Sean and I just got back from a week long cruise to the Bahamas. It was AMAZING!! We dropped the kids off at my sister's house and were fancy free for 7 whole days! It was like we were in our 20's again. Every night was date night. Every day was beach day. It was just fabulous! We chose Norwegian Cruise Lines and would totally choose them again! They had about 8 restaurants to choose from and we got to make our own schedule instead of being told when and where to be for meals. We even got to eat every meal at an intimate table for two instead of making painful small talk at a larger table with other cruisers that we didn't care about nor would we ever see again.
Our ship left from Manhattan so we drove the 3 1/2 hours up to New York and parked the car at the terminal. Then we boarded and had a Bon Voyage barbeque party by the pool. It was freezing, but we were all in a festive mood so it didn't matter. We saw the Statue of Liberty as we made our way out to sea. Honestly, I thought it would be bigger, but considering when it was built, it's pretty impressive. That night we went to a show where a comedian magician chose me to be his assistant. I was so nervous that I would do something stupid, but it all worked out and he was really funny. Later, I found out that the performance was recorded and shown on a loop on all the TVs in the rooms. By the next day, I was a minor celebrity. Of course I loved the attention, but I was glad when a new performance took my place on TV.
Our first stop was Port Canaveral, Florida. We tried to rent scooters but there were none available. So instead, I got a pedicure and took some nice beachy pictures at Cocoa Beach. There wasn't a whole lot to do, unless you wanted to get drunk, so we went back to the ship early.
The next day was Beach Day on a private island in the Bahamas, Great Stirrup Cay. Norwegian Cruise Line owns the island so they put out the spread. It was a beautiful warm, sunny day. We had a barbeque, did some snorkeling to see the fish and coral, participated a bit in Beach Olympics, and lounged about on our chaises. I lathered up in sunblock to keep from getting burned, but I wish I could have come back with a little more color than I did.
Then we set sail for Nassau, Bahamas. This is the diamond and gemstone shopping capitol of the Caribbean. Since we weren't interested in that, we got to rent our much wanted scooters. We drove all over the island. We even crossed the bridge over to Paradise Island where the monster resort Atlantis is. Unfortunately, they charged a lot to do anything on Paradise Island so we didn't stay long. Nassau was beautiful and the drive was awesome. By the end of the day, however, I was happy to turn in the keys and take a much needed shower.
We dressed up for dinner every night. They had 2 main dining rooms and a buffet. One of the dining rooms was fancier and had a dress code. I liked going there because they would have live music (a pianist, a guitarist, and even a Latin trio), and usually no children. I loved feeling fancy. I loved having strangers tell me that I looked beautiful. I felt like a rock star!
It was an amazing trip and I hope it won't be too long before we can relive it. Now. . . back to our real life. Back to cleaning up after ourselves. Back to pot roast, frozen chicken, and macaroni and cheese.
