25th Anniversary Cruise!!!

 Andrew and I are celebrating twenty-five years of wedded bliss this summer. Hooray! We love being married and are so happy to be by each others' sides for ever. :)

To celebrate, we decided to go on a cruise. We've missed cruising since COVID hit. Caroline got to participate in For Strength of Youth (FSY), a week-long youth conference at South Virginia University. We decided it would be easiest to cruise while she was gone. Whitney chose not to go to FSY, but she's an adult now, so we didn't feel bad leaving her for a week. :)

When I started cruise shopping, the cheapest cruise that worked for us was through a line called MSC. I had never heard of it. I called a travel agent and asked some questions. She DID NOT recommend MSC. Why? "Because their customer service is bad." Tell me more. "Well, you know how your waiter knows your name by the second night on your cruise? And calls you by name every time he or she sees you? Well, MSC is NOT like that." Ummmm.... That is NOT why I cruise. I talked to Andrew about it and we were both willing to risk it.

Overall, what the travel agent said was true. The MSC employees don't go out of their way to get to know you and meet your every need. But that didn't bother us AT ALL. The ship itself was BEAUTIFUL. I think it was the most attractive cruise ship I've been on. And this was my 10th cruise!

 

We sailed out of Port Canaveral, 

right by Orlando. We road tripped down there.

I finally got to introduce Andrew to Buc-ees!

He's a fan!

We were greeted by a beautiful FL sunset.

This was the sign outside our hotel in Orlando.

Yikes.

Check in was super smooth. I think because of COVID, they have the groups spread farther out to check in and don't try to cram everyone into the terminal at once. It made for the fastest and easiest check-in process we've ever gone through. Sweet.

As usual, Andrew experienced blatant 

height discrimination throughout the ship. :)

Our cruise-mates were exceptionally short this time.

There was only one other tall guy.

And he was jacked.

Andrew wouldn't want to mess with him.

When you first get on the ship, your stateroom isn't ready.

So we just hung out in the lobby while they got it cleaned up for us.

Well, the MSC employees are super persistent about trying to sell

you things while you are stuck in their public places.

Drink packages, photo packages, dinner at the exclusive steakhouse.

Got annoying.

But as I said, the ship is gorgeous and I loved it.

Let me give you a little tour.

MSC is a European company.

It stands for Mediterranean Shipping Company.

They started in shipping and branched out into cruising.

That helps explains the soccer goals, which I'd

never seen on a cruise ship. But we DID have lots

of Europeans on the ship, so maybe the goals got used a lot.

Top deck

One of the lounges.

Isn't it pretty?

I love all the curves.

This little spot was just for me!

Desert girl among the cacti!

Another lounge

Venetian artwork

A piano lounge.

Isn't the ceiling cool?

It reminds of Vegas.

Even this flooring is cool.

The main multi-story lobby.

Another lounge.

Lots of places to lounge on a cruise ship! :)

These stairs were my FAVORITE!

They are SO blingy!

You have to watch the video to get the full effect.

They had these cute little pods up on the top deck.

Romantic little place to hang out. <3

And after a couple of hours,

our room was ready. Yippee!

I like to get balcony rooms because Andrew sleeps in 

and I don't. So I like to hang out there and read when

I first wake up. I like the privacy.

Plus, I like sitting out there and watching the ocean go by.

When we're out at sea, Andrew can handle the balcony.

But we were still ported here,

with cement below us.

Andrew had to white-knuckle it even 

to take this selfie!

Our little balcony.

Our sofa.

Our cute bed.

One of the perks of COVID protocols: You don't have to do an in-person muster drill anymore! That was always the worst part of the whole cruise! This time, we just had to watch a video on the TV in our room and then go to our muster station and have our ship cards scanned. It was fantastic!

I LOVED the food in the buffet on this cruise!

They have a vegetarian section!

And it's good!

And the desserts were good, too.

We sailed out on Father's Day.

This cake was cute.

We have the late dinner seating, so we would go to the early show and then to dinner. The shows are kinda cheezy, but kinda fun. Just like we expected. However, the first night, they had a male aerialist perform. He was AMAZING. During the middle of the show, he was on aerial straps.

We weren't allowed to take pictures,

but it was something like this.

He was SO STRONG.

Loved it.

Then at the end of the show, that same guy came out on a Cyr Wheel!

Like this!

Blew my mind.

When B was in town, we were talking about this kind

of contraption for some reason. Crazy that just a week

or two later, I was watching a guy perform on one.

When I'd never seen that IN MY LIFE.  

After the show, we had a little bit of time before our dinner started. There was ballroom dancing going on in one of the clubs, so we headed that way. When we got there, the band was playing and there was a completely empty dance floor. What the heck? I had to take Andrew WAY out of his comfort zone and talked him into being the first couple out there. He's such a good guy. As soon as we started dancing, two REALLY good ballroom dance couples joined us. They were fun to watch. Andrew and I should've practiced our moves a bit before we came. We forgot some of them...

We also checked out the casino. Oh, friends. I'm not tempted by slot machines or card table games. BUT... They had a coin pusher!!! A real life one! I couldn't resist. We totally spent time down there. At one point we had a group of well-wishers cheering us on and we won a big stack of bills! Ok, they were only ONES, but there were TWENTY-FIVE of them! Woo hoo!

Our dinner table.

This table was supposed to seat SIX people.

Our first night, there was a young couple from FL

with us. I thought they were fun, but they must've

thought we were too old, because they never came back. :o

Our second night, there were two DIFFERENT guys at our table.

They were young guys in their mid to late twenties.

They're both from NY.

They were super nice.

I liked having them at our table.

But I'm kinda glad that first couple never came back

because all six of us would not have fit at that table!

MSC is a big sponsor of Formula 1 Racing.

So they have a simulator you can drive.

Andrew is too big to be an F1 Racer.

Your head is supposed to go INSIDE the car,

underneath that part that is behind his neck.

But, alas, he wasn't even close to fitting.

The track was super hard and confusing.

But he took 6th place for the day.

Always love watching sunsets from the deck.

And watching the wake in the back.

MSC owns their own private island that they have named 

Ocean Cay. It is a beautiful little island.

But it is very small.

I think it takes 20 minutes to walk

from one end to the other!

This used to be a dumping grounds for ocean construction trash.

So they have a big conservation story about it.

But it's still a work in progress.

And not everything was open that was advertised.

Beautiful flowers.

Spotted LOTS of Laughing Gulls.

This part of the island was totally abandoned.

No one came over here.

We had it pretty much to ourselves.

Maybe because you have to walk through pokey

rocks to get to the water. But it was SO worth it.

There were lots of small, colorful fish out in that

crystal clear water!

One of the days, we rented an umbrella 

and just hang out on the beach. We read and I 

also played Candy Crush, my vacation guilty-pleasure app.

Paradise!

One of the excursions you could do was to 

walk up to the top of the lighthouse.

Andrew's foot was not up for it,

so I ventured up there by myself.

It had fantastic views of the island!

I hadn't taken Andrew's fear of heights into

account when we booked it. Look at this!

The floor is steel grating that you can see

through TO THE BOTTOM!

Even with a health foot, Andrew would

NOT have liked this excursion.

One of the cool things about our itinerary is that

we got to stay overnight at Ocean Cay. We'd

never done that before.

It was cool to see the ship lit up at night.

After dinner, they put on a light show

at the lighthouse. It was SO cool.

Very unique and creative. It's short,

only five minutes long, but

really memorable.

After the show, we went back to beach and hung out

on the lounge chairs and watched the stars and chatted.

Can you see the big dipper in my pic?
It was SO relaxing. No one else was out there.

It was one of my favorite parts of the cruise.

Andrew was not happy with the dinner restaurant.

Not only did you have to pay extra for the steaks,

but there were very few red meat options.

And since I don't make red meat, he looks forward

to getting it when we're on vacation.

Boo for him.

But they had a tasty vegetarian option every night.

And the desserts were great.

I was very satisfied.

Our other day on Ocean Cay, we booked an excursion to take us snorkeling at a nearby island. We hadn't been snorkeling in a few years and Andrew's mask broke not long after he got in the water. Lame! When you have such a short amount of time to snorkel, you don't want to spend part of it swimming back to the boat to get a replacement mask. 

But the snorkeling was great!

It's hard to see, but there's a barracuda in that yellow circle.

And lots of the usual tropical fish we like to see.

Spotted this Brown Noddy from the water.

A rare find! Yippee!

We snorkeled at a shipwreck.

I guess there are lots of ships that end

up running aground here because those

tiny islands are so hard to see at night.

We love snorkeling!

I made Andrew take a whole series of 

jumping pics for me. Ha ha! He's a patient husband. :)

More lounging, reading, playing

Swam for a bit, too.

Oh, how I love the beach.

Here's the theatre where they do their evening shows.

There was just one show that was off-the-charts 

cheezy and we had to walk out of. It was called
"Extreme" and was a tribute to sports.

In the first number, the guy dancers came out 

dressed in cheesy generic football uniforms

and were DANCING with the football.

I wish I could explain how awful it was.

It was laughable.

We walked out.

Again, I think due to COVID restrictions, there weren't

as many people on the ship. The theatre was never

very full and we always got the seats we wanted.

One of the fun things about MSC:

They have a partnership with Masterchef!

So, one day they have a Masterchef at Sea show.

When I told Andrew that I wanted to go watch, he said,

"You're totally going to try to get on stage."
I told him I wasn't a great cook, so wasn't confident

enough to volunteer to get on stage.

Well, there was no volunteering required!

You had to take a test.

And they graded it.

And the three contestants with the most questions

correct were called up on stage.

And, guess who was included????

Yours truly!

It was SO much fun!

We got to decorate of profiteroles for the judges.

Do you know what those are?

They're the bread that you use for cream puffs.

I didn't do well.

My plate was kind of a disaster.

But I laughed a lot!

And got a free hat out of it!

Here are some video clips if you want

to hear me cackling up on stage. :)

Sporting my new hat on the blingy stairs.

Our other city to visit on this cruise was Nassau.

None of the excursions through the ship sounded

good to us, so I googled and found a woman who

would take us BIRDING!

What?
Yes, please!

Our guide was a British woman named Carolyn. She did not make a good first impression. When we got to our meeting place, the first thing she said to us was, "Don't you have binoculars?" Um, no. We don't. But your website says that you'll provide equipment. "Well, I can if I have to, but most people bring their own." Sorry. "You do have facemasks, right?" Ummm... no. "I can't believe you didn't bring masks! We can't go anywhere indoors in the Bahamas without a mask. Your cruise ship should've told you!" Or you could've let us know. Sheesh. After that rough start, things got better. Carolyn knows her stuff when it comes to birds!

This is a Common Gallinule and a juvenile one.

The juveniles have such big feet!

We went bird watching out by Atlantis.

I guess that's the only fresh water on the island.

These Royal Poinciana trees were bloom all over the

island and were gorgeous.

During part of our excursion, we got to drive 

around some neighborhoods in Nassau.

I liked that and had never been able to do that before.

We were driving through a neighborhood specifically to get to this house. There are some birds from Australia called White Imperial Pigeons that are nesting in those trees! Carolyn says they couldn't have flown here from Australia, so someone must've brought them here and then released them. Anyway, another cool exotic bird to add to our life list. PLUS, I found a baby one in its nest!! I even impressed grumpy Carolyn with that! :)

Bird nerds with our borrowed binoculars

Most of our time with Carolyn was spent at a national park.

It's called The Retreat Garden and it was a great place to spot birds.

Unfortunately, I don't have super zoom on my camera,

but can you see that little hummer sitting on a branch in the middle?

That's a Bahama Starwood,

a hummingbird that you can only see there.

So happy we got to see it!

I think we eventually won Carolyn over,

despite our amateurism.

Such a fun and unique experience in lush Nassau.

We saw 25 total species of birds with her.

Awesome!

Great start to our life list!

Cool chandelier on the ship.

CRAZY STORY: While we were waiting to order our last dinner of the cruise in the restaurant, I saw a little boat out the window. It was smaller than boats we usually pass in the ocean and I thought it was a party boat because it had flashing lights. A few minutes after we saw it, Skyler and Mike showed up to dinner. They said, "Sorry we're late. We had to call 911 for the lifeboat that's out there in distress." What the heck? I'm so naive. I thought they were partying and they were firing flares!! Soon after that, a crew member came over the loudspeaker to announce that we were going to turn around and drop a tender to help a boat in distress. They promised to update us. As soon as dinner was over, Andrew and I ran up to the deck to try to watch the rescue. But we never got to see anything. And they never did give us an update. I even asked as we were getting off the ship the next day, but no one had any info. And our googling didn't turn up any answers, either. So weird.

They serve gelato on MSC!!!

You do have to buy it.

But it's not very expensive.

I knew they sold it, but the place where I THOUGHT

they sold it was closed every time we walked by.

We didn't find this spot until OUR LAST NIGHT

ON THE SHIP!! I wasn't even hungry,

but couldn't walk away from gelato. :)

Also stopped at Bucees on our drive home. :)

Andrew's highlights:

*Seeing so many birds while birdwatching learning more of the basics

*Going snorkeling with the group

*Being delightfully entertained by Skyler, our dinner companion

*The light-up lighthouse show

*Never-ending piles of crispy bacon and chocolate milk cartons for breakfast

*Being the first on the dance floor even though it took us a while to remember our dance moves.

*Only really hitting my head twice the whole time and knocking down the hot breakfast sign and almost breaking a chandelier

*Watching and hearing Andrea own the stage during MasterChef

*I liked the vibe among our fellow passengers--upscale and international, very few frat bros

*Hearing a singer do an acoustic version of She Talks to Angels by the Black Crows that was really good

*Finishing my book about General Nathanael Greene

*I loved just floating on my back feeling weightless with no pain in my back or feet

*Stopping at Bucees

What could've been better for Andrew:

*The lack of soft serve ice cream was APPALLING

*The dinner options were underwhelming. No steak entrees unless you paid extra for them.

*It could've been one day longer.

*Lack of attention from the serving staff during dinner.

*Both of my feet are still hurting, which prevented me from going up the lighthouse and make me walk like an old man with gray hair. Meanwhile, Andrea looks like she's in her early 30's, so I look like her sugar daddy.

*Getting itchy bites from sea lice while swimming in the lagoon

Other memories from Andrew:

*Seeing the lifeboat in distress through the window at dinner our last night

*So many people speaking Portuguese

*The tribute to sports show and seeing these male dancers in cheesy football uniforms prancing around doin ga football dance is one of the most absurd things I've ever seen.

Would Andrew sail MSC again?

Yes. I liked it better than Carnival. Not as much as Disney. And I can't remember Royal Caribbean well enough to compare.

Andrea's highlights:

*Getting to see parts of Nassau that were off the normal tourist path

*Finding the baby bird in its nest

*Coin pushing, especially when we won the fat stack and everyone was cheering for us

*Talking Andrew into dancing on an empty dance floor

*I loved the food at the dinner restaurant

*Meeting fun people at our dinner table, even though we scared the first couple away.

What could've been better for Andrea:

*My balcony was dirty when we first got there. Not a good first impression.

*We didn't get any washcloths until the 3rd day.

*Most of the entertainment was good, but the sports show just needs to disappear and I wish the costumes covered the dancers' butts.

*Not finding the gelato counter until the last night!

*The servers at dinner, especially on Tues night, were horrible. If it wasn't for Skyler stealing their bottled water, we would've been drinkless the whole night!

*I got sunburned on the back of my upper thighs our last day. Sitting down was painful for the next couple days. Ouch.

Andrea's other memories:

*Almost getting to watch a rescue at sea

*Playing Pac-Man air hockey in the arcade and being completely surprised at all the pucks that came spilling out at the same time. It was so fun!

Would Andrea sail MSC again?

I totally would, especially if the price was right. Maybe not with Caroline because she wouldn't like the dinner choices... Or maybe we could just send her to the buffet for dinner every night. It was a similar level of Royal Caribbean for me. I liked the vibe better than Carnival. And I liked Disney more than MSC.