Cruisin' 2013

Adam and I will be married five years next month.  As an excuse for a Caribbean beach vacation,  we took a long weekend and went on a cruise last weekend with Dave and Kara Berger.  We left on Wednesday evening, spent the night in Orlando, and then were cruising from Thursday afternoon until Monday morning.  Our ship made stops in Nassau, Bahamas and Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. 

Our ship, the Carnival Ecstasy

This is a view from our ship before it left Port Canaveral.  These two ships set sail right behind us.  One is a Disney cruise ship and the other is another Carnival ship.

Sailing away from land.  You can see the two ships behind us.

Picturesque views.

Adam and Dave watching as we sail away.

My first drink on the ship.  I don't even remember what it was.  All of the frozen fruity drinks looked like this on the ship.  They were pricey, but tasty too!

On Friday morning, we arrived at Nassau.  We all agreed that Nassau wasn't nearly as picturesque as we'd hoped.  The beach was just ok.  But it was perfect for shopping, as there were plenty of street venders to barter with.  Unfortunately, it was fairly overcast and it rained for an hour or so.  We made the most of lousy weather by parking ourselves at Señor Frogs, a high energy bar on the island.  We stayed there longer than we probably should've, but we had a good time. 

At the beach in Nassau.  In the distance you can see several of the ships at the pier.

 

Friday evening we set sail for Half Moon Cay, and we arrived early on Saturday morning.  This made up for Friday.  It was gorgeous.  The beach was perfect as was the weather.  The sand was so powdery and white.  We spent most of our day relaxing on the beach and enjoying the crystal clear ocean.  We all earned a nice tan.

The ship is not photo shopped.  That is our ship.  The island does not have a dock large enough to accommodate the ship.  So the ship dropped anchor and then we took smaller boats to shore.  Isn't the beach so pretty?

You can see the smaller boat used to transport us to shore. 

The beach was busy, but very nice.

There was a bar inside the pirate ship.  It was also playing music.

We missed Vera a little on the trip.

Adam and Dave enjoying the water.

Adam and I went up to the top of the Pirate Ship and took some pictures.

 

When we got back from the beach, we hung out on the Serenity deck and watched the sunset.  It was really pretty, although the clouds were in the way for the perfect sunset.

 

It was really windy on the deck at this point in the day.

 

On Saturday afternoon we set sail again for a "fun day at sea" on Sunday.  We spent Sunday sleeping, soaking up the sun, and enjoying drinks.  The ship had a 21 and over "Serenity" deck, which is where we spent most of our time while on the ship.  We found some deck chairs, snatched an umbrella and enjoyed lots of relaxing.  There were no kids, no obnoxious music, and terrific staff to bring everything we needed.  It was so nice.

Our room steward checked our room twice per day.  Each evening we had a towel creation on our bed, along with chocolates.  Here are the creations from each night.

It was a great vacation.  We had smooth travels, no one got sick, the ship didn't start on fire, we didn't miss the boat, and we came back with  just the right amount of sun.  Adam and I both have "sea legs."  We still feel like we're on a boat, but it is getting better.  Vera spent her "vacation" with Grandma and Aunt Mandy.  She seemed to have a good time, and earned a good report from both of them.  Now it's back to reality, catching up, and getting ready for school to start.  Boo!