We just got back from the best vacation ever on Monday! It was so hard to come back to the real world after being so disconnected from it. We started out with a never ending flight to Ft. Lauderdale on Wednesday night. Here we are in the Denver Airport waiting for our plane. Can you feel the excitement?
The next day we got up and had a glamorous meal at the continental breakfast bar that the hotel offered and then caught the shuttle back over to the Ft. Lauderdale airport. We found the Carnival peeps and waited for the bus to take us to Miami. We are really getting excited now...
Once we got to Port Miami there was some slight confusion getting on the boat. Let me know just say it was a lot of people who didn't know what they were doing, us included...but we made the best of it...This was our first glimpse of the ship we would be living on for the next few days. We COULD NOT believe how HUGE it was. You can see it in the background of this picture a little bit.
Once we were finally on the boat we decided to check out the food because we were starving! Let's face it, continental breakfasts usually aren't very filling...Here we are filling our bellies with our first cruise meal. I decided to celebrate by plopping a HUGE blob of ketchup on my nice white crisp pants. WAY TO START THE DAY!!
After exploring the ship and changing my pants OBVIOUSLY we had to meet at our designated area according to where our cabin was on the ship in case of an emergency. We all had to get our life jackets out of our cabins and meet on the 4th deck. Every thing was all fine and dandy. Scot and I were laughing and taking pictures and then the stinky guy came. You know the guy who doesn't know the meaning of personal space and makes you want to poke your eye out with a chop stick. Yup he was right in front of me. I kept bumping my life vest on his hoping he would get the hint but nope this kind of guy never does. By the end of it I was so clausterphobic Scot was having to blow air in my vest. HA HA HA HA...
After that I just couldn't resist going out to relax on the deck. It was so nice and the weather was wonderful and very temperate, especially for Florida...
At this point we still have not debarked and we actually won't debark until 7:30pm. We were supposed to leave at 4pm. They were having elevator problems and we couldn't leave until they were fixed. They finally got fixed and we were on our way...Woooo...Adios Miami!
This trip was such a blast, we could do things we would never dream of doing unless we were on a cruise ship and we knew it wasn't going to cost us $5,987,459,787,464. Here is our first room service order...the good stuff, Strawberry Cheese Cake. Yum.
We went to a fun show every night. We saw a couple of really funny comedians, they had shows with dancers, one night they had a juggler. It was pretty cool.
Our first port of call was on Friday, Key West. We docked at 8am and our shore excursion, a glass bottom boat was scheduled to go out at 9:30, so we went down to the buffett and ate breakfast and then jammed off the boat (you pretty much have to go through secruity similar to security at the airport each time you get on and off the boat so it can be time consuming depending on how many other people are there) to meet our group. When we found the person holding our sign she let us know that our excursion had been canceled. We were a little sad. They said we could transfer it to another tour or just get our money back. We looked at some of the other tours but they really didn't interest us so we just kind of walked around and himmed and hawed about what to do while we walked through the shops...(please excuse my immodisty but we thought we would be going to a beach or something...)
After making a few purchases we walked back towards the ship to decide on what to do. Scot has been wanting to rent Jet Skis forever. We wanted to do it when we went to Lake Powell but it was way more complcated than we were willing to deal with so when we saw this place we knew we had to do it. OK so I am totally not ashamed to admit that I am very afraid of being flipped off of the Jet Ski because I have been flipped off before and let me tell you folks, water is NOT soft! So Scot probably didn't get to do all of the things that he would have liked but he is a good husband and didn't complain. Scot drove most of the time but at some point during our hour long session I got in the driver seat. I was so slow and ridiculous while I was driving that the little guy that sits out there and watches to make sure we are OK and to bring us in when the hour was up came over to ask if we were OK. AHHH, I am such a whimp!!!! Here is our ship from where we were cruising around...
We had to be back on the ship by 1:30 that afternoon so we could sail out at 2pm so around 1:15 we got on this never ending line to get back on the ship and we went to our room and ordered more room service! We were all about that. We also did some more walking around up on deck. It was SOOOOOO windy as you can see by my flowing quaffe (I am certain you do not spell it that way)...
For dinner you have a couple of choices each night. You can either eat in the dinning room at an assigned table with other people that you don't know, the buffet, the 24 hour pizzeria, the grille, etc. So on this particular night it was the cruise elegant evening where you dressed up in dresses and guy were in ties. That kind of thing. It was fun. We were sat with a nice couple from Boston I think. The guy was a commercial airline pilot and the girl was a nurse and NO that is NOT our bottle of booze on the table. Jeez what kind of people do you think we are?
Here we are at the show that night. I practically fell asleep in these chairs during some of the shows. They were comfy...
They made this really cute little guy out of towels...
The next day, Saturday we docked in Cozumel Mexico. We didn't get there until the late afternoon and it was a little rainy that day so we were really worried that our shore excursion might get canceled...
BUT...were so glad that it didn't!!! This was the best thing we have ever done! We did these underwater scooters and it was a blast! NO we aren't farting...Well I'm not anyway...
Now I am not going to lie and say that I had no problems because that would be false. As you can see it is all one piece so they dump the machine in to the water and you have to get in the water duck your head under the water and pull yourself up in to the bubble. Sounds easy enough...well I slipped in like butta but once I got my head in the bubble I freaked!! I was like a fly stuck inside of a clear glass. I hit my head on the bubble trying to get out, my breathing was irratic so the scuba diver guy that was helping me had to sit there in front of me for about 3 minutes probably breathing with me before he could take me down. I finally realized that I wasn't going to DIE and he was able to take me down to the bottom. Each scooter was attached to a bouy (sp?) that would not allow you to go more than 18 feet deep. There were about four divers down there with us checking our oxygen and making sure there were no problems. We had to follow the maine diver by steering our selves and driving the scooter and he would go and pick things up and let us hold them and show us cool things. It was AWESOME, probably one of the best things I have ever done. I would highly recommend this!
This is a spanish lobster...I believe...
After the excursion we got to explore Cozumel. Every store we walked by the shop owners would be standing outside trying to get you to come in to their store and they would say "Honeymooners...I have a great deal for you...come in come in." It was really fun to see Scot speak to them in spanish. We had such a great time meeting these nice people and learning more about their beautiful island. Here is Scot in the town square.
Here we are with our big old ship in the background.
When we got back to our room that night we found this little guy just hangin' out in our room.
On the final day we were at sea all day and we just relaxed out on the deck, and went to the Love and Marriage show and ate and at night we went to Karaoke and it was all just very relaxing!
Scot getting ready to go down the water slide on the Lido deck...
Here is what the slide looked like. You can't imagine how big this ship is to have all of the things that it does. It's pretty incredible...
This was one of our favorite things ever. They had these soft serve machines with ice cream cones every where. We probably ate like 2 a day at least.
This was such a fun trip and I would recommend anyone who is even thinking about going on a cruise to do it! There were some weird things that weren't perfect but it was still soooo worth it! We are ready for our next one already!
Random things you might see on a cruise ship:
*A dumb guy who is dared to jump in to the empty pool and he does it. Ya we totally saw that happen on the first night! Needless to say his cruise was cut short.
*Two grown women fighting in the line at the buffet because one of the ladies "cut" Then to make matters worse one of them might even call secruity over. Ya, we definitely were caught in the middle of one of those, the girl behind us in line accused a little elderly lady of cutting. GET A GRIP!
*LOTS of speedos. I guess that isn't all that random but it is disturbing, there is just lots of skin everywhere pretty much...
*Your bus driver might get pulled over on your way back to the airport, cause ours did.
Bless your heart if you are still reading this, I know it was long!
1. Grey's Anatomy
1. My wonderful life with my cute husband
1. The changing leaves
1. To have my entire house decorated by an interior designer and looking fabulous 
