In August, the Thompsen’s asked us if we would like to join them on a cruise sometime in November. Mark had been working really hard all summer long and both of us needed a well deserved break from life so we agreed. We decided that a cruise to the Bahamas was just what we needed! We found a great deal on a cruise and Mark’s boss gave us to tickets to Florida so that helped out so much! We booked our cruise for November 9-12. We decided that we wanted to get there a day early to give us enough time and not feel rushed. Needless to say we were so excited and I was especially so because it was my first cruise!
The week leading up to leaving I was super anxious to leave Sariah for the 5 days. She was still nursing and not taking a bottle very well. She was getting used to a sippy cup with pumped milk but being so far away was what was scaring me the most. I couldn’t just come home if she wasn’t eating. Mark’s parents had volunteered to watch the kids while we went on our trip and that gave me some comfort in leaving Sariah. They are so good with them and I was sure they could get her to eat.
Day 1:
The day of departure was an early one. We left our house around 6:30 so we could get to the airport in time and find our flight. The kids were still sleeping when we left. Saying bye is always the hard part. We found and boarded our flight. Our friends had a different flight leaving later that day so we would be arriving first in Florida. We were both excited to be able to see Florida together for the first time. The flight went by quickly and soon we were looking out the window at the lake covered earth. It was so cool to see all of the lakes dotting the landscape. Definitely different than Utah! We arrived around 4 pm and went to go find our shuttle to our hotel. We called them and ended up waiting close to an hour for our shuttle. We didn’t mind too much because it was fun just to sit together and just talk without interruption. Our shuttle driver was a crazy driver. We almost got into two accidents in our 10 minute ride to our hotel. It was just a bit frightening! We stayed at the Best Western and for dinner we tried a little diner called the Pancake House. It was cozy and delicious! Maybe more so because we were starving after only eating the peanuts on the flight for lunch. Our friends got to the hotel around midnight. Their flight went good and we were all excited for the adventures to come!
Day 2:
We woke up early and had the shuttle drive us to our rental car location. He was a much better driver. We had some time to kill before heading to the cruise line so we drove through Disney World Park. We didn’t realize how huge it was! It is a whole city within a city! We made plans to come back and do a Disney World vacation with the kids. It looked like a lot of fun!
After seeing the park, we started our drive to Cape Canaveral. It was a beautiful drive and it was fun to Florida. When trying to find our loading station we got lost and had to turn around a few times before we finally found it. Good thing we left early! The guys dropped the ladies off with the luggage while they returned the rental car. Rachel and I walked around to pass time and took some pictures. It was fun sitting and talking with her.
The guys returned and we were finally able to board our ship The Monarch of the Seas. It was a fun process but we were so excited to finally be on the ship and ready to set sail. We first went to check out our rooms. We were on the second to the bottom level and at the very front of the ship. Our rooms were nice but very small. After getting our stuff in our rooms, we went out to explore our ship. It was an older ship but still nice. Before embarking, we sat down and had some lunch at the Buffet. They served some good food but the best thing was their French Fries. They were delicious!!!
We were able to see an amazing sunset before going to dinner. Our waiter name was Reynaldo from the Philippians. He was so funny and nice. He welcomed us by calling us Sir Mark, Miss Sabrina, Sir Travis and Miss Rachel. The best saying he would say was “It’s my pleasure.” He would somewhat sing while he talked which made it fun to listen to him. During dinner the ship really got to moving. I get really bad motion sickness and I should have known to take so medicine before the ship started to move but I didn’t. I got really sea sick during the dessert portion of dinner and had to go down our room to lie down. I was able to get feeling better enough to go to the opening show and watch the entertainment but after had to go back and lie down. I was actually done for the first night. I prayer really hard that the whole trip would not be like this or I would be so miserable! While I was lying down, the others were able to go and play some card games. I was glad I didn’t ruin the whole night for the others.
Day 3:
We woke up to a beautiful day! The first thing I did was head down to the medical wing and grab some motion sickness pills. They worked great for the rest of the trip! For any future cruise we go on, I know now that I have to stay medicated the whole time to really enjoy it. We ate breakfast in the nice dinning area where we were served. I had some pancakes and a parfait. Mark had Eggs Benedict Muffin and some Cream of Wheat. They both were delicious! After breakfast, we went and played some shuffle board on deck. It was really windy! We were also able to see Nassau as we were getting ready to pull into port.
We had decided to go head and purchase a beach day at the Atlantis resort rather than trying to find a beach ourselves. It was a great decision! The resort was huge and had so much to see and do. We got on some little buses that transported us to the the resort. It was fun to drive through the island and see things. When we got there we had a tour guide lead us to the beach. The beach was so blue and had the whitest sand! We didn’t waste anytime and drove right into the waves and played in them. We rode the waves and had so much fun! We felt like kids again! The water was extremely salty so we had to make sure we kept our mouths closed as much as possible!
After playing in the ocean, we decided to walk around the resort. There was a place called Dolphin’s Cove where you could swim with dolphins. I really wish I could have done that but it was super expensive! Next cruise I will definitely do it though. We found the Cove and we were able to walk right in and watch the dolphins swimming and jumping. We were really close to them too and we didn’t even pay a single cent! Later we found out that you had to have a special wrist band to be in that area which we didn’t have but no one stopped us so we were able to see the dolphins which was a neat experience!
We continued walking around the resort and went to the two aquariums to look around. They were huge! They had underwater tunnels that we walked through and were surrounded by sea creatures. They had some huge manta-rays and stingrays, hammer head sharks, regular sharks and some GIGANTIC fish! We stood in front of one and I’m pretty sure it could swallow us whole, it was that big!! It was fun seeing all sorts of sea creatures! I was impressed with the variety that it had.
The last thing we did on the island was go shopping at the stores. We were able to pick up a few souvenirs and look around town before getting on the bus and heading back to the ship for our formal dinner. We really loved our day at Nassau and wished we could have stayed there longer!
We got back on the ship and quickly got cleaned up and dressed for our formal dinner. It was fun to dress up and sit down to have a fancy meal. We ordered the duck and was actually very tasty! We enjoyed trying as many different kinds of food and we were stuffed by the time we got off the ship! You can’t go on a cruise and expect not to gain a few pounds! 🙂
After dinner we attended a few different shows. One was a Newlywed Game. It turned out to be hilarious! We laughed so hard! The other show was starring an Olympic Men’s Gymnastic Gold Medalist. The tricks and stunts he did was amazing!! Some people are just so talented!
Day 4: We woke up early to get ready to leave the ship for Coco Cay. We were so excited to spend the day on another island and play in the ocean. We got on the elevator and someone mentioned that we were no longer going to the island. We thought that he was joking so we continued on to breakfast. When seated at our table we looked out our window and we were out in the middle of the ocean with no land in site. We asked our waiter what was going on and he told us that they had to cancel going to the island because the waves were too big. We were so disappointed and frustrated but we decided that it wasn’t going to stop us from having fun on the ship.
We went and relaxed on the deck and got some sun. It was such an nice sunny day. After soaking up sun, we got some lunch at the buffet and ice cream of course! We then went and changed and made our way to the theater to watch the new Batman movie: The Dark Knight Rises. We hadn’t seen it before so we were excited to see it. While waiting for the movie to start we played some card games. It was so fun just relaxing and playing games! The movie wasn’t the best quality but it was still fun to see. We really liked it. After the movie, we walked around the shops and brought a few more souvenirs. We went to our last dinner and enjoyed a great meal together. We thanked our waiter, Renato, for being so much fun and so good to us! It was sad to think that our vacation was coming to an end. After dinner we went to the departure show full of dancing and singing. It was fun and we loved all of the music. After the show, to wind down the night we played cards until we were so tired we were falling asleep. So we finally hit the sack.
Day 5:
We woke up and got all of our bags packed and ready to go. We then headed up to eat our last meal on the cruise ship. The ship was back in port and we just had fun taking our time eating, reminiscing of the vacation and preparing ourselves to go back to life at home. We were all excited to see our kids. We did miss them! After breakfast, we grabbed our bags and departed. We went to a rental agency and got our car for our drive back to Orlando. We actually got a brand new car. It was really nice! We decided that we wanted to go to the Premium Outlet Mall to do some shopping before our flights. We loved the Mall! It had so many great stores and it was fun just to shop! After shopping we grabbed bite to eat at Subway and then dropped our friends off at the airport. They had an earlier flight than us leaving at 2 and ours was at 5. We then drove to some souvenir shops to finish the last of our shopping. It was hard to leave our vacation but we are so glad that we had the opportunity to go on a cruise together and see apart of the world we haven’t seen before! We are grateful for such wonderful friends and their company on the cruise. We enjoyed getting to know them even more! What wonderful memories we made and ones we will cherish forever!!
