Family Trip

Last week, Mike and I went on a 7-day cruise in the Caribbean! Even though we got to go to some of the most exotic and beautiful places in the world, this trip was one of our favorite vacations because of WHO we were with. My parents, all 6 siblings and their spouses booked this trip together last February. We had such a great time together playing and exploring the Bahamas, Virgin Islands, and many other beautiful islands of the Eastern Caribbean. This is my journal entry of each day, so don’t worry about reading all of it. It is more for my sake, so that I won’t forget what we did each day.
We flew into Ft. Lauderdale, on Saturday, where we met my two brothers and their wives, who live in Texas and New Jersey. It has been over 6 months since we last saw each other and it was so good to see them! We crashed at our hotel and raided Taco Bell at midnight. The next morning we took a bus taxi to a church there in Ft. Lauderdale near Palm Beach. It was very hot and humid. I’ve never been to Florida and it was fun to see.We boarded our ship that afternoon and had a party to sail off. The next morning we woke up to the island, Princess Cays, in the Bahamas. Our cruise liner, Princess, owns this private island and we took a shuttle boat to the island. We spent most of the day soaking in the warm sun, playing in the sand and snorkeling. It was paradise!

Tuesday, we spent the whole day at sea, traveling to the next port. There were so many activities on the ship. We took a ballroom dance class, watched a magician, had a massage, swam in the pool and hot tub and played miniature golf on the top deck. The best part of the day was sleeping in and ordering room service, for breakfast. That night was one of the formal dinning nights and we got all dressed up and ate delicious food! On Wednesday, we were in St. Maarteen. This was a cool island because half of it is owned by the French and the other half, the Dutch. We decided to rent mo-peds and drove around to explore. What an experience! We saw the devastations of a recent hurricane and poor as well as rich areas. We found a great beach, (thankfully all were wearing swimming suits) and did some more snorkeling. We had a little glitch getting back, Mike’s scooter got a flat tire, but a really nice couple from the U.S., (who vacation there every year in a time-share), stopped to help us. We got it fixed and made it back to our ship just in time.

Thursday we landed in the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Thomas. Wow! It was beautiful! We did a day excursion and rented a Catamaran and went sailing to another island of St. John. I love to sail! They took us to a secluded beach, where we went snorkeling. We saw a sting ray and other beautiful coral and fish. On our way back to the boat, we stopped and did some shopping! They have great stores and fun markets. This day we met a cute couple from Pittsburg, Cindy and Brad. They were there celebrating their 10 year anniversary and renewed their vows on ship. We had a great time getting to know them and found ourselves bumping into them wherever we went! Friday was our last port and we stopped at Grand Turk. This island is only 7 miles long and 1 mile wide. It was hit hard by hurricane on Oct. 16th and the day before we arrived, 100 palm trees were planted. Mike and all my brothers recently certified for scuba diving and this place is known for beautiful excursion dives. They went on two dives, the first at Coral Garden and then at English Point. They loved it and had a grand time exploring the world below. While the boys went scuba diving, the girls went shopping and found a great beach that was loaded with Conch Shells. You could just stand in the shoreline and some would wash up right to your feet. Others we would find the tip sticking out of the sand and we just would dig down in the sand to find these incredible sea shells.
Saturday was another day at sea and really was the really the first day we had bad weather. It was still warm, but rained off and on. Luckily, there was plenty to do on the ship. One thing we did, is that we took a tour of one of the ship’s kitchen. Amazing! Did you know that they use 2,000 lbs of potatoes a day and wash 20,000 glasses each day! I couldn’t believe how many people they cater to on these ships. It’s like a whole city. Our stateroom had a balcony and we could go outside, eat and watch the sun set. It was on the 14th floor, so we only had to go up 1 level to all the food and buffets. It was a little dangerous because I know we were eating about every 2 hours. Yum! Thanks to my sweet parents who made all the arrangements for this trip and Mike’s mom for helping us with the kids while we were gone. They had a vacation themselves and loved hanging out in Idaho. Also, to Ryan and Cody who stepped in at the last minute when we had a change of plans. We feel so lucky to belong to such great families!