Well, this post was started in early March...but I'm finally getting around to finalizing it! We went on our 'babymoon' the last week of February. Tony, myself, his sister and her husband, his brother and his friend, Grandpa Halsey, Grandma Replogle, cousin Vicky, and Aunt and Uncle Norbert and Justine all went along. We left from Miami and visited the Dominican Republic, St. Thomas, Tortola and the Bahamas. It was so great to escape the cold weather and to relax with family.
In the Dominican Republic, Tony went Whale Watching with Jen, Stefan, and Grandpa. The Dominican Republic is known as a breeding/birthing ground for the Humpack Whales from February through March. No one really knows why they go to this particular location....but luckily they were there when we were there! They saw several whales, and saw one mother with her baby! In the picture below, you can see the spray from the whale off in the left side of the picture.
I decided to stay on the ship this day and just relax. I heard that a LOT of people get woozy and sea sick from the whale watching tour, so I decided to do a behind the scenes tour of the cruise ship and see how they operate. I got to visit the bridge and take control of the helm for a little bit...oh, that's right. We were parked!
I knew a lot of laundry was done on the ship...but didn't realize HOW they did it! It was amazing. They had washing machines the size of a small bedroom!! And dryers about the same size! Then they took the linens and put them through these HUGE machines that finished drying them, pressed them and folded them! Below is a picture of a tablecloth coming out of the machine.
I also got to see where they stored all the provisions for the week! They bring on board everything they would need for the week, and use nearly all of it. There were separate rooms for beef, pork, poultry, seafood, fruit, pastries and dry goods. I could NOT believe the quantity of food that was required. In a week they go through 7000 pounds of sirloin steak. They bring on board 7000 pounds of watermelon. Below is a picture of the dried goods. Look at all that rice! I don't even think I ate rice the entire week on the ship... but some people must have!
During the tour, we caught this artist carvine an ice sculpture for the chocolate buffet. He was formerly a wood carving artist in Bavaria. Such an amazing talent!
This is our group who went. We had such a great time!
As always, a snapshot of the muster drill is exciting :)
The first night at sea, we were chosen to be one of the couples on the Not so Newlywed Game! Uncle Norbert and Aunt Justine were chosen also! (They were the 50 year plus couple). Norbert and Justine ended up winning the entire competition! I think we gave everyone a few laughs at this event!
In St. Thomas, we went out on a sailboat around the Virgin Islands. Tony and I both agree that this is one of the most awesome places we've ever been. We really want to go back and spend an entire week there. Hopefully we'll get to go with the family on a vacation to St. John sometime in the near future! (Felix the Fetus will be part of our family then!) Anyways....Tony had never sailed before...and I think he really enjoyed it. The smile on his face in this picture captures the good time we both had.
We were also selected to have dinner with the Captain and Crew! Jeramy, Tony, grandma and myself got to sit with the Cruise Director, John. John is from Australia and has been doing the cruise director type job for >7 years. He was amazingly full of energy and was probably one of the best cruise directors I've seen! He wasn't over the top...but right at everyone's energy level.
After dinner with the Captain and Crew, we played the ever-exciting cruise ship game known as Quest. For those of you who have not been on a cruise, it is basically a "Let's Make a Deal" type game. Everyone gets into teams of around 8-10, and then an MC asks for various items/tricks. For example, they may ask for a shoelace out of a shoe (we got ours from Uncle Norbert's), for you to show your tattoo, amongst many other crazy things. You have a set amount of time to run to the front of the room and show it to the MC. You get points for getting up to the front in the alotted time (the first person gets more points). Our entire family participated in this! We even got grandpa to go up to the front and show them his fake teeth!! Needless to say, we won the competition!! There is quite a competitive streak in all the Halseys!! Below is a picture after we won...you might be able to guess from the picture that the final challenge was swapping clothes with a teammate.......that is how Rob and I ended up wearing each other's clothes. Doesn't he look nice in Red?
Every night when we came back to our room, we had a cute little towel animal made. Here was our elephant!
Jen, myself and Tony enjoyed the White Hot Party.
Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Justine and Norbert are all ready to get off the tender boat and onto the Private Island in the Bahamas!
Here they are relaxing on the Bahama beach!!
Here is a towel monkey hanging in our room!
We did splurge a bit on this trip and decided to get a balcony. Then we decided to splurge and get a suite off the back of the boat. It was so awesome being able to sit out on the balcony and listen to the engines rumble and smell the freshly baking bread. In the picture below, you'll see our room circled.
Tony loved relaxing on the balcony.
The last night of our ship, we had a plate of Belgian chocolates and chocolate covered strawberries delivered to our room with a note from the head chef, thanking us for our business!
