NCQUILTER: Mother's Day gift of a cruise

TJ gave me an extravagant gift of a 7-day cruise for Mother's Day. I was skeptical at first, because I am NOT a water person, but I decided to face a lifelong fear a second time....last year was first with a water rafting event on the Nantahala River....this year, a cruise to the Bahamas and US Virgin Islands.

I can not begin to tell you how much I wish I had done this before. It was so much fun!! I have a lot of pictures to post and stories that go with them. I will go ahead and post most of them, but until I get permission from my "cruise partner", some will have to wait.

Our ship was the Carnival Dream, and it certainly was that. When I accepted the invitation from TJ, I told her it all seemed like a dream and she responded that she was glad I didn't use the word "nightmare"....haha! It was beautiful in every way, and the staff was very pampering! The food was excellent, and the activities and shows were amazing! There was not a minute we were not busy unless we were sleeping at night!

Our Ship

Waiting to sail

Port Canaveral Harbor

Millikin's Reef Restaurant

We went here on our Girl's Week-end one year

Boats watching the ships leave....waving to us (Disney was docked there too)

Out to sea now..view from the buffet seating area, "The Gathering"

We sailed out of Port Canaveral to Nassau, our first stop. We did not plan an excursion for this stop, so just got off the ship and looked at the city. LOTS of shopping....we bought nothing! We could see Atlantis as we came into port.

Atlantis in the distance

the main street in Nassau

An "adults only" club that we peeked into.....the show was definitely "adult", which is OK, but it was mid-day and very hot and the place smelled like sour alcohol.. YUCK!! We didn't stay.

The roof of the club above the dj's

the view of our ship from Nassau waterfront

Beautiful Carribean waters..so clear

First time ever my toes have been painted anything other than red, pink or coral! I like it!

Every night while we were at dinner, our room steward made animals out of towels for our enjoyment! We had the late seating in the restaurant, so we always came back after a 10:30 show to be surprised by his talents! The ship even had a "towel folding class" the day before we came home so we could astound our own guests one day...haha!

Amazed by the water color. The Atlantic was a dark royal blue and the ship's wake was a beautiful turquoise.

This was the pool at the stern...it was the smaller of the two pools on the ship. Umbrellas were hard to come by, so we usually hovered near so when someone left, we could move in. One day was too windy, so the umbrellas were not allowed to be open.

Since we had reserved dining, we had the same team of waiters the whole time, so we got to know each other. They were GREAT bunch of kids from the Phillipines. I would have adopted all of them and they would have come, too.. haha! This is Nino, our head waiter....been doing this for 10 years for 6 months at a time. He misses his family! (sad face) Every dinner was punctuated by the staff asking us to join into a dance or song.

Second towel creation (the eyes and nose are pieces of paper)

Coming into St. Thomas

Resort that greets the sailors as they round the channel

St. Thomas from the surrounding hills

Excursion to Megan's Bay...beautiful beach!

Megan's Bay

I found it odd, having lived in FL (so flat with the beaches) and now NC (mountains but NO beaches) that these islands have both. I loved it!

"Bus" from ship to beach and back. Made stops on the way back to the port.

Local Celebrity with his dressed up donkey.

Looking down from the hills

Blackbeard's

Blackbeard and his castle (he was imprisoned here below ground)

After touring historical houses, we headed back down to the water and were surprised by an iguana scampering up a palm tree. He was moving fast so I missed getting him in full.

Roosters and chickens were roaming free everywhere.....they use them for pest control...apparently they eat roaches, too!! Yeah, my Florida friends need to get roosters instead of pest control...HAHA

After shopping a little at what resembled a "flea market/art festival", it was time to return to the ship. We had had a full day on St. Thomas. Seems the main thing is shopping for jewelry...gold and diamonds. They took us back to the ship via a 26-foot catamaran. No sails, just motor power. She said if they put the sails up on this big baby on this windy day, we would be PASSED the ship in a few seconds!

Heading back to the ship

Leaving St. Thomas at sunset

Sunset in St. Thomas

Nightfall in St. Thomas

Moon over St. Thomas

Third towel creation

After St. Thomas, we had a "fun day at sea" while traveling to St. Martin. We woke up to see every pool chair with a towel creation on it! How delightful!!

Sting Ray

Turtle

Frog

Toad

Coming into St. Martin

St. Martin

St. Maarten (dutch) and St. Martin (french).....they greeted us at the dock with a steel drum band. Brought home a CD for DJ, my drummer! Our excursion on St. Martin was the windiest day of the trip and we planned a kayak event!! Needless to say, I was useless (major blister from rowing) and TJ had to row the whole way back. It was tough, but the beach we went to was beautiful (and almost void of people)!

Two of our three kayak guides...

Our guides were very knowledgeable about the history and ecology of this island. We were supposed to see a lot of wildlife on our kayak adventure, but with so much wind, it didn't come to pass. They, apparently, have a very colorful jellyfish in the waters there that has a slight (not lethal) sting and it is beautiful.

Now, we have left St. Martin and are headed back to Port Canaveral. We will have two "fun days at sea".

This is the Karaoke Lounge. The night before the last show, people auditioned to be in the show. There was Elvis, Madonna, Brittaney Spears, Ricky Martin, James Brown, and Aretha Franklin. Some were really good. others not so much.

Ceiling of the Karaoke Lounge

Fourth Towel Creation

Another of our wait staff, Hernando

Eric, our third waiter

Ship's theatre, we were not allowed to take pics of the shows.

Ceiling of the theatre

theatre ceiling lights all around

another towel creation (we had 7 in all, but he left only the last four intact)

There was also an elephant and a bunny .

On our last day at sea, we were determined to get chairs by an umbrella, so we got up early, rode the elevator up 10 floors, and this is what we saw!

Pouring rain! There were two other girls in the elevator with us who had the same idea....we all laughed and said we should have just stayed in bed! After having breakfast we were able to go out and get one easily because most everyone had given up and gone back to do something else!

Mid-ship pool (largest of the two) always crowded. Pool games going on....diving for spoons...girls against the boys.

They had a "whodunit" to solve and TJ won a trophy for the right answer. They delivered it to our room right before dinner one night. She was also in a flash mob on the next to last day, but until I get permission to post the pics/videos, you will have to imagine it. It was fun...on the mid-ship pool deck. We called it a "mini-mob" because there were only about 20 of us.

TJ knows how to make bowties out of bills, so she fashioned these for the towel creations for our steward.

Along with this commendation letter for him. I think he was from Malaysia. Most of the staff that I saw was either from Eastern Europe countries or the Phillipines.

This was his last creation in response to TJ's bowties. He always left us each a piece of chocolate every night too.

Our staff/friends sang "Leaving on a cruise ship" (Leaving on a Jet Plane tune). You can see Nino folding a napkin "mindlessly" while the song is in progress. He's done it so long, he doesn't even have to look at it. Here are Nino, Hernando, and Eric doing their song and dance for us!!

The next morning, we docked about 8:30, but we were zone 32 to get off, so we played ping-pong, and walked around for one last look and talked about when we would do it again.

After coming back to Port Canaveral and driving back to Orlando, we had four days to fill, so we spent one of them with Andrea, Steve, and the kids at their house and on their local beach. Had a great lunch cook-out, swimming, and playing, and then went to dinner at the Sandbar restaurant on Bradenton Beach. YUM!!!! The wait for outside was 2 hours, so we spent time playing on the beach, with TJ trying to teach everyone how to do a handspring. I think Andrea has all those pics to share.

Playing in the pool with Dad