Pool @ our Hotel in Cape Canveral
playing @ Cocoa Beach before boarding the boat
Leaving Cape Canaveral on Freedom of the Seas, biggest cruise ship from 2006 to 2010. In 2010 the Oasis of the Seas (also a Royal Carribean ship) was built...so now it's the 2nd largest cruise ship.
Cool Wake behind the boat
The "Promenade" or the main walkway through the ship. It was on deck 5 and those windows on the side are decks 6, 7, & 8
Another shot of the promenade when they had booths set up. Also there is a really cool statue of a mermaid coming out of the ceiling.
Our room was on Deck 7. in the front of the boat. We had an inside cabin (no balcony over the ocean), but it was nice that it was pitch black at night. Assisted in us sleeping in :)
Pic of Branden on our deck
Pic of our room...7217 baby!
On the 2nd day we arrived at the Royal Caribbean-owned island in the Bahamas called CoCo Cay. Since there is no port there we had to ride over on the tender boat seen below. The tender boat looks tiny, but it's deceiving. Just shows how huge the cruise ship is and how high up we were when we took this pic. (Deck 11)
Us arriving at CoCo Cay on the tender boat. (Day 2)
Pic of us on the dock @ CoCo Cay with our ship, Freedom of the Seas in the background. (and yes, 90% of pictures of me show my hair hating the humidity. Branden lovingly named it my "mufasa" hair).
We paid $20 to walk in the "Walk for Make-a-Wish" to raise money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. We actually Met a family that was there with their daughter on a Make-a-Wish cruise when we 1st got on the boat.
Me "stand-up surfing" on the Flowrider that was on the top deck (13 I think) at the back of the ship.
Branden Body Boarding. We learned that the FlowRider pumps spit out enough water to drain an Olympic-sized pool in under 2 minutes. The wave was 3 inches thick. The FlowRider on this boat costs $1.3MM. The #1 Flowrider Femal in the US (not sure how you get this title) was on our cruise and they had a few "exhibitions" where she showed her stuff. Pretty cool.
Every night the housekeepers put towel creatures in our room and if we left sunglasses out, those went on the animals.
You can also see the "Cruise Compass" newsletter on the bed. We got one of those each night too. It told where we would be the next day, sunrise/sunset times, time of arrival @ our destinations, time to be back on the boat and had a schedule of about 60 different activities happening on the ship the next day.
This night the sunset was sooo pretty. Problem was it was really windy and (on Deck 4) the spray from the waves and the wind was blowing on our cameras. So by the time we got a decent pic without water splashes, the sun was almost gone.
Playing Shuffleboard on deck 4 after dinner. We played a couple nights (by "we" I mostly mean Branden and Coby)
Day 4 we arrived in St. Thomas. I LOVE these pictures of the harbor. Gorgeous!
@ St. Thomas we paid for a "Beach and Snorkel Tour". We got on a tour boat and went for 35 minutes to the island of St. John. It was cool to be in the ocean in the caribbean with little islands everywhere. St John has some of the most beautiful Beaches in the world.
Harbor @ St. John.
This is Trunk Bay. Since St. Thomas & St. John are US territories, this beach is a National Park. About 2/3 of St. John is National Park or Nature Preserve. We went down to that beautiful white sandy beach, got snorkel gear & instruction, and then we snorkeled around the base of the little isalnd in the bay. There were plaques on the ocean floor that labeled the coral that we saw and there were plaques with pics of the fishes that hung out there. We saw sea urchins, all colors of fish, and we even saw 2 stingrays. The stingrays freaked us out and we remained perfectly still! We only got to snorkel for about 45 minutes since Trunk Bay was the last beach on our tour.
us @ the lookout over Trunk Bay
Day 5 we arrived in St. Maarten/St. Martin (Maarten=Dutch side, Martin=French side)
We shopped in this weird tourist shop place that was right on the pier. We got the YUMMIEST coconut shakes here.
Our excursion on St. Maarten was actually on the St. Martin (French) side, so since the port is on the St Maarten (Dutch) side, we rode a tour bus for about 30 minutes to a tropical rainforest zipline place (Lotrie Farm). It was more like a 30 section obstacle course (I wasn't particularly fond of the activity, but everyone else liked it. I want beaches and sand...not a harness and boob sweat). But it was really pretty.
We found this cool swing there. (This is Coby & Callee)
Our turn!
We couldn't take our camera on the zipline obstacle course, so this it the only pic we have of "zipping". Branden found this miny Zip line by the cool swing.
Cool Bamboo @ Lotrie
This little dirt road running through the tree farm was so picturesque! There were little chickens in the middle of the road by the tree. It was so quaint I just had to have a pic of us there. (The chickens were gone by then)
Cute pic of us @ dinner. We had to kind-of dress up each night. We also had 2 formal nights. This was way dressed up compared to the swimsuit, tank top, and flip flops we were used to.
Us on the staircase by our dinner table.
We were close to the middle of the dining room. This was my view from my seat every night. We had the same table every night. It was a table of 4 which was nice so we only had to sit with Coby & Callee.
Our Waiter was Claudette from Jamaica (really from Jamaica) and her assistant waiter was Frans Anthonio (from indonesia). She was all business, but Frans was hilarious. His English was broken enough that he was hilarious and sometimes he would pretend he was in a rap video and point at us with fake guns. He also taught us a magic trick one night that took us forever to learn (and he wouldn't leave until we could all do it). He was one of the best parts of the cruise.
So, we went to a Quest gameshow. We were broken into teams and had to find stuff in 60 seconds (5 womens bras, lipstick, fake teeth, etc.) But when we got to "Studio B" where it was at, there was about 15 minutes left of the activity before which was 1980s dance night. We sat in our chairs for about 5 minutes, but when they started playing Michael Jackson songs, Branden couldn't resist. He hopped over the class wall/railing and went down on the dancefloor to join in the fun. Here Coby and Branden are danging to one such MJ song.
This was half of the main pool. the area in front of the metal ladder is only like 3 inches of water, so you could lay there in the water and read, or get a tan or something without being all the way "in the pool". Up by the yellow dot is a stage where they had live bands play in the daytime while we swam. The area in front of the stage and to the right of the pool was a runway that split the main pool in half. This is where they hosted events in the daytime like the Men's Sexy Leg Contest and the Belly Flop Contest (which were both way funny).
This is me (in the pink tanktop by the gold trees) @ the Adult Only pool that has a swim-up bar under that bridge.
This is the kiddie pool. I liked to read in one of these lawn chairs and then go walk through the "spray" in the kiddie pool to cool down. Under those white canopies are hot tubs (which were mostly full of adults drinking ALOT & watching their kids play in the kiddie pool)
On the last day (day 7) Branden fell asleep in front of a pillar hoping to get some shade. He did get some shade, but his legs got burned. He was so mad that he got burned on the last day. He wasn't burned bad and it was only on the front side of his legs from his knee down to his ankles, but by that evening he was sure that he was having heat-stroke and was going to die. He is such a baby about sunburns.
This was Sorrento's. You could go there anytime and get pizza for free (well, I guess you pay for all of your food with your cruise ticket, but this was no additional charge). The problem with having our main dinner at 8:30 every night was that we were hungry at 5:30. So....we usually went to Sorrento's to down a couple pieces of pizza before going to a show or getting ready for dinner.
This is one of the "canilevered" hot-tubs. It is suspended over the side of the ship, so there's nothing between the hot tub and the ocean but 11 floors of air :). It was cool to sit in the hot tub and look at the ocean at night.
After we got off of the boat, we had like 8 hours until our flight left...so we went to the Kennedy Space Center since we were already in Cape Canaveral. When we got there, the BASIC tickets just to get inside and walk around were $40! So, we just took some pictures and got back in the car and drove to the ariport in Orlando where we hung out for a couple hours :). Notice Branden is wearing pants so his "really bad sunburn" wouldn't be exposed to the sun. We loved our trip (beside a pesky cough that Branden got and motion sickness for both of us a few times). We can't wait to go again....maybe on Oasis of the Seas next time ;)
