On July 19, 2013, Jonathan and I celebrated our ten year anniversary with a three-night cruise to the Bahamas. We sailed on the Enchantment of the Seas, with stops in Nassau and Coco Cay.
We headed to Eustis to spend the night and drop off the kids on Thursday before driving to Port Canaveral on Friday morning. We boarded the ship easily and quickly then made our way up to the Windjammer to grab a bite of lunch. I think that most everyone who was already on the ship was in the Windjammer eating lunch as well. It was hopping!
While we were eating, they announced that our rooms were ready early. That cleared a good number out of the restaurant and when we finished, we headed down to find our room too.
We had an oceanview room on deck 4. Not huge, but it was comfortable and bigger than the room we had on our last cruise.
The bathroom was tiny…and whenever we took a shower, we flooded the floor. If the ship was listing, we could tell.
Our luggage arrived while we were checking out the room. After that, we decided to give ourselves a quick tour of the ship before we had to go to the muster drill. We started at Deck 1 and worked our way up to Deck 12.
From the top of the Centrum, looking out over the pool deck.
One of my favorite spots, the Solarium.
After the muster drill, we changed into our swimsuits, grabbed our books, and headed to find some deck chairs in the Solarium. From here we watched the ship set sail. We relaxed here until it was time to head down to get dressed for dinner.
We ate in the My Fair Lady Dining Room each night at 5:45. We were seated with a family with two little boys from Scotland and a couple from Ocala. Coincidentally, Sharon, the wife from Ocala, has her accounting degree from UF, and her husband, Henry, graduated from the same high school that I did. Small world.
After dinner the first night looking down into the Centrum.
That night we attended the Welcome Aboard show in the Orpheum Theater and enjoyed that. And later we watched Admission out on the pool deck.
The next morning we slept in then got ready to grab breakfast in the My Fair Lady Dining Room. We were seated with a set of grandparents who were on the cruise with their four grandchildren. We enjoyed talking with them. After breakfast, we headed to the fifth floor to walk around a bit and see how things looked as we approached Nassau. It was an overcast and windy day.
See…it was hair-raisingly windy!
Paradise Island
When the rain started in earnest, we headed inside to watch the rest.
I spent the day on the ship. I’m not a huge fan of Nassau and Nassau in the rain did not sound appealing. So I found a quiet spot in the Solarium to read. Jonathan wanted to visit Fort Charlotte so he took a few hours to walk there and see that.
Jonathan really enjoyed the fort, although not very many other people were there. :-)
The cannon was aimed straight at the ships in the dock.
Our ship
That night was formal night so when Jonathan got back we got ready for our dinner. It was just us and Henry and Sharon that night.
The pool deck, and where we watched the movie on the first night.
After dinner we changed then made our way to the Orpheum Theater for the Haines’ Magic Show. My expectations for the show were admittedly low, but I have to say, it was amazing! I think we both really enjoyed it. We then stuck around for the Love and Marriage Game Show, which ended up being so funny. I think we were practically crying at some points.
That night was the midnight buffet (but it’s not called that anymore…I don’t remember what the new name is) so we stayed up to watch us set sail from Nassau and enjoy some food in the middle of the night. We danced a bit too.
This picture is so weird of us, but the only one we got that night on the pool deck.
The next morning we awoke as we were getting ready to drop anchor near Coco Cay. We could see the island from our window.
We got up, got showered, grabbed breakfast at the Windjammer, then caught a tender over to the island.
We arrived fairly early so we had our pick of the chairs. I really could have selected a less sunny seat, but I had a beautiful view .
We enjoyed the lunch on the island and met a gambler from Illinois and a pair of sisters from California.
Jonathan went snorkeling.
The clear water. I went out a few times to cool off. It was disconcerting though when the fish would just bump up against my legs.
We were some of the last to leave. When we got back to the ship, we went swimming on the pool deck since we had a bit of extra time.
We showered then got changed for our last dinner. I enjoy getting dressed up a bit for dinner. I kind of think that cruising is the closest that I’ll ever get to living like they do at Downton Abbey.
Everyone was back at our table again and we enjoyed chatting with the families there.
In the Orpheum Theater, ready for the musical show.
Later that night we watched a name that lyric game show and tried to see the last parts of the ship. We decided to just carry off our luggage the next morning rather than set it out so that saved us some time that night and the next morning. When we did get up the next day, we quickly got ready and packed, ate breakfast and were off the ship in no time.
In the car and ready to head home.
While we had talked about doing a trip to Europe, that proved to be a bit too ambitious for this year so we changed our plans and instead went with a cruise. Since we used reward points to go, the entire trip cost only $100…for parking, snorkeling, and an ornament. It was a wonderful time away celebrating the past ten years and looking forward to many, many more.
