Cruise Vacation

After a week-long family cruise I'm back in CT. We arrived back home just in time to see the Patriots disappoint in the Super Bowl. But enough of that, let me recap the wonderful vacation. Last Saturday my entire mom's side of the family descended on Florida to leave on an Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Freedom of the Seas (Royal Caribbean's largest boat). The trip started off rocky. We arrived in Miami early but for one reason or another had to sit on the plane at the airport for an hour. After gathering our luggage the 9 of us then had to wait an additional hour because the hotel we were staying at only had 1 shuttle and it was a 30-minute drive to the hotel. OK, two hours isn't the end of the world but seeing that it was the end of a long day of traveling and Max, my 1-year old cousin, was about ready to flip out, it put everyone in a sour mood. However, after burgers and drinks at Chili's everyone had recovered.

On Sunday we took another shuttle to the pier and on the way saw a stakeout. There were 2 policemen with their guns drawn surrounding a gun shop in Miami. I had never seen anything like that. Pretty freaky.

For the next week my family and I had a great time exploring the boat and seeing San Juan, St. Maarten, and St. Thomas. They had a wave pool onboard which my cousin, her husband, Michael, and my brother all tried. Jeff was clearly the best while Andy and Michael could only stand for a fraction of a second. Michael did karaeoke one night. He sang Back in the USSR and rocked the house! I had fun doing a lot of the trivia competitions, exercising, and hanging out with my family. When we got to St. Thomas eight of us went to Magen's Bay. It could be the best beach I've ever been to (see the photos below). The water was crystal clear and there were absolutely no rocks on the bottom. Unfortunately we only had 2 hours there before heading back to the boat. In St. Maarten my mom, aunt, counsin Alex, Michael, and I went on the tree-top zip line excursion. It was amazing! You had to navigate your way through 32 obstacles and zip lines while 20-feet up in the air. Some of the obstacles weren't so easy (such as walking across moving logs suspended from a cable) but zipping through the trees made it all worth it. There are some photos of the place here: http://4funstmartin.com/.

Now we're back in Connecticut with two months of winter to look forward to. I start my classes this week and Michael has to catch up from missing last week. It promises to be an eventful semester as Michael wraps up his prerequistes and hopes to begin grad school this summer. Thankfully we will be able to remember back to last week and all the fun we had!