Freedom of the Seas

Well , Sat. feb. 13 we were off to Orlando , spent the night in Amerasuites hotel, went by bus to Port Canaveral on Sun. and hopped on the Freedom of the Seas, a Royal Carribean Cruise. Of course Sandy had a heavy bag ( just like someone else I know, Carol) I tease her all the time about being HM( high maintainance) we make a good team sharing a bathroom, I take 10 min, she takes an hour, we still have time left to get places.
It took a bit for me to get to this vacation per usual. I worked in the office until 12 noon that saturday and we left at 1:15 . My borderline patient I saw on friday tried to get info out of me as to what I was doing on vacation and all I would tell her was I was just taking the week off to rest. As I left her house she said " Did you ever see the movie What about Bob ?" Oh yes I saw it and the movie was funny but not in real life ----- that is why I did not tell you where I was going !

This is a picture of our ship from a hill on St Thomas. It holds 4000 passengers, not counting the 400 crew members. It has an ice skating rink, flowwave pool for surfing, rock climbing wall, soccer/dodgeball/ volleyball/basketball court. A full gym and track, mini golf, pools and play water area for kids. The shows in the theatre are the best I have seen on a cruise ship.

Sandy and I sharing wine and having dinner one evening in the dining room.

Soaking up the sun on the deck. Our first day out in the sun, the waiter came to us and said some gentleman wanted to buy us a drink. He would not tell us who it was, so we were trying to guess ? We decided since most of the people on the ship were families , it must be some lonely old man. So we enjoyed our drinks and later forgot all about it.

The next night we had time to investigate around areas of the ship we did not see yet, we took pictures, here we were on the 3rd floor checking out the ice skating rink when we stopped to take pictures in this comfy chair. A young man came and asked us if we wanted our picture taken together. We said sure, so he took our picture and asked us if we liked the drinks he sent us our first day. After we picked our lower jaws up off the floor we told him yes and thank-you. He soon found out we were not available and he told us his heart was broken. We did find out his name was Roman,30 yo, he was Russian, but worked as an electrician in Seattle Washington. He asked if our husbands were not worried about losing us. He also said he was not sure which one of us he liked better. I was begining to freak out about now, as a psych nurse I am reading between the lines( losing us? Is he thinking of killing us ? Where Sandy is thinking "no our husbands trust us".) We ditched him fast and the rest of the cruise kept a wary eye over our shoulders , and I worked out in the gym every day just in case I needed to use my Tae Kwon Do skills.

This is Nelson , our waiter, he was very cute, from the Philipines, he has a son and daughter 6 and 4, he was very sweet and had some sappy jokes and magic tricks to entertain us with. He had a little trouble understanding my allergies, and every time he saw me he called me something with the word soy in it.

Our room attendant Lilliana made us a towel monkey and had it hanging from our vent in our room, kind of freaked me out at first after encountering our stalker Roman.

This is on the beach on St Maarten. We got our best bargain here. Two beach chairs, one umbrella and six beers for $15 ( we only drank two) The guys with the big beer bellies enjoyed our leftovers. You won't find a deal like that in the USA.

You like my cute hat, I bought it in St Maarten, it is from Italy ( some of you know the inside joke- Jim and his shirts made in Italy , it makes them special)

This is a picture from the hill above Megens Bay, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world which is in St Thomas.

Sandy on the beach at Megens Bay. The beach chairs here, $7 a peice, beers $4.50, burger and fries $ 10.00.

Just having fun on the ship.

This is CocoCay, the private destination this cruise ship stops so we can enjoy another day on the beach.

This is me and my lovey dovey. No , not what your thinking, the waiters name is Deisel ( he has lived in Detroit) and the drink is called a lovey dovey.

Sandy and I at the Bull and Bear pub on the ship. We enjoyed the singer Shane and his guitar ( from Australia) singing all the old classics.

This was the promenade deck ( deck 5) where all the shops are , our room overlooked the promenade from deck 6. That thing from the ceiling is a mermaid, hard to see with this dark picture.

They often had parades down the promenade deck, they had colorful costumes, people on stilts, and they had a carnival theme with these blow up animals. It is a very family oriented ship. Very cool . Lots of kids. You can see the windows above , our room was directly across from that room .
A great vacation! We did run into Roman a few times, we kept our eye out for him. We had one other guy who flirted with us but for the most part did not have too much to worry about. I would recommend a cruise to anyone who has never been on one. ( But don't go alone !)