First of all, the trip was pretty much going to be awesome regardless because it was February in Chicago /NH and we were going to the Caribbean. So weather alone would have made the trip worthwhile, however we were lucky enough to have a great experience on top of weather.
Between the awesome weather, parasailing in St. Thomas, comedy shows, the R-rated sing along at the piano bar and the cast of characters we met along the way, I can safely say the week was highly successful. First of all - parasailing. You're literally floating above the ocean - what's not to love?? And you're attached to a parachute so a fear of heights should not deter you from trying this. I really wanted to go zip lining thru the rain forest in Puerto Rico but it was like $200 - way out of my price range.
The nice thing about Carnival is they let you bring wine on board (cuts down how much you'll spend on alcohol), as well as bottled water, which trust me you'll need, but since they don't actually check the contents, you can fill a couple bottles with "water" if you get my drift.
There are also tons of activities going on daily where you can socialize with others, such as sports trivia (p.s. people introduce me as someone who knows a lot about sports, which has never actually held up in sports trivia, so I feel like a fraud - why can't they ever ask about the 1985 Final Four? Seriously.), which brings me to the cast of characters:
Kyle: One of the staff members, I think in charge of all activities, we LOVED Kyle and every time we saw him we were like, "WOO KYLE HIGH FIVE!!" And he was like who ARE you?
Butch: Our cruise director from Minnesota, had a heavy accent, was definitely awesome and made our trip great, though I'm pretty sure that soaking wet he weighed 90lbs...and was over six feet tall.
Stage 5 Clinger: We met him at sports trivia on Sunday and he seemed cool enough, then at karaoke that night encouraged me (and by encouraged I mean wouldn't stop rubbing my back while the karaoke DJ was begging someone to audition so I jumped up and ran on stage to get him to stop touching me) to try out for the Carnival Legends show so I wound up performing as Britney Spears in front of the entire ship on the final night. On Monday he apparently spent a good portion of the day looking for us on the Lido deck (it was our day at sea) and by Monday night I was pretty much done with him - but he has no one to blame but himself. I told him I hated clingy guys and he turned into one.
Latvia: Not his real name, but one of the bar waiters was from Latvia and was the most beautiful man on the planet, essentially. It got to the point where I'd only order drinks from him so by the end of the week he would just come by to wherever we were and talk to us. I made him take a picture with me on the last night so that I would have PROOF.
Behold:
Also - can we discuss my tan? I mean...wow. It's June and I'm not even that tan right now.
Myra & Archie: Fantastic couple (from Chicago!) that we met early on and had dinner with a few times. They were seriously so much fun and it has been nice to stay in touch with them. Since there were lots of families and older couples on the cruise it was nice to meet and hang out with people our age. I would post a group picture that we took but it was right after the Legends show and I'm still in my Britney Spears wig so no.
BradRob: BR was in our parasailing group and was fantastic (hilarious, cute, funny, etc) but for SOME reason I kept calling him Brad. Lisa had to remind me numerous times that his name was Rob so I merged the two names and thus we have BradRob. He was traveling with a larger group and we hung out with them a few nights in the casino and piano bar.
Vitali: Our karaoke DJ from somewhere in Eastern Europe, would shout-out "VACATION!" during all musical breaks.
I think that pretty much sums up the main cast. I would definitely go on another cruise - the only thing I'd change is that I would go on more shore excursions - in St. Thomas they basically dropped us off in a parking lot for people who wanted to shop and in San Juan they dropped us at a warehouse across the street from Sr. Frogs. So if you don't have an excursion planned and don't want to shop or binge drink and there isn't a beach within walking distance, you're basically screwed. Our first and last stops dropped us right at the beach, so that was nice, but the two in between definitely required excursions.
Seeing those pictures again just made me want to go back - so, who's with me???
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