Dramatic Backstory: Matt and I totally overbooked ourselves this Spring and none of it was on purpose. Because of my trip to China and Matt’s passport fiasco (we accidentally washed it and had to replace it) we had to wait until the last second to get our Thailand visas. Unfortunately, things did NOT go as planned getting our visas and we actually didn’t get our passports before going to Puerto Rico. We got on the airplane with faith that the travel agency would overnight our passports to Puerto Rico so that we could go on the cruise.
Well, as we were getting off the plane IN Puerto Rico, I got a call saying that our passports wouldn’t be ready for another week! So then I really started panicking because I was almost positive that we wouldn’t be able to go on the cruise. Thankfully, Carnival had mercy on us and let us use our birth certificates and driver’s licenses. One problem- we didn’t know where our birth certificates were! Long story short, we got them faxed and printed off (big thanks to our parents) and made it on the ship! I don’t think I have every been so stressed. This is a picture Rachel took right after we got cleared to go on the cruise. RELIEF!
I think one of my favorite memories from the cruise was how we kept celebrating our “anniversary”. I totally forgot that I had put that we were celebrating our anniversary on the cruise questionnaire! I don’t know why I put that, I guess I just figured they might give us a room upgrade or fancy rose petals on the bed.
Needless to say, we were a little surprised when the staff came out and started singing Happy Anniversary to us! It was even funnier because Luke had already left the dinner table and it was just Rachel sitting there, along, with this couple that was celebrating their anniversary. She was such a good sport to laugh and go along with the whole thing!
We joked about it all week and then fancy night came around and it happened AGAIN!! But this time Rachel, Luke, Brent, and Lauren were all there to go along with the joke and sing Happy Anniversary as loud as possible. Maybe it isn’t very funny reading about it, but we thought it was hilarious.
Here was our cruise itinerary:
Port: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Day 1: St Thomas– we found a place to rent scooters and rode around the little island! We went to a gorgeous lookout and then headed out to Coki Beach for some AMAZING snorkeling. We even got to see a Stingray! We loved all the wild iguanas we saw and listening to the Reggae music that was playing on the beach! I wish I would have appreciated the snorkeling more because it was honestly the best snorkeling we had all week!
Day 2: Day at Sea
Day 3: Barbados– We all did a super fun Catamaran excursion and they took us to snorkel and swim with sea turtles! I absolutely loved the catamaran and our guides were hilarious. My only complaint is that we didn’t get to see more of Barbados!
Day 4: St. Lucia– We did a little kayaking tour on St. Lucia and it was really fun! Matt liked St. Lucia the best because he said that it reminded him a lot of his mission in South Africa. It was so beautiful and lush but also had a lot of poverty. It’s a place that I would love to go back and visit for a humanitarian project!
Day 5: St Kitts– This was by far my favorite day because we did our DOLPHIN SWIM! You can read more about that and see pictures on this blog post 🙂
Day 6: St Maarten– We didn’t have much planned for our last day because we wanted it to be a relaxing (cheap) day. We ended up going to Orient Beach because Rachel and Luke had a parasailing trip planned there. The beach was absolutely beautiful BUT we didn’t know it was a optional nude beach! They call it the Adam and Eve beach. We even overheard some tourists asking if they could go parasailing “all natural”… hahaha! Minus a few old naked people, we really did feel like we were in paradise. The sand and water was gorgeous and it was so hard to say goodbye!
Day 7: Back in Puerto Rico!
A Caribbean Cruise had been on our bucket list for quite some time and I definitely think that it will be a repeat vacation! I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous about traveling with friends for the first time, but it honestly made everything so much more fun! It was nice because we could always go off and do our own excursions if we wanted to, but then at night we had people to eat and go to all the shows with! Let’s do it again soon guys!!
