Bermuda Vacation

If you happened to notice my lack of posts last week and were wondering what was up, I was away on vacation. My niece and I traveled to Bermuda on a cruise. I was never interested in cruises, but a friend of mine has gone on this one many times and since I was definitely interested in an easy, relaxing vacation I thought it was worth trying. We both had a fantastic time! (And lest you are picturing me traveling with a child, I should explain that my niece and I are only about 7 years apart.)

Here's our ship, in port at the Royal Naval Dockyard. It's big. I'd never been on a boat this big. (It's the Norwegian Dawn, for any of you who care about specifics.)

I didn't take that many photos, and definitely not many aboard the ship, but of course I took one of the library.

I was honestly surprised how often I walked by the library on the way to the outdoor pool/bar/party area and saw lots of people sitting inside, reading and playing board games. It warmed my heart a little.

Bermuda was beautiful, of course. We had one afternoon of horrible rain and thunderstorms so we were unable to visit one of the beaches we had planned, but that was really the only bad thing that happened. And I can't be upset because they needed the water - Bermuda doesn't have a public water system so they rely on the rain, and they hadn't gotten much so far this summer.

We did make it to another beach, Tobacco Bay, which is my kind of beach. I'm really not a beachy person at all, but I do enjoy sitting outside in the sun and admiring the view and this place was gorgeous. The water was warm and full of colorful little fishes too!

There was so much beautiful scenery, and interesting rock formations, that I didn't even get a photo of the sandy part of the beach. Trust me, it was there and it was lovely.

Bermuda has some very neat plants and trees (and birds, but I didn't get any photos of those) and I think most of my photos are of the local flora. The first interesting tree I spotted was this one that looks like a cactus.

This one is also super neat.

Everywhere you turn there are gorgeous flowers, like these.

Chickens are pretty much everywhere, too. I took far too many photos of chickens. Here's a sassy one, strutting across the road like nobody's business.

Of course we spent a great deal of our time eating and drinking. After all, vacation is just about killing time between tasty meals, right? (No? Just me?) When you book a cruise there are various packages you can get and we signed up for the unlimited adult beverage package. I'm not ashamed to say that we got our money's worth out of this. The first cocktail of the day would be as early as 11am, but it was vacation after all. (Now that it's over I feel like I need to detox for a while though.) Once we got to Bermuda, we spent more time exploring and less time drinking, but of course we still tried the national drink of Bermuda, the rum swizzle.

This one is pictured along with my meal at the Frog and Onion. If you ever go to Bermuda, be sure to eat at this place. They had the best rum swizzles and delicious British fare. I'm not sure what my niece was drinking in this photo, but I think it may have been another popular Bermuda drink, the dark and stormy. Also delicious.

The food on the ship was actually quite good, better than I would expect when you can't bring in fresh ingredients every day. One night we went to a restaurant called Teppenyaki, named for a style of Japanese cuisine, where the chefs prepare food in front of you, while juggling and singing and basically being very entertaining. This was my dessert, a green tea cake with green tea ice cream. It was delicious, and I don't even really like green tea.

We also got pampered at the onboard spa, where we were both sternly admonished for not exfoliating. I got a hot stone massage, she got a bamboo massage, and we both got pedicures. This was my first massage ever, and only my second pedicure. So that was a very luxurious experience for me, and one I'd love to repeat (though I wish it wasn't quite so expensive.)

I'd never taken a vacation with my niece before and, in fact, we almost always see each other with other family. We traveled quite well together, since it turns out that we're basically the same person. It was both super fun and relaxing. I suspect we might do this again someday.

Of course I spent some of my relaxation time reading. When you're in the middle of the ocean on a ship there's plenty of time to kick back with a book! I'll post soon about what I read on my trip.

Have you been to Bermuda? Or another cruise? Leave a comment and tell me about it!