And We're Back!

I know I say this every time I go out of town, but I couldn't be happier to be back. I tried to take some mental notes about what we did each day, so get ready for 9 back-to-back posts to make up for what blogging I missed while I was gone. It's a lot of reading, so stick through to the end!! I'll be posting individual pictures for each day, but if you want to see the trip in its entirety, go over to the pictures tab. I'll be posting a slideshow of all the pictures.

Day 1:
We got up at 4:30 and felt like kids on Christmas morning. No sleep was had! We made it to the airport, got on our flight, got to LA, found our shuttle, got to the ship, and finally boarded with NO incident. Anyone that knows me knows that nothing goes smoothly for me. We were shocked! For instance, our flight for our honeymoon was canceled and snowballed into a huge disastrous day. We were so happy that nothing went wrong this time.

We met up with the 4 other couples that went with us. I was excited because right off the bat, I could tell the cruise would be really fun. They were pro cruisers. I thought I was a pro cruiser until they told me that they had been on over 100 cruises. No joke! One couple we were with go on a cruise every other month. They saved our butts on many occasions because they'd been to the ports before and had tips on where to go and what was best to see.

The first thing we did when we got on the ship was hunt down the ice cream machine. It's Ryan's favorite!! We both got a bowl while we sat on deck and watched as the ship pulled out of port. We also made it a priority to get the drink cards. Basically you spend a certain amount of money for a card that gets you unlimited soda. If you don't get the card, you spend $3 a soda. We found value! I was super duper excited when I saw that they had orange soda!! Usually they only have Coke and Sprite. Dinner that night was fun. If you've ever been on a cruise (and if you haven't, listen up because this is a good tip), you know that you can order anything in any quantity off the menu. If you want 5 lobsters, you can have 5 lobsters. I had no idea that the rest of the group would take full advantage of that. The first night, we waited over an hour to even get our main course because a couple people ordered one of everything. I just laughed. That became the nightly dinner routine. The waiters learned that they had to move quickly or else we'd take up too much time before the next seating for dinner.

My baby bump made the perfect stand for my ice cream :P

This was dinner the first night. It was probably the best steak I had the whole cruise.

Ryan fell in love with the chocolate melting cake on the last cruise. He was SO excited to order it every night! Heaven!!

(Day 184)