Last week I went on a cruise to the West Caribbean as a Christmas bonus from work. The beginning of the trip was affected by the cold front that plagued most of the United States that week. While we didn’t nearly have the freezing temperatures, we did have 40 mph winds, 8-foot waves, and some chilly rain. That did not ruin our trip, however! The crew and staff on the Carnival Legend were beyond amazing. They kept the morale high, and we had a pretty good time.
Here are my favorite pictures from each day of the trip.
Sunday: Our first towel animal!; Monday: Sitting on the deck for our first day at Sea; Tuesday: The waves crashing on the beach in Cozumel; Wednesday: The markets in Belize City’s port; Thursday: Getting dressed up for our fancy dinner at the steakhouse!; Friday: Our view at lunch in the Grand Cayman Islands; Saturday: Enjoying one more sunset on the boat
To be honest, even though we had a pretty good time in general, Michael and I aren’t sure if cruising is our preference when it comes to a vacation. Michael gets motion sickness pretty easily, and with the crazy waves, his sea bands weren’t much help, so he resorted to the patch behind the ear, which made him drowsy (though it did work). For me, I found that a lot of the scheduled activities on the boat were either trying to sell me something or were much too late in the evening for me to enjoy (I am an early bird, through and through, so night owl activities aren’t for me). We haven’t completely sworn off cruising in the future, however. We just decided that if we do it again, we would make some different choices, especially with the time of year. In our world, it probably wasn’t ideal to book a cruise right after the holidays and right before the busy season was in full swing!
Have you ever been on a cruise?
Katy's Life Story 
Gorgeous pictures!! It sounds like you had a wonderful vacation with a good mix of adventure and relaxation.
Thanks! We had a great time.
No WAY!?! Nate and I JUST got back today from a Carnival cruise! LOL!! And we totally looked into doing one that went to your location, so wouldn’t it have been hilarious, and fun, and over-the-top exciting had we been on the same ship??? But, alas, we just got back from the Bahamas instead… We had fun, but I totally agree! We hit some pretty big waves too and I got sick on the second to last day. Also, we weren’t too crazy about one of our destinations… And lastly, our food was horrible! Like, by the last day, we just stopped eating. Ha, ha. But we had fun, and I’ll be blogging about it this upcoming week! But I thought it was too funny that you just went on a Carnival cruise too!
Oh man! That would have been awesome! Yea, one of our destinations wasn’t really that great either, but the last one was awesome! The food was touch and go. We splurged one night on the fancy restaurant, and that was pretty worth it!
DH and I have been on 4 cruises. 2 with Carnival, 1 Norwegian, 1 Royal Caribbean. Carnival was our favorite. Once November, once December. December was the worst weather too. High waves and everything (though it is out of hurricane season?)
I agree that Cozumel wasn’t the most fun. I wouldn’t jump at going back. Key West the same way. Grand Cayman was cool, but we did 2 excursions. Jamaica was nice once on the paid beach. We thought we would just wander, definitely not. It was a scary place to drive through, and I’m not jumping to go back there either, but again, the paid beach was nice, and not too expensive, but enough to feel safe and keep some of the sketchier people and people selling stuff out. It actually was beautiful if you can forget all you saw getting there. By far our favorite cruise (we did 2) were the Bahamas. It is just an extended weekend, so not much time off and great short for people who get motion sick and don’t want to be stuck on a boat for days. All of the cruise lines have their own island in the Bahamas that you spend one day at, and it is nice to not have locals trying to sell you stuff, they have been the best destinations.
I’m not sure how fun any place is to just hang out, besides beaches I’m thebahamas. But most excursions are way cheaper if you don’t book through the boat (which we did the first couple of times because we were new to it all).
Food was hit and miss, best on Carnival, worst on Royal Caribbean. Dining room food was almost always better for each meal than the cafeteria. We only did a paid meal once, and it was not really worth it for us.
We call cruise “vacation sampler platters” because you can find out quickly and cheap if there is somewhere you would spend the money to go and spend a week or so.
For us, it is a nice cheap vacation, I prefer them for short quick getaways, but always would prefer a resort vacation, but we have only done one (honeymoon) because the cost is so much higher. For the most part it has been a cheap way to find places we probably wouldn’t go long term. Lol. But we have always had some fun, and having food and some activities included has been great.
Just some things to consider if you cruise in the future! 😃
Glad you still had a good time!
I have no idea what WordPress is doing, but this post was from almost 6 years ago. However, we do plan to cruise again sometime in the future and your comments are GOLDEN. I really appreciate you taking the time to break it down. I will be saving this comment somewhere safe for sure!
Also, I can’t believe it’s been 6 years since I went on a cruise. Time is flying by!
I was wondering why you hadn’t mentioned going on a cruise lately, and I couldn’t believe you would leave Sam that long (not that it isn’t okay, just doesn’t seem to be something you would do at this point from what I could tell) lol.