Matt had been wanting to try out a cruise for many years. So in 2018 we had celebrated our 10 year anniversary, I had turned 40 and we paid off our house. So we figured it would be a good reason to celebrate with a cruise. After a lot of research we decided on a Carnival cruise to the Bahama islands.
Our room was amazing and we made sure to have a deck. So that when the kids went to bed, but we were not ready to sleep yet, Matt and I went out on the deck to talk or read. Here is Matt and the kids exploring the deck before we left the dock.
The kids loved the food on the ship. However, no matter how many different foods they could have they always got the same thing. Glen: breakfast was a turkey sandwich, Lunch was always ham and cheese sandwich, Supper was always shrimp cocktail and cheese pizza. Oh and a lot of ice cream.
Grace always had cereal for breakfast, grilled cheese for lunch, and supper was always shrimp cocktail and chicken tender, and also a lot of ice cream. Matt and I really enjoyed the many different kinds of food.
There was an arcade on the ship and we went one day and the kids each got to choose 2 games to play. It was a fun but LOUD place to go. Here the kids are playing air hockey.
The cruise was 8 days and 7 nights long. So there were two dress up, fancy supper, nights. Here was an attempt at a selfie during that first fancy supper.
This cruise was one of the few times that Matt has felt free to wear his Hawaiian shirt that he got from Hawaii ten years prior. The other fun thing is that we found that some groups that were also on the cruise had hidden rubber ducks around the boat. We were to find them and rehide them for someone else to find and enjoy. It was a fun game to play during the week.
Here is a good picture of the kids during one of the fancy dinner nights.
Here is the best family picture that we had during one of those fancy dinner nights.
In our room we had a queen bed. We also had a couch that turned into a bed. And finally we had a twin bed that came out from the ceiling. It was the favorite place for the kids to gather and play. They also met a friend on the boat so when he came over we would always find them on the top bunk in the room.
Grace and Glen, ready for bed (but both hanging out in Grace's bed)
The is from the lobby of the ship. This is looking at all of the windows for each floor, and the glass elevators. This sight of looking at all of the floors was just amazing. It was a HUGE boat. I think that there were 12 decks. We slept on deck 7.
There was ping pong and putt putt on the ship. Ping pong was located on deck 10 and putt putt was on 12. These are great ideas and fun for a laugh but not really great to actually try to have a real game. The reason is that it is so WINDY that the balls went everywhere but where you wanted them to go. We did do both ping pong and also putt putt as a family, and it was fun, but we were chasing the balls more than playing the game.
Matt and I decided to go to the ship musical. It was mainly a 50's beach music review. The kids went to ocean camp for the evening and discovered that they LOVED it! We loved being able to sit back and enjoy a show.
We brought a lot of games with us to play. The dining room had large tables, large enough for us to play on. So we would go back, get a drink and maybe a snack, and play connect four or Qwirkle.
We had fun looking at all of the towel animals that were left for us in the room. Toward the end of our trip we woke up to hundreds of towel animals that were set out around the pool. Some were on floaties in the pool, some were on the lounge chairs, some were on the stage, some were just hanging out around the edge of the pool. It was a lot of fun to see.
Grace got a bunny made out of a napkin from our waitress. These people can do so much with cloth.
Matt and I went to a trivia contest. We got the most answers right. So we were awarded (as they called it on the ship) "A spray painted gold, plastic, piece of ship on a stick" I was so proud of my trophy.
Our first stop was at Grand Turk. The sand was rough, there was a lot of coral to be found, but it was beautiful.
Glen and Grace especially enjoyed playing in the sand.
Glen found so many pieces of coral. I felt like I was bringing a huge bag of rocks back on the ship when we came back.
The kids built sand castles, they went swimming, and just had fun by the ocean.
We were very close to our ship. Here is Matt, Grace, Glen and our ship. Look at that clear water.
Oh, and here is Glen with some of his coral.
Here it looks like Glen is in a swimming pool, but you would be wrong. This is the water at Half Moon Cay. It was so clear that we were able to see a sting ray swim by a few feet from us.
Here is Matt and our boat. The boat was so far away that we had to go on shuttle boats to get to the ship.
This sand was fine and powdery. So very different from the first island that we went to the day before.
Half Moon Cay also had a splash pad to play on. Water guns, fountains, and so much more. So once the kids got tired of swimming they spent most of their time playing on here.
I thought it was a fun addition to the beach.
Such a beautiful island.
Finally our third island was Freeport.
Freeport did not have a beach near the dock. But it had a nice little shopping area.
We found a table in the open air market, a live band was playing. We pulled out qwirkle and played a game outside in the sun.
The Bahamas were wonderful to visit.
Here we got to see a man do an ice carving in front of us. He took a rectangle block of ice and turned it into a detailed, beautiful fish.
Here the kids are enjoying the pool on the boat.
We loved the cruise and look forward to our next one.
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