We took a drive down A1A, which is the highway that runs along the coast of Florida, all the way down to the Keys. We started at West Palm Beach and had fun checking out the outrageous real estate, then a detour diverted us back to the highway. We then went on what was almost a wild goose chase looking for an XD card reader so we could transfer photos to my laptop in case there was a camera malfunction...luckily we found a Best Buy and picked one up because the camera ended up giving us an error message and we had to reset it! We made our way to return the rental car and grabbed a cab to the port. It had been a very overcast day up to that point and since we were on the water, a strong wind had kicked up as well. We started off by checking out the ship and getting a tour of the spa. Yeeeeah, we were easy prey for the spa staff. They had free samples of a hot stone massage. Brady loved it and went back for seconds. I found it a little painful because my neck and shoulders are really sensitive. They showed us the VIP thermal suite, which was WONDERFUL. It had warm stone beds, a steam room, "the dishwasher room" (it was a small steam room that was about as steamy as they get and when the door opened looked like a dishwasher opening), a sauna, a waterfall shower, a mist shower, and access to the quiet zone sanctuary, which had cabanas and lounge chairs for sun bathing. We were doing the tour with a pair of women we would run into constantly throughout the cruise and we all ended up signing up for the thermal suite access.
We also entered the raffle for free spa treatments. A surprisingly high number of people no-showed for the raffle giveaway. I won and was present :)
Once we set sail, it was time to muster. Yeah, we're good musterers.
Our first stop was Princess Cays. We were scheduled to go on a one-tank dive at a nearby island, but apparently we weren't meant to go on the dive. It was very overcast...and I forgot my dive card in the stateroom safe. We approached the dive boat operator to see if they'd make an exception. Funny thing about this guy--when we were standing on the dock and he was in the boat, he looked like he would be a really big tall guy. He got out on the deck and he's at least a foot shorter than me. You had to be there, but after he told us he couldn't make an exception and we were walking away, we both agreed his height definitely threw us off.
We did have a nice ride out and back on the tender boats. This was our only port that used them. It was very choppy water though.
After Princess Cays, we had one at sea day and we went to the dining room for the first time. Otherwise, we just relaxed. We went to our first art auction of the cruise. There were 5 total and we had perfect attendance. At this first auction, we ended up winning two pieces of art, but these were not what we ended up with. They brought out different pieces at each auction and thank goodness for their flexible purchase terms because we ended up with pieces we love. I'll have pictures in another blog.
So the next island on the itinerary was St. Thomas. We decided to make it a beach day. We boarded a pickup truck converted into a five row taxi to Magen's Bay. When we arrived, there were about 8 people total on the beach. It was a calm beach, the waves were really gentle. We just mellowed out, laid out for awhile and read, got some drinks from the bar down the way, and after we felt like we had gotten plenty of sun, we took a few quick pics and headed back toward the ship to do some shopping.
We had to use a flash in the shade...it looks like Brady is standing in front of a studio backdrop :)
Me on the bench.
On the way back, our taxi driver gave us a little tour. This is one of the very old castles on the island.
A fantastic scenic outlook. Michael Jordan's house is down this hill.
View to the port. The Carnival ship was following us from port to port.
St. Thomas is probably the best island for shopping. (I'm referring to the shopping close to the ship, not the marketplace downtown..we decided not to go "downtown") The shops are very nice, clean, air-conditioned, and there isn't any high pressure sales. I ended up getting a cute dress at one of the shops, which I wore a lot during the cruise.
Speaking of purchases, allow me to introduce you to Floppy. I would be referring to my hat. We picked it up at Adventureland at Disney, along with an I heart pandas shirt (it's the World Wildlife Fund symbol) on clearance. Floppy was really helpful for laying out on the beach and keeping my face in the shade. It ended up getting kind of mishapen in my beach bag though. This picture was taken in the back of the converted pickup truck.
That night we went to see Mamma Mia in the Princess Theatre. We saw it before, but it's a good movie...if you don't mind Pierce Brosnan getting a wee bit pitchy :)
The next part of our honeymoon blog includes Antigua (our zip line tour) and Barbados (our favorite port!)
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