All about VACAY!!!!!

We booked our cruise in Feb. It has been long anticipated. :) We spent a couple days in Charleston before boarding and enjoy a 5 day cruise to the Bahamas. It was awesome to be off work, with my Lovey and great friends (Jeff & Dianna). I had two goals of vacation. One was to take advantage of different foods and always try something new (which I did and LOVED!). The other was to experience as much of Bahamian culture as possible (which we did!). Great times!

Monday: We rolled into Charleston that evening and found a great restaurant that we continued to talk about the whole trip. Hyman's Seafood. We LOVED it. Especially the hush puppies. We actually went to bed super early this night and slept like, 11 hours. Sounds like a perfect vacay so far, huh? :)

Tuesday: We explored Charleston. We walked a lot and rode the trolley to experience Battery park, Waterfront, Moon Pie Store (yay!), Worlds Market, etc. We had a rooftop lunch at Charleston Crab House- delish! That evening we went to Folly Beach. Love love love the beach. So much. We ate on the beach at Locklear Restaurant and enjoyed a local band. Favorites of folly beach...seeing the dolphins and the sunset. Amazing. It was so exciting to sit out on the deck at dusk with great company, talking about the cruise, hearing the sound of the ocean. Sigh. Oh to be there again. :)

Wednesday: ALL ABOARD!!!!! We spent a good chunk of the day exploring. The spa, the gym, the lido deck. The ship felt HUGE even though the Fantasy is the smallest in the Carnival fleet. We lounged outside, listened to music and just chilled. Lunch in the dining room was fun. We met our servers for the week, Artha, Yatna and Emmanuel. They were all from Indonesia and we enjoyed them so much. Went to the All Aboard Show and hit the sack in our small cozy room.
Thursday: We enjoyed breakfast on the deck. There is seriously something amazing about looking out and only seeing water. talk about beautiful. Always an amazing breeze. The color of the water, the sky. Truly amazing. I kept asking Josh..."how many miles do you think we are seeing?" I was just seriously excited to only see water. Which initially I thought might be scary. It wasn't. Josh and I took a swing class on the Lido Deck which was real fun. We got to meet the Captain, which he pronounced, "Cap-i-tan" (oh and the staff all had accents, which I loved). We had formal night and got to dress up in our fancies. I wore this black sparkly dress that I got on sale at JC Penneys for $10. Woohoo! We went to see the Beatles Tribute show which was AWESOME!!! For dinner, I had roasted pumpkin soup, Lobster tail (which I wasn't a huge fan of), mashed potatoes and broccoli. For dinner, caramelized apples & puff pastry. The wait staff entertained us with singing, "that's Amore!" Funny. The rest of the night we laid in the deck chairs on the back of the ship. It was secluded, you could hear the ocean, the breeze was perfect. So relaxing. And we took "King of the World" photos. Hehehe! AHAHA! This makes me laugh! We had to do it though.

Friday: Our day in Freeport. Probably our most disappointing time in the trip. It was ok, just very commercialized. They sold lots of key chains, tshirts, stuff like that. We were hoping for a more authentic experience. The most authentic thing we did was eat lunch at this little place that was very..........different. We ordered Conch Fritters (which I wasn't a huge fan of but Josh enjoyed) and tried Bennie Cake (neither of us liked it). We went back to the ship early, chilled on the back deck (where we spent the most of our time). Wrote postcards, napped. Fantastic. Had a salad for lunch. Went to trivia show and Josh volunteered and WON TRIVIA!!! He got a trophy. I got it all on video. Fun! For dinner I ordered sushi, penne with shrimp, salmon and mussels. I enjoyed it all, much to my surprise! And for dessert i had this delicious thing that I called the chocolate melty cake. Josh had it EVERY NIGHT! :) YUM! The wait staff danced to Apple Bottom Jeans- funny! We also decided to celebrate Dianna's 30th birthday on this night because of other things we wanted to do during the cruise. Yatna brought out a cheesecake and sang to her at dinner. It was awesome. Then we went to karaoke and don't you know....Dianna and I sang Fancy, by Reba and we owned it! We have it on video. I ilke our version better than REbas! :)

Saturday: NASSAU!!! and Happy 30th BDAY to DSM!!!! This was one of our favorite days! We got off the ship and got away from the crowd. Josh and I walked way up into the city. It was amazing. the architecture, everything. Very neat. We found this great little shop that was owned by a couple ladies who were local artists. They have a vision for the community to support the arts, be a safe place for youth and adults to come and take classes, serve refreshments, etc. They were great ladies and we spent the majority of our time with them. We bought some handmade soap from them. We are soap lovers and loved the idea of buying local. Our only real souvenirs that we purchased. They sent us to an authentic Bahamian restaurant, Iguanas. We had Grouper, Rum Cake (which is the number 1 souvenir that people take home) and plantains. OMG, those plantains. WE LOVED IT!!!! When we got back to the ship we napped on the back deck. It rained some. We got some hot chocolate and just looked at the water. So great. We had a fantastic dinner (which I didn't write down but I remember I couldn't pronounce it very well anyway!) We spent the evening in the hot tub and on the back deck, celebrating Dianna. It was relaxing. Oh and we were supposed to leave the port by 5. We left at 11 due to "diagnostic issues", which we never actually found out what was wrong with our ship....

Sunday: The last full day on the ship. I decided to get up early for the 7:30 Stretch Class and 8am Yoga. And to see the sunrise. I think I was the only person awake on the ship. I get to the very top deck and there is no sun. A foggy foggy morning. But it was just me and it was an amazing feeling to be out there. I was the only person in morning stretch class. It was taught by Ryan from Scotland. It was a good class. NExt was Yoga. I was the only person. Krste (pronounced Kris-tay) from Macedonia taught the class. Kinda awkward...never had a male yoga teacher. I was about to crack up at the end though. The water was a little rough that day and at the end of class, we are laying on our backs, eyes closed doing a relaxation exercise and he says, "Feel the motion of the ocean" Hilarious. We spent the day in the hot tub. We packed and sat outside. They did a finale show. It was great. For dinner I had corn chowder, greek pie and cous cous. Oh...and escargot! I wasn't a huge fan. We took pics with our wait guys. They were awesome. We loved them.


So we had a great trip. We would take another cruise. It was good times for sure. Best things....all the accents, the staff were amazing, great hospitality, great food choices, always lots of things to do but so many places to relax. Loved spending time with our fantastic friends. A great vacation.