Spring Break Cruise

For Spring Break we road tripped it to Miami. Yes, I said road trip - it was a whoppin 18 hours. Thanks to James who drove most of the way, he is crazy!

We drove there to go on a Carribean Cruise with our friends James and Molly.

I would have posted sooner but got really sick after, hence the delay.

This is after 18 hours of driving. Can you tell?

Lots of caffeine and long talks to keep us going!

Leaving Miami this was the view from our ship

Hanging out on the deck til we could check into our rooms. Enjoying a little sun and soft serve.

That was Shayne's favorite part - Soft serve ice cream 24h a day. You better believe we took advantage of that! He will probably bleed soft serve for awhile.

It sure was refreshing when it was so hot out! ________________________________________

First stop was this private island in the Bahamas, it was absolutely beautiful! The crew from the ship came out and barbequed for us this day. Here we are on the tender heading out to the island. Some islands you have to take a small boat to get from the ship to there. We were lucky to only have to do that this one time. It's much nicer to just be able to get off the ship and walk off on on the island when we wanted rather than wait for a boat to taxi us back and forth.

Just Chillaxin!

First time in the water in almost a year, we were all very excited!

This picture doesn't even do it justice but the beach was lined

with hundreds of chairs and soooo many people.

And just in case you were wondering what happens when you don't wear sunscreen on your virgin white skin.

Exhibit A - Shayne's foot He was so burnt and had blisters everywhere! Luckily it peeled pretty quick so he wasn't too miserable.

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Next Stop was St. Thomas USVI.

They took us shopping for 2 hours then on a 2 hour island tour of all the sites , and then 2 hours of snorkeling on a secluded beach.

The picture of paradise - eating coconuts and pineapple on the beach. James served his mission out this way and so he felt right at home. He mingled with the locals and they loved him. I guess it's popular to drink the coconut juice and then scrape the jelly from the inside and eat it.

James claims the jelly is really good but don't believe him - so gross!!

This guy was selling stuff in the little street shops we went to

Nobody told me we were doing mean faces!

A few of the different views from the look out points on our tour - breathtaking!

Only in St. Thomas do you see someone walking around with a goat in tow!

So Random!

Part of the tour we went through a small nature preserve. It was so lush and beautiful. There were random parrots and birds throughout as well.

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Next up Puerto Rico

Here we were able to go to the only tropical rainforest in the US. It was just how I pictured a rainforest to be - amazing!

There were tons of these little guys running all over

There was an old observation tower at the top before we headed down through the rainforest

Here's a view from the top of the observation tower.

You could see the whole coastline too it was great!

Out one of the window in the observation tower

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Last stop Turks and Caicos

James and Molly went on a stingray excursion that we had alread done before so we rented a golf cart and went all over the island.

The coastline up by the conch gardens - they are known for conches here. This is where most of them come from

This was a really cool old lighthouse we found

Only in Grand Turks do you see random animals roaming around everywhere. This cow was just chillin in someone's yard!

Again so random!

We were laughing when we passed this really nice house with this sign in the front.

James and Molly forgot to mention they had a vacation home here! :)

________________________________________________________________ Of course there was fun to be had on the ship as well

Everynight in our statesroom they had turn down service. The workers left towels folded as animals. This bat was by far the coolest of them all! Not sure though I think he put a cigarette in his mouth? Weird!

They had a formal dinner twice while we were there. It was so fun to get dressed up and eat all the food we wanted

Not only did we get to enjoy March Madness on our ship but we got to do it in these really cool chairs watching a 12 x 24 foot screen - you can't beat that. These guys were in heaven!

Our dining team!! Vaughn from St. Vincent,and Nestor from the Phillipines, Julius (Caesar) from the Phillipines You have the same waitors every night and we absolutely loved ours! They were so entertaining, dancing and singing for us and doing magic tricks - they were the best

Best part of cruising is the great food and a lot of it

The boat had a theater called the Venetian with a different show every night. This was Kate and she was the main singer. She was absolutely amazing - soooo talented. The boys were her biggest fans!

Formal Night

Carnival Liberty - so sad to leave, can't wait for the next one!

Miami as we are sailing back. It may look pretty but not something we were excited to see since it meant our trip was over and we had an 18 hour drive ahead of us.

The drive back was definitely worse than the drive there!