We made it to port in plenty of time. And, get this, if you are visibly pregnant, you skip the scanners and get a pat down. Totally, not fun. But, then the gate agent led us through all the crowds of people to the front of the line to get our sea pass card. Oh yeah. That was nothing short of awesome because I was nauseous, had to use the bathroom, and starving. After our sea pass card, we went through 100 check points and finally made it on the ship. We quickly found the food for our first lunch. Ate well and then walked the ship and checked out our room and had a second lunch before heading for the muster drill.
I think this was after the second lunch.
Miami before we set sail.
The next morning, we were in Cocoa Cay. Cocoa Cay is Royal Caribbean’s private island. The night before we checked out the itinerary schedule and saw something called a Cabanette. Since we had never been on a cruise before we weren’t sure of what to expect from the private island (whether they would have floats or lounge chairs or what). But, we did know that all we wanted to do at Cocoa Cay was lay on the beach and float in the ocean. The cabanette sounded like a cheap way to do that (the cabanas were over $200 and the cabanette was $50). We purchased our rental that night but had no clue what to expect.
After taking the tender the next morning, we walked around the main part of the island looking for the cabanettes. The cabana attendant told us to go to the information desk and show her our ticket and they would come get us. We were quite perplexed as to where we were going and what the day held…
Me, waiting on them to come “get” us.
After a bit of time, a trolley pulled up and drove and drove and drove…all the way to the other side of the island. We were not quite sure where we were going still. Then we saw this…
And this…
The cabanette attendant was too sweet and told us to pick any cabanette we wanted that didn’t have things in it (there were several options…not many were used). She then said, I’ll bring your things to you. What?! We get this…
And more?! It turned out the more was a big plate of fruit and two 1 liter bottles of ice cold water. And floats for the ocean. This was exactly what we wanted to do that day. It was on the other side of the island so we were away from the noise and traffic and touristy stuff. Just peace and quiet.
Our fruit and my handsome man. Mark loved it. He read. I read. We ate. We floated. We got lunch then came back and ate some more. Then I slept while he read and then we floated.
Needless to say, it was very hard to leave the island that day.
In the afternoon when we went out to float, we saw a baby barricuda. It was snacking on all the little fish in the shallow water.
You can see the shadow of the barricuda on the ocean floor and if you look hard you can see the actual fish.
While floating, that afternoon, I heard another lady say something about a shark. I scooted in closer to shore but after awhile decided to go back up and lounge and read. I walked down in to the water to rinse off and saw a small bottom feeding shark swim in to the seaweed on the ocean floor. So cool! Mark didn’t make it down fast enough to get a picture though. That was a bummer.
That night, we our dinner companions went on and on about how tired they were and all they did. they asked us what we did and when we told them they were down trodden that they had missed out on the relaxation.
Moral is…if you are ever on a Royal Caribbean cruise and want to relax, find the cabanettes. Well worth the cost!
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