Tim & Andrea's honeymoon cruise - Day 2

If you're new here, you may want to read my previous posts about our private Key West beach wedding here, and also read about Day 1 of our honeymoon cruise here before you continue on with this post.

And you can read about all of the wedding planning here!

All caught up? Great, we're ready to continue on with Day 2 of our awesome honeymoon cruise:

MAY 3, 2011 - SEA DAY

I was up at 4:30 AM, and for some reason I could not get back to sleep. I guess I was just excited after all of the planning and the wedding and all. I remember laying there thinking I was really happy and I was on a CRUISE SHIP!!! 

This was way too early to be up, so I stayed in bed and waited until a more reasonable time to actually start my day. The sun came up about 6:30 and I quietly went out on the balcony watched the sea. Tim woke up and joined me on the balcony. This was sooooo nice!!

We showered and dressed, and decided to go to the Lido deck and check out the breakfast buffet. It was around 8:30 and the buffet was pretty empty, no lines! Nice!

After our breakfast, we walked back to the Adults Only Serenity deck and we found Mary and Cassandra there. They were the mother/daughter duo we had met yesterday at our little meet-n-greet. We sat with them for a little while and chatted.

Tim and I wanted to see more of the ship, so we made our way back to the busy part of the Lido deck where the big screen, pool, hot tubs and all of the action is. It was about 10:00 by then, and it was packed with people. There were no lounge chairs near the pool, so we walked around and people-watched. We ran into Norma and Brian and chatted with them for a few minutes. There was a reggae band playing on the outdoor stage, so we listened to the music for awhile.

At 10:30 Tim and I went to the Palladium Theatre to hear the Fun Ashore/Fun Aboard talk. I wanted to hear more about the activities on and off the ship. It was very informative and only lasted about 30-40 minutes. Later we realized we didn't really need to actually go to the theatre for this, as it was shown over and over again throughout the week on the TV.

After the Fun Ashore/Fun Aboard talk, we went to the deli (again) for corned beef sandwiches, and took our trays back to our room to eat. We had discovered that we could get to our cabin quite quickly and easily using the middle bank of elevators (the middle elevators were right next to the buffet, down 3 floors, a short walk down our hallway to our cabin), and we took this route many times with our trays during our cruise. 

We relaxed, watched TV, and I took a short nap - I love naps!. We went out on our balcony to watch the ocean, and we met our neighbors, who happened to be out on their balcony too. Nice people.

Here is the view from my side of the bed looking out at the ocean:

Around 2:30, Brian and Norma called and invited us to their cabin for afternoon drinks. We went up to the 8th floor and spent some time in their room with them, and also Sandra and Hameed were there.

Around 4:00, Tim and I went back to our cabin because I needed plenty of time to get myself ready for our first formal dinner in the main dining room. I knew there would be professional photographers taking pictures, and I wanted a few formal pictures of Tim and I. Tim and I don't get all gussied up very often, but we wanted to play along with the formal/elegant night on the ship for the fun of it (and yes, it was fun!)  

Note to add: Cruises longer than 5 nights will have at least one "formal/elegant" night in the Main Dining Room. You can choose to dress up for dinner (and maybe even a show in the theater), or not. Some people dress very formally, others don't want to bother. 


By 5:30, Tim and I were both ready for dinner. I wore a black skirt, a beaded black top and black sandals. Tim wore black dress pants, and a black and grey striped button-down. We had a silk tie for Tim, but when he put it on, it was WAY too small. It was too short no matter how many times he re-did it. I told him to skip the tie, and he was more than happy to toss it aside.

We walked down the hallway and got in the elevator to go downstairs get our pictures taken. We were a little confused at first as to where the photographers were located, but after asking around, we found them. We picked several backgrounds, and we had several pics taken at each background. The pictures were free to take, then later they would be printed and we could choose to buy any that we wanted.

After picture taking, we headed towards the Universe dining room to find our table and our server, Achmed.

If you choose to eat in the Main Dining Room at either of the assigned seatings (5:30PM or 8:00PM), you will sit at the same table and have the same server on the nights you choose to eat there. 

You can also choose *Your Time Dining* in the MDR. You would go down to the Main Dining Room whenever you want to eat and they will seat you at a different table each night, like a regular restaurant. In the MDR, you choose your meal from a menu and a waiter will serve you. 

*Remember, you can choose to eat t the buffet, pizza restaurant, specialty restaurants, or room service on any nights that you don't want to go to the Main Dining Room. 

Tim sitting at our table in the dining room:

Here is the view of the Universe dining room from our cozy little booth for 2

The menu on the formal night is really good, and I had a hard time deciding what to order. Tim and I both had a Greek salad (very good!), and Tim ate lobster and shrimp for his meal. I ordered the prime rib, and it was WONDERFUL!!

Instead of ordering dessert, Achmed and a few other waiters brought our wedding cake to us, and sang LOUDLY "Happy Honeymoon to you" to the tune of "Happy Birthday". It was cute and fun!

We blew out the candles, and Achmed cut us a piece of cake to share. (We wanted to share, we were already stuffed!) We took the rest of the cake back to our room with us.
Our wedding cake:

We wanted to go to the 7:30 Comedy club show, so we hurried back to our room after dinner, and changed our clothes. It was so nice to be able to stop by our cabin in between dinner and the comedy show to get more comfortable. We found our room turned down for the night, our FUN TIMES newsletter for the next day, our chocolates, and a cute froggy towel animal.

We found seats in the comedy lounge, and I ordered a drink from the bar server. The show was about 30 minutes long, and it was OK. It was the kid friendly show, and I had a feeling the later "adult-only" show would be funnier. Too bad we were again exausted, we would have to try to catch one of the later shows sometime during our cruise.

Back to the room, we saw the sunset from our balcony, and then we caught a few minutes of Dancing With the Stars, one of our shows we watch at home. 

Sunset from our balcony on our first sea day:

Tim and I had packed big thermal cups in our suitcases, and we were glad we did . After watching DWTS, we went up to the Lido deck to refill our cups. We kept our cups full throughout the whole cruise with ice water, lemonaid and iced tea. 

Our cups:

I added stickers. They say "Tim & Andrea - Key West - May 1, 2011"

We stopped in the internet cafe on the way back to our room for the night. I found out I could access the Carnival website for free while we were at sea. My best friend and I used their free message boards to keep in touch while we were gone, and I wanted to check to see if she had written me a message. Yes, she had, and I was happy to hear all was well at home. She was in touch with 2 of my sons who were watching our house and dogs for 2 weeks. This turned out to be a great way to be able to keep in touch FOR FREE while we were gone. It wasn't instant communication so it wouldn't have worked in an emergency, but it worked well for simple communication.

Note* The ships have internet plans now that you can pay for and use internet 24/7 from your phone during the cruise. 

Tim and I were back in our room and ready for bed by 10:30. We packed our tote bag for Grand Turk the next day, and I downloaded our pictures from the day from my camera into the laptop.

We filled out our little breakfast card for the morning and put it on the outside door handle of our cabin. If you choose, you can order a continental breakfast to be delivered to your cabin. We had ordered coffee, cereal, toast and bagels to be delivered to our room between 5:00 and 5:30 AM. We needed to be up early for our day in Grand Turk. OUR FIRST ISLAND!!

Again, the gentle swaying of the ship put us to sleep easily.

******

Ready for Day 3?? You can find it HERE!!