Carribean Cruise + Florida

The Cruise

My family doesn’t vacation too much these days, however this year, my savvy Momma had found a great deal on a Caribbean cruise, the 7 day cruise from Dec 21-28 itself was only $600! We sailed on the Norwegian Epic, which came fully equipped with 3 water slides (one of them was the infamous toilet bowl), a fitness center better than the gym at Berkeley, a jogging track, over 9 dining options, an ice bar, several rock climbing walls, a buttload of shows, pools, casinos, and a whole bunch of other things that you would find in a Las Vegas resort.

Now this was my first cruise, and people tell you about the abundance of food, but no one really prepares you for the onslaught of food. If you had a functional grhelin (hunger) pathway before, you sure don’t have it anymore. There was free room service. There was 24/7 dining. There were buffets (with very good food). There were gourmet desserts and restaurants, and there was absolutely no self control.

The cruise went had 3 stops, 4 if you include Miami: Nassau, Bahamas; Ocho Rios, Jamaica; and Cozumel, Mexico.

This trip was as touristy as possible. There was no real immersion into any local culture or foods. At each stop, there were rows of ‘Tax and Duty Free’ jewelry shops. There was even a Hooters at our last stop. (I watched this documentary and am now jaded :( )

We had the option of booking ‘shore excursions’ for each destination, and I am SO glad that we decided to book excursions for each, otherwise all we would be doing was meandering through beach after beach or jewelry store after jewelry store.

The following excursions we took were:

Atlantis, Nassau, Bahamas

This was basically a giant resort located in the capitol of the Bahamas. They had a decent sized water park, and an amazing beach. The most memorable slide was the leap of faith, where you drop near vertically down a replica of a Mayan Temple.

Best of Ocho Rios, Jamaica

In this excursion, we went to a couple locations and with a guided bus tour. We first went to Dunn River Falls and hiked a waterfall. At first it’s quite exciting, but the thrill is over in 5 minutes. It’s slightly dangerous, but as is any hiking adventure. There were maybe 2 points within the hike where the force of the water was strong enough to worry, and there were always alternative routes or hand rails. I did enjoy it though because you were supposed to form a human chain by holding one another’s hands to help each other up the waterfall. Go Teamwork!

We visited a beautiful botanical garden than belonged to a hotel that had been constructed a century ago. We also travelled through the forest on a road they called the Gulley, where road merchants tried selling us many phallic wood carvings.

It was interesting to learn that the minimum wage (which many Jamaicans earn) is $45 US dollars a week. They’re gas prices are also currently around $7 US dollars a gallon, and that’s with the OPEC war.

Chankanaab Snorkeling, Cozumel, Mexico

Here, we went snorkeling, which was beautiful, and I wish I could have better captured some of the amazing fish that I saw with my GoPro, but alas it is hard to swim with a steady hand. We were also lucky enough to have 2 very funny tour guides who taught us about Mayan culture, as many parts of Mexico and the island of Cozumel were once inhabited by Mayans. And then of course we had tequila tastings. I never knew tequila could taste so good! (they had almond flavored tequila!) Then we got to see a very cute sea lion show. Definitely recommend this excursion!

After the Cruise

We didn’t do too much after the cruise, we went to Universal Studios, and found that so exhausting and expensive, that we decided to abandon our original plan to go to pay $100 to go to Disney World the next day and spend 7 hours waiting in line for 15 minutes worth of rides, and instead go to the Kennedy Space Center. HOLY MOLY KENNEDY SPACE CENTER. That place, made me want to re-do all of college as an electrical or mechanical engineer. I wanted to be a space cadet. I wanted to be a part of SpaceX or Boeing. They did a phenomenal job of organizing the exhibits. The people who designed the flow of the exhibits are geniuses, I can’t wait to come back again. If/When I become a parent, I will definitely be bringing my kids here when they are of age to inspire them to love science. You can’t not leave wanting to be a scientist.

We also did several other things in Florida like go to the Miami Beach, Everglades National Park, and visit Vizcaya Museum and Gardens all of which were also very enjoyable! (except all the mosquito bites).

Final Thoughts

I usually would not be such a fan of this sort of tourism, where false mirrors are put up wherever you go to reflect an image that may make tourists feel at ease. Nonetheless, I gotta say, THIS WAS NICE. The tours were enjoyable, and also meant no real pre-planning needed to be done on our part. Furthermore, there were so many times on the ship where we just did nothing, and looked forward to doing nothing, and often found that the time was nothing ‘o clock. Now, we did plenty of things on the ship, went to almost every show that we could (there were a lot of repeats), they even had the Blue Man Group! Other than the natural family drama that arises when my family congregates, this has got to be the most relaxed I have been since I graduated high school, and it was a great way to end 2014 and my undergraduate career. :)