We are back! We had an amazing vacation last week. We left last Sunday morning and returned this past Sunday night. If you are planning a vacation, we definitely recommend a Royal Caribbean cruise! We went to Cococay, Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten during the 7 days, and also enjoyed the days at sea on the ship. These pictures don't show everything about the trip, but you can get an idea of the fun we had. 
Here we are in the Orlando airport awaiting our bus ride to Port Canaveral. Aaron is trying to act cool, but he's hardly containing himself with the excitement of the vacation.
Our first stop was on Monday at Cococay, Bahamas. This is an island that Royal Caribbean owns, so it was just a beach/watersports day. 
The Mariner of the Seas (our boat) couldn't dock at the island, so we had to take a smaller boat. We were really impressed with the ship. It was unbelievably big. 
I read on the beach and got in the water on a beach mat. I played volleyball with Aaron first thing that morning, but he played the majority of our time on the island. He met a lot of people doing that.
He met enough people, in fact, to make a team to play in the volleyball tournament later in the week on the ship. They didn't win the tournament, but it was something fun to do (and watch)!
The same people made a team for the dodgeball tournament on Saturday. They got 4th place in that one.
One of the highlights of the trip was dinner each night. We ate dinner in a nice dining room and had the same table and waitress each night. The food was awesome! We could eat as much as we wanted. There was a 4 course meal every night. We had fun getting to know our tablemates. 
Chi and Cindy are optometrists from Seattle. They had cruised before and could give us some tips. We were thankful that we were able to sit with couples around our age because we had several things in common. 
Joe and Tracy came cruising from Detroit. They had interesting stories to share right from the start...because of delayed flights they almost didn't make it to the ship in time, and had to leave their luggage. They got it back on Wednesday, though, and had a great attitude about it! 
We loved our waitress, Setenay. She was so sweet. She is from Turkey. Most of the staff there (there were 1200 employees on the ship) worked a 6 month contract with no days off, but we couldn't tell she was tired...she gave the best service and always smiled and laughed with us! She helped to make the vacation very memorable!
Our assistant waiter was fun, too. He made the ladies at the table 3 roses from napkins. Pretty crazy, and very sweet!
One night Setenay entertained us with tricks. It's hard to tell, but the napkin is covering a wine glass, and on top is a salt shaker with a toothpick in one of the holes. On the tip of the toothpick, two forks are balancing together. The waiters also sang a few songs for us throughout the week.
Aaron and I went to the main show every night. Sometimes they were before dinner, sometimes after. The entertainment was first class. Comedians, aerial artistry, singers/dancers, etc.
One night a group called Mosaic sang for us. They were our favorite. It was 6 guys who made noises with their voices that made it sound like a band was playing with them as they sang. In this picture they were doing a tribute to TV show theme songs. Can you guess which TV show they are portraying here, with Martha Stewart as Alice the maid? 
One night we participated in a game show called The Quest. It's hard to explain, but this picture tells a lot...Aaron is picking up a guy with his underwear on, along with a bra, lipstick, a woman's purse, women's shoes, etc. It was kind of like a big scavenger hunt.
On the days that we spent on the ocean and not at a port of call, we hung out at the pool. It was crowded! I remember one morning Aaron got up aroun 8:30 to reserve us some chairs because we knew there were a lot of people starting to get out there. We witnessed some fun pool games, including a men's belly flop competition, and a women's biceps competition.
This is the guy that won the bellyflop competition.
There was a jogging track around the top of the boat, but Aaron and I stuck to doing our runs in the fitness center because we knew we would be dodging lounge chairs out there.
On Thursday we went to St. Maarten. St. Maarten is half Dutch and half French. We took a taxi to Orient Beach on the French side, and sat by the ocean all day. We didn't do any excursions...we just relaxed and read books and got a massage and swam in the ocean and walked along the beach! It was a beautiful place, also. This was Aaron's favorite day of the vacation. After St. Maarten, we headed back to Port Canaveral. It took two days at sea to get back.
On the boat, we walked through the casino a couple of times. Aaron played a couple of rounds of Roulette and a few hands of Blackjack. He broke even every time.
Our stateroom was small but sufficient. We enjoyed having it cleaned twice a day. Each night when we returned from dinner, we had a new towel animal friend, folded by Smordy our stateroom attendant. This was one of the cuter ones.
Our room was close to the Royal Promenade. There are shops and restaurants along the strip, and this was also the site of two parades and a 70s disco dance party. 
Grandma made a spaghetti dinner for us.
Mom worked hard to get the pool area decorated.
