As I mentioned last week, our vacation was absolutely amazing! I took lots of pictures and now have them ready to show you! Since there's lots to tell and many photos to share, I'm going to split this up into three posts this week: Cruise, Key West, and Bahamas.
(Disclaimer: I only pulled out my dSLR a couple times during vacation, so many of these photos were taken with my trusty point-and-shoot. Sometimes I find that when I lug around my "real camera" on vacation taking photos seems more like work than fun. And that's where the point-and-shoot comes in handy! :)
Our vacation started out by making the drive to Jacksonville, Florida where our ship was embarking from. Road trips are always fun...especially when shared by a certain Jonathan Zajas. He makes even long drives enjoyable. We passed the time by singing every childhood song we could remember, looking for crocodiles and armadillos beside the road (we only saw one...and it was sadly dead), and drinking McDonald's iced coffee.
When we arrived at our port, we were amazed by how big the boat was! This was our very first cruise (we used
Carnival cruise line), so we didn't really know what to expect.
Once we went through the long process of checking in, we were very excited to be on the boat at last!
See? Don't our faces just scream excitement? (Jonathan's face, quite literally screaming.)
The first night, it was soooooo windy on the top deck. I really thought I was going to be blown away.
This was our stateroom on the ship. It may look tiny, but it was actually quite perfectly comfortable and cozy. And it was ALWAYS clean. I felt like every time we left our room, we'd come back and the bed would be re-made and everything straightened up. The staff on the ship did nothing but excellence in all that they did.
The view from our window. It was so amazing to wake up to this every morning. We even saw dolphins outside our window once!
One of our favorite things about the cruise was the complimentary room service. This cruise was all-inclusive, so we didn't have to pay for any food! We'd place our order for what we wanted for breakfast outside our door each night...and we'd wake up to hot coffee, pastries, and fruit brought to our door. Perfection!
Most days on the ship were spent like this. We would lay out on the deck facing the ocean, read our books, sip on an endless supply of soda, nap, and just relax.
At night we would freshen up and go eat in the dining hall. You could order as many things on the menu as you wanted, and Jonathan and I got to try things that we normally wouldn't...I tried veal for the first time and Jonathan had his first lobster. Everything was yummy!
After dinner we would walk around the decks of the ship and watch the sunset. It was absolutely beautiful.
When we returned to our room each night, the room would be all clean again and our bed would be turned down...and a little towel creature would be perched at the foot of it. I loved being surprised by which animal they would come up with next! All in all we had a walrus, polar bear, crab, elephant, and scorpion. The elephant was my favorite. :)
They would also place a schedule for the next day and some chocolate mints on our bed each night. They always had so many fun activities going on each day. We only went to a few, but we did get to see the world's fastest juggler! No photos or videos were allowed, or else I totally would have shared it with you guys. He was pretty amazing.
Have I mentioned that the complimentary room service was one of our favorite things? Because it was. Oh yes it was. We would often order hot chocolate and cheesecake for a late night snack. So bad...but oh so good.
We would highly recommend a cruise to anyone who wants a stress-free vacation. It was so nice to have everything all paid for up front and to just be able to go and relax...and not worry about where we were going to go that day, or how much we would spend on dinner. It was perfect.
Next I'll share all about our adventures at each of the ports. First stop: Key West!
Lots of smiles,
-Tiffany
