Anniversary Vacation : Bahama Style!

Lisa and I are coming up on our 25th wedding anniversary and just passed the 25th anniversary of our engagement and 26th anniversary of meeting, so we decided to celebrate with a family cruise to the Bahamas!  We were going to wait until spring in order to go closer to our exact wedding date, but things worked out better for the last week of November.  Prices are much lower for cruises this time of year and both Matthew and Erica will be attending colleges during the spring semester with different Spring Break weeks, anyway, so we settled on November 26th - 30th. (November 21st is the magic day of our meeting as well as engagement, so we weren't too far off. ) We also really liked the idea of leaving the deadness of a dreary eastern Kentucky late November for the sun, warmth and greenness of Florida and the Caribbean!

We had a wonderful time, and took many pictures.  I'm going to record some of them here on the blog, but it looks like I'm going to have to split them up into multiple posts. (I'm afraid I won't take the time to finish up the drafts and will just let them linger like so many of my un-published posts).

These are some of the first views of our ship from the shuttle bus.   We parked our cars at the Radisson Resort and rode their shuttle to the cruise terminal.  The bus ride itself was exciting, but seeing Monarch of the Seas in port waiting on us was even more exciting! (The date-stamps on the pictures are incorrect; these were taken 12 days later than they show.)

Here we are checking in at the terminal.  (This is an area where you are not allowed to take pictures, but Christina got away with it without getting arrested.)

This is our boarding photo taken the first minute onboard the ship.  I thought it turned out pretty good.

Our first view inside the ship while we were still wonder-struck:

Here we are on the deck during the departure:

We had an awesome sunset that departure evening!

The rest of the evening found us unpacking, having a nice supper in the Windjammer Cafe, watching the "Welcome Aboard" show in the Sound of Musc Theater, and settling into our rooms for the night.

The next day we went to a small island called Cococay, had a wonderful anniversary dinner in the Dining Room, and went to the very enjoyable song and dance show called "You Can't Stop the Beat". 

I'll share more Cococay pictures in another post, but here is a good one of the whole family as we arrived on the island.

On our nature walk we passed by a tree named "Love Vine", so I wanted to get a picture in front of it with my sweetheart!

Here we all are in the dining room.  I thought everyone cleaned up nicely after a full day of sand and beach!

                                       

The waiters suprised us with a "Happy Anniversary" song along with a special piece of strawberry cheesecake adorned with a candle.

After we blew the candle out we decided to feed each other a bite of the dessert like we did the wedding cake 25 years ago.

The show was great for us because it covered songs from the 70s, 80s, and 90s which was our childhood years, dating years, and newlywed years.

This fellow is singing a Neil Diamond song, of whom I was a big fan.  (Still am a little, I guess.)

After a day on the beach, a nice dinner, and a broadway style show, we arrived back at our room to discover that our stateroom attendant had delivered some fresh towels.  But these were not ordinary dry your hands on them towels; no these were love bird, heart shaped towels complete with rose petals and a card!  What a romantic ending to our anniversary evening!

My Lisa is as beautiful and wonderful as the day I first fell in love with her! 

I have been a very blessed man for 26 years!

I've got plenty more pictures to share of our vacation aboard Monarch of the Seas, at Cococay,  and Nassau, but they will have to wait for another post!