Birthday Cruise

It was the best birthday cruise EVER!

The Freedom of the Seas, our Royal Caribbean cruise ship, went on an Eastern Caribbean route in the middle of November. Ports included Royal Caribbean's private island in the Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Martin. It was a seven night tour, with three sailing days and two formal dining nights. I've been on two cruises before this one, but this was Scott's first cruise. It was a first class cruise, and I would definitely book Royal Caribbean again.

Memorable events on our cruise:
Dinner
Dinner in the main dining room was something I looked forward to every day. Food is such a crucial make-it-or-break-it factor on a cruise, so I was pretty nervous coming on board with several food intolerances. I give all credit for the success of my cruise to Digest Gold digestive enzymes. I took one before every meal and that allowed me to eat what everyone else was eating worry and pain free. LaraBars, my fav downtime snack, are a runner up for making my cruise healthy.

We had fantastic servers in the main dining room. Scott thought that Anthony, our main server, was hilarious. On the second night, Anthony came to take Scott's empty entree plate away and asked if he would like to try any of the other entrees. Scott mentioned that he had thought about one other dish specifically, but he was saving room for dessert.

"Oh," Anthony said. "We don't serve dessert on Day 2, so you might as well order it." Scott readily agreed.

After Scott practically licked his second entree plate clean, Anthony brought out the dessert menu.

Anthony would often bring Scott any of the dishes he mentioned an interest in (three desserts, four crab cakes…) , so Scott had to choose his words wisely.

SeaTrek Underwater Excursion
One of the best decisions we made was to do a shore excursion. We wanted to do something unique and the SeaTrek underwater helmet dive fulfilled that. Even though it was a rainy day, the water in St. Martin was pleasantly warm. We snorkeled with the fish and thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the bottom of the ocean.

My most memorable moment of the entire cruise was having a school of fish eat fish food from my hand. It was like a million tiny suction cups sucking up the pieces on my fingers.  You can't tell in the picture, but I was giggling uncontrolably under that helmet.

Poolside TV

I wouldn't necessarily say this was my most memorably event, but Scott will always remember watching weekend football games on the big screen while sitting in the Jacuzzi.

The whole vacation was perfect, which is more than I could hope for in celebrating my 30th birthday. It was the party of all parties… which Scott now thinks we need to plan for each of my birthdays.

Word.