Norwegian Sun

About a month ago, we booked a last minute cruise with our cruising friends. We decided to do an adults only cruise this time. Since Jennifer was in crunch this week and had to be at the theatre every day, she couldn’t go. So, we joined the Hills and the Koehlers for a 7 day cruise aboard the Norwegian Sun.
This was our first time cruising Norwegian and it was a smaller ship than we normally go on.  Dale kept calling it a dinghy mostly to aggravate Dana who was worried that there wouldn’t be enough activities and things to keep Dale busy.  He thought I would get bored, but we both did fine.  I mean seriously, if you give me sunshine and a good book to read, I am really happy.

The ship itself was pretty nice. It was not the best ship for kids as there really wasn’t a whole lot of things to do. There were golf cages and batting cages that had been transformed into a ping pong area, along with a basketball court, and of course, pools and hottubs. 

One of the things that made Norwegian appeal to us is the fact that they do freestyle dining and are much more casual and laid back.  We were all so stressed and tired going into the cruise that we really just wanted to chill out. Nobody even brought any formal clothes this cruise. And we didn’t plan any excursions AT ALL before we left.  We really didn’t even know if we were going to get off the ship in any of the ports, although we ended up getting off at each stop-if only to walk in and go shopping for a while. 

Everyone did enjoy the freestyle concept of not having to get dressed up every night for dinner.  And you could go eat anytime you want.  We enjoyed breakfast each morning sitting outside at the Great Outdoors.  Lunch was either the dining room or the buffet.  And dinners consisted mostly of the dining room.  There were several paid restaurants and we went to the Brazilian steakhouse where they served all you could eat meat of various kinds.  We started with a salad bar and then they brought out huge skewers of meat- pork, lamb, chicken, beef, etc.  Everyone agreed that the sirloin was the most delicious and we got more of that.  It was worth the surcharge but we all left stuffed. 



This was our pre-dinner hangout place that overlooked the ocean



Green means MORE MEAT...red means STOP!!!

And of course, there was the chocolate buffet.....

This cruise went to Cozumel, Mexico first. There we got off and shopped around.  Then we went Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala.  This was our first time at this stop.  They welcomed us by having Miss Guatemala greet us as we got off the ship. They also had a band come play for several hours in the heat while we disembarked.  We walked over and got a tour from a local guy there who took us around the island. It is very poor  and we had quite the beggars here. A few kids came up and asked for a dollar. It was really sad.  The tour wasn’t the best because our guide didn’t speak much English.  But it was okay.  I t was really hot in his air-conditioned van and we were all sticky and yucky. We shopped a little here too and they bombarded us when the van stopped.  There was a strong military presence here as well. Some of the men had sawed off shotguns with hands ready at all times.  We were docked at a very industrial port which was the first time for that. It was interesting to watch them load and unload the containers that go on the semi-trucks. But the people were friendly and really want ships to continue coming there. 



I was trying to take a picture of the straw hut in the background & this lady jumped in front of my camera

 Our next stop was Belize where we had stopped before but didn’t get off the ship last time.  It is very shallow at Belize so the ship has to anchor about 20 minutes away from the island and you have to tender in.  This time we got off the ship and went to the island.  We again just walked around the port area and shopped. 

Our last stop was in Key West, FL.  I had been there before but Dale had not.  This was probably everyone’s favorite port stop. It was clean and they spoke English and there wasn’t poverty all around.  It is a quaint little island with a lot of character.  We walked all around the island looking for a couple of different things. We went to the southernmost point of the US and snapped a photo. We then headed for key lime pie on a stick. This was what the highlight of our visit was there. It was really yummy!!

On sea days, we just hung out and relaxed. We laid in the sun one day and found this great quiet spot on the top deck where the air conditioning would blow out on you while you were sun bathing, which was nice.  We all took plenty of naps and read our books.  We watched some movies.

I went to most of the shows, which were very enjoyable. It was nice to have some new shows that I hadn’t seen before.  The highlight for all of us was the night we skipped dinner to go eat appetizers in the sports bar. After that, we all went to the hypnotist’s second show where Tina volunteered to be one of the people on stage.  His first show was really good but we were skeptical if that could really happen. He started talking and Tina was the first one under this hypnosis.  He sent some back to their seats if they weren't hypnotized.  He did all kinds of funny things with them, but it was funny just to watch them fall asleep at his command and wake up at his command.  He had one guy believe he was Garth Brooks, and was singing to the crowd. Tina and 2 other girls had to get up and dance and shake their butts every time a certain song came on.  It was totally hilarious!! He told them at one point that they couldn’t see him and were seeing ghosts and they were scared. He told them the person next to them smelled REALLY good and they were right up into their necks smelling each other. Then he told them that the person was stinky and then he told them that they were realizing that it was them. They were all smelling themselves. Then he told them to take a shower and they were all showering up there.  At one point, he told them that they were going to believe that they hadn’t been hypnotized and that they had each paid $30,000 extra to be hypnotized. That they were all very mad at him.  He brought them up and they were all mad and letting him have it for not being hypnotized until he shook their hand or touched their shoulder when they all woke up and realized what they had done. It was absolutely amazing to watch and made a believer out of all of us.  We went to several seminars of his to learn more after that.  I promised not to blog the videos, but take my word for it...it was one of the funniest things any of us had ever seen!! (love ya Tina!!)

I know this stuff isn’t blog worthy to you readers but it will help me remember some details later that I would forget otherwise.  Going down, we rode with the Hills but we all stayed at Orlando’s Crown Plaza hotel on a friends and family rate. We went to eat dinner in Orlando across the street at Tony Roma’s and then went all over town looking for a Walgreens when it was right across the street.  Coming home, we rode with the Koehlers as the Hills had to go straight to Columbia for Jackie’s doc appt at Duke on Monday. As always, we had a great time with our friends and spouses and missed our kids like crazy, but enjoyed the time together.