Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Miami & the Bahamas

I know I haven't done a blog entry in a while and I'm not sure that I'm ready to open up my Facebook page again but people have been asking me for quite some time how our trip that we recently took was! So here we go ... And just a warning: this is going to be a LONG post because I'm just going to smoosh everything in one.

Primarily, some background information: as many of you know from a previous post that I did, I graduated recently from college and it was my birthday at the end of May (the 29th) so as a perfect present, my mom asked if I was interested in taking a cruise ... TO THE BAHAMAS. Ummm, let me think about that for a minute. Actually, no, let me NOT even think about it but rather, SIGN ME UP!! ... And that's pretty much what happened. A phone call here, a phone call there, ticket booking here, cruise ship booking there, and we were all set to go. Well, our ship left from Miami so my mom asked if I wanted to spend a day there to see everything. Again: I have NEVER been to Miami so it was one of those " don't think but just sign me up for that too" things. We mostly just had a chance to see South Beach but it was ... AMAZING. Beyond what words can describe.

Here are some pictures I took while walking down the beach:






Oh, and here's one of me sinking in the sand while standing in the ocean ... it was pretty amazing because look how pretty the water is!! :)


Following our walk on the beach, we decided that we would take a duck tour. This is a bus that goes around  Miami beach AND then turns into a boat ... only after we quack though :o)



Here are a few of my best pictures I was able to capture while on the tour:







And here's the moment we entered the water ... while QUACK QUACK QUACKING!!!


The rest of these were taking while our bus was a boat.









This is me and my mom while on our tour! I love her :)


That evening we were walking down Ocean Blvd trying to decide which restaurant to eat at and they had MANY places to choose from. We were undecided as to where we should go but finally chose a restaurant. Here were two memorable items from the evening (and it was my bad because I was too preoccupied enjoying drinks and the calamari to take pictures of anything else):



And just like that, our Miami stay was over! But that was alright because the Bahamas was next!! Here are a few pictures that I took as we were walking to the ship:





Our ship left port at 4:00pm but we had gotten on at about noon so we had some time to kill and were exploring the ship. Here's a few pictures of us doing that:










Andddd official round 1 of drinks on the cruise ... also the moment that I fell in love with Pina Coladas :)


Every night, we would have dinner in a common dining room and there were 6 people seated at our table. For all of our nights, we had an all-ladies table and it was A LOT of fun. Here's our group:


And not even going to lie, I'm going to make things easier and just post all of the food pictures of the delicious things that we got to enjoy:

















Next, I'm going to combine and post the pictures that we took while we were in CocoCay, Bahamas and Nassau, Bahamas as these were our stops:






























And if that wasn't enough pictures for you, here's just a few more. First, here are pictures of us from formal dining night:





And lastly, by far, my favorite round of drinks:


Needless to say, this trip was AMAZING and I could not have enjoyed myself more. The cruise itself was three nights. Each night was packed with a lot of fun because there was so much to do and we hardly got any sleep and did everything possible! This included walking around the ship, going to shows, eating delicious food, having delicious drinks, etc! ... All I can say after that is: When are we going back?!