Cruise Port 3: St. Martin/ St. Maarten

Back to the cruise recap posts...

Our third and final port was St. Martin's (also known as Sint Maarten).  This Island has both French and Dutch influence.  We stayed in the capital city of Philipsburg, which is located in the French side of the island.  We stuck to mostly exploring and shopping some, but got to see the beautiful beaches there and I would love to take a future trip and spend a day at Maho Beach (also called airplane beach). 

We ported later than some of the other places and did not leave until after sunset, then we got back on ship to do some more exploring, enjoy sail away and dinner!  Below is a picture of our home away from home for the week, small but worked just perfectly for the week!

Sail Away from St. Martin

Cruise Port 2: St. Thomas

Well after the Bahamas, we actually had a day at sea before we made it to St. Thomas.  On our very first cruise as a family, we went to St. Thomas and did a half day snorkel and booze cruise (which left most of the King family hung over) so we opted for something a little less crazy and just did a beach day complete with a complimentary drink!  It was an overcast day so the tanning was not all that great, but Bons and I both got some reading in and enjoyed the scenic drive!

It is easy to see the Dutch influence!

Beautiful water--I love all the shades in this picture

On the way back to the ship we got to enjoy a scenic drive on Skyline drive and a stop at the overlook.  It was beautiful to get a view from up high!

I think there were 4 ships (or more) in port that day!

And because it never gets old, here is a picture of our ship next to another ship in port!

We enjoyed the sun and sand while in St. Thomas and really enjoyed all the relaxing that we were afforded while on this cruise!  Stay tuned for Port 3: St. Martin...

Cruise Port 1: Bahamas

Our first port of call was Nassau in the Bahamas, since my mom and I have both spent a week in Paradise Island, we did not book any excursions and instead just did what we knew best--took the taxi boat over to the island, looked around and got our go to ice cream at Ben & Jerry's!  

Our ship (left) compared to another one in port!  

Atlantis

Love the Palm trees there!

Glass Sculpture inside Atlantis

Traditional Ben & Jerry's cone!

We had a beautiful day but an early port and an early departure (2pm!), so we made an early day of it and headed back to the ship for lunch and to see the play, Cats!

Our ship is far right in this photo, there were a LOT of boats in port that day!

The stage of Cats

At intermission, they had one cat stay on stage so people could get pictures with him.

Since it was such an early day and an early play, we made it out in time to see the beautiful sunset!  In my opinion nothing beats a Caribbean Sunset!

Stay tuned for Port #2: St. Thomas!

Cruise Day 1

So I have really left you all hanging from my last post like 10 days ago!  Well we boarded the Oasis of the Seas on November 15th for our 7 days aboard our new home!  Obviously we spent the first day going from floor to floor to see what the ship had to offer and needless to say, we were impressed.  Feel free to live vicariously through my pictures:

Bonnie's favorite part of the ship was The Boardwalk, complete with a small carousel (which she then wanted to go on all the time)...

The carousel with all the balcony rooms in the background!

Also on the boardwalk was a Johnny Rockets restaurant--Mom's favorite, can you just see the glee in this picture:

One of the 7 distinct neighborhoods was "Central Park," not nearly as big as the real life one but equally as leafy :)

Around 4:30 that day was the "Sail-away," which we celebrated with some drinks and watched the 7--SEVEN!!!! ships in port leave one by one, I think we were 5th in line, so we saw a few go out before us...

The boardwalk was also home to the water show, which we had reservations for our first night on board.  The show was called  "Oasis of Dreams" and featured divers, synchronized swimmers and acrobats!  In the picture below, those two high points near the top of the anchor were platforms that divers dove off of into the tiny pool below, a whopping 60 feet (while the boat was moving no less)!!!  I found a video that someone else recorded of one of the divers making the dive!  It was an incredible first day!

Next up: Port #1 (Bahamas!)

Vacation Teaser

So you may remember back in May when I gave my mom this coupon book, well then there was this one where she found out the ship!  Once all the surprises were over, it was time to actual go on vacation.  We started a day early, heading down to Fort Lauderdale and spent the day and night in a hotel before heading to the ship the next day.  We took advantage of the sun and sand and went for a walk on the beach and enjoyed being in the warmer weather while Richmond was experiencing its first real taste of winter!

view from our hotel room

 We ended the day with pina coladas by the beach and watched the sunset!  Seriously, I am not sure it gets much better than that!  Stay tuned for updates over the next couple of days!  I hope everyone enjoyed a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend!

Got her again....

It is so fun to pull one over on the Bons Bons!  Well she has been asking me what cruise we were going to take for awhile, as you might recall her reaction from her Mother's Day surprise was pretty epic.  But I knew picking the right cruise would be fun to surprise her with as well.  Well she figured we would take another Carnival cruise and even though I have nothing against Carnival, Royal Caribbean is just a notch above and I know she loves traveling with them!  Well what better cruise to take than on one of Royal Caribbean's biggest ships....check it out!

Don't leave me hanging... (cruise recap)

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.

Getting ready to snorkel

Beautiful water selfie!

Bonnie kissing a sting ray

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!

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.

Dolphin Kisses

Dolphin dancing

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.  

Here we are on the ship, waiting out the pouring rain!

Bonnie posing with some local art!

I loved the beautifully colored buildings there!

Christmas was all around!

Beautiful palms!

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!

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!

unique colors and buildings on Ocean Drive

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....