More Cruise

Ok, so I started this post over a month ago so I figured I should finally finish it! Yikes! I'm so sad looking at all of these pictures of the hot weather and sandy beaches! Especially when our high today was in the minuses! Blah! Next time we will have to book one in February to escape this cold madness!

So, this is our first formal night of the cruise.

It was at this dinner that our captain informed us that one of the engines on the boat had died and we would not be able to continue on as far south as we had planned... So no St. Maarten and no St. Thomas! WHAT! It was a real disappoinment! We would be going to Samana, Dominican Republic and a private island owned by NCL. So we had to cancel both of our scuba diving excursions in St. Maarten, one of which was a shark dive that I was really looking forward to! Lame! We decided to try and make the best of it and find other diving excursions in Samana. But first, some formal pics:

Then the next day we arrived in Samana and found a place to go scuba diving for a fair price. Here we are coming off the tender boat to Samana:

Getting our dive equipment:

Going out to our dive site with our dive master:

Me diving:Mike diving:Mandy and Jason with a shell thingy:
Jason holding a starfish with a pokey thing on the bottom of it:
Really pokey thing:
Here fishy fishy:Very bubbly/silty group pic: Mike, Me, Mandy and Jason:Starfish:And me:

Our dive master didn't take us to very awesome places this time, but it was still fun and cool. I think he didn't know that we had been diving through caves and corridors before. We will have to let our next dive master know that we're ready to see sharks and caves and stuff!

Here we are making our way back to the ship:

Bye-bye Samana:

So then we had another relaxing day at sea, playing basketball and relaxing on the deck and taking pictures of my toes:

And more dinner pics:

The next day we went to NCL's private beach which was under construction. It wasn't too bad though. They had this HUGE blow-up waterslide that we got to go on and beach volleyball.

And there was eating and lounging of course!

Eating: Mmmm yummy pineapple!
And lounging:The Norwegian Sun:
Going back on the tender, boo!
The tender boats had these cool water shooters that cleaned off your feet before you went on the boat: Neato!
Our last dinner on the cruise. So sad! We decided to go to the sushi restaurant. It was sooo yummy and it was all you can eat! Let me tell you, we had ALL you can eat! And our last little towel animal- a cute little seal:
So, since we weren't able to go to the ports that we originally planned on, NCL compensated us with free drinks onboard (woohoo!) (sarcasm) and $160 credit on our account. They also are giving us 30% off our next NCL cruise. So we are in the process of finding another one. Probably in October sometime. Wanna go...? :)

Cruise- Eastern Caribbean

Mike and I were able to go on another cruise with our friends Jason and Mandy Bell. This time we went out of Port Canaveral to the Eastern Caribbean. We took the Redeye, flew all night from Salt Lake to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Orlando and then caught a shuttle (Escalade) to the cruise terminal at Port Canaveral. We were exhausted! Good thing we wouldn't have to do ANYTHING for the next week! Thanks to my mom and dad and Naomi and Christina for staying with our kids at home. We couldn't do these trips without them! They're awesome!

So, as we were getting ready to shove off, we looked down and saw a manatee swimming around the ship. I've never seen one before!

Here's the Carnival Dream (the ship we were originally going to go on and probably should've went on!) Details to follow...

And here's the Disney ship. Someday we will take our kids on one of those... It would be so fun!

Hangin out on the Promenade deck. This ship was nice because it had a deck that you could jog all the way around it. I liked it better than the short jogging tracks on the Carnival ships. You have to go 100 times around those to even jog 3 miles!Us at the stupid muster (safety) drill:
Our second day we went to Nassau, Bahamas and decided to check out the waterpark at Atlantis. Here's the HUGE Atlantis hotel and resort:On the way to the waterpark, we walked over a bridge and through tunnels that had all kids of fish swimming around. Here's a hammerhead shark:And a tunnel with fish swimming all around us:
Here we are, takin a break from the waterslide action:
Mandy and Jason catching some rays:
So, they had some pretty wicked waterslides at this waterpark. I was actually brave enough to go on all of them. I was pretty proud of myself! Scared the poop right out of me though! Ha HA! So they had one that went STRAIGHT down and through a tunnel with sharks swimming around it. Pretty Narly! Here's Jason going down it:
Here's the tunnel and a big shark:
Here's me going down it:
And me afterwards! I survived!!! Cheesy, I know!

The waterpark had it's own private beach:
And a couple of racing waterslides that we went on a bunch of times. These are also pretty straight down:
It also had a lazy river, a rapids river, a bunch of swimming pools, waterslides with tubes, and a place to swim with dolphins and sea lions. It was a fun place to spend the day:
Then it was time to get back on the boat. We almost missed the ship! It was really weird. They said to be on the ship at 4:30. So, we get back to the dock and there was NOBODY around! We thought that was really strange and we started to get a bit worried. We got on the ship at 4:32 and we were the last ones on board! The Carnival cruises that we've been on, if they say to be back on the ship at a certain time, there's a bunch of people waiting in line to get back on the ship because they wait until the very last minute. I guess this cruise line is different. We went on Norwegian and probably 90% was 50 and over! It's not known as the "party" ship that's for sure! More like a geriatric ship! We should've known that all the old people would be on the ship by 3:00, ready to go! Geesh! Here we are saying goodbye to Nassau:

And here we are at dinner: