Cruise

At the end of June, we went on a 4-day cruise vacation. We went with Brett and Rachel (Bryce's brother and his wife). It started in Miami, went to Key West for about half a day, then to Cozumel, Mexico for a day, then back to Miami.

We had a great time exploring Miami beach for a couple days before we left on the cruise. We started our Miami experience at a Cuban restaurant in Miami beach. It made me miss the sweet plantains we ate all the time in Venezuela!



The coconut shrimp at Bubba Gumps restaurant is soooo good.



The cruise itself was very relaxing. None of us had ever been on a cruise. The food was good and it was really nice to do absolutely nothing.


We sun bathed on the waterslide deck almost the whole time. It was fun watching all the kids. The cruise was a lot more family-friendly than I thought it would be.

We enjoyed a couple comedy shows, a dancing/singing show, and really good break dancers.

It was really fun to dress up for the formal Captain's dinner.




The ship decor made us feel like we were high rollers especially at night.


Our room was bigger than I thought it would be. We were in the VERY front of the ship (the last room at the very end of the hall). It got a little noisy and I think we could probably feel more rocking than other parts of the ship. BUT truth be told, we kind of liked being rocked to sleep.




We had a fun time in Key West renting bikes and riding around the area for a couple hours.




Key West has true free range chickens all over the place. They go wherever they like and are actually protected by law.


The line to get back on the ship (it was a little like sheep being herded)...



In Cozumel, we went on an excursion with Carnival on a catamaran boat for snorkeling and an hour at a beach with blow up water toys. I think it was worth doing an organized excursion with the ship rather than trying to find one on our own (which I initially wanted to do). It was really fun and went by too quick!






It was a really fun vacation. I was nervous that I would be seasick, but it was fine, even the one day when we definitely felt the boat rocking quite a bit. I think that 4 days was a good amount of time for us to be on the cruise. We decided that cruises would be most fun with a bunch of friends altogether. We also decided that a cruise isn't our preferred vacation, we'd rather do our own thing and explore where we are at our own pace and try different restaurants out, but nonetheless, we had a great time!

So, Bryce and I actually DROVE to Miami from Blacksburg. All 14 hours of it. The drive home felt a lot longer than the drive there. We did have some great moments on the ride back to the Burg. They mainly consisted of this:


Bryce proclaimed this "the best Big Mac he has ever tasted." So I had to take a (big) bite. And it was in fact the best Big Mac (of the 2 that I have eaten in my life).


I had a smoothie and a hamburger. Did you know a hamburger is mainly just bread and meat? It looks pretty measly compared to the Big Mac.



This is weird and makes me regret my decision.

This was an awesome sunset that we enjoyed (while in traffic) over Lake Norman.