Videos

Here are videos from our trip.

On CocoCay I had a rough time getting the camera to work in the waterproof case.  We realized later that it kept switching to video when I thought it was photo.  So here are some videos I thought were pictures. ;)

This is showing the wind in Nassau when we got off the ship.

This is the start of our tour in Nassau.  You can hear about New Providence and see some buildings.

On our day at sea it was really rainy and windy.  The pool was closed because it wasn't safe to swim and the water was sloshing.  Here is video of the pool.

When we were in the wave pool at Typhoon Lagoon (DisneyWorld) I took videos as we were hit by waves.  Some are small but some are larger.  They are funny to watch.  The waves may not look huge but, trust me, they WERE huge!!

The airplane home was really hot when we got on.  When the pilot turned on the air it looked really cool.

Pictures

Here are random pictures from our trip.

Cute Courtney

 

Courtney and me

 

Views of Nassau:

From Fort Montagu

 

From Fort Charlotte

 

From the ship

 

After she took out the braids that had been in for 2 days:

 

Playing in the rain

 

Bahamas foot 

 

Our monkey

 

Waiting for the show to start 

 

Courtney likes chocolate cupcakes

 

Friday

We got up early, at breakfast and got in line to self disembark. We got there early so the line wasn't very long. We got off quickly and found our shuttle back to the airport where we picked up our rental car.

We decided to check out Disneyworld's Downtown. It's called Disney Springs here, which really there us off. It's free parking so we got a spot and walked around.

 

We got a pretzel and then Courtney decided she wanted to go to Typhoon Lagoon! I was so excited. That was my favorite place when I came here with Ethan. So we loaded in the car and were on our way.

Since it is May it wasn't crowded at all and the weather was perfect. We parked, grabbed our stuff and went to the water park. We bought tickets, changed clothes and started having fun! The wave pool was our favorite! We went on two water rides and the lazy river before we discovered that...gasp...they took out the snorkeling/swim with sharks attraction!! I was so sad. But we spent 4 hours in the wave pool so I was fine.

I can't get videos to load onto the blog using the blog app on my phone so I will upload them when I get home. But we had a blast!

 

We got out to reapply sunscreen and Courtney realized that she was a bit burned in her face so she wanted to go. We changed and loaded back into the little car to drive to the hotel.

We ate dinner and now are getting ready for bed. Our plane leaves at 6:25 am so we are going to be up really early! Wish us luck!

Thursday

This was our day at sea. Courtney had it all planned out but it mainly consisted of staying at the pool with a break for lunch and dinner. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't cooperating.

We went to the pool until he morning. It it was super windy and courtney was freezing. We did watch "Fantatic Beasts" while we were there. Courtney curled up on a chair with a towel to get warm and then we went to the room. 

When we checked the weather again a while later, we found that it had been raining. It was really wet and the pools were closed. The ship was rocking so much that the water was sloshing all over the place.

 

Most of the day we wandered around and stayed in our room. We did go to the farewell show and it was a comedian that was hilarious! He told jokes about the toilets and the size of the showers. We were rolling and it was great. 

We packed our stuff and got ready to go the next morning and then went to bed.

Wednesday

This was our day in Nassau (which is the name of the town not the island!). We woke up, when we heard the neighbors moving around, and got breakfast. Courtney actually branched out and got a pancake and some hash browns. She is very particular with food so it was usually dry cereal and yogurt for breakfast, French fries with salad for lunch, and mashed potatoes with salad and fruit for dinner. But she began branching out at breakfast!

 We then got off the ship. It was socked so we didn't have to take a tender. The first thing we both commented on was that it was hot and humid and really windy! But mistletoe it was humid. Ugh. I felt like I was back on my mission.

We had bought a 90 minute air-conditioned bus tour of Nassau. So we found our tour group and we're ready to go. The only problem was that it was the opening day of their new parliament. They had just held elections and a new party was in power so there was a ton of traffic and people were celebrating. And the drivers there don't obey any rules. It was quite frightening! They mainly drive in the left side of the road, although most roads are one way. And their steering wheels can be on either side. It is very confusing. Their max speed limit in the Bahamas is 45 mph with most streets being 25 mph. I think that is the only reason why they aren't all dead!

The buildings are very colorful and are color coded. The police station is green and white, the bans were blue and white, the hospitals were yellow and white, etc. the driver kept telling us to make sure we stay away from the green and white building. These are a few pics of their houses and buildings.

 

We went first to the fish market. They pull fish out daily and they hire men to clean the fish. This is a high paying job.  Let me explain the pics below. I will go led tto right by line.

1. Us on the air conditioned bus

2. The Poop Deck fish restaurant that the guide said is the best.

3. Conch shells

4. Land crabs. This was crazy because these crabs live on land and are garbage cans. When they are caught they have to go through a cleansing process (only eat banana rinds and leaves) before you can eat them or you will get seriously sick.

5. This guy wanted us to buy some fish from him.

6. The FIFA stadium they built for the finals where they "stunk it up."

7. The fish cleaning station

8. The Sydney Pointier bridge

 

We went to Fort Montagu that was next to the cove. It saw action once but was off shore.

We were able to walk around and get a tour but there wasn't much to it.

 

More pics, same as before.

1. Their bank is BOB "bank of the Bahamas"

2. This is a garden that is "mostly legal" stuff. The guide said that most people hide their drug plants in the back so we didn't see any.

3. The cemetery 

4. The well house where people have to go to get their water. Many houses still do not have indoor plumbing.

5. The Graycliff restaurant and chocolatier which is super expensive and the famous and rich go there.

6. Their statue of Christopher Columbus. They celebrate him as the discoverer of the new world.

7. A house

8. A saw statue

 

We went to Fort Charlotte. Here a woman told us the story of the fort and how it was built by the slaves. She told us how it never saw battle but that napoleon did come to try and take the Bahamas but the English won. But in 1973 the Bahamas were given their freedom and became their own nation.

 

We saw a girl in drivers ed. They use these cones to teach you to drive and then you can drive at age 18. I don't know why anyone would want to drive here. It apparently they do. Everything is legal at age 18- drive and drink.  Here are some more pics.

 

When the tour ended it had lasted over 3 hours! We got our money worth. Courtney was hungry but she wanted to see what she could buy. 

You need to know that shopping with Courtney isn't a quick thing. She takes forever to figure out what she wants. This doesn't work well when you are in the "straw market" where you haggle for the price. I was in heaven and having a blast but Courtney couldn't stand people changing the price and trying to push her into buying something. She would get shy and then they would tell her to talk to them and tell them what they could get her. She was super uncomfortable.

Courtney ended up going into the more expensive shops that didn't barter because she didn't like the bartering but then everything was out of her price range. She finally threw in the towel and we got back on the ship.

We went to dinner and then it was back to the pool we went. This time, instead of a movie, they were showing mountain biking around the world. It was cool.

That night we went to another show and this time it was a celebration of the 70s, 80s and 90s. She knew a few more songs but had fun watching them dance.

We went to bed tired!

Tuesday

We slept in...until 8:45! I couldn't believe it. The lack of windows was rough on us because it was so dark and we couldn't tell it was daytime. The only thing that woke us up was the sound of people in the hallway as they left the ship!

So we got up and got our stuff together. It was lucky that we didn't have a set time for an excursion or we would have been in trouble!

We are breakfast and then went to deck 2 to get on the tender. The line was pretty long but it didn't take very long to load. It was a beautiful day and we were really excited. We were going snorkeling which I love to do!

 

We got to CocoCay and got our snorkeling stuff. It was humid!! We found a chair to put our stuff on and then we went in the water. I had a waterproof case for my phone and was looking forward to underwater pictures. Unfortunately, it worked great but I kept putting it on video mode so I didn't get many underwater pics. Oh well. 

I don't know how this pic happened but here is Courtney and her mini-me.

 

We had to wear inflated vests.

 

 

Snorkeling wasn't the greatest because everyone was snorkeling and they were kicking up sand so the water wasn't very clear. There was also a lot of sea grass and the water wasn't very deep. We did see quite a few fish and they weren't shy. After an hour of snorkeling, Courtney was done and wanted to play in the sand. I was fine with that so we went back to shore. 

Courtney loved playing in the water.

 

We are a BBQ lunch they had on the island and then we were ready to go back to the ship.

We showered and changed then went to Cafe Latte-tudes for a treat. Courtney decided she likes eclaires. 

 

And we found where they were hiding the ice cream. Although on this ship they have to serve it to you.

 

Courtney wanted to do some onboard shopping and found a hat she "had to have."

 

We had discovered, in our exploring, a hidden place on deck 10 where Courtney could play around. So we went there so she could cartwheel.

It was then time to hit the pool. They were showing "Sing" on the big screen poolside, so we decided to watch it.

One thing I learned about Courtney is that she really doesn't like salt water. So the ocean and the pool were both salt water. She loves to swim but doesn't really like to do so in salt water. But we watched the movie, had dinne, went back to the pool and then went to our room to get ready for bed.

On CocoCay there were women who would braid your hair. It was $5 per braid so we decided to ship it. But Courtney really wanted her hair braided. So, while she watched tv, I did the braids.

 

 

People asked her about them all the time and she would tell them that I had done the braids. I could have cleaned up if I would have set up a station on the ship!

Then it was time for bed!

Monday

When the plane landed in Orlando, Courtney was anxious to get our bags. We went to luggage claim, got our bag and then had to make a plan. We had 2 1/2 hours before our shuttle would leave for Port Canaveral so we had to find something to do. We found some soft chairs with charging stations and charged our devices while watching Netflix or playing games.

When it was time, we went to the shuttle station.

 

It was hot and humid in Orlando but the weather was nice. We loaded into the shuttle and I told courtney I was going to nap. She said she would stay awake because she wanted to see alligators. Five minutes later and I saw this:

 

It was a fast shuttle ride her her! She woke up just in time to see our ship:

 

The bus parked and we all got out. We had to stay by the bus to make sure our luggage was taken care of. When I looked at the front of the bus I saw this....

 

Those are some huge bugs!

We were pretty early so the check in process took 5 minutes. Then we waited until it was our turn to get on the ship. It didn't take long. We had forgotten to pack our swim suits in our carryon luggage so we went to the Windjammer for lunch.

After lunch, we walked around the ship to St used to it. It was quite a bit smaller than the other cruise ships we had been on so it wasn't hard to figure out where everything was located. We found our luggage and then went to check out our room - 6561. We were on the "teeen deck" because it wasn't one than ran all the length of the ship. It was hard to find.

 

I guess it was a suitable deck for the tween and I to stay on. 😉

We hadn't been in an inside room before but decided to try it. The room was small but it was plenty for the two of us.

 

Before we could leave port they had to do a muster drill. It was long and boring!

 

When we got back to our room our room attendant brought us a treat for Courtney's birthday! They were chocolate covered rice crispy treats.

 

After we ate them, we went to dinner. Haha! 

I dragged Courtney to the show. It was a 70s music show and she had fun. She didn't know a lot of the songs but she liked watching the dancers.

 

We were pretty tired so we went to bed at 9:30. It was a good start to our vacation.

Red eye

Sunday afternoon Bryan and Ethan drive Courtney and I to the Las Vegas airport for our flight to Orlando for her 12 year trip. The cheapest flight was a red eye and it ended up being a real red eye.

Before we left home, I got a notification that the flight was delayed by 30 minutes. By the time we got to the airport, the flight was delayed an hour. I had checked in at home and printed our boarding passes so getting through everything was easy.

Courtney did get stopped by security because she didn't take her Nook out of her bag at the security screening. 

Then we waited...and waited...and waited. There was a medical situation on the flight before ours so that took longer.

The plane was 2 hours late but we got on. Frontier isn't very comfy. The seats don't recline and they aren't soft but we got some sleep and landed at around 6 am Monday morning.

 

Another one lost

Courtney has had 2 loose teeth for a while. They have been driving her nuts! Finally on Saturday she lost the first one. She was so happy....until she realized that it is a tooth that doesn't have an adult tooth to replace it. She then became very upset because she doesn't want a "stupid looking smile" until she gets older and can have an implant. Bryan tried to help her out but she was really upset. The tooth fairy gave her $1 for her mental anguish.

 

In Sunday she lost another tooth. This was a molar and I honestly don't know how the baby tooth has held on that long. The adult tooth was almost completely in before the baby one fell out. She was really happy with this tooth because it drove her nuts.

 

Mother's Day

I had a good Mother's Day.  Bryan made me chocolate crepes.  We went to Church and the Primary sang a Mother's Day song.  Courtney wasn't very happy about it because she feels like she is too old to be singing in Sacrament meeting.  This will be her last time singing on Mother's Day.

Our Ward has the tradition of giving the mothers cheesecake for Mother's Day so we had a really quick lesson in Relief Society and then the last 15 minutes were spent eating cheesecake served by the bishopric.

We had my parents, sister, and aunt/uncle to our house for dinner.  It was yummy and fun to chat with them all.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Mother's Day Bike Ride

Our tradition is to take a hike on Mother's Day and then go to dinner.  Some years it's not easy because Courtney has a soccer game.  This year it worked out and we decided to do it a bit differently.  We went loaded the bikes on the van, went to Courtney's soccer game, grabbed lunch, and drop to Zion.  There were a lot of people but we found a spot in a pay lot that was really close to the entrance.

We crossed the road, paid the entrance fee, and found the bike path.  The first part of the bike ride was on a trail that wound over and over the river.  It was a really easy ride and we had a lot of fun.




















After we joined up to the road it was a constant uphill.  It was pretty tough but we worked through it.  When we got past the shuttle stop for the Weeping Rock, the road flattened out and it wasn't bad at all.  We made it to Zion Lodge and were ready for ice cream.

  

After standing a long line and getting our ice cream, we sat in the beautiful weather while we ate our ice cream.  The cotton was flying from the trees and there was a slight breeze.  It was such a nice day!
    

We got back on our bikes and went down the road.  We had to stop each time a shuttle came by but it wasn't too bad.  It was a lot faster ride down because it was downhill.

We stopped at one point so the kids could play in the water.  Courtney caught a frog and the rest of us relaxed in the shade.
  

When we got back to the entrance there were a lot less people than before.  We loaded our bikes back on the van and drove to Oscars for lunch.  Ethan was pretty hungry.  He ate most of his hamburger and, on the way home, he ate the rest of his burger and my leftovers.  If you go to Oscar's in Springdale to eat, split whatever you buy!  They give you so much food.  I ordered a quesadilla with chicken that was listed as an appetizer.  When it came it looked like a small cheese pizza!  It was HUGE! But it was really good!

Last soccer game of the season

Saturday was Courtney's last soccer game of the season! It was a rough game. Her team out played the other team but luck wasn't on their side. They lost 2-0. They ended the season in 4th place. They have a good team and have done well this season.