The Last Day of the Cruise

We woke up on the last day of the cruise and we were nearing port.  We had breakfast and then grabbed our luggage and headed to the meeting area we were told to goto for our shuttle transfer to the airport.  We had to wait a bit since we were delayed getting into port.  Getting through customs was a bit of a production but it could have been much worse than it turned out to be.  We actually didn’t take the bus to the airport like we had originally setup.  We were concerned about making our flight so we grabbed a cab since the cab line wasn’t so bad.

The return flight home was uneventful and our fantastic cruise was over!

My First Cruise Day 4

Day 4 was thankfully less eventful than the 3rd day.  We docked in Cozumel Mexico.  We woke up to seeing a near identical ship out of the porthole.  Turned out the Voyager of the Sea’s docked slightly earlier than we did.  At breakfast we also saw two other much smaller carnival cruise ships in port.

We decided on a low key day and after brief browsing of the stores near the dock to hop a cab to a private beach.  We got some chairs in the shade and just relaxed.  We waded in the warm water, had a great lunch and just unwound.  It was really fun.  We took a cab back to the boat early and then relaxed in the pool some more.

It was really cool to watch the Voyager pull out of port.  They backed the ship out of the dock like you would back your car out of a garage.  It was very impressive to see that kind of precision with a ship that was over 100,000 tons displacement.

We had dinner in the dinning room.  All around great day.

My First Cruise Day 3

Day 3 was a bit interesting.  It was our first port call.  We went to the Caman Islands.  We didn’t end up at the part of the island we were supposed to due to bad seas.  Our shore excursion was also canceled.  We ended up taking a cab to the downtown area we were supposed to goto.  We bought some rum cakes and walked around a bit.

Neither of us were up for much shopping.  We then took another cab to a beach nearby.  We had lunch and then tried to go snorcleing on a boat since that was what our original excursion was supposed to be.  Big mistake.  We should have realized that the seas beging so rough was a good reason not to go.  I was already fighting a migraine and took something for it at lunch.  Once we got on the little boat and it rocked around while at anchor I knew we had made a bad choice.  There was no turning back so we went on our way.  I got sick real quick.  I spent the rest of the short trip lying on the bow of the boat trying to rest.  As it turns out the seas were too rocky for M also and she couldn’t really snorkel that much in the choppy sea’s.

We then headed back to the beach.  For me the damage was already done and i having a full blown migraine.  M was a total trooper.  She got us into a cab/van back to the dock.  I barely made that trip.  She cut the entire line through customs and onto the tender back to the boat.  It was a long line, but i guess people are generally good and didn’t say anything when she was trying to get a sick person back to the boat.  I was able to lie down while on the tender and was very happy to be back in our air conditioned room so I could nap.

After a few hours nap I did feel totally normal.  Or well enough that we went to eat dinner in the dinning room.  We skipped the dinning room the 2nd night and on this night it turned out that the 4 other people at our table had skipped so we had the entire table to ourselves.  Overall it was a fantastic night, but not so great day!

My First Cruise Day 2

The 2nd day of our cruise was really the first full day.  It was also a full day at sea.  The weather was much nicer than it was in Florida.  The morning was laid back.  We had breakfast at the windjammer and then I had an acupuncture appointment.  I had always wanted to try it so when we did the tour of the spa I signed up for one.  M worked out a bit when I was in the spa.

We had a relaxing lunch and then hung by the pool a little and also explored the ship.  The Navigator was huge.  I read up a lot about it before hand since i am interested in cool technology.  This ship was impressive.

For dinner we decided to skip the dinning room and hit up the steak house.  It was for an extra fee but well worth the price.  We had a great time.

My First Cruise Day 1

Off on my first cruise.  M and I are taking the Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Sea’s to the Western Caribbean for 5 nights.  With the exception of rediculous traffic that was a close call to getting to the plane on time we had an uneventful flight.

The port was 15 minutes away from the FT. Lauderdale airport so it was a quick trip to the ship.  I was getting over a cold so they required that i be looked at by a nurse before we got on the boat.  I was fine so i breezed through that.

Right when we got on the boat we got our cards we could use to charge anything with.  What was cool was they took our photo so they can verify it is us anytime durring the trip.  I thought that was neat.  We got there a bit early before our room was ready so we headed to the windjammer for lunch.  The view was spectacular even though we were sitting in port.  The buffet was really nice also.

We brought our bags with us instead of checking them so once 1PM rolled around we were able to head down to our room.  We wanted cabin with an outside view but didn’t want to go crazy on cost so we ended up with a cabin on deck 2 with just a porthole.  It was ok.  I think we both imagined much worse.

Once we were settled in to the cabin we had several hours before ship left port.  We both wanted to schedule appointments at the spa so we went up to check it out.

It had been raining on and off all day in South Florida but when the doors opened on the elevator and we walked out onto the deck for the first time is a sight i wont quickly forget.  It was spectacular.  Just the open deck looking out on the water.  Even with the bad weather it was still a sight to see.  We did a quick tour of the spa and each scheduled some appointments.  M actually went right away and did something.  We just relaxed the rest of the day and had a great dinner meeting our table mates for the first time.