Life with MK: The Cruise

Okay so I am finally going to write about my cruise last week. One week ago today I flew down to Miami and seven of my classmates and I boarded the Majesty of the Seas for our spring break cruise! It was so warm outside and amazing and it felt so nice to not be completely bundled up. The rooms were quite small (especially after being spoiled on my last cruises with rooms with balconies) and we could barely walk around in them, but they were perfectly fine for sleeping and that's really the only time we spent long periods of time in the room anyways. On the ship we spent some time hanging out by the pool and in the hot tub before we went to our first dinner aboard, which was quite yummy. Since we were just at seas for the night we hung out and played Cards Against Humanity and talked about what we wanted to do during the short week. I also helped my friend Ashley book a dolphin encounter at the Atlantis which took a little longer than expected, but she got it all booked.

When we woke up on Tuesday morning in Nassau, Bahamas we went to the buffet breakfast (oh yeah and I forgot to mention that stop number one once aboard the ship on Monday was to the buffet for lunch!) and then my friends Kelly, Stephanie and I booked a short snorkel tour. We took our time eating, got ready for the day, relaxed a bit on the upper decks of the ship, and then went on our little snorkel trip. The boat was near the dock and it took about 45 minutes or so to get out to the reef. On the way we saw some of Atlantis (mostly the tallest of the buildings, though I think we saw the part that our time share allows us to stay in) and tons of celebrity homes (Beyoncé and JayZ, Chuck Norris, Shawn Connery, Tiger Woods, Oprah, the list goes on). When we got to the reef we snorkeled for a bit, though I must say I was a little underwhelmed by the diversity of landscape, fish, and the overall size of the area. It was still nice to be in the water and look around for a bit. On the way back to Nassau we laid on the top deck of the boat and took a little snooze in the amazing sun. Once we were back on land the three of us wandered around Nassau and I bought a new pair of cute Havianas that are goldish and have a braided looking strap. After wandering we went back to the boat to shower and have a snack and then Kelly and I headed back into Nassau to wander some more. We ended up buying a cute little soap dish and some scrolled soap and a place near the ship and when we check out the cashier lady let us try what I heard was a "corn fritter." Turned out what they really were were conch fritters so people were really confused when I half way through eating it found out there was conch in it and asked if thats what was in them, haha. We took our time wandering and eventually went back to the boat for dinner.

Dinners on the ship were quite wonderful, and every night we got extra starters, entrees and desserts! Our waiter brought us crazy amounts of food and it was delicious. After dinner we all got ready again and went back out to Nassau to Señor Frogs for yard long blended drinks and some dancing. We had a great time and headed back to the ship a little after 11pm since the boat was leaving Nassau at Midnight.

Wednesday morning we tendered off CocoCay, the small island owned by Royal Caribbean. We ate breakfast in the morning and then took the small ferry to the island for a relaxing day. Nothing too exciting happened in CocoCay, mostly just a lot of relaxing on the lounge chairs on the beach. We found a few live conchs and saw the animals inside them and also saw a ton of the smallest hermit crabs I've ever seen. There was a BBQ lunch on the island (free of course since the island is owned by the cruise company) and we could have rented some fun water things if we had wanted to as well. I really wanted to rent the Hoby Cat they had (there were two of them) but there was literally no wind all day long. We left the island around 3pm and went back to the ship where we hung out until another wonderful dinner. Oh yeah, and before dinner I played my customary round of Bingo! which of course I did not win. Always one away; I still remember to this day that I only needed I23 to win blackout Bingo in 1999 on my cruise in Alaska and that was literally the next number that would be called. Ugh, so frustrating.

Wednesday night was pretty fun on board the ship because there were a lot of activities that we went to. We did karaoke and then there was an 80's dance party followed by the crazy game called "The Quest" where people had to do lots of crazy things to get their team points. I ended up doing the splits for my team and I must say my left hip flexors still kind of hurt haha. After the game we danced a little bit longer and then went back to get some sleep.

On Thursday morning we docked in Key West, so we were back in the USA and I got bombarded with emails since my phone worked again (at least until we pulled out of port in the evening). We had breakfast in the morning again and two of my friends saw a manatee from the ship. I am so jealous I missed that! We spent the day wandering Key West, eating, and shopping though I didn't actually buy much (I got some Key Lime Cilantro Salsa, and some Key Lime Pepper bread dipping herbs). We shared the biggest cookies you have ever seen, saw the southernmost point in the continental US, had a delicious lunch with our classmates cousin who lives in Key West, saw the outside of the Ernst Hemmingway house, and had some Key Lime sorbet (a few people got pie, but I decided I did want any that day). We walked so much that I was exhausted! We got back on the ship around 4pm and I did a little reading on the upper decks before dinner time. We also saw a beautiful sunset from the ship! Thursday night was our last night so we went all out at dinner. We had so much food it was ridiculous, but it was amazing. After dinner we took some "awkward family photos" together with the ship's photographer, and then played Cards Against Humanity by the pool and had so much fun laughing and playing. My personal favorite of the night was the round where the main card said "Jesus is _________." and I played "Gift wrapping a live hamster." It still makes me laugh just thinking about it. I was literally crying from laughing so hard at the time. After we finished playing we went down to the third floor to see and buy our photos and then got to packing and bed.

Friday morning we woke up back in Miami, had a quick breakfast, and then got our stuff and disembarked. It is always so sad to leave vacation! We got to the airport insanely early (not my choice, I would have rather spent another hour or so in the boat relaxing on the top deck than that extra time at the airport, but I lost), and just hung out until our plane boarded. The flight home was pretty uneventful and we got off the plane to very cold grey weather and a white covered ground. Rude awakenings.

All in all we had a wonderful trip and now I can't wait until it gets warm here! I wish I could just be on vacation all the time. Makes me wish a bit that I'd done the synchro show on Oasis, but oh well. Back to real life for now.