Bahamas 2013

In July of 2013 my sweet husband took us on a cruise to the Bahamas. It was a 5 day cruise. We left at Port Canaveral, Florida, then went to three different islands in the Bahamas. Originally it was just going to be Zach and I. But in the end my In-laws, Sister-in-law, and Ethan all came with us. We had three different rooms. We had a blast together. 

Day 1: Port Canaveral, Florida 

This is when we drove up and saw our ship for the first time.

The first day we just boarded the boat and left the port. We all sat at the front of the boat and watched as we took off. Ethan fell asleep and Zach and I just watched. We saw a sting ray jump out of the water and do a back flip. Zach saw a dolphin and we saw a submarine. We could only see the very top of it since the rest of it was underwater. But Zach thought it was amazing. 

This was as we were leaving the port.

Day 2: Free port, Bahamas

This is Zach and I in front of our cruise ship. This island was called Free port. We went on a 12 mile bike ride around the island. It was a blast. We got rained on while we were biking. Actually that's an understatement. We got down poured on.

 This was our first stop at the beach. It was so beautiful there.

 I watched this coconut fall out of this tree. Our guide went and got me a straw so I could drink the coconut milk in it. It actually wasn't good, it was sour. The guide said that it was premature. But it was still fun.

This is after we left the beach and it started to downpour on us.

 This picture is at one of the famous national parks on the island. 

The island was beautiful.

Day 3: Nassau, Bahamas

This was the day of Ethan's first birthday. We got up early and took him to breakfast for his birthday. 

It was very early and we were very tired. We all got balloons and Ethan got a doggy balloon. It was fitting since he loves dogs so much. After breakfast we dropped him off with my in-laws. So we could  go on our excursion. 

On the third day we got on a separate boat and they took us out to some coral reefs so we could go snorkeling.

 This boat held 80 people. The front of the boat was just nets over the water that's where we sat. We could see the ocean underneath us while we moved. Every time a big wave came it would splash on us and get us wet. It was so much fun.

It took about 30 minutes for us to get to the coral reefs. Once we got there we dived in. We brought our own gear so we didn't have to wait in line. 

 At first there were Zero fish around. We brought Cheetos, one of Zach's friends told us that the fish love them. Sure enough as soon as we pulled out the Cheetos hundreds of fish appeared out of no where. It was so cool. They would even grab them out of my hand.

 Zach was a bit overwhelmed that hundreds of fish were trying to eat the bag of Cheetos out of his hand. So he swam with one hand above the water with the bag of Cheetos and the other hand underwater to feed them one Cheetos at a time.

 I came up above the water and saw a ton of Seagulls everywhere. Poor Zach had fish under the water and seagulls above the water.

 This is several videos that I cut and put into one. It's really hard to film and swim at the same time. This video is of Zach and I feeding the fish.

 This was on the way back. After we had gotten in the water I was freezing so we stayed up on this part of the boat.

 Zach thought that this building was cool looking so he took a picture.

 This is our cruise ship that we were approaching.

 All the cruise boats

 Zach took around ten pictures of this light house. He really liked it.

 All the different cruise boats parked by each other.

 This is our boat the Carnival Ecstacy. It holds around 2,000 people along with 900 crew members.

After we got back to the boat we all went to dinner. My father-in-laws birthday was just a couple days away. So Ethan shared his birthday cake with his Grandpa.

He thought the cake was really good. 

Day 4: Little Stirrup Cay, Bahamas

 On the the third island we stopped at a private island that is owned by the cruise line Royal Caribbean.  They let us use it for a day. The island is too small for our huge ship to port at. So we were taken to the island on small boats. By small I mean boats that seated 200 people. So not small, but smaller than our big ship.

 This is Zach holding Ethan on our way the the private island. Only our cruise boat was at this island. Freaking out is an understatement to how I was feeling with Ethan this close to the edge.

Zach payed extra for us to go to a private beach on this island. We got fresh water and a canopy. Ethan loved playing in the sand.

My father-in-law was walking out to meet us. When he kicked this hermit crab by accident. He thought is was a rock. Then when he looked down and saw this shell he picked it up. He planned on taking it home until he saw the claws started coming out of it. It caught him off guard that there was an animal in it. He dropped it at first. He was worried it was going to try and pinch him. We took a video of it. It was so cool.

 The water was so crystal clear. It was so beautiful. We all walked out for about half a mile and the water only came up to our knees. 

Ethan had a blast.

 This is all of us together on the last day.

Sallie, Ethan, Chantelle, Nellie, Zach, and Everal.

We drank virgin pina coladas out of coconuts. How cool is that?

Nellie on the way back to the ship

This is my in-laws. Sallie and Everal with our waiter that we requested every time we ate.

Our waiter's name was Victorio. He was from the Philippines. He was awesome.

Day 5: At sea, Atlantic Ocean

 The last night we went up on deck and just watched the ocean.

 Grandma Sallie Roberts and Ethan

 Grandma letting Ethan walk up the ship.

 Our cute little family over the Atlantic ocean.

 This cute little guy turned 1 years old on the cruise. The crew sang to him several times and he got lots of animal balloons from the crew. He had a blast. He stayed with Grandma and Grandpa in the day then Mom and Dad at night. He loved every minute of the cruise.