Florida!!!!

Along time ago Gaz (the best non paid travel agent) found some really cheap tickets to Florida..
Our friends the Thuesons from Idaho go on cruises all the time and suggested that we should look at going on a cruise while living here.. We found one going to the Bahamas that worked in well with our flights...
So the trip began, the only thing wrong with a really cheap flight is that you really don't have a choice of how many stop overs you will have.. Way over was only a 3hr stop over in Denver,.. Yes we marked another state of our list!!!
The first pic (on this post) was our view of our first hotel and this was the view looking down.. And was we glad it had a pool, cause it was really hot in Florida.. I know it's been hot in Provo, but this was a dryer heat... We had many hand stand competitions in these pools...
Our second hotel was also cool and was down in cocoa beach, which we loved.. There was no high rise buildings( like Gold Coast) and seemed really friend surfing place.
Again we spent most of our time in the pool area...
The locals were friendly and keen for a big wave. Which was happening all the time as hurricane Irene was coming up from the Bahamas. We didn't spend much time on the beach as it was very windy and most of the time the beach was closed.. But as soon as it was open again, those crazy surfers were out get "hammered" again!!!

Despite the winds and the beach being closed we loved being on a beach again.. We miss Bridport and the beach heaps..

There were alot of guys with metal decortors on the beach.
No wonder Gaz found a pocket knife in about his first 10 steps onto the sand....
But the main reason we came to Florida was to go on our 1st ever cruise..
The staff looked after us well and left animals folded on our bed every night, this was a nice touch especially if you had small kids.. Eden loved it..
The Food was another highlight, we dinned in the "fancy dinning room"...
The crab cakes were my favourite thing unfortunately it wasn't on the menu each night as they changed it each evening, but you still had lots of choices..
Gary loved trying to refresh his Indonesian as most of the wait staff were from there.. It was funny to watch and listen and they loved hearing that we had been to their home country as well!!
The boat was great and always had things to do.. They surely did have every age catered for and when you would find yourself with nothing to do, why not go and get an ice cream, freshly made sandwich, grab a cold drink and pizza that was available 24 hrs..



The Bahamas was great, hot but great.. and popular with the cruise ships.. the docks were always packed.On one of the port stops we booked a snorkeling tour , so we went along with our 100 newest friends and hoped on a huge catamaran and went out for about 30 mins to a nice little reef..
On the way we passed the hotel "Atlantis" it was very expensive to go their for a day trip..

Not only was our first cruise but it was my first time snorkeling and first time using a water proof camera..

What can I say, if you have been snorkeling yet, put it on your bucket list.. It was the best thing!!
Snorkeling and ordering cheeses cake for room service ( not costing a thing) was my two favourite things about the cruise.. Eden had a great time in the kids club and even the girls made some friends in the older kids club...and Gaz found out that he wasn't going to win any table tennis competition in the future...
The boat wasn't really effect buy the hurricane that was behind it, but we did leave the Bahamas at midnight instead of 7am the next morning, so we were out of danger.

Did I forget to mention that we also went to universal studios while in Florida....
Harry Potter was the highlight here for sure.. I'm not really into the whole "hp thing" but this just made you fall in love with it for a while.. But this was the most packed part of the whole park, you couldn't move in the gift shop. It was full of people buying over priced sounivers.
But we did have some beer.. Yes beer... butter beer.. Is it in the movie, I wouldn't have a clue??? But it was yummy and was refreshing as it was still hot and what will cool you down more than an over priced drink that you have to share with 4 other family members...
We loved our time in Florida and would love to go on another cruise one day, but was happy to return to Provo as it was really expensive to shop in Florida..
Mc Donald's didn't even have $1 large soft drinks!!!!
As i said in the beginning we had no choice about our flights, I was not looking forward to flying back as we had to be at the airport at 5:45am ( it was 1 hr away from our hotel) and when we got there at the airport there were people very where because they had closed some airports on the east coast because of the hurricane.. All the flights to New York ha been cancelled...
We were going home Florida, Houston, Denver and Salt Lake... ggrrrr.. wasn't happy .. but I was more worried about missing our flight with the amount of people trying to get on flights.. Finally we were attended to and then we were told that our flights had been changed.. ggrrrrr
So we are taken over to another counter and told that we are now leaving an hour later and flying to California and the Salt Lake. At first was i a bit crabby, but then told that it would cut out flying time in half!! pleased lisa..
Thanks for reading or not reading my long essay... xx