East Caribbean Cruise (Part One)

Crap...it's now nearly 3 months after the cruise and I still haven't finished blogging about it. It was a great vacation but my goodness. I have to finish this up! So I'm just going to comment on the pictures and try not to miss too much. We went on a 7 night cruise to the Eastern Caribbean on the Princess Emerald. We haven't done Princess before and this was our first time going to the Eastern Caribbean ports. Casen and Shannon also came, too!

SUNDAY
The day we set sail was pretty crappy weather. They ended up shutting down the outside decks not long after we left port because it was so winding outside and not safe. Here's a picture of Peter outside after we took off - you can see how windy it was!

Here's a picture of our room. We went with an inside room again. We really like not having a window - we can sleep whenever we want because it's always dark!

Here's Peter outside our cabin. Princess decorated with balloons to celebrate our anniversary.

On Sunday we explored the boat, watched the show in the theater, played some trivia and had dinner (not necessarily in that order). Exploring the boat was a theme for a first few days...it always takes a few days to figure out where everything is.

MONDAY
On Monday we went to Princess Cay, in the Bahamas, which is owned by Princess. Casen decided to stay on the boat so Peter, Shannon, and I got off and enjoyed the beach. Poor Shannon didn't put enough sunscreen on and paid the price for nearly the rest of the cruise.

That evening we played more trivia, started on the week-long scavenger hunt, and watched 2 different comedians.

TUESDAY

The first full day was at sea. We enjoyed the sun and were lazy most of the day. Peter and I took a break from the sun and watched "It's Complicated" inside the big main theater.

Shannon and I signed up to enjoy the VIP Thermal Suite the whole week at the spa on board. It included a sauna, steam room, aromatherapy room, a rain forest shower, a shower with a mint mist, and these AWESOME ceramic tile heated loungers. It was the perfect way to catch up on some girl talk and relax.

We went to the steakhouse on board and enjoyed a nice meal while we were dressed up. We also enjoyed some trivia and a comedy show.

WEDNESDAY
St. Maarten -

St. Maarten is an island half owned by the French, half owned by the Dutch.

We went on a tour of the island. The first part included a bus ride with a tour guide then we got on a boat (kind of like a party boat with this great guy who sang fun vacation music to us). The boat gave us a great view of the pretty island with some amazing houses.Having a good time!

Us on the boat.

I thought the windows on this housing complex looked like an angry face - here's Peter doing his best impression. Pretty good, huh?

The boat let us off at the capital of the French side. Here's Casen, Shannon, and Peter.

Here's us embracing the French food - baguettes and Nutella crepes!

I loved all the colorful houses. This was a view from a hill looking over a part of the island.

The exact border between the two different sides of the island.

That night after dinner, more comedy, and tracking down the captain for his signature (I was a scavenger hunt maniac!), we went to a late night luau. It was a lot of fun!!! (The cruise staff was great the entire cruise and made it very enjoyable.) This picture is when everyone threw their streamers in the air - very cool!

See how much fun? We danced and had a good time!

Before we called it quits for the night we watched a little bit of a movie outside on the big screen.

The moon was so bright, it had an amazing reflection on the water.

Peter holding up the moon.

to be continued.... actually, read the previous post for the rest of our week