In my last podcast blog post “Beating the Holiday Blues“ on December 25, 2019, I surprised Zen Master and Zen Mum with a last minute cruise to the Bahamas a couple of weeks ago. The winter blues were taking a toll on Zen Master, harder than normal, and I came across a end-of-year fire sale of cruises at really decent prices.
The Universe knew what we needed because I was just browsing the sales, not really intending to buy anything. But it was a perfect storm of Zen Master’s holiday blues, decent deal with no flight, and available emergency funds (I’d qualify this as emergency) that decided the entire thing for me. It was a no-brainer.
Having Zen Master and Zen Mum be happy with no sign of the winter blues made the entire thing worth it.
We drove up to Manhattan and jumped on the ship there. One of the best part of the cruise was the fact that we didn’t need to fly anywhere. Given the choice of either driving or flying anywhere, we’ll opt for driving always.
We were on the Norwegian Bliss and this was our first time with Norwegian. We’re Princess veterans so it was interesting to do a totally different cruise line for comparison.
Verdict between Princess and Norwegian: both are lovely. Princess is more structured while Norwegian is into Freestyle cruising, which just means wear-whatever-do-whatever-eat-whenever you want. (And no, no cruise line is sponsoring this post. This straight up is my own personal opinion.)
But truthfully, we had a really bumpy start on Day 1 with embarkation. It was pure chaos at the Manhattan port but once we finally got on the ship, the overall trip and ship were lovely.
The winter storm in the East Coast followed us for three days as we sailed south for warmer weather. And just like magic, on Day 3, we were able to go without jackets. Winter holiday blues busted!
First Port: Port Canaveral, FL
At Port Canaveral, Florida, we ate Alligator meat! Our family motto: try most everything once. They called them alligator bites, and they were just fried alligator meat. The taste and texture were a cross between chicken and chewy calamari, but honestly, everything tastes yummy when it’s fried.
And we went alligator hunting on an airboat!
On this excursion, we flew around the marshes looking for alligators, and actually came across only one. We saw more cattle than alligators, believe it or not.
Southern Sun Next Port: Bahamas
Then the next day we arrived at the Bahamas. It was our first time there and the weather didn’t disappoint.
After that day stay at the Bahamas, we set sail back North, going home and back to the cold weather.
But this time around, the cold weather didn’t faze us. No more winter blues.
This was our time-out that we really needed, something that I didn’t think I personally needed but turned out I surely did, not just Zen Master and Zen Mum.
This is also my last blog post for 2019.
Note to self: Keep on making memories with Zen Master and Zen Mum because time gets precious with each passing year.
Sally in the Zen
