Steinbox

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on December 18, 2009, and wanting to mark it in a way other than the usual dinner out, we decided to take a trip.

Boarding the Ship:

However, Ben could only get two days off from work, and it’s winter weather (we don’t do any winter sports, such as skiing), so weren’t sure what to do.  One idea was to experience New York City at Christmas time (I have never been, although Ben used to go frequently for work).  However, when we checked into that, we learned that December is peak tourist month for NYC (read: most expensive month).  Finally Ben suggested a cruise.  I balked.  We have always told each other, “we are not cruise people.”  We are state park people, and would like to be national park people!  We reserved the right to go on an Alaskan cruise someday, but neither of us harbored any interest in cruising otherwise.  However, everyone we know who’s gone on one has loved it.  So we booked a cruise through AAA in August and had four months to look forward to it!

The weather was cold when we left, and we were looking forward to warmer air!

Amelia was eager to get to her friend Faith’s house, where she joyfully (despite a fever) spent five nights!

The trip down was uneventful–non-stop flights are great!!–and we checked into the hotel the travel agent recommended.  It was not a hotel, but a motel, and a pretty scary one at that.  We suffered through.  Here we are the next morning waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the port (a 45-minute drive):

We boarded the cruise ship on our 10th anniversary (after they confiscated Ben’s knives!).

We were able to see NASA from the ship and planned to visit it when we disembarked three days later.  We were on deck to watch ourselves pull away from the port when it started to rain.  What ensued then were three days and nights filled with the kind of disasters people make movies about, if they’re funny.  Ours were nowhere near hilarious enough to warrant Hollywood attention, just disappointing.  However, I will try to focus on some of the highlights of the trip in this post!

Dressed up for dinner the first night.  The travel agent had requested we have a private table (and other people did have them).  However, we were seated at a table with two other couples.  When they say to allow two hours for dinner, they mean it.  Neither of us are skilled at making conversation with total strangers.  It was interesting.  The food was okay, but the desserts were not.

It’s good to know where the lifeboats are!  And which one is yours!  The ship was decorated beautifully for the Christmas season.

Coming up to our first stop, Nassau…Ben was amused with the fake rocks!

I like to take pictures of boats.  This one seemed colorful.

It was warmer on Nassau than it was on the boat–we spent most of our time wishing we’d brought more sweatshirts and long pants!  It was nice to walk around a bit in the sun.  It was still really windy though.

There were six cruise ships docked there, so it was very crowded.  The streets were wet and smelled of sewage.  People tried to sell us stuff at every turn.  I found it stressful.

Senor Frog’s is supposedly the number one party spot on the island…although probably not mid-afternoon!  We took a picture on our way by to the pirate museum–Pirates of Nassau.

Notice the rats:

I really like the blue ropes on this boat.  Anybody want to tell me what they’re for?

After the pirate museum (which was overpriced but fun), we walked through the straw market and attempted to barter with vendors for cheap souvenirs.  We were unsuccessful and walked away empty-handed.  After being on the island a whole ninety minutes, we re-boarded the ship and told each other that we would enjoy the next island much more.  The next day promised an all-day stop at the cruise line’s private island!

Having not yet worn a bathing suit, I insisted we attempt to lay out.  I thought it might be less windy since we were docked.  It was still really cold.  I left my pants on over the suit and ended up wrapping up on top of it anyhow.  Ben left his jeans on.  It was too windy to read a book on deck.  After about half an hour of that we gave up and changed into sweatshirts again!  Here’s our view of Nassau from our deck chairs:

Ready for formal night:

I’m not sure what’s going on with my hand in this one:

I liked the first one better of Ben and the second one better of me…so we got both!  Now I have to decide which one to frame…

You know, they will give you a seminar on how to make towel creations so you can impress people back home.  We were bored, but not that bored!

There are interesting things at the midnight buffet.

However, the people behind me weren’t too happy with how I kept holding up the line taking pictures of the food!

The next morning we got up early to watch the sunrise…of course the camera battery died and I was too sleepy to remember to put the spare in my non-existent pocket, so we don’t have any pictures of the sunrise!  While watching it (alone, because everyone else had just gone to bed drunk), we saw an island coming into view…and Ben said, “I hope that’s not our island, because no one’s going to it today!”  The waves were so high they looked higher than the tree-line from our vantage point, crashing into the shore.   Sure enough, at about 7:30 AM, the captain came on and said that we could not make our scheduled stop.  We were disappointed, to say the very least.  There went any hopes of seeing any sand on this trip, touching the ocean, snorkeling, sunbathing, and so forth.  We slowed down to 11 MPH so that we would not arrive back at the port too early and had a very slow, but still very windy and cold, day at sea.  The captain said the winds were 40MPH and the waves were 12 feet high.

Don’t be fooled by my short sleeves–after about five minutes, I’d put my sweatshirt back on!  I had to hold my hat on my head too!  You might say, well, it was warmer than home (which was 15 degrees)…well, that’s true, but at home I would have been indoors!

We went to a classical concert–this trio was actually very very good!

That evening we decided to watch the sunset (yes, the same morning that we watched the sunrise–but they were less than 12 hours apart, after all).  The camera was working this time, so now you’re going to have to put up with several sunset pictures!

Despite it being evening, no one else seemed any more interested in watching the sunset than they were the sunrise, at least not on the deck we were on.

You can see the moon (a crescent) in the upper left of this one, illustrating how the sun shines on the moon:

The moon is visible in the upper left of this one as well:

Dinner the third (and final) night:

Our trip to NASA the next morning got canceled (we found that out less than two hours after we heard we couldn’t go to the island).  We got off the boat at 9 AM, got to the airport at 10:45 AM, and our flight didn’t leave until 6:30 PM.  We got home just before midnight.  I read a whole book and started a second one that day.

So, to sum up, the weather was cold, windy and wet.  We did go to Nassau (which was stressful and disappointing other than the pirate museum), but we did not get to go to the private island.  We never touched sand or ocean water.  We didn’t get a private table at dinner.  There wasn’t much to do on board since we do not drink nor gamble.  We didn’t get to go to NASA, which we both would have greatly preferred to Nassau.  Were there any good points?  Well…it gave me something to look forward to for four months, and I was able to buy three dresses to wear (I found it fun dressing up, but Ben didn’t).  We had four days alone.  Ben enjoyed leaning on the railing looking at the water.  Um…that might be it!

So, we didn’t think we were cruise people, and now we know we’re not!  If we ever go again, we will  1.  Go for longer than 3 nights (we were tired from traveling, but I didn’t want to waste time napping when we were only there a short time and should get our money’s worth!) and 2.  Go with people we know.  It would be much more fun in a group.  Plus we would have had a lot more pictures of the two of us.  However, if we never go again, that’s okay too!

Amelia, however, had a fabulous time with her friend Faith’s family.  It’s quite possible she had a better time than we did!  And thus ends the tale of our tenth anniversary trip.