I'm on a Boat, and...

Vacation Photo Dump

I need to get these photos posted so our families can see them...especially since our trip was a month ago now. We had a great and relaxing time. There was lots of eating, napping, reading, and staring at the ocean. While we enjoyed our first cruise, I think it'll be several years before we go again. We might have had more fun if we were able to participate in the more adventurous excursions, but of course, those were limited due to being pregnant.

Cococay, Bahamas

Our first port day was on Royal Caribbean's private island, Cococay, Bahamas. We decided early on that this would be our relaxing beach day. We had done some internet research (aka YouTube videos) that instructed us to walk to the last beach on the tiny island because the sand with softer and most people stopped walking after the first couple beaches. While we didn't have to fight any crowds and easily had our pick of beach chairs, it was incredibly windy. So windy, in fact, that we had to leave the island early because it was a tendered port and the boats were having a difficult time getting the passengers back to the ship. It was a good thing that we walked to the front part of the island for lunch or we might not have even known about this change! Blake had brought along some snorkeling gear borrowed from our friends, but the wind was stirring up the water so much it was difficult to see anything. We did have a couple hours to read and enjoy the view.

A view of Cococay from the tendered boat.

 This picture doesn't do the waves justice. This was taken from the tender boat on the way back to the ship. They were probably upwards of six feet high. Even though the tender boats were large, we were rocking!

San Juan, Puerto Rico

The boat was diverted to Nassau, Bahamas, for a couple emergency medical evacuations. This meant that we wouldn't make it to our next port, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, in time. Instead, we were rerouted to San Juan, which also meant picking a different excursion. Many were not an option for us due to their extreme sport adventure feeling (some would have been a blast!) so we settled on a walking tour of the city and of Castillo de San Cristobal, the fort built on the island by Spain finished around 1783. As my family knows, I love touring old house so I was pretty excited to visit a fort, something I hadn't experienced before. We were also looking forward to see the architecture of the city on the tour. Unfortunately, it was down-pouring that day. It was raining so hard that our tour was cancelled but we were given the choice of switching to a bus tour. We didn't really want to be on a bus with a hundred people being herded around, so we took our chances to wait it out in hopes it would stop raining, but never did. The street in front of the port was even flooded. We could see people wading in knee-deep water so we decided to just stay on the boat and not risk it. Luckily, we were able to get some photos of the island and fort as the ship came into the port to dock. 

Saint Martin, Caribbean

We were very excited about this port day because it felt like our last chance to really get out there and see and experience a new place. Plus, the excursion we booked was a few hours long and took us to both the Dutch and French sides of the island. The ship docked in Philipsburg, Sint Maarten, the capitol of the Dutch side. We disembarked the ship as soon as we docked so we could to a little shopping and exploring before our excursion started.

The view from our cabin as we came into port.

Our ship. It was large.

 It was about a mile walk from the dock into the actual town of Philipsburg, but for $7 per person for the day, you could purchase unlimited trips on the water taxi. We opted for that and it worked nicely because we made several trips. Here are some pictures from the taxi.

Below are some pictures of the town of Philipsburg.

After a little exploring, we took the water taxi back to the dock to meet our group for the excursion. It was a two-part bus and boat tour. The bus that took us through the Dutch side to the town of Marigot, the capitol on the French side of Saint Martin, where we then got on a boat with a glass hull to view fish and coral reefs. 

We weren't very good about taking photos on the ship, but it was massive and impressive. I loved the towel animals our cabin steward made and Blake caught some beautiful sunrises, so I had to share those too!