Caribbean Cruise Day 1 and Day 2

Jake and I really wanted to go on a vacation just the two of us.  So last February we searched and searched and searched for the perfect cruise.  I found a ship that I fell in love with and we found ports that we had never been to on our previous cruises.  It was the following February, so we would have 1 year to pay for it.

That was a long year.  The anticipation killed me as it got closer and closer.

It was finally here!!  On Friday night Jake had a dinner for work.  So we packed up the kids and met my parents and sent them on there way and then we went to the dinner.  We got home and cleaned the house and got everything ready for our trip.

Neither of us could sleep we were so excited, but we finally fell asleep and woke and got ready.  My mom came and picked us up early Saturday and took us to the airport.  We wanted the cheapest airfare we could find, so we ended up having to fly from SLC to DEN and the DEN to TX and then TX to FLL, that was a long day in the airports.  We finally arrived in Florida, grabbed a taxi and made it to our hotel.  It was a nasty hotel, it was nothing like the pictures on the internet.  Thankfully we got there at 10pm and left at 11am.

Sunday morning we woke up, at some breakfast at the hotel and then waited for the shuttle to bring us to the ship.

The traffic getting to the ship was horrible, the freeways were all under construction so they were going random ways and then there was a huge line of cars waiting to get into the cruise port.

We finally got there.  We dropped off our luggage, went through security, got signed in and they said go ahead and board the ship!!  The ship was HUGE.  It had 17 floors (I guess technically 16, because there isn't a level 13).  We were on level 8 which was also Central Park. We had an ocean balcony towards the back of the ship.  So the highlights of the ship were:
LEVEL 3 was where our dining room was for dinner
LEVEL 4 was where the Amber Theatre was located for the nighttime shows.
LEVEL 5 was boardwalk.  They had a pizza shop, Cafe Promenade, Karaoke Bar, and the jogging track outside and the spa.
LEVEL 6 had a carousel, donut shop, hot dog shop, the aqua theatre, rock climbing wall and more
LEVEL 8 was central park , some eating places and our room
LEVEL 15 was the hot dog/hamburger/fries and ice cream cone eating area, it also had an arcade, basketball court, ping pong tables, flow rider and pools and hot tubs.
LEVEL 16 had the main eating area on it
LEVEL 17 was just a walk around with a few hot tubs.

So we checked out the ship and unpacked our stuff.  We already missed our kids so we face timed and showed them the ship and our room and the ocean and then we watched the ship pull away and then went to dinner.  That night was our first show.  It was the Broadway Chicago.  I had no idea what the play was about, it was really good.  The singers and actor/actress' were amazing.  We loved it and had an awesome time.  After the show we hung out listening to music and people watching (there are a lot of drunks) and then headed to bed at 2am.