During our extended engagement, Leah went to a few different bridal shows and entered a few sweepstakes. A few days after one of the shows, she got a phone call or an email inviting us to attend a sales pitch and if we attended, we'd get a free Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. I've had a Kindle Fire for several years and Leah getting one sounded pretty good, so we went.
The sales pitch was for discounted luxury vacation packages, and while they did sound nice, even with the heavy discounts, they were all outside of our price range. We played nice and sat through the main sales pitch and then multiple individual pitches, but we just couldn't afford it. The individual saleswoman did not even try to hide her annoyance when we turned down her last pitch.
With no more options available with which to entice us, they sent us to an office near the exit to sign some forms affirming that we got the promised tablet. The man who talked us through the final paperwork had a final package that he offered us: a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada or Fort Lauderdale, Florida. However, looking at the fine print, we discovered that another option was to go on a Caribbean cruise, with airfare to Florida included. The only catch was that we would have to be flexible about when we cruised. We agreed and paid the down payment.
Over the next several months, the cruise was something that we'd remember from time to time, but it was mostly in the background. Eventually, we had to pick potential dates spaced apart when we could go and the travel agency would assign us what worked best for them. Fortunately, the date they picked was the date we wanted.
I feel the need to point out that when we booked the cruise, we still didn't have a wedding date. You can call it faith, though we did have a back-up plan in case we weren't: the cabin we would get had two twin beds that could be pushed together as one and we would just keep them separated. In hindsight, it wasn't the best plan.
When the day of the start of our honeymoon came, we flew to Fort Lauderdale, even though our cruise left from the port of Miami—that's just how the travel agency booked it, which added some additional work on our part getting transportation to the port. Fort Lauderdale was very pretty and it was quite warm for February. After a frightening cab ride from the airport to downtown (our hotel room wasn't ready yet), we ate lunch at a fancy Italian bistro. The food was delicious and quite filling, which was fine since we decided to walk to the hotel since it was only a few miles away. I don't regret walking, but we were both quite sweaty by the time we arrived.
The next day, we took a hotel-provided shuttle to the Miami port. We arrived early enough that any lines we waited in weren't very long. The check-in process was easy enough and soon we were onboard. We were so early that we couldn't go to our cabin yet, so we looked to see what activities we could participate in to pass the time. We ended up going to a couple of presentations in a row: one on activities that could be done onshore when we arrived at our destinations and one on good places to shop. While there were some activities that were far too expensive for us to consider (swimming with dolphins cost more than $400 a person), we decided that unguided snorkeling sounded like fun—and at $35 a head, it was also the most affordable. As for the shopping, that was more for Leah than for me, but I'm glad we went because there were a few items we found out about that were free, all we had to do was show up and present a coupon.
We're on a boat!
Kissing on the high seas
The first day the ship dropped anchor off the shore of Coco Cay, a private island owned by the cruise line. The nice thing about the island being owned by the cruise was that we didn't have to worry about having money on us for food when it was lunchtime. Ferries carried passengers back and forth all day. This was where Leah and I went snorkeling. We checked out our equipment, watched a short safety video and ventured forth. We did okay, but we both swallowed our share of water. After some time, we were tired and went back to get some sun. I applied sunscreen three separate times, but apparently missed my ankles, which were a little burned by that evening.
After lunch and some more lounging, we tried the water one more time. We were much more skilled the second time and enjoyed the experience much more. I even felt less tired as we traveled from site to site (there was a staged shipwreck and plane crash, both to attract us and offer fish protection). On our second trip out, we even saw a sea turtle grazing, which was very exciting.
We are super white
Underwater selfies are hard!
A fish
A school of fish
What's that over there?
A SEA TURTLE!
The next day, we docked at Nassau, where we spent the morning shopping (that is, mostly getting free stuff). In the afternoon, we took a taxi to the beach. I'm glad that we snorkeled at the first island because there were no waves. Nassau's waves were all pretty small, but there were something.
Is it weird that I took a picture of my wife taking a picture?
I've been familiar with the ways of pirates since high school
I don't know what Leah's supposed to be, but she's cute
Notice my red ankle
This trip was only my second time leaving the US and the first time that I did so for pleasure. This was Leah's second cruise and we both really enjoyed our time. To anyone thinking about taking a cruise, I would heartily recommend it.
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