Day 2-Key West, Florida

On our second day of the cruise we stopped at Key West, Florida. We started the day off by doing a Kayak Adventure. A small boat took us about 15 minutes away from the shore, then we kayaked around an island of mangrove trees, swam in the ocean a bit, then headed back. The area we kayaked in was quite shallow (2-3 feet in most areas) and had baby sharks swimming all over. I tried several times to take a picture of the sharks but they were faster than I was. It's quite a challenge to kayak, try to take pictures, and keep your camera dry all at the same time.

Here we are headed back to our ship. I'm sure we are discussing something extremely important, but I can't remember what it was. It was beautiful out there in the ocean and for a brief moment I wished the kids could be with to experience the beauty of it all.
This is a shot of us and the ship behind us, the Grandeur of the Seas. And it definetely is grand!

Our formal dinner that night had a little bit fancier dinner. This is escargo (snails for those of you who are uneducated like I was). It was drowning in butter and possibly cheese, but not too bad. It reminded me of mushrooms. When we were deciding what to order for our appetizers I asked the waiter, Roshan, how many snails were in one order. My friend Serg was deeply embarrassed and appalled that I referredto escargo as snails. How dare I!

Here is our nightly group shot out on the deck. It was kindof fun to be able to dress up each evening. And I must thank my dear friend Lisa Simpson for letting me borrow all her jewelry. Who knew I liked to wear it?! And yes, I did buy a new dress just for this occasion. Actually I bought two, but I could only wear one.

That night there was a karaoke shindig. There were some very good singers, some very bad singers, and a lot of surprises. Of course Serg was brave enough to get up and do a little number. And he also had the most people dancing along by the time he finished. He did a fantastic job and hopefully everyone back in his home church will get to watch their bishop singing and dancing to LaBamba! Also, this is so cool, the first guy to sing a song PROPOSED to his girlfriend at the end of it! He must've been practicing for a long time, because he knew the song like no other and didn't look at the words even once. It was so fun to watch something so sweet.

Day 1 - Leaving Fort Lauderdale

Our cruise departed from Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale, FLorida. There were about 2600 passengers and a couple hundred crew members (I forgot what they said). We had an inside stateroom on the fourth floor. There were 11 decks, in all.

This is a picture of our stateroom, 4763. Our friends, Sergio and Lisa Montes who went with us, were in the next room from us. These rooms are TINY, yet surprisingly sufficient. There was a lot of shelving, storage, and closet space. The bathroom was a bit small, but what can you expect.
Our luggage didn't arrive to our room until later that evening, which was a huge bummer becaue our swimsuits were not with us. However, as soon as the arrived I was in my suit and ready for the pool. Of course I couldn't actually get my hair wet because of our nice dinner that night.

As you can see, we left on September 11th. We saw this flying above us as we left the port. (It is being pulled by an airplane.)

Here is our first evening meal. We had so much fun dining with the same waiters each night and being able to order as many desserts, entrees, and appetizers we want. This is a 'lovely' shot of us (and Steve's pinky).

After dinner we enjoyed taking a walk out on the deck. The sunset was beautiful, but this might've been the only one we saw. We were usually eating during sunset time.

Pre Cruise in Fort Lauderdale

We left a day early for our cruise and spent an evening and morning in Ft. Lauderdale. Our first night there we ate a restaurant called Bimini's. It was a very fun and seafoody place and a bit pricy. But, as Steve liked to say on the whole vacation, "It's okay, we're on vacation." We first ordered giant shrimp cocktails. That doesn't mean the platter and/or amount of shrimp was giant it only means the shrimp itself were very large. I think there were...........5 pieces of shrimp for only a mere $12.00. I then ordered snapper with some mango sauce and Steve ordered swordfish. I won't even mention how much THAT was. However, it was quite tasty!

Here is a picture of our hotel that night, The Renaissance. We were on the 7th floor and had a great view of the city.

After dinner we walked around the hotel and found the pool with these nifty little chairs. Fairly cozy, but also slightly wet.

The next morning we took a walk down to the docks. You can't tell in this picture but IT WAS HOTTTTTTTTTTT! Okay, maybe not that hot, I believe about 85 degrees, but with the humidity it was HOTTTTTTTTTT! I almost bought a handkerchief just to wipe all the sweat off my face....very lady-like, I know.

Here good ol' Steven is getting ready to leave the hotel for the ship. He bought this awesome cruise hat at Walgreens across the street. He was quite happy with it and I'm sure his head was too.

Well there are many more pictures to post but I need to do them in phases. The actual cruise details will follow shortly.

Caribbean Cruise Teaser

Just wanted you all to know, because I know you are extremely worried about us, that we have arrived home safely from our western Caribbean cruise. This is a shot of us on an island in the Bahamas called Coco Cay. It's Royal Caribbeans private island of PURE FUN AND BEAUTY!! I'll get more pictures posted later (after my dear babysitter has left). Thank you Sally, we couldn't have done it without you!!