We headed out bright and early last Thursday morning for the airport. And when I say early, I mean we left the house at 4:30 AM!! Our flight left at 7, and we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, FL around 11:00 EST. After a quick bus ride to Miami we boarded the ship! Our room wasn't quite ready for us yet, so we grabbed some lunch at the buffet before we did anything else. That's what you do on cruises right? Around 1:00 our room was ready for us...
So this cruise was one that Jess actually WON back in August at a T-Bones baseball game. We did have to pay a small amount to go, but compared to the normal cost to cruise it was extrememly cheap! The rooms were supposed to be assigned to all passengers based on when they registered (everyone on the cruise had won the trip...), but a few weeks prior to the trip we were given the chance to upgrade our room. So I did! We got a Junior Suite, which was fantastic! We had so much room to lounge around and relax, and our balcony was equipped with nice big lounge chairs. :)
Here's the view from our balcony as we waited to depart - this is looking down towards South Beach.
The ship finally headed off around 5:00 on Thursday night and as we were leaving the port we floated past a bunch of enormous homes and yachts. They're hard to see in the picture, but they were really amazing.
We were aboard the Liberty of the Seas for this trip (part of Royal Caribbean's fleet) which is the same size as the ship we were on last year. One of the things we never got around to last time was trying our hand at the Flowrider - an onboard surfing wave! I wanted to try this really bad and got to do it several times. It was SO MUCH FUN! It was kind of like snowboarding as far as how you moved around on the wave. Not as easy as it looks either...
Jess even gave it a shot too! She did so good! I was very proud of her. :)
Look at that form! She looks just like a pro surfer!!!
On Friday, we were in Nassau and visited Paradise Island. The main attraction there is definitely the Atlantis Hotel. It is enormous! They have some really amazing sculptures around the hotel.
We found this huge chair that everyone was taking pictures in, so we decided to follow the trend.
Just to give you an idea of how large this resort/hotel is, the building on the right is the "original" Atlantis Hotel, which is basically the size of any of the larger hotels in Las Vegas. The two buildings on the left are ALSO part of the hotel. They were Phase II. It really was an amazing place.
The Atlantis has lots to do...a huge water park, a walk-through aquarium, beach area, and lots more. However, they want lots of money to do/see all of these things! So instead of doing that, we just walked thru whatever areas we could for free and then hit the beach nearby. :) It was super relaxing! Plus the 80-degree weather was a pretty nice change from the freezing temps in KC.
Here's a picture of the ships in the Nassau port. We were on the one on the right...did I mention this cruise included both of these ships!! The Freedom of the Seas (left) was sailing right along with us...also carrying cruise winners!
We had taken a ferry from the port to Paradise Island and along the way we went past this place - the Yoga Retreat. Jess wants to go back there for our next vacation. :)
On Saturday, we were taken to Coco Cay, which is a small private island in the Bahamas that is owned by Royal Caribbean. In the morning, ESPN was there to film an episode of Sports Nation.
Most of the afternoon was pretty calm and relaxing. We just hung out on the beach. And I went out in the water a little to see the fish! :)
Later in the day, there was a huge concert right on the beach! It was a lot of fun too. The headline act was Nelly - not exactly our normal music selection, but he was actually really entertaining, and it was just really neat to be at a concert ON THE BEACH! :)
Finally, here's a decent shot of both ships achored near Coco Cay.
And our home, the Liberty of the Seas. We had such a great time!! We can't wait to cruise again...
2 comments:
i am so jealous! it looks like you guys had tons of fun...without the babino! i'm sure that was like a second honeymoon eh'?
Looks like fun! Glad you had a great time!
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