Back To Reality…
Hey! So I know it has been a long time but I hope you are still interested in our life. My name is Lucas, I am 14 and it is my turn to write about our recent vacation! We recently just went on a cruise with Mimi, our grandmother, and it was really fun to go and see places like San Juan, St Thomas, and the Dominican Republic. We were sailing the high seas on the Carnival cruise ship Celebration. This is the biggest boat in their fleet currently and it looks more like a floating island rather than a boat that cruises at 17 knots.
We left our house in Tampa to drive to the port of Miami on November 17. We got there about twenty minutes before being allowed to board. Getting through security and verification took less than an hour. We went straight to our rooms to find our luggage ready to be put away. Right before we left the room we met the nicest room service person ever. His name was Ida and he always had a smile on his face and was super nice. Even though our rooms were pretty small we spent most of our time out of the room having exciting experiences we will always remember.
There were so many fun and exciting activities we were not able to do them all. One thing that was really fun were the bean bag tournaments. We played in all of them and they were all a little bit different but we did end up winning one and we got a trophy! The trophy was called a 24 karat golden plastic ship on a stick by all of the staff and we left with three by the end of the trip. Another really fun activity was trivia. They had so many different ones it was impossible to make it to all of them. Some of my favorite trivia was, slogans, explain movie badly, commercials, sports, board games and Harry Potter. Lincoln’s favorite activity was the putt putt course they had on board. Yes the boat was so big it had a nine hole putt putt course on the eighteenth deck! It was a fun little course. My only complaint was that the holes were not real golf holes and I did not love that but overall it was really good.
All of this exciting stuff is making me hungry and this boat had so much food it was insane. For every meal there were multiple buffets with tons of really yummy food. But for lunch there were even better places to eat like Guy Fieri’s place that had some really good burgers or Shaquille O’Neal’s chicken finger place. If you went to dinner you were in for a treat because this cruise ship has multiple scrumptious places to fill your bellies with delicious food. Some of the best places were the Festival restaurant that had a revolving menu that will satisfy all of your dining needs. Another one of my favorites was Guy Fieri’s smokehouse place. It had some pretty good brisket and great atmosphere. But possibly the best thing I had to eat was the soft serve. If y’all do not know what soft serve is, well to put it simply it is really creamy ice cream goodness. There were multiple soft serve machines on the boat as well as one of them being in Guy’s smokehouse restaurant. Yum!
Well, all of this food and activities are fun and exciting but the main reason we went was to see new places on our voyage. Our first stop was on the northern shores of the Dominican Republic in a city called Puerto Plata. The water there was so pretty and it was cool to see the vast expanse of mountains since I have never really seen that living in Florida. With our time in Puerto Plata, Daddy and Liam went on a fishing charter where they caught a cool fish. Liam will tell you more about that next time. The rest of us were dragged along to go inside ALL OF THE SHOPS! The next stop on our journey was San Juan Puerto Rico. It was really cool to go and see the old city and learn where Daddy grew up. While we were there we got Piraguas. (It is shaved ice doused in fruit flavored syrup.) But the best food we got there was from a little restaurant in the old city called El Punto. They had amazing fried empanadas and sorullitos. If you do not know what those are then you should go to your nearest Puerto Rican restaurant and try them for yourself because they are amazing. We finished up our trip in St Thomas where we actually did some buying in the dozens of shops we went into instead of just looking. We then went to a shopping center place that seemed almost abandoned. Since San Juan was my favorite I wanted to say a few more things about it. The water was soooo pretty and the waves were the biggest I have ever seen. On land it was equally interesting with all of the iguanas and El Morro. El Morro is a castle built by the Spaniards back in the the fifteen hundreds. It was built on the water so they could keep an eye out for enemy ships. It is now a national park and is viewable to the public.
Overall, this was a really great vacation on the high seas with our family. It would not be complete without ice cream, fun activities, and amazing views. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for Liam’s interpretation of our trip. Byeeeee!
