We had the opportunity to go on a 5 night Western Caribbean cruise April 4-9 to celebrate 10 years of marriage!! I don't know how that is even possible. Where does the time go? Seriously! I'm grateful every day to be married to the love of my life and to grow more in love with each passing year! I love you with all my heart Tom!
We had an AMAZING time! Cruising is definitely our vacation of choice. Our goal is to go every 5 years and so far so good! We're already dreaming of our next one...
A HUGE thank you to my parents who took on the task of wrangling our little girls while we were away. We are forever thankful! It was so tough to leave them...like really tough...but knowing they were in such good and loving hands was so comforting.
So here we are leaving on our midnight flight!
We had a lay-over around 3:45 am in Charlotte (of which I don't recall much thanks to dramamine haha)
Then here we are flying into Florida. It was cool flying over the ocean for a bit in the bright morning sun.
Day 1
We boarded the ship around 11am and checked out the ship. We got to go to our room at 1pm and settled in!
Here is Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale
The view from our balcony
Then of course we got to eating!!!!! Haha we ate SOO much and it was wonderful! The desserts however left a lot to be desired (which is probably a good thing)
There was an ice skating rink on the ship that I had no clue about beforehand! So of course we went ice skating! "When in the Caribbean..." Wait...
Then went to dinner that night (still in the same clothes we traveled all night in, and had been wearing all day... our bags hadn't arrived to our room yet)
And a picture of the picture haha! Too cheap to buy it!
That night we watched some of the NCAA finals game on the deck.
Then watched the welcome parade on the Promenade deck and then to the Late Comedy show before finally crashing!
Day 2
was a Sea day. So we slept in, went to the gym, went to breakfast and then went swimming
After we went to lunch and hung out on the deck waiting until the show
Then grabbed an ice cream cone on the way to the Ice Skating show! (we pretty much grabbed an ice cream whenever we were remotely near the machine!)
The Ice Skating show was Amazing! Way better than anticipated! The show told the story of the violin....where it originated and how it made it's way and impact around the globe.
On to some mini golf! Tom crushed me!
Then back to the room for a nap (we took a nap almost everyday and it was wonderful!!)
and then got ready for formal night!
My handsome date...
That night we went to the Invitation to Dance show and it was awesome! It's produced by the same people as "So you think you can dance?" Amazing dancers!
Day 3
We ported in Labadee, Haiti (Royal Caribbean's private island)
We went on a snorkeling excursion! ....and we have zilch pictures! I'm so bummed we didn't bring a water camera or go-pro. We rode on a double decker boat out in the ocean did some snorkeling! The scenery and ocean floor was BEAUTIFUL! We didn't see near as many fish as I was hoping and the group was a little too large for my taste, and Tom got water stuck in his ear that bugged him for the remainder of the trip....but other than that haha...but really it was fun!
Our excursion was about 2 hours and the rest of the time we check out the beaches, ate lunch, swam in the bath temperature ocean water... Oh and Tom was approached by a teenage kid that was dared $10 by his uncle to lick his head! Tom's response was, "what do I get out of it?" and the kid said half haha! So Tom made $5 having his head licked! and it wasn't a little tap of the tongue....it was a real lick across the whole top!
Back on the boat that night....
Just savoring the feeling of having nowhere to be...
The Art on the ship was incredible!
These are 2 of my favorites.
This one is made out of spools of thread!!!!!!!!
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| And if you zoom in on this one you'll see that each square used to make this is it's own little picture |
That night we went to the Ron Lucas Ventriloquist / Comedy show
and the late night Love and Marriage game show. Both hilarious!
Day 4
We ported at Falmouth, Jamaica
We hopped on a bus that drove us about an hour to Ocho Rios for our excursion! It was cool to see so much of Jamaica and our guide told us cool facts about Jamaica along the way.
It was a 2 part excursion. The first stop was hiking the famous Dunn's River Falls! IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL! The guides were so nice and it was really incredible to be hiking up such a gorgeous spot of nature.
Sadly, again no pictures! Such a bummer! I was, however, duped into buying the DVD that the group videographer made (that I was told would have picture files too...but nope, only a video. So at least we have a cool video of the experience though)
But I paused the video and took a pic of my computer screen to at least add these....
and the picture below is of the Falls.
Then we got back on the bus and rode down to Dolphin Cove! I've been dreaming of swimming with dolphins my whole life! Definitely a bucket list item!
After we were split in groups and instructed, we went down to the cove
AHHHH! It was incredible!! Even just touching the dolphin was so exciting! They are amazingly beautiful creatures! I wish we could have swam with them longer, but I don't think any time amount would have been long enough haha
True childlike joy right there!
I think Tom was glad I forced that excursion on him!
Bye Dolphin Cove!
Bye Jamaica!
That night at dinner, our server randomly brought us over this dessert that said "Happy 10th Anniversary" and the crew sang to us! So cute and such a fun surprise! (When I booked the cruise, one of the questions was "Are you celebrating anything special?" so that must've been it)
After dinner we went to another comedy show that was so good!
And then late that night, things got crazy! Like ridiculously crazy....
We went to the "Quest Gameshow" and wow I'm laughing just thinking about it! We knew it was for 18 and older but had no clue what it was. So we made the mistake of sitting on the front row and Tom was instantly hand chosen by our team leader as the male captain.
So the game requires your team to accomplish certain tasks and try to be the fastest... example: "the first team captain to bring up a piece of fruit" People were instantly throwing down the cherries and limes from their drinks to Tom and the female captain.
So yea task after task just got more and more ridiculous!
This one was "The first team to bring down 5 men's belts all looped together"
This one was "The first team to have 5 men shirtless doing a synchronized kick line" That's Tom on the bottom right!
This one was the first team to have 2 men skipping around together
There were many tasks such as: Tom did "the worm" when asked for a male to do it. And I did "the worm" for our team when a woman had to. And I may have swapped tops with another woman! (I had an undershirt no worries) And Tom may have had another mans leg in his pant leg when asked to have 2 men wearing the same pants, etc. It was just nuts! You would have thought we were playing for a million dollars! But the final task takes the cake and I will laugh my head off and keep these pictures forever! Each team was given 2 minutes to have a man made up top to bottom like a woman. Tom did not want to do it ...but was basically forced by the 40 or so people in our team throwing down all sorts of womanly items and encouraging him (peer pressure lol)
So here is the line of "women"
Isn't her pretty!?
Then they had to do a runway walk and a dance move!
Needless to say, we (mostly Tom) were way more involved than anticipated! Well even though all he got was a participation hat and we didn't win, he was such a great captain and a good sport and it made for some great memories! Tom also became very recognized around the ship with high fives and such after that!
Day 5
was our last day at Sea. We slept in, went to the gym and breakfast!
A view from our balcony of the bright blue water!
Then we went to the top deck to do the flow rider and climb the rock wall
The lines were a good 20 minutes but gave us time to learn some techniques!
We watched probably 40 people try and barely cling on on their tummies...and then Tom hops on and goes from his stomach, to his knees, to a hop to his butt, and then a freaking spin!
Workin the camera...
Laughing because he had quite a cheering crowd and had just flapped his arms like a bird and yelled "Ca- Caw!"
My turn of waiting in line...
I was thrilled to get up to my knees with no hands!
and then I wiped out
Then we went in for a light lunch..... hahaha cruise life!
Then Tom did the stand up board on the flow rider and did great!
That night was the "Smart Casual" night so we got a little dressed up
After dinner we went to the "Once Upon a Time" show and it was phenomenal! It was a musical with amazing dancing and sets! It was a spin on Disney princess stories and it was great. We really enjoyed all the shows and productions of this cruise!
And the last show we went to was Battle of the Sexes with lots of fun Men vs. Women challenges.
This was 5 people made a ring interlocking hands and had to see which sex could get the most people in their circle....Tom is in there somewhere!
Saturday morning the ship ported back in Florida and we made our long way off the ship, through U.S. customs, to the airport...so excited to see our girls... only to find out that they bumped us to a later flight at 2pm! We were bummed but what do ya do. So we wait at the airport for 4 hours only to be told our plane can't make it to Dallas because one wing has no defroster and Dallas was having bad weather! So they flew us to Miami to switch into a different plane that can take us to Dallas.
Here is a view from our 30 minute flight to Miami..... where we waited some more with a mob of frustrated, angry and stressed out people.
By the time we got to Dallas, we had missed our connecting flight to Utah! We were so sad! It was so hard to talk to the girls on the phone and console Jade that we weren't going to see her that night.
They gave us hotel vouchers and meal vouchers so we booked a flight for the next morning and spent the night. Then we got to fly home first class which was AWESOME!!!
We were finally in Utah and to Delta by about 2pm Sunday and it was SO GOOD to see them! Jade was ecstatic to see us too! Lainey however, was napping when we got there and woke up grumpy and crying and wanted nothing to do with me for a good 10 minutes! It was heartbreaking!
But she finally came around and we hung out with my parents until later that evening and then went home!
This is the best pic I could get of the girls wearing their Jamaica pants we got them and their Jamaica turtles!
Here are some really cute pictures Gammy and Gampy took of them throughout their week in Delta!
Every day we had a little gift for them to open! They loved it and it was a good way for Jade to count down until we were coming back! Gammy took a picture of most everything!
This is one of my all time favorite pictures of them on the horse with Gampy!
This trip was pretty much perfection and much needed. We were so blessed to be able to go on this vacation together and have so much quality time together. We loved every minute! And again, thank you to my mom and dad for making it possible
