Well, all good things must come to an end. Going home this time isn't nearly as sad as it usually is though. We live in Florida now where everyday is like a vacation. Plus in two days we get a puppy! That's right, we're getting a boy Golden Retriever (Bailey) to add to our family. He'll be joining our eight year old female Golden, Raina.

Anyway our last two days were at sea and I thought for sure we'd get bored. I thought wrong. We took advantage of a few sales the ship had on jewelry and stuff. I got a new bracelet that I really like for $20. We also went to the steakhouse on board. The food and service there were awesome. It's definitely worth the price to try it out once. We saw a few shows, watched some TV, and enjoyed the BBQ during lunch on deck 5. I also swam and went on the water slides this time. I've never done that before. It was fun! The pool gets super crowded, so I went when we were docked in Nassau.

This is the cruise that we liked the most. Here is what I learned this time around:

--Cruises are much more enjoyable when you aren't worrying about money. Well duh you say. Our cruise budget is usually pretty limited, about $30 or so a day (not including the tips you give to everyone). This time we had more money from the sale of our house so we didn't have a budget. Not that we went crazy or anything, our final bill was about $550. For seven days on board, including a meal at the steakhouse, a new bracelet, and $65 for some new sunglasses (my husband's broke on our day at sea and he really needed a pair. Unfortunately we had to buy some from the cruise ship. They were expensive but are also nice. Besides, his poor eyes weren't doing well in all of the bright sunshine!)

--Do stuff! Take advantage of the onboard entertainment. When we went on Royal Caribbean we didn't do a single thing onboard because nothing interested us. This time we decided to try something at least once a day. We didn't care for the main night shows (we really didn't like the singing) but there was plenty of other stuff to do like bingo, the making towel animals workshop, store sales, murder mystery, Q&A with the cruise director, and tons of other stuff. For us the cruise is more fun if we take advantage of some of that stuff. The cheesier the better!

--Rooms: Personally I prefer an inside room. I like the darkness when I sleep. I don't spend a ton of time in my room so I don't need sunshine in there. I know of some people who get freaked out by a room with no natural light, so an ocean view room would probably be nice. A balcony on deck 6 was not worth it since we mostly got a view of deck 5. The public decks were way nicer. Our balcony on deck 2 was pretty cool and not something that everyone gets to experience. Still not worth the money though. Try to make friends with someone on deck 2 so you can see their balcony instead of paying for one yourself :)

--Bigger is better. I like the big ships. The Carnival Dream is the largest we've been on so far and it was our favorite. To me bigger means more to do and less motion sickness. I don't feel the boat moving too much unless the weather sucks or we're in shallow water.