Here we are all ready to swim with the dolphins!
Rory and I are holding the dolphin! They're heavy! :)
We each got to kiss the dolphin on the mouth! And then the dolphin kissed our cheeks. There was a lot of kissing going on... We also got to dance a little with them and touch the inside of their flippers. And then we held our hand out hi and the dolphin came up and touched our palm.
Here we swam out and the dolphin came out to us and flipped over on his back. We held onto his flippers and he gave us a ride back it. Both Rory and I have our eyes closed in our pictures because we were getting water in our faces. :)
The last thing we got to do with the dolphins was swim out with a boogie board. We were told to hold our legs out straight and wait. The dolphin swam around behind us and pushed on one of our feet with his nose. It was so cool! We went pretty fast. Look how happy we look! :)
Before we left we saw the dolphins put on a little show. :)
After we played with the dolphins we got to pet a manatee. That is one big animal. His skin I think is a lot like an elephants with moss growing on it.
After all of the fun with the dolphins it was time to relax a little. Here we are living the life in some sweet hammocks.
I've told you all about our excursions, but how about a little about our time on the ship. We were on the Norwegian Spirit. This cruise is what they call a freestyle cruise and because of this I've been told by the Housley family that it is quite a bit different from most cruises. We never had to dress up which was nice and we could eat as we pleased. On a regular cruise I've been told you have your block of time each night when you are supposed to eat in the dinning room and you have the same server every night which is great because they treat you really well. I'm looking forward to this on our next cruise! :)We ate a lot of meals in the general buffet area. They had food there pretty much all day and you could eat whenever you wanted. We had breakfast there every morning and we had lunch and dinner there once or twice. The picture below is Hunter with one of the guys who welcomed us to breakfast every morning. There was always someone at the door who would have a spray bottle with hand sanitizer to spray your hands as you walked in. In the morning they would all year really loud "Gooooooooood Morning!" or "Wakey, Wakey" or something like that. It really got on Rory's nerves, but it was pretty funny. It may have been funnier if it wasn't always so early in the morning! :)
My favorite was the Windows Dinning Room. They had huge windows that gave you a great view outside. Here you could choose an appetizer, main meal, and dessert to eat. Sometimes we ever got two main meals or appetizers because you can have whatever you want! The food was really good for the most part. We were told that the average person gains one to two pounds a day on a cruise! I believe it! :)
The Blue Lagoon was our favorite for our late night snacks. They were one of the only places open 24-7 so it was always packed at night. It was right below our room so it was very convenient and they had tvs to watch all the big football bowl games going on at the time. They had chicken fingers, fish & chips, artichoke dip, hamburgers, wings and lots of great stuff.
Each night there was a show at 7:30 and then again at 9:30. We made it to every show except for one. They were great! We had great seats every night! For one of the shows they performed songs from different musicals including, Wicked, Jersey Boys, In the Heights and a few others. It was fantastic! My favorite show was their big finale show on Friday night. They had two acrobats from the Russian circus perform. They are husband and wife and they can do some amazing things! There was also a magician who performed some pretty amazing tricks. And then the dance and singing crew on board did some great numbers.
When we were eating, or out on excursions, or at shows we enjoyed playing games together. It's great to just have time to relax. We played a lot of Scum, Rook, Phase 10, and a few others we found. And sometimes we'd even eat and play at the same time! :) It was great to have a snack ready for you whenever you wanted!
When we were walking around the ship one day we found a shuffle board painted on one of the decks. So we learned how to play shuffleboard. It's not as easy as it looks! :) Rory and I took on Hunter and his Dad. We had a lot of fun playing!
So there you have it! That was our cruise to the Caribbean! We had a blast and I can't wait to go on another cruise! It's a great way to see multiple places on one trip and not worry about food, where you're staying, and how to get from place to place. I thoroughly enjoyed my first experience on a cruise!
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