Cruise to the Bahamas

Last weekend, we were able to go on a 3-day cruise on the Carnival Ecstasy to the Bahamas. Blaine had accrued too many PTO hours and we were kinda "forced" to take a quick vacation. And I'm so glad we did! It was a much-needed trip. With work being busy recently for both of us and with weekends being consumed with cultural celebration practices and meetings, we haven't had much time together. We ate tons, slept in, and really really relaxed. 

We didn't do much our first day just because we boarded extremely late (barely made it), because I was at practice for the cultural celebration. We had dinner, explored the ship and watched a Motown-themed show. 

Nassau was OK. We had fun but we weren't extremely impressed. It was all very touristy as expected but the tours offered were very similar to things we could do in Miami. I didn't feel like we were exposed to the true culture of the Bahamas. But we did take a nice tour of the city and learned fun facts about the island.

Blaine was excited about this

We visited the Queen's Staircase. It was is a limestone staircase that was built by slaves to honor Queen Victoria's help in the abolition of slavery in the Bahamas. They were surprisingly steep and 102-feet tall. This was my favorite attraction by far.

We also saw several forts but they were all pretty tiny.

It was a pretty overcast and windy day but it was still beautiful. 

Our last stop was at the Atlantis Resort. I've heard amazing things about this place but again, wasn't really impressed. Don't get me wrong, the resort is beautiful but everything was extremely overpriced. Again, maybe if I wasn't a Floridian living in Caribbean-like weather I would see the value in paying for tours/water parks, etc. We paid to see their aquarium. It was nice but nothing amazing. I've been to way better aquariums, like the one in Gatlinburg or the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans. 

Glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly 

We had to take the typical Atlantis picture :)

Holding my bad :)

In the Predator Tunnel

At night, we had our "gala night." I didn't feel like getting all dressed up in a nice dress and kept it simple. We had lobster and prime rib. It was delicious! And of course, for dessert at every meal, we had the molten lava chocolate cake. After dinner, we went dancing and had fun. We hadn't been dancing in forever. 

Our last day was full of mini golf, Harry Potter, 90s music and Disney trivia (2nd place in the Disney trivia), eating, people watching, tanning, sleeping, and more eating. It was kinda strange to spend Easter on a cruise ship, but there were lots of families having Easter egg hunts around the ship. We got an Easter towel bunny and that was the extent of our Easter celebrations. At dinner, I was coerced into dancing with our server. It was empty and he really begged me and Blaine urged me on. It was fun and we both laughed a lot. 

We had a great time being with just each other for a couple of days without technology. Being alone with Blaine and not having him constantly checking emails or answering phone calls after work hours was amazing. It was just us, yummy food and the sea!