So we’re back!  We got back Friday night after a LOOONG day of travel delays due to snow all across the southeast.  So I’ll give you a run down – starting from the beginning.

Monday we went straight from the airport to our ship – the Norwegian Sky.  We got a fantastic deal on this cruise so we were able to get a balcony room, yay!

Once we got settled in our room we went up to the pool deck for the sail away party.  The sunset against the skyline of Miami was gorgeous!

The sail away party was fun, although a little chilly.  I also feel the need at this point in the story to take a little time out and tell all of you people who told me you can’t even feel the boat move that you lie (I’m looking at you Melanie).  From the moment we shoved off I could feel the ship moving and rocking.  I never got sick but I absolutely could feel it move.  After the party we headed for our first dinner – in The Crossings dining room.  This is also the only night I took a photo at dinner.  Every other night by the time we got to dinner it was dark outside already and I didn’t want to use my flash and disturb other people who were dining.

After dinner we explored the ship a bit.  Maybe we were lame but we really felt like there wasn’t a lot to do on the ship.  There was a smoke-filled casino where we played a few slots.

That got boring and had the potential to get expensive but fortunately (or unfortunately?) the smoke in the room was so bad we only stayed a few minutes.  On the other side of the casino was the Duty Free shop.  Not all that large of a shop but they did have just about everything you could want.  Except gum.  Some of you know my affinity for gum.  Well I ran out during our internment in the latter part of the week (which I will expand on later) and was HOT when I found out you could not purchase gum on the boat.  Seriously, you could purchase any kind of liquor you could think of but gum?  ”Sorry we don’t carry that. How about some Mentos?”  I don’t want no stinkin’ Mentos!!  Which by the way did you know that means stinky fart in Laotian??  Or at least that’s what John told me.  Anyway, I’m getting off track.  Basically our first night on the boat we discovered we were glad we booked a cruise with a port stop everyday because there was not a lot we were interested in doing on the boat.

The next morning we woke up to the sun rising and our ship pulling into the port of Grand Bahama Island.  I ventured out onto our our balcony to take a few photos.

The night before we booked our excursions for the week and on today’s schedule was a trip to the Garden of the Groves and Lucaya Beach.

Our boat used to sail around the Hawaiian Islands and when they moved it to the Caribbean they failed to redecorate, hence the giant leis painted on the side.

Self portrait at the port

Alright, John and I kinda have a thing for Gardens so there is an inordinate amount of pics from the Garden of the Groves.  My apologies

Creepy bird living in the garden that John insisted on taking a photo of

John walking the Labyrinth in the garden

Then we headed over to the beach, that was beautiful but windy and cold.  I don’t mean “breezy,” I mean 30 mph winds whipping through the palms.

After we went to dinner that night came the highlight of my cruise – the towel animal.  Yes, that’s right.  The towel animal was the highlight of my trip and I’m not ashamed of it.  I think he’s an elephant.  John said he was a dog.  What do you think?

The next morning things really started to go downhill. We woke up pulling into port again, this time in Nassau and all seemed fine at first.  There was even a really cool yacht parked near our balcony that John enjoyed drooling over.

More shots of our boat

Yet another self portrait

We were about an hour early for our excursion.  We thought it would be fun to do some people watching down at the port.  What we did not anticipate were the 30mph winds (again) that did not let up for even one minute for the entire hour.  This pretty well sums up my feeling on that.

Thankfully not too long after this photo we boarded our water taxi for the Atlantis Hotel.

It was just beautiful, inside and out.

We especially enjoyed the aquarium.

Their private beach looked incredible.  I think if we ever go back to the Bahamas I’d like to skip the cruise and just stay here

Probably my favorite pic from the trip – us on the boat ride back from Atlantis.

That night back on the boat, we were greeted by another towel animal (yay!!).  Except it was exactly like the animal from the night before.  Apparently our towel animal maker only knew how to make elephant-dogs.

The next morning was supposed to be our day on NCL’s private island – Great Stirrup Cay.  Well it was too windy to anchor the boat and ferry onto the Island so instead we ended up with a “fun day at sea.”  Only it really wasn’t so fun.  It was too cold to get in the pool.  It was too cold to lay out on the deck.  By this time I was tired of the food.  Basically, it just sucked.  The one thing we were looking forward to were reservations as one of the up-charge restaurants for dinner – Cagney’s.  It’s their version of  a steak house.  The food was good, especially the dessert sampler, but it would have been a lot more enjoyable if we had not been seated in the portion of the restaurant that was only a thin curtain away from the Karaoke bar.  Listening to “IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADA” being shouted by a bunch of drunk people kinda kills the romantic restaurant vibe, ya know?  Anyway, that brings me to the last photo of our trip.  We dressed up for that dinner but weren’t able to find anyone to take a decent photo of us, so yet again you get a self portrait.

We may not have had the most enjoyable cruise experience, but we still had a great time spending time with each other and overall I’m glad we went  Hope you enjoyed the run down and photos!