Our Cruise - Winter Break 2011 (Part 5)

Our first port of call was the Grand Cayman Islands.  Tommy and I had been to Grand Caymans on our first cruise about 16 years ago, so it was really neat to go back with Chase and show her the beautiful blue water and to watch her swim at 7 mile beach!

Here we are on the Tenders taking us to shore...windy day!

We didn't do any paid shore excurisions...we stayed within our budget and just checked out the island ourselves, we didn't have alot of time in Grand Caymans, so we basically went to the beach, took some pictures, Chase swam for a little while in the beautiful waters, while Tommy and I stayed on the beautiful sand beaches watching her!

 He appears to be bored, but he had fun!

 The wind was crazy that day, and it was making my hair crazy!!

Here are a couple of random shots Chase took of a boat; and a guy at the beach! :)

I just love that beautiful blue water!

Chase would probably tell you her biggest memory of the Grand Caymans was our crazy taxi driver; she did drive pretty crazy...and she did not want to leave until she had more people...she kept yelling out the window, even after she was driving. "7-mile beach...I take you to 7-mile beach!" It was definitely an interesting ride!! :)

Our Cruise -Winter Break 2011 (Part 4)

We had the privilege of sharing our table in the evenings with two young women from Canada! Heather and Janessa...They were alot of fun, they especially enjoyed making fun of our accents! We had them saying Y'all by the end of the cruise! Of course we are still working on getting the hang of saying "Aye"  Chase is already ready to head to Canada to visit them! Heather is still in college, and Janessa is an RN delivering babies!

Janessa, Tommy, and Chase all sang Karaoke one night at Vincent's...They all did a great job...if I ever learn how to upload a video...I have video of Tommy and Chase's songs!

 Our waiter made Heather, Janessa, and Chase these bows made out of our napkins one night...Janessa tried to get me involved, luckily he got to busy to make one for me!! (:

Next post will be about our first port of call ~ The Grand Caymans!

Our Cruise -Winter Break 2011 (Part 3)

This is a picture of our ship from the shore of the Grand Cayman Islands

Some of the really fun nights on the ship were Formal nights (I think Chase and I enjoyed them more than Tommy, but he played along)...It was alot of fun getting all dressed up, we of course went to a wonderful show and then to dinner!

We saw some great shows on board the ship, the first night was a wonderful musical, my favorite was the Illusionist...unfortunately they would not allow photography during shows, so I have no pictures to show you, but you can take my word for it...every show was great!

These are pictures of us in the Lounge waiting for the show to begin!

Here we are at dinner - First Formal night

Here we are in the Atrium on the First Formal Night!

Chase in the Atrium looking so pretty!

Tommy on the second Formal night...being a good sport! (:

Me and the Man of my dreams - Second Formal night

Our gorgeous girl - Second Formal night

Tommy and his girl! (:

Stayed Tuned for more about our cruise and our ports of call!

Our Cruise -Winter Break 2011 (Part 2)

Sorry for the delay between Part 1 and Part 2...we have had a couple of pretty hard weeks, we were forced to have Destiny placed with another Foster family, and we decided it best to close our home to Foster care because of Destiny's caseworker, she became increasingly impossible to work with, she never communicated with us, and it was obvious from our first meeting with her, that she cared more about the "rights" of the biological mom, than she cared about the safety and well being of Destiny, and for Destiny's sake and for the sake of our family, we had no choice, but to come to the decision to close our home! Please pray for Destiny! My biggest concern is that she feels that we have abandoned her too! Well, back to more happy things like our cruise...

We really had a wonderful time, despite the "little" setbacks we had, we really enjoyed spending quality time together just the 3 of us!

Here are a few pictures of our cabin, it was pretty small, but it was cozy!

Our first two days on the cruise we were Out at Sea! We LOVED that...No land in sight, just beautiful ocean all around...We also enjoyed the HUGE Water slide on board the ship, as well as laying out in the sun, we also enjoyed exploring the ship and just relaxing on the deck...Days at Sea were some of our favorite times!

My man looking so sexy! This is one of my favorite pics from the trip!

Chase loved the never ending ice cream cones!! :)

Stayed Tuned for Part 3

Our Cruise -Winter Break 2011 (Part 1)

Several people have asked when I was going to blog about our cruise, so I decided to go ahead and do a quick post and then spread it out over several post, so maybe I don't bore you too much with all our pictures and such! We had an amazing time, with that said we will probably never (I suppose I should say never say never) however we will probably never go on a Carnival Cruise again.  Our trip started with some "snags" some because of nature, and some to do with Carnival...We started our trip on Saturday, February 19th (we chose to drive just because we didn't want the stress of flying stand by) plus the road trip gave us extra family time together! Our cruise started in Galveston, TX, so we drove Saturday to Lafayette, LA and spent the night there at the Hilton! Apparently, they were having a bikers convention alittle scary, but we survived!! :) 

Here are a few pics from our road trip:

      

We can't go on a road trip without a Cracker Barrel Breakfast!



 

Tommy relaxing after the long drive to Lafayette!



Chase at the Hilton on the Grand staircase!



Sunday morning we got up bright and early and headed to Galveston, TX, actually... let me back up just a little Saturday night we received a call from Carnival (a recording) saying that due to fog in Galveston our ship was unable to come into port and to check their website for further details, well we are on the road with no Internet access except our blackberry's and we weren't getting all the details! Between my brother and our daughter in law, we finally found out that the ship is going to be delayed, but we are to head to the terminal between 4:00p and 6:30p on Sunday (instead of 12:30p and 2:30p) Well, this is where the "fun" begins! We actually arrived in Galveston as originally planned at 12:30p, but since we were told on the website that the port was closed and not to come to the terminal we just hung around Galveston and started heading over about 3:00p to unload our luggage and park! What a mess! We were in line forever to park the car, we had to carry all our luggage with us because of lack of signs we had no idea where to drop them off or where to park for that matter, we finally found a very nice police officer who told us where to go, we finally got parked, then again no signs, no people telling you anything (keep in mind the ship holds approx 3200 passengers, not only embark, but the 3200 debarking) What a mess!!! Anyway, after we finally found the end of the massive line, we finally boarded the ship about 8:30p that evening! (Only to find out that others came on to the terminal at 12:30p and were allowed to check in and boarded hours before us...UGGHH!) Then we find out that the fog is going to further delay our departure, this was some of Carnival's fault because they delayed leaving and by the time they did the fog was back, anyway, this meant we were going to have to miss our port call in Montego Bay, Jamaica (which is one of the reasons we chose this particular cruise) There is much more I could go on and on, but there is really no need! However with all that said...We had an amazing time! We had a great staff of people that waited on us hand and foot, we had two wonderful young women from Canada that shared our table with us in the evenings, we ate and ate and ate some wonderful food, and we saw some incredible shows, from comedians, to musicals, to an amazing Illusionist! We also enjoyed the huge waterslide on board the ship, as well as swimming in the Grand Caymans, and snorkeling in Cozumel, Mexico! Even with the rough start, we had a great time, enjoying all the ship had to offer, and as Chase said our favorite part was having Daddy's undivided attention for 7 days!!! I will share more about the port calls and our adventures on the ship in the next few posts! So stayed tuned for more about our trip and lots more pics!



Chase on the ferry!





Tommy on the ferry looking cool! :)



This is a view of our ship from the ferry headed into Galveston!



Approx 4 hours in line here, still smiling...That's a good sign! :)



Stay tuned for more post about our cruise and more pics!