My Assistant Emer took her first cruise over the New Year break. She and her family went on a 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise on board the Norwegian Epic out of Miami. 
She has come back with a refreshing perspective on cruising and some tips and tricks for cruising.
Take it away Emer ……………………….
Well, What a wonderful vacation for us – Myself, my husband Neal and our 12 year old twin girls went on our first Cruise and had the trip of a lifetime. Of course, now that we have done it once, we consider ourselves to be quite the experts now !!!!
We learned many things and figured out ways to be savvy about our activities etc.
Some of the tips that Kelley had passed along to us made all the
difference in the world such as:
Getting to Miami a day early and staying in a hotel the night before the cruise – this gave us the chance to unwind after airport stress, we could get our bearings and explore some of Miami which is a city we hadn’t visited before either.
We took the girls to the Miracle mile in Coral Gables and enjoyed a great dinner along with some exploration.
Our on board experience was wonderful. We were overwhelmed with the ship and amenities. The food and choice of restaurants, the entertainment experiences and Guest services surpassed our expectations. Some of our favorite events were The Cirque Dreams Dinner Show, Teppanyaki Japanese restaurant, La Bistro French Cuisine.
The kids loved the bowling, Water slides, climbing walls and on deck activities, The Blue Man Group and many more. The met some girls of their own age and had a blast. One of our most favorite ship experiences was the Svedka Ice Bar on board – what a neat fun idea.
One of the other tips that Kelley told us was to book our shore excursions in advance through a 3rd party vendor. Boy, I wish we had taken her advice – we had some wonderful Shore excursions but I know we paid premium price on board for them and also a lot of people weren’t able to get their first preference as they were already reserved. The Spa was also very busy which made it difficult to book spa services when you wanted them. In future, I would definitely book these services in advance.
Our ports of call were St.Maarten, St.Thomas and then Nassau Bahamas.
In St.Maarten, We hung out at the beach and rented jet skis. In hindsight, I think we would book a shore excursion to the other side of the island next time. It was fun but I felt like we missed out a little on some great local scenery.
St.Thomas was absolutely beautiful. We did book a shore excursion to Turtle Cove by Hi-speed Catamaran to snorkel and see the sea turtles. This was a great time. I would highly recommend this shore excursion. We stopped off at a private island for lunch and then when we got back to town, we got to shop around for a bit before taking the sea taxi back to the port.
Here are a couple of photos of the St.Thomas island and the snorkel.
I think that the highlight of our trip was the Dolphin Cay Adventure at Atlantis. Wow. It was a once in a lifetime experience. Atlantis was really beautiful, we went to Dolphin Cay and played, swam and got up close with the dolphins.
I had no idea how gentle they are and you could totally see their individual personalities, we were intrigued.
We also did a tour of the dig and underground aquarium in Atlantis.
Now that we are back on firm ground, we all agree that we would definitely go on another cruise in the future. Especially now that we have some experience, we can plan ahead and make the next one even better. Who knows, we might do Alaska, Hawaii, Mediterranean, River ………. the possibilities are endless.
Emer