Cruzin'

So this is probably going to amount to a photo blog (or a lengthy bore), but I wanted to share what a wonderful time O and I had on our cruise again this year aboard the wonderful Carnival Freedom!  The ports of call included St. Thomas, Antigua, Tortola and Nassau.  We met some amazing friends on our anniversary cruise last year and we were so thrilled they joined us again this year!  What a fun, fun week together!

We didn't book really any Carnival excursions this year and thought we would just fly by the seat of our pants.  I'm kind of glad we did - we had a little more spontaneous fun and saw a bit more "local" side of things this way.  I suppose I'll break it down by port but first here is a photo of the Freedom parked in port in Antigua (also pretty much our only photo from Antigua):

St. Thomas: O an I bought our own tickets to Paradise Point - a sky tram type deal that takes you to a beautiful lookout and nature trail.  It was pretty hot in St. Thomas for November and aside from my claustrophobic, heat induced near panic attack in the tiny tram, it was worth the price to the top.  They also had a great bar with a great bartender and we cooled off with the island speciality - the Bushwacker (recipe here).  We've had these before in Culebra and trust me when I tell you they are delicious and pack a punch!  We cabbed it down town and walked through some stores and ate lunch in a cute little alley at Gladys'.  The lobster sandwich was pretty delicious.

View from Paradise Point

Glady's and the Alley

Antigua:  This is the one port we actually did book an excursion.  We love zip lining and prefer to book through Carnival for life endangering type activities.  We weren't allowed cameras on the lines because we had to use both hands to zip - so sorry, but no pics.  It wasn't the best zip lining we've done, but we met some nice folks and had a good time out there.  We enjoyed a cold Coors light at the end before heading back to the ship.  The one thing I don't like about booking excursions is that they tend to be all day affairs and you don't see as much of the island as you'd like.  By the way - there was much debate over the proper pronunciation of this place.  Looks like An-tig-GWAH (how we said it), but many people said An-tig-GAH.  The locals go with the latter, so looks like we were wrong!  Now when you go there, you can sound like you are island educated.  Your welcome.

Tortola: By far my FAVORITE port.  What a beautiful place.  I started off the day a little irritated because I really wanted to book the boat ride over to Virgin Gorda and the Baths, but we had dilly dallied so long that it was sold out.  We decided to see what the locals had to offered and had pretty much decided to go see about getting on a sailboat for the day when we stumbled across a private boat captain offering up a ride to Virgin Gorda and the Baths for $50 bucks each (Carnival charged about $90 for the same deal).  There were a few other people from our boat so we decided to jump on the bandwagon.  I'm so thrilled we took a chance because we got to see possibly one of the most stunning places on earth.  Never mind that we left an hour behind schedule, had a broke down skiff and the driver broke off a steel ladder when trying to dock the boat - it was brilliant and an adventure! We loved it!  I'll let the photos tell you about this place.

Incredible.

Nassau:  Our final stop.  We didn't plan anything here either.  Just wandered around.  We were going to take a taxi out to Atlantis since O has never been but we wandered into Senor Frogs for lunch which took like 3 hours somehow.  We had a great time watching the nonsense that always goes on at this place.  We had the local Bahamian beer and watched drunk people dance terribly, sport balloon animals on their head and stand on chairs for shots.  Always entertaining.

And we, of course!, booked our cruise for next year while on the ship to take advantage of the on board credit offer.  Instead of buying our typical "anniversary art" we decided to check off a major bucket list item and put a deposit on a transatlantic cruise from Barcelona to New Orleans in November 2013.  Crazy, we know. But, hey, you only live once (YOLO!) and who knows if we will decide to have kids, etc in the coming years.  Anything could happen - better to travel while you still can!

*EDIT* I should probably also add that we ate, drank, gambled and laughed to excess while ON the ship.  We loved dinner with our friends, horrible karaoke (I still hate you Mary!), fun shows, comedians, sushi, pizza bar, and the mega dance party on the deck! So, so fun.  Thanks Mary and Patrick for being such AWESOME cruise buddies!