I know I know, you are all so patiently waiting for an update on my cruise to the Caribbean, right? Okay, well maybe not really, but I am going to give it to you anyway :) With lots of pictures of course!
We left from Richmond to Miami a day before the cruise in hopes to do all the fun Miami stuff (like south beach, boat tour, etc.), but the weather did not cooperate so we instead grabbed a nice lunch inside, did some shopping and then had dinner in the hotel before watching some TV. We got to the port relatively early on Saturday to get on the ship (carnival breeze)! Here we are waiting to board, Bonnie got gold status, so she was excited!
Our first port of call was Grand Turk, where we did a snorkel and swim with the sting rays excursion. I had done one similar in Grand Cayman and loved swimming with all the sting rays. Unfortunately, this was not the same. They struggled to find one sting ray and when they did, it was just a little baby. But the Bons enjoyed some beach time while I got my snorkel on.
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| Getting ready to snorkel |
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| Beautiful water selfie! |
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| Bonnie kissing a sting ray |
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| Me kissing the sting ray! |
Back on the boat, we found time to hang out with the Carnival Towl Elephant and got in some relaxation time and reading. All in all, it was a great day!
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| Our frog towel animal! |
Our second port of call was Dominican Republic. Here we had booked an excursion to swim with the dolphins, we both really enjoyed it! The only downfall was that the excursion was in a roped off area of the ocean and it happened to be really choppy that day. Despite our trying it was hard to stay in one place very long.
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| Dolphin Kisses |
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| Dolphin dancing |
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| Dolphin swimming |
Our third port of call was Curacao! It was quite rainy that day, so we were happy we did not have anything planned other than shopping and walking around port.
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| Here we are on the ship, waiting out the pouring rain! |
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| Bonnie posing with some local art! |
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| I loved the beautifully colored buildings there! |
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| Christmas was all around! |
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| Beautiful palms! |
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| Our home on the water for the week! |
Our last port of call was Aruba! I feel in love with the beautiful sandy beaches and the beautiful blue ocean waters! We just took the local bus to the beach and hung out for a couple of hours before we went back near the port to do some more shopping on their version of "black Friday," it was actually Thanksgiving but since we were not going to be in port they had sales on this day instead. I have to say I loved being in the beautiful Caribbean to celebrate Turkey Day! We were both feeling very thankful!
Here we are on the last formal night on ship, all dressed up and sad for our trip coming to a close!
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| Best dessert EVER! |
We got back in port on Sunday morning and checked into the hotel. Then we did a bus tour of Miami (despite the rain and clouds), we made it through the whole tour and got to see all the areas of Miami. It was really a cool experience!
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| unique colors and buildings on Ocean Drive |
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| More of the eclectic hotels! |
So we are now more than a month from this trip, but I hope you enjoyed the overview and pictures! Now, it is time to start packing for my next adventure....
