Tuesday, October 5, 2010

We're back from the cruise! Part 1

We got back into Tampa early yesterday morning. We got off the ship around 10 am before heading home. We had so much fun! I feel so exhausted today and still need to unpack more and do laundry. I'd love to share so much about the trip but I will have to do a little at a time so it's not a massively long post.

I wanted to say something else:

You can still travel with a child and also not spend tons of money!! We don't drink alcohol, so that in itself will save you possibly hundreds of dollars on a cruise. I don't understand the people who have a drink in their hands sun up to sun down and act drunk all day. How much are they spending?? TOO MUCH. And are annoying everyone else. But I heard other people say this and totally agree that I guess they make the cruises cheaper for the rest of us by buying overpriced drinks all day!(hah) Water, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, iced tea, lemonade, and juice are included in the cruise price so you don't have to pay extra for those while on the ship. I drank a lot of coffee! I thought it tasted good. The lemonade was good too.

Our son has been traveling since he was 2 months old on road trips and long plane rides(mostly for visiting family from Alabama all the way to India!). I know finances can be difficult for planning vacations but having children does not have to! Kavi did great on the cruise. And what we did in Cozumel was very economical and fun for all.

But I will just post some pictures of the first part of the cruise and will save Cozumel pictures for tomorrow or another day.

The view in Tampa of our cruise ship, Carnival Inspiration, from the parking garage. We got really excited walking over!
We got an oceanview room, which I think was well worth the little bit extra. We had gotten a really great deal on this cruise.

Our room had a queen size bed plus a twin that came down from the wall. The room service was excellent and they would come every evening while we were at dinner to set up our room and take the bed down from the wall for us.
While sailing away from Tampa, a cruise photographer took this picture of us all. We ended up buying it for 9.99 because we all liked it so much.
That's the only photo we purchased. But if you end up on a cruise, let them take your picture whenever they want to. They set up all the photos on one of the floors for you to look at and buy only if you want to. We loved going every day to find photos from the day before.

There was a huge water slide at the back of the ship, next to two small water slides. I went on them all.

When I went on that big curling slide, it was torture! I was wearing jean shorts over my bathing suit and I got stuck on it in several places. I just wasn't sliding, I was sticking! I had to push myself down so I had sore muscles the next day. It was insane (hahahaha). Same thing happened to other people too. These smaller slides were much less problematic!
Dress up night, finally wore my purple dress!

Here's our ship docked on Cozumel... more from there another day!

4 comments:

beka said...

What a lovely time!! :)

Nancy (Jesse and Sophia's grandma) said...

Your pictures are great, glad you had a good time. Can't wait to hear more about it.

thestoryofkat said...

looks like you had a great time! i have never been on a cruise before, seems like such a unique and fun way to travel.

Angela said...

Welcome home!!! I had one drink on our cruise and I think it was like $12!! I don't really drink and that one drink did me in- it was so strong!

I spent my money on the photos! I didn't buy every one but I couldn't resist some of them. I have no idea where they are now :( I guess I must not have needed them that much.

Didn't you just love the dinner every night? I forgot to tell you to try the chocolate lava cake - hope you did.

You know how you had to step over the ledge to get out of the bathroom? Were you still doing that when you got home? I did it for like 2 days after we got back!

Can't wait to see more photos!