We pulled into the Bahamas bright and early and set out into our first port of call, Nassau. We were treated to an amazing view of Paradise Island as our ship pulled into port, alongside the Carnival Glory which would be following us throughout the trip.

We were told the night before that a lot of the locations would be shutdown due to the local holiday of Jonkanoo. It slowed us down a little bit as we had to navigate around the parade to get anywhere, but it was pretty cool to hear about the tradition and see the very creative costumes and floats. The floats were pulled by guys wearing football pads! They squeezed in front and then lifted the entire contraption up on their shoulders and started dancing down the street. Amazing.

We took a slight detour from the dock to Cable beach, before we ended up on the beach people really go to (Cabbage). Cable looked nice, but we are glad we turned back for Cabbage because the beach there was amazing. Brown sugar sand and amazing water.

We read and relaxed on the beach and then headed back to the ship. We had a great night with the fam playing cards and exploring the many activities on the ship.

• Steve and EB’s blog for the day
• Janet and Joe’s blog for the day (definitely worth checking out as they have some awesome aquarium shots of Atlantis)

2012 started with us walking through lines as we prepared to board our ship (the Carnival Freedom). Ours was the only ship in port that day so it was a nice quick shuttle ride in and into the boarding area. We waved goodbye to our luggage and entered the maze of lines that ended at the gangplank. While waiting outside the ship we were given the first impression of how massive this boat was. They were gearing up to feed a small town and had the carts of onions to prove it.

Once on board we had a few hours until our rooms were ready, so we started to explore the ship. They had the buffet up and running so we loaded our plates and claimed the table that would be our informal meeting place for the rest of the cruise.

The ship pulled away from Ft. Lauderdale as the sun started to set, so we were treated to a beautiful view from the balcony of my parents suite.

We had our first dinner in the Posh dining room (not to be confused with the Chic dining room farther up). These are real names. We had a lot of fun sharing some tables and making plans for our first port in the Bahamas. We wandered around the ship a little longer and then called it a night.

Pretty great way to start the day.

•  Steve and EB’s blog for the day

I’m going to end with the picture of this guy. Because not only did he take our picture for us, he left us a gift of himself too.

Thanks to my Mom and Dad, Cramer Cruise 2012 started the year in a warm way. We bid the babysitters farewell at the crack of dawn and started our trip to FL. Leading up to the trip we’d tell people that the minute we made it to the airport without any kids to keep track of, the vacation would start for us. It was as awesome as we’d hoped.

After arriving in Ft. Lauderdale we arranged for a shuttle trip to downtown for dinner followed by MI:GP (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) in the IMAX theater. Dinner was a cool tapas place called PL8 Kitchen (see what they did there?).Great movie in a decent theater, with the added bonus of walking out right into the middle of the First Night party. We even got to see their version of the Ball Drop complete with fireworks and the whitest version of “Let us get it started in here” I’ve heard. We didn’t make it back to the hotel until 1:30, but that’s only 11:30 MTN so whoooooo. Plus, no kids!