Cruisin’ Part Two: Two Days at Sea

Well after going over all the pics I wanted to post I figured I’d just show pics from our first two full days at sea in this post.

That first morning on the boat, we kind of established a bit of a daily routine. Brad, Jeff and I would go up to my parents’ room, and then we would grab my dad to go grab breakfast. My mom usually is a bit slow going in the morning (due to her arthritis it takes her awhile for her joints to kind of “warm up” and get her moving around, plus she just like to take her time putting on her makeup, etc )

After having hung out at the back of the boat the night before with my brother, we wanted to show Brad and Dad the view – and plus we just wanted see it in the daytime in general.

Have you ever seen water so blue?!

I took way too many pictures of the water - I'll just torture you with 2 of them

Of course we had to get a couple of photo ops!

Dad and "The Boys"

My brother though that this would be a cute pic - hehe, Brad's face makes me laugh here!

Of course it was so pretty outside, we thought we might hang out and relax for a few minutes – you know, to give mom a little more time to get ready!

Awwww...this is the life!

Brad's thinking about needing sunscreen here...

My dad just let it all hang out!

We spent some time walking around – just exploring the ship. Eventually we ended up in a bar of the ship that allowed smoking. The guys had already gone to find cigars and wanted to smoke them. Me, being the only non-smoker entertained myself with taking pictures!

Brad...getting all smelly! ><

All the smokers!

That night was the Captain’s reception and dinner.

My Uncle, Aunt, Mom, Dad, and Jeff

We went to dinner that night and then saw a show, but of course you’re really not allowed to take pics at the shows. So, we end day two with the Towel of the day…

Still not really sure...maybe a seal?

Day three was a lot of fun too. That day of course we went to my parents’ room first that morning and took a look out of the balcony.

Still water out there?

Yep...still just water!

That morning we all went and heard about all the shore excursions. Since we didn’t know where we were going until just a day before the cruise, we had no idea what there was to do! We had already signed up for shore excursions when we thought we were going to Mexico, so those had been refunded. After hearing about what all there was available, we decided that we would do the Irie Mon Beach Party in Montego Bay – this was something that the whole family could participate in, and we wanted to all stay together here since they kind of warned about going off on your own in Jamaica. For the Grand Cayman, we decided that we would all walk around the shops, and then Jeff, Brad and I would go scuba diving! I was so excited when they suggested it. I have always wanted to try it but I figured that Jeff and Brad wouldn’t go for it! I’ll have more about that later…

So after hearing about the excursions, we went down to sign up. The middle of the ship is really quite amazing to me – it’s got a huge open area that is about 7 decks or so high! We were on the bottom floor at the sign-up desk and I had to grab this shot of the skylight at the top.

So glad for beautiful weather!

After getting signed up, the guys practically ran to the casino to go and play, and the girls walked around doing a little shopping. That afternoon we found them out by the pool (I guess they had lost as much money as they had wanted? )

We are sun bathing beauties!

My Uncle Jesse was a little too worried about getting sun-burned, I think…

Sun is Bad!

So, of course we had to join them for awhile!

Ahh...sunglasses keep me from making weird-eyed faces!

After we were sufficiently sun-kissed, we all headed back to our rooms to shower and get ready for dinner – my brother had to do a few poses first though!

I want YOU to cruise with me!

Today's Drink Special is the Blue Margarita!

As we got ready to leave our room for dinner (which is the time when room turn-down service occurs, and towel creatures show up!), I decided to leave a towel creature for the staff (yes, this might have been due to blue margarita ingestion…):

My groovy "hi"

That night we just did the buffet for dinner, my mom was pretty beat after walking around and sun-bathing, so we just brought her something to eat back. Jeff was exhausted and SUN BURNED (he neglected the sunscreen), so he crashed, and so we all pretty much turned in early that night. We came back to our room and I was surprised with: