As promised, I'm back with some pictures from our honeymoon and a little breakdown of what we did throughout the week of Thanksgiving. Firstly, let me introduce you to our home for the week:
Welcome to the Freedom of the Seas from Royal Caribbean. This ship was huge! Granted, it was only the second cruise the hubby or I had ever been on. The Freedom is part of the Freedom Class of ships, which means its one of RC's second largest ships. The only ones larger are the Oasis and Allure, both of which we are dying to go on soon! Anyways, I'm not going to get into details about the ship itself, but if you're interested in checking out this ship a little more, you can head over here to do that.
We left out of Port Canaveral which was really convenient. It's about 2 hours from our apartment, but only an hour from our parents. So, we drove to my in-laws and then they drove us to the port. Which meant no parking fees! Woo hoo! Here we are getting ready to go through security and check-in.
It was a 7 day cruise which left from Port Canaveral, over to Coco Cay, Bahamas (which is a private island owned by RC). After that we were on the boat for a day until we reached St. Thomas in the the US Virgin Islands. The next day we were in St. Maarten. And our trip ended with 2 solid days at sea as we made our way back to Port Canaveral.
We went kayaking in Coco Cay and then relaxed in one of the hammocks for a couple hours before heading back to the ship for lunch. They served lunch on shore, but it was the same stuff you get on the ship, and I personally didn't want to risk getting sand in my food from eating outside on a picnic table.
Like I said, their was a day at sea after the Bahamas. We used the day to explore the ship a little bit. I think my favorite part, as weird as it sounds, was that every day they changed the carpeting in the elevators.
In St. Thomas we went snorkeling at Turtle Cove. It was awesome! It's basically a turtle sanctuary and let me tell you - the turtles were beautiful! I didn't know that sea turtles breathed oxygen. But that comes in handy because typically if you're snorkeling, you're simply floating at the surface - not getting very close to the turtles munching on grass at the bottom. But, when they come up for air, they get super close.
The next day in St. Maarten started off on a rocky foot. It was my fault... I woke up in a crabby mood. When we got there, all I wanted was a Christmas ornament. See, that's sorta my thing when we travel. I like to collect Christmas ornaments each year and then when I put them on the tree each December, I like to think back to the fun times we had on the trip. Sadly, the port in St. Maarten wasn't exactly the "it" spot for shopping. The only ornament I found was priced at a ridiculous rate and it put me into a worse mood than I woke up in. Note to self: when travelling to St. Maarten, bring along a few extra bucks to take a cab or water taxi to decent shopping areas.
Anyways, our excursion at this port of call was called Discover Scuba Diving. Basically, it was a course for people who were not scuba certified but still interested in taking a dive. To me it was perfect - certification courses can be expensive, and I didn't want to spend that kinda money without knowing if I'd even like it or not. The hubby on the other hand was ecstatic and couldn't wait to get underwater. I still feel bad that I made the day so crummy beforehand, but I'm glad that things perked up once we got on the boat. Needless to say, it was amazing! It took me a little while to get use to the breathing apparatus - the hubby was practically already a pro with his previous firefighting training. But once I got use to everything, it was so cool to be that up close & personal with the fish.
It was also Thanksgiving night, though oddly enough, not a formal night on board. We ate dinner alone...again. I thought we had signed up for a larger table so that we'd have people to talk to at dinner. But we ended up at a table for four, but our other guests never showed up. One night we did have company - a nice couple from New York who decided to go to a later dinner time so that they could catch the earlier show. It didn't exactly feel like Thanksgiving. Sure, they had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberries, but it just wasn't the same. No family. No smells of the kitchen. And it was all so formal. I dunno, but to me Thanksgiving is a very down-to-earth holiday in my family. But I must say it was nice to be able to spend our first Thanksgiving as a married couple as just that - a married couple.
After St. Maarten we had two days at sea. Honestly at this point I was a little bored with the ship, but we made the best of it. Then the last day I got really sea sick and stayed in bed most of the day. Anyways, here's some other random pictures from our trip in no particular order.
So that's a recap of our honeymoon in pictures. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip. We've only ever sailed on Royal Caribbean, but I definitely recommend them if you're looking to go cruising. We're even thinking about talking the family into doing another Thanksgiving cruise - we'll keep you posted if we book another cruise.
Other than that, not a whole lot has been going on. We've purchased a few new things for the apartment and we've decorated a little bit for Christmas. I'm going to try and get another post done tonight or tomorrow with pictures of our new stuff and fill you on our most recent big purchase. We're so excited! Until then...
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