Cruisin' in the Caribbean

Finally, after months of anticipation, the day arrived that we got on a plane to Miami to board the Carnival Destiny. We loved every minute of our cruise from the warm weather, to the fun ports we stopped at, to seeing Christian and Steph, to learning the behind the scenes shenanigans of the cruise ship, and to the little surprises Christian and Steph would have our steward leave in our room.

The two ports we stopped at were Ocho Rios, Jamaica and Grand Caymen, Caymen Islands. We felt very lucky to enjoy great weather throughout our entire cruise. We heard the few weeks before us it had rained quite a bit. Lucky for us we saw nothing but sunny days.



Jamaica. What a place! You couldn't walk even 5 minutes without being harassed by locals offering to give you taxis rides, to braiding your hair, smokes or even women. You would finally get one person off your back after they followed you for a block or two only to be followed by another local.



Nate and I had one goal in Jamaica -to find a souvenir. We ended up making friends with Radcliffe, who is a wood carver. After spending some time watching him make a turtle out of wood using only a machete, we bought one of his fish. We had our eye on a larger one but settled for a mid sized one. When we got the fish home to our small apartment, we realized just how big the fish really is and are grateful we didn't get the larger one.

Christian and Steph took a break from their jobs in Grand Caymen to snap a quick photo.

In Grand Caymen we went to a turtle farm. We couldn't believe how many sea turtles they had enclosed in tanks there. It was pretty cool. Nate's holding one of the babies in this photo.

Christian and Steph hooked us up with a shore excursion in Grand Caymen. We went swimming with the dolphins. Unfortunately the underwater camera we had took terrible photos and most pictures came out very unfocused. Above the dolphin is pushing me on the boogie board by my foot using only its nose.

The last full day of our cruise Christian and Steph were able to spend most of the day with us. We had fun playing mini golf, playing shuffle board, and just laying out.

All in all - we had a great time and would definitely do another cruise.