Nielson Family: Easter Caribbean Cruise: Day 1,2,3,4,5

So Peter and I were checkin out our credit card points one night and realized we could use points to go on a cruise. The rest is history. Spur of the moment we booked a cruise about 6 weeks away. We were soooo excited. It was really needed after a lot of hard months, working hours, bad luck stuff. Don't get me wrong. I love my life, my cute and healthy kids, the gospel, and everything else in between. But I think we both needed to get recharged and this sounded like the perfect way! My sister is a saint and watched our kids for us while we were gone for 8 or 9 days. She even came to our house so the kids could stay in school. My mom would watch them on the weekends and my sister did during the week. So Friday night we dropped off our kids at my mom's where they were going to sleep. After a hard hard goodbye we went to ward temple night to start off our vacation. It was the PERFECT way to start off our vacation. Just what we needed. It helped calm me down and gave me the boost I needed. The next day we woke up before 5 am and drove to pick up Stacy who dropped us off at the airport. We spent most of the day flying and arrived at Port Canaveral at our hotel just before dinnertime. We walked to a nearby restaurant and then spent the evening in the hot tub. Afterward we skyped our kids and went to bed. We then slept for 13 hours straight! We were sooo tired and without kids to wake us up we just kept sleeping! It felt soooo good.

Sunday morning we woke up and grabbed a yummy breakfast at the hotel and headed to the ship. On our way we made friends with people in the shuttle bus. One couple told us how they booked an excursion for when they get off the boat to go to the Kennedy Space Center, and then they bring you to the airport. We were really interested in going to NASA and so that was on our agenda to book once we boarded.

We were able to get on without much of a wait. We toured the ship and then hung out on the balcony waiting for it to take off...it was really windy though!

Our cruise was a dream works cruise. So we saw lots of dream work characters! Our boat was in the second fleet and called Freedom of the Seas. We were stoke it had a rock climbing wall, basketball/volleyball court, table tennis, mini golf course, and flow rider.

Our first night at dinner waiting to meet the other people whom we would become friends with for the week! I will tell you more about them later when I post our group picture at the end.

Monday was our stop at CocoCay. It is a privately owned island with Royal. It is our absolute most favorite place! I could live there! Well we had booked an excursion to go on Jet skis. We booked the first group out and were therefore given priority off the boat. Well the water was choppy and they were having a hard time getting a safe tender spot. After 1 1/2 hours we finally got to the island. We went on a jet ski tour of all the little islands. It was really fun. When we got back on the island we saw lots of these little guys, even though they were quite big!

On Cococay it is fun because the cruise brings all the food onto the island and sets up a huge lunch. So all the food is free. The beaches are beautiful and it is just so relaxing! So Peter noticed a storm coming in so we decided to get back on a tender to the ship. We were one of the fist tenders out after the stormy winds started coming. The line to get on a tender grew way long and we were glad we left when we did.

You can see how bad the waters were. When we were on the tender it was just rocking back and forth. It was pretty bad. We anchor to the boat and they put the ramp down on the tender that leads to the ship. Crew members pushed a couple wheelchairs up the ramp and people start cheering because the waves were so choppy the ramp was moving really bad up and down and we were all happy they got the wheelchairs up safely. Just then they tell the top row to stand up to get off. We stand up and hear a huge bang and snap and our fat rope tying us to the ship broke and the ramp was starting to slide off, almost into the ocean. Luckily their was only 1 crew member on the ramp at the time and he hurried off. They pushed the ramp back to the ship and we had to head to another opening on the ship to tender at. It was pretty crazy and I was thankful to be back on the ship safely.

First formal night:

The Royal Promenade where there are places to eat and shop and where there are DJ's and parades. It's three stories high.

Tuesday was a day at sea. We went to comedy shows, hung out on the deck reading, pool parties, and played lots of volleyball. Wednesday our port was San Juan Peurto Rico. I was super excited for the simple fact that because it is part of America I could call, text, and skype for free and see my kids! That was fun. So we get off the ship and took a shuttle bus tour of the beautiful island and learned about some of it's history. It is gorgeous there. There was old San Juan and New San Juan. There was an obvious difference but even in new San Juan there was run down old places, next to million dollar condos.

Right across the street from this view is an apartment building that JLo stays in!

New San Juan. Those buildings cost thousands of dollars a month to rent and the guide said they are virtually vacant.

This was absolutely hilarious to me...I don't know why. Just this random guy on a contraption driving down a road.

At the capital building:

A castle built back in the day to protect their land from invaders.

Look past our driver at the two men with the wheelbarrow. They had a plank that went from the bed of the truck to this house but the concrete was up high that the plank rested on...it was just another comical picture.

Their basketball courts. This is a housing area that the government owns the land but the people own the homes. So they can't ever sell their homes because they can't sell the land with it. Therefore it is very low income poverty type living. But across the street is million dollar condos. Sad.

Their cemetery is all above ground because of the water.

Looking out the windjammer for lunch out to a barge going into San Juan.

On the ship I went to the fitness center and noticed that I could see the castle we went to from my treadmill.

Zoomed in...

And I could see the capital we went to. It all seemed so far away but it was fun to put it all in perspective from the ship, which was as tall as their tallest buildings.