Well… as William mentioned, it has been a busy week back at work for both of us, but we are finally ready to recap the next couple days of our trip.
So… after our visit to the Aquarium on Sunday morning, we finally boarded our ship, the Norwegian Gem. After thoroughly sanitizing our hands (something we had to do anytime we boarded the ship from a port or entered a dining room), we arrived inside the ship and quickly found our wonderful mini suite. The cabin was nice, clean, located on the aft of the ship with a great balcony view and actually had the perfect amount of closet and drawer space for all of our belongings so that we could make ourselves at home for the next 7 days. I was actually pretty impressed by the storage space. William had arranged for strawberries and champagne to be waiting in the room since our anniversary was the next day. Awww!! He is so sweet 🙂
William and I thought it would be a good idea to explore our new “neighborhood”, so we gave ourselves a tour of the ship and tried to familiarize ourselves with all of the amenities. We stopped by the spa, for a free tour and I even had a chance to demo the acupuncture therapy. We found the spa amenities to be great, including the option to sign up for one of the 100 unlimited access passes to the spa where you could enjoy the therapy pool, jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, heated stone lounge beds, and lounge beds overlooking the front of the ship. We convinced William’s parents to sign up for this also and all four of us enjoyed the spa on a daily basis, particularly to get away from the crowds and enjoy peace and relaxation, and most importantly, the hydrotherapy pool!! We also visited the fitness center, although this would be our last visit (we got our exercise on the excursions at the various ports). We checked out all the restaurants (there were a few specialty restaurants where reservations were recommended so we scoped out one for our anniversary dinner), and we also checked out the clubs/lounges. Club Bliss was interesting because they had beds, and Spinnaker Lounge had cozy furniture and beds as well. After lunch, and our emergency drill (where William put on his life jacket, reported to our disaster area and fell asleep), we went back to our cabin listen to the welcome from our captain, who William says sounded like Puss In Boots from Shrek 2 b/c of his low suave voice that sounded Italian (although he was from Finland) and enjoy the view as we pushed away from the marina and set sail.
Day at Sea…It’s our Anniversary!
On Monday, September 8, 2008, we were at sea for a quiet and relaxing 1 year anniversary!!!!! William and I still can’t believe it has already been a year and reflected once again on the wedding day and honeymoon. It brought huge smiles to our faces. We began the morning with a couples massage at the Spa, which was a nice way to get us relaxed before our daily ports of call. After more relaxing, we went to a Lattitudes reception (their rewards club program that we were automatically enrolled in by booking a mini suite), where we were able to meet the Captain and other senior officers. We then enjoyed a romantic dinner at a French Restaurant on the ship, Le Bistro. After dinner, we coincidently went to a “newleywed show” where we learned way more about some couples than we wanted to know, but were able to test each others knowledge (as audience members… we did not participate as contestants). The answers to some of the questions were hilarious and the couple that won had only been married for 3 days! After the newlywed show, we went to a show the ship put on, “World Beat”, that basically consisted of dance from all parts of the world. It was very well done and very colorful. When we returned to our room, there was another surprise William had arranged (with some assistance from his mom). Our cabin was decorated for our anniversary with balloons, streamers, and two swans forming a heart shaped out of towels. It was a great day of celebration that would continue throughout the week.
For more pictures from Cruise Day 1 and Cruise Day 2, visit William’s Flickr Site.
Next stop… our first port of call… Valleta, Malta.
Thanks for such a wonderful recap…it is nice having all the pictures linked to the narrative. I’ve enjoyed hearing about all of your adventures. I am looking forward to your next post, and reading more about your amazing trip.
I am glad your are enjoying them. There is so much to share, so we are trying not to overwhelm everyone, but it is difficult.
That was a nice room that you all had. On my last cruise I shared a room with 3 of my college friends that was smaller than that! Needless to say, we didn’t spend much time in the room.