was really frustrating because I'm sure this company knows the relative schedule of commercial planes that come into the island. I wish they would have taken us there later in the day. We did manage to see a small private prop plane land while we were there. Not quite as exciting, but I guess it was something. Then we drove over to an outdoor flea market for some shopping, as the description online said. We got there and again, the driver told us we had 20 minutes to get back to the van. Pointless. After our restroom pit stop (that's all we had time for), we went to the area where we would take a ferry over to a remote island for some "world class snorkeling", so we were told. When we got to the island, we were told which chairs to sit in and practically abandoned. We had to go ask him where the snorkeling was. He kind of gave us a general idea and as we were swimming over there (the water was very murky again, so the visibility was very low), we ran right into some shallow rocks and got cut up. We decided to try to make it over to the reef along the shore instead. We finally found the reef and were able to see lots of little fish. It was by no means "world class snorkeling", but at least we got to see something. We got about 2 hours at this island before we had to leave again. We got to see some really big iguana nearby, so that was pretty cool. It rained for just a minute and then got really, really hot and humid. We took the ferry back to the main island and resumed our tour of the rest of the island on the way back to the ship. Honestly, we couldn't wait for it to be over. We were pretty sad because we had so looked forward to it. Oh well... Did a little souvenir shopping on our way back to the ship. Spent the rest of the day on the ship.
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| The lookout |
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| Maho Beach |
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| Going from the Dutch side to the French side of the island |
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| The ferry ride over to the secluded island |
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| Band playing near all the shops - gave the real "Caribbean" feel! |
Day 7: Thursday, Nov 21st: Day at Sea
Day 8: Friday, Nov 22nd: Day at Sea
We were sad to have to pack up and get ready to leave. We had a great, relaxing vacation!
Day 9: Saturday, Nov 23rd: Disembark Ship, ORL->PHX->SLC
We got off the ship this morning and caught our shuttle to the airport. Luckily, we got to fly to Phoenix on the same flight as my parents and then we went on to SLC. It was nice to have 2 extra sets of hands on that long flight to help with Juliet.
This trip was planned by Chase and so it included flying by the seat of our pants and a lot of relaxing on the beaches. It was a nice change from the ultra-planned trips that I've been in charge of!
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| Sleeping beauty |
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