So, it took me a while to decide if I was even going to post proof of my cruise week. For many reasons. Some of the pictures are intimate – not sexual, not gross, just intimate, and some are proof that my tummy is just NOT going away. While I know that all of you here love me loads – I’m not sure if we have lurkers who have the sole intent of plaster pictures of my wonderful body all over the internet for folks to see. Then…..I said…..”what the hay?!” Let’s go.

The Weekend Before

Saturday Morning:

We get up early to be at the airport to check in to fly out to Fort Lauderdale (even though we were cruising out of Miami, FL. Check in went as smoothly as possible and we got on the plane and SLEPT all the way to Fort Lauderdale. We slept so hard that the flight attendant even had some words for us. She said that we looked so peaceful sleeping next to each other that she didn’t want to wake us up to ask us if we wanted peanuts or any pop (soda for all my non Chicago people) I’m pretty sure that we looked like the sleeping dead though, because our preparations for this cruise took us clear into three or four in the morning with a ten o’clock flight out of the airport.

We make it to Fort Lauderdale without event and we get our bags and proceed to do what people from Chicago do when they get to any city with a public transportation system. We find public transportation that can get us to Miami for cheaper than a shuttle (10 bucks for the both of us – Shout Out to Tri-Rail System!) and call for our hotel shuttle.

We make it to our hotel, check in and go to the room. We stayed for a weekend. Listen, if you have children, and it takes you a while to get away on a vacation then I’m sure you can assume correctly what we did.

SLEEP! Well, sleep and eat, and MAYBE…..

Highlights of that weekend:

• Sleep
• Sleep
• Not having to do a darn thing
• The Cuban steak sandwich that I had from the Airport Cafe
• Sleep
• Walking in the warm rain with Mr. Nicholes
• Sleep

MONDAY

Got up early, showered, and hit the shuttle bus for drop of at the Port of Miami.

We checked in and signed our sail cards and took pictures (which by the way, we did not purchase, well because they were entirely too expensive) and went on our way. We were able to take a couple of pictures before pulling out of the Port of Miami and we let go a sigh of relief of sorts. I couldn’t believe that we were actually on a boat 1170 miles from home and we wouldn’t have to wake up early, or for feedings, or to change diapers for the next five days. Here go a couple of photos.

Mr. Nicholes and I waiting for our shuttle bus from the hotel.

Our crew welcoming us on board - we were supposed to get champagne, I didn't see it.

Sending the last couple of text messages before I would be completely offline

Rainy Port of Miami

More Rain

We were then allowed to check into our stateroom where we did a whole lot of happy dancing and what not and took another nap before we had to get ready for our mandatory drill.  We slept a LOT on this cruise – and I am sure that someone is wondering why we spent good money to sleep. Well, I say this to you – have four children. One being a tween, one being a toddler and two being 10 month old twins and then tell me different! LOL! Seriously, we needed the sleep. Totally needed the sleep. Plus I think that our excitement literally wore us out. We had been looking forward to this cruise for MONTHS and the sheer anticipation knocked us out like a little kid on their first day at Disney World.

After then, we skipped dinner – which was a BIG MISTAKE – because I missed my LOBSTER! Norwegian has Freestyle Dining, but also has these specialty restaurants that you have to pay a cover charge for and they have things like lobster and shrimp on the menu daily, but we couldn’t deal with the $25 per head price tag. What can we say – we were on a TIGHT budget.

We decided to explore the ship and found almost every nook and cranny that there was and did a lot of people watching. LOTS. People watching is kind of a thing that we’ve done since we started dating way back in eighth grade (yikes) and we tend to make up backgrounds and names. I will say that the crowd on the ship was virtually young-ish. Basically late twenties and up. I was pleasantly surprised.

After touring and laughing and walking the lido deck, we retired to our stateroom, watched some television and prepared for the next day.

We’ll continue day two tomorrow.

~Make It A Fantastic Day!