I have wanted to take a cruise for years, but my husband has never been interested in being "confined to a floating hotel."
On New Years, I was talking to a neighbor about cruising and she suggested we do a "starter" cruise out of Colon, Panama to the ABC islands. We went home and started looking and my husband finally agreed to do one! The only ones available out of Panama would leave in February, so we only had 6 weeks to plan!
We booked an 8 night cruise - leaving from Colon, going to Cartagena, Aruba, Curacao, and Aruba. We would have two days at sea - one at the start and one at the end, as well as 2 days in Curacao. I was pretty excited about our first alone vacation in 13 years!
My parents ended up agreeing to come watch the kids while we were gone. This made them kind of nervous because they don't speak Spanish and "what if something happens?"
We left the day before our cruise so we could be ready early in the morning the day we set sail and we're 8 hours from Colon. We stayed at a friend's house and got a ride to the port.
It was super exciting to see our ship - Rhapsody of the Seas by Royal Caribbean! We got checked in quickly and were able to board around 11:30 that morning.
We went first to the buffet and had a nice lunch. That's when we noticed something unusual...everyone was speaking Spanish! You would think leaving from Panama we would have realized it was a SPANISH cruise, but we didn't put two and two together before then! Thankfully we're ok with the language and being around Spanish speakers. It was just funny when the crew all started with Spanish with us and then would switch to English.
We finished lunch and decided to go tour the ship. We walked all around and checked out each area that we could - the gym, the pool areas, the dining hall, the bar area, different restaurants, kids area, and the spa. In the spa, we got a little intro package where I was told I was SUPER tense and stressed in my shoulders. My shoulders are always tense, so this tactic to get me to sign up for a massage didn't work.
The ship was set to sail away around 4:00, so we made sure to get a good spot near the front of the ship to watch everything happen. It was interesting to see all the guys working and even spraying everything down and repainting some of the areas where the salt water had touched the ship.
We unpacked in our tiny, interior cabin. I had seen some videos that said to put something on your door to make it easier to find, so we hung a little decoration on it.
We attended a seminar about things to do in Cartagena, which was the next day's stop. It wasn't really about what to do there, but more about where to shop and how to get "cruise" discounts. Ha!
At dinner, we tried a few appetizers. I had seen a video that said to eat as much as you want and order as much as you want. We took advantage of this!
The theme was A Taste of Mexico, so we had tortilla soup and roasted poblano pepper soup for appetizers. The rolls were also amazing. For dinner, we had carne asada which was good. And then desserts...flan, vegan toffee cheesecake (ewww), apple cobbler, tres leches, and a cheese plate.
After dinner in the dining hall, we stopped by the buffet to see if it was the same, and it was different. This started our tradition of having second dinner every night! Ha!
We had guacamole, chips, burritos, beans, tortillas, and cheese! Yummy! We spent a little time by the pool in our "casual" wear, which was the theme for the evening, while we waited for the evening's last event to start.
We are early to bed kind of people, but we tried to stay up later if there was an activity to do late. This evening Gran Turismo was on a screen in the theater. It was really a good movie, even if it ended close to midnight!
The bed was super comfortable and we didn't really notice the movement of the ship that much. It was so dark in our room when the lights were off, but it made for great sleeping!
Stay tuned for more photos and information about the other days from our cruise! It was so fun!
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Editing to add this to -
What's your favorite way to travel and your most memorable trip?
This is definitely my new favorite way to travel and one of my top trips!