Stephanie's Spring Cruise Recap: In Pictures

I will share separate posts eventually with recommendations/tips from Grand Cayman and Cozumel based on my recent cruise. Until then, here are some pictures from my glorious cruise to the Western Caribbean (on Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas) in March. Enjoy!

Mom, Aunt Janet and Cyndie having fun on their drive to Florida.

Yes, our group of five women packed a lot for our five day cruise!

Being silly during the Sail Away festivities on deck.

In the beautiful dining room on formal night.

With my mom on formal night.

I see more cruises in my future!

Having fun in one of the windows on the ship.

Welcome to Grand Cayman!

Good times at the Seven Bile Beach in Grand Cayman.

This is bliss!

We had a great time in Grand Cayman.

I'm not quite sure why my mom was hiding behind me, but it was funny!

Cozumel!

We're such tourists!

Working for lunch/tips. :)

Mom, Cyndie and Aunt Janet after our delicious Mexican lunch.

Aunt Janet and Jenny did a great job during The Quest (the adult scavenger hunt).

With mom at dinner on the ship.

Enjoying our last hours on the beautiful Navigator of the Seas. It was a fantastic trip!

Until next time...

Cruise Tip of the Day: Ships in Port

Mary is currently on her Southern Caribbean cruise on Princess and I am back from my fabulous five day cruise on Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas. I will post a series of posts to recap my vacation (the first of which will be a sad declaration of how I definitely over-packed).

In the meantime, I wanted to share a quick cruise tip with you. If you are going on a cruise and would like to know what ships (and how many) will be in your ports of call, you can check out this link:
http://cruisett.com/ships.php

You will just need to select your cruise line, ship and then the month of your cruise.

It's a great tool, especially if you are planning a beach day and want an idea of how many people to expect on the beach with you.

Happy Cruising!
Stephanie

Overpacking for a Cruise

I have been packing this week for my upcoming cruise (I fly to Fort Lauderdale tomorrow and the ship leaves on Friday) to the Caribbean. As I briefly mentioned in an earlier post, my hope was to not overpack for this trip. I went into the packing process determined that I would succeed.

Well, I'm sad to admit that I failed. Do I really need four pairs of heels (red, black, nude and blue), two pairs of comfortable Sketchers, one pair of water shoes and two pairs of flip flops for a five day cruise? I think not. But somehow, all of these items are tucked inside of my suitcase.

Do I also need three bathing suits, two cover-ups, five pairs of shorts, two pairs of jeans, seven dresses and numerous tops? Just writing these numbers out on this blog makes me uncomfortable. I should go home and lighten the load, but I somehow doubt that will happen. As usual, I will come home next week and realize that I only wore a third of what I packed. I will accept my overpacking once again and will strive to do better next time.

But maybe, just maybe, I will remove a few of the dresses and shoes from my suitcase tonight.

In an effort to be hopeful for my future packing skills, here are links to several sites online that provide tips for packing. Maybe one day I will take their advice!

http://www.ehow.com/how_5189_avoid-overpacking.html

http://www.wikihow.com/Pack-Without-Overpacking

Welcome!

Welcome to the first entry of our little travel blog! We are happy that you have taken the time to stop by. This blog will feature the musings of two friends that love to cruise the world. Topics will include stories from our various cruise adventures, our unique perspectives on the various cruise lines and cruise/travel tips that we have learned throughout the years.  In addition, you can join in as we plan future cruises and we would love to discuss your upcoming travels as well. We also plan to have other exciting features on this blog that you will learn about in the days to come.

To officially kick things off, here is some background information from your two cruising gals...Mary and Stephanie:

Mary: Hello! I'm super excited to be creating this blog with Stephanie. We have worked together for about 5 years, and it's always fun to share our cruise experiences with each other. Why not create a blog to share with everyone? I've completed 12 cruises and I'm about to go on my 13th in April. My favorite cruise line is Princess (8 total cruises), but I've also sailed Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity. I first got into cruising in 1992. I was lucky enough to go on a family vacation to the Caribbean on the Star Princess. At the time, I was in 6th grade. That first cruise was life changing in several ways. First, I decided I wanted to learn Spanish since I met so many people who spoke Spanish. Second, I was determined to become a Cruise Director "when I grew up" - which didn't happen but it was fun researching it for career day. Third, I knew that I wanted to cruise to as many places as possible. Thank you for letting us share our cruise adventures with you here on this blog.

Stephanie: Hi everyone! My name is Stephanie and I am a twenty-something Georgia native. I love to travel and my absolute favorite form of travel is cruising. I have completed 10 cruises (and they were all on Royal Caribbean ships). My first cruise adventure was on Royal Caribbean's Enchantment of the Seas. This cruise was a high school graduation gift and I traveled with my mom, grandmother, aunts and cousin. It only took this one cruise for me to fall in love with cruising on Royal Caribbean ships. Since that fateful cruise in 2002, our cruise travels have taken us all through the Caribbean, Italy, Greece, Turkey, France, Monaco, Sicily and Egypt. I have two cruises planned this year: the Caribbean in March and Hawaii in September. I will share all of our plans with you in upcoming posts.

For now, welcome to our blog! We are excited about sharing our upcoming cruise plans, adventure recaps and other fun cruise related topics with you.