Caribbean Cruise February 2010 - Family Day Long weekend

Okay I know what you’re thinking, is she really in her mid 20s that she is going on a cruise with oldies? For your information Cruises are not just for the 50plus population! Although, when I think back now I did play a LOT of BINGO :S. Anyway, so a few months after NYC and a Canadian winter getting to me I yearned for some much needed vitamin D. I wanted to feel the scorching heat of the Caribbean and after spending a fortune in NYC (dinners, nightlife, shopping) I did not want to spend a fortune on my next trip. We decided to reach out to one of our closest couple friends (who also recently got married) and planned to go on a Carnival Eastern Caribbean cruise.

How we saved moola for the important stuff…Shopping!
We booked the Carnival cruise in December 2009 by phone and got an inside room so that it ended up being just under $500 a person. Our cruise was leaving from Miami port and so we booked a hotel the night before the cruise using priceline – which came to under $100. We decided to wait on booking the flight and got completely screwed as it was Ontario’s Family Day long weekend (also valentines day in 2010) all flights were around $550plus pp. We ended up getting our flights from Toronto (Buffalo was not any better) for $557 each with TWO not ONE but TWO stopovers to Miami. A flight that would normally take 5 hours maximum took 8 hours. I will make it clear that Bobby booked this flight without my say and he will NEVER be responsible for flight booking again. I am not sure if he purposely planned this so he never has to plan a trip again, if that is the case his plan worked. Picture us at Miami International Airport and my husband sweating bricks in hopes that my luggage also made the two stopover journey. His prayers were answered and all my clothes, shoes, makeup made it! – I am scared to think what could have happened to him if they did not make it.

9 to 5 travel girl
As it was a new year I used 3 of my personal days, 1 floater day, and one day was off due to family day long weekend. So I got a full 7 days off for the price of using NO vacation days.

Eastern Caribbean thoughts
- Our cruise took us to Bahamas, St Thomas, Grand Turk and Puerto Rico. We did snorkeling in St.Thomas, swam with the Dolphins in Bahamas, did ziplining in Puerto Rico, and rented scooters in Grand Turk.
- The Carnival food was great, maybe too great as I probably gained 5lbs on this trip. So I would try not to overeat! The shows on the ship were quite entertaining especially the comedy shows, we took lots of dance lessons, and spent nights at the casino. I also had the BEST massage of my life on the ship and I get massages every two months from different spas.
- It was a positive experience, and going with a couple friend is great because you can ditch the boys and have a girls spa day. Although it was great I will likely not do a cruise again for a long while, I liked that you could get a taste of multiple islands but I would rather go to one place and truly delve into the culture. I also did not like the overeating I witnessed in the buffet lines!