Taking It Day By Day: Cruisin with the besties....does anyone even say besties anymore?

Spencer and I love a good vacation together, but there are times when its equally awesome to vacation with friends. Now, vacationing with friends can be tricky if you don't all vacation the same way. Luckily for our group of friends our cruise-cation afforded us all the ability to vacation our own way, but still afforded us lots of friend time! We took an eastern Caribbean cruise with Carnival and couldn't have had a better time!
Spencer and I decided to fly into Nashville an extra night early and stay with Jamie and Kenny before we all flew to Miami the next day. Ashley and Lew live in the Miami area so they graciously offered the rest of us a place to stay the night before the cruise. Bek and Mike flew in at about 11pm that night, so it was full house!

heading to FL!

How cute are they?

Just waiting for Bek and Mike

The morning we left for the ship we went out and got some Cuban coffees (my first caffeine in 3 months at that point and the last caffeinated beverage I've had since) and then went about filling our sneaky booze bottles for the week. Now, before anyone freaks out, we all still bought beer and wine and mixed drinks on board and would not have bought more if we hadn't brought some on, and if our booze ever gets taken away it will not in any way ruin the trip for any of us. It is REALLY fun to be sneaky though. I'm not going into any detail about how we snuck things on or how much etc, its just a fun ritual.

For real, the best coffee....ever.

Our cruise went to St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Nassau and Grand Turk and we had several days at sea to relax as well!

Spencer and I stopped in Nassau on our first cruise and had a great day exploring. For this trip we opted to get off the ship for a little bit, did a beer tasting, grabbed a few souvenirs and then got back on the ship to enjoy some time when it wasn't quite so crowded. We utilized the gym and then hung out poolside until everyone else got back on board.

Street art

Pirate Museum!

We have a photo from our last trip to Nassau with a pirate that looks very similar..

Spence is trying to get money for drinks I think

hand carving, when we started watching this thing was a hunk of wood

Workin on the fitness

But also on the beer....

For our day in St. Thomas we mostly were together, Bek and Mike went off on their own for the first part of the day, the rest of us opted to head straight to the beach and commenced drinking some beverages in the ocean. We spent most of the day there relaxing and playing in the water. There was a pretty decent rain shower during the day which broke up the day. Our main excursion we had booked for the trip was to do a night snorkel as a group. It was a fantastic way to explore some sea life we wouldn't have seen otherwise! This was probably the haziest of our vacation days, turns out rum punch in the ocean with minimal food is a bad combo for trying to write a trip report a year later! I remember the ocean, I remember stopping for boozy milkshakes on our way to the snorkel, I remember being *REALLY* mad at Spencer b/c I thought he lost our towel clips -- again lots of rum punch, minimal food, I understand this is a silly reason to be mad-- and a variety of other tipsy shenanigans. I'm glad we had some down time before the snorkel, I would have been sad if I'd been too out of it to remember that part!

Early in the day, Megans Bay is one of my favorite beaches!

Before our night snorkel

As we got off the ship

Our group after the snorkel, we had such a great day!

Grand Turk we opted for no excursion and the whole group trekked down the beach and lounged. We rented chairs and umbrellas at a beach shack place, had some drinks and some food and just enjoyed the amazing water! The beach shack had a resident dog we all played with, there were some big inflatable water towers etc that some of the guys climbed on, it was very relaxing and perfect beach day!

Have you ever seen water this clear?

Footprints in the sand

Headed back to the beach

Puerto Rico the group split up, Bek and Mike did a stand up paddleboard rental, Jamie and Kenny went surfing while Ashley, Lew, Spencer and I wandered around the city, went to the Fort and did the self guided tour and then meandered back through the city on our way back to the ship.

Standing guard at the fort

View from the fort

Gorgeous streets, I think Ashley took this picture

And we ended our day with drinks before we got back on the ship, had to have a mojito!

Our days at sea were my favorite. Spencer and I opted for a balcony room (I like having access to the fresh air and the ability to get away from the crowds while still enjoying the ocean view). We had a balcony on our first cruise and I really think it spoiled me for having any other kind! I like to wake up and slip out onto the balcony to read before breakfast, or with a cup of (decaf) coffee. Then we'd make our way up to the pool deck and meet up with the group. There was mini golf, water slides, and a variety of other ways to pass the time. When we'd had enough sun or needed a break we parked ourselves indoors and played card games that we brought with us. None of our group are especially into clubbing or extreme partying so night life was a little lacking for us. We opted for the late seating for dinner as a group, to make sure that we'd always be able to sit together and so by the time we were done with dinner and had a few drinks we were pretty knackered. We did see most of the shows on board, and had a blast with the professional photographers one night. Its the only time I've purchased any of the pictures we've had taken! I now have a group shot of the 8 of us on our wall where we're being goofballs, its a perfect representation of our dynamic! While we were on board was March Madness, so Spencer and Mike especially were always looking for places to check scores and watch games, so we spent some quality time in the sports bar, we also celebrated St. Patricks day on board, complete with green hats and beads to keep pinching at bay!