Tracy and I, after 5 years, were able to get away for a few days, just us... no kids, all thanks to Sue!!!!
We left Toronto in the middle of the night for sunny Miami where we boarded the cruise ship )Carnival Victory) for a 5 day cruise out to Grand Turk, and the Bahamas'. This was our first cruise aboard a ship this size, we are used to sailing our own ship and having our own crew (and being our own cooks and maids:)). The ship was huge (as you can imagine), there were 3000 guests and around 1000 employees which is a pretty good ratio. The ship had a workout room, which... if you get car sick or have motion issues is not the place to be while the ship is moving... and you are trying to ride a exercise bike, fyi, just sayin".
Each morning we would receive a brochure that included the events of the day, destination, dress code for dinner, ect, you know the old saying.. if you can't remember your name just go the front desk and they will tell you ...like that. The comdeians were pretty funny, the food was 'so so' but the name that tune night which featured the 70's one night, the 80's another it was by far our favorite event!
So Monday afternoon we seat sail and headed for Grand Turk and spent all night Monday and all day Tuesday enroute. We explored the ship and the buffet's, tried to carnival brand beer Thirsty Frog and basically relaxed and read books. The island of Grand Turk is fairly small and when we rented bikes the bike owner told us that only one French couple has ever made it to the light house so, in the words of Homer Simpson "sounds like a bet to me" off we went. The views from the lighthouse were awesome and the reef off the coast of Grand Turk was is responsible for 1000's of shipwrecks, crazy!
Wednesday we set sail for Half Moon cay, the obligatory cruise-line owned island. It was a beach BBQ party and basically laying in the sun, not to much to write home about. Tracy and I walked along the beach enjoyed the BBQ and had a leisurely afternoon. The rains came in around 3:00 and all 3000 passengers beat cheeks to get to the boat causing the shuttle lines to back up and of course, everyone headed to the bar and continued on their merry way! The crew would constantly remind people, "yell louder, drink more, your on vacation"!
Thursday night after the storm we headed to the Bahamas', which were bigger than I imagined. The place has a British Colony fell to the place with the bright colored buildings, horse drawn carriages and barkers trying to get you into their store, restaurant, etc, the only thing missing were people trying to sell us chicklets. Once such barker manage to snag us, coincidently right before the rains came and into Two Bbrothers we went. Since the cruise came with all you could eat and drink having lunch and buying a couple of beers seemed, well you know ...."hey your on vacation!" Tom found this cool new hat and the beer was super cold, local and the appy of choice of course, conch fritters!
Friday we set sail for Miami and the end of the cruise. The dinners each night were somewhat different and the key we found was to get the anytime dining option, which like it says let's you dine any time you want. That way we were never rushed, and never had the same waiter or table which was great. The food I must say was mediocre but the dinner entertainment was top notch. There is no way to report this without being politically in-correct so in the same vain as the waiters sing Jingle Bells in the cult classic " a Christmas Carol" the waiters every night sang Happy Birthday, a link to their performance is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KumQHXEmEE4&feature=youtu.be. Now on the last night they out did themselves by signing a parody to "Your leaving on a Jet Plane" , and sang " Your leaving our fun Ship" the link for that is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CoWXpoB0Lc. It totally cracked us up!
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exactly what we needed:)
