Wishing my husband a happy, happy 30th birthday! I can’t believe you’re the big 3-0! You were just a young pup at 24 when we got together & i just can’t believe how quickly the time has flown over these 5 and a half years together. I hope you have a wonderful day & enjoy a couple more gifts from me and the family. You deserve it. This is a pretty big milestone in life & I’m so glad to be able to share it with you. We’ve been making amazing memories lately going on vacation & enjoying the summer, & we’ve gone through some tough times too, but we are very blessed to say the least. Enjoy your day, can’t wait to see what you have in store for my 30th, only 3 years away! (Yikes!)
I’m back for a post about our amazing vacation to Bermuda. I can’t believe how fast it came and went. Joe and I both would highly recommend this destination to anyone. We’ve been to several different islands including St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Nassau, etc. & we both agreed that Bermuda was the most beautiful, clean, & friendliest island we’ve been to so far. Seriously, the water was a shade of turquoise I’ve never seen in any other place. Up close, the sand is pink & the sky is the bluest of blue.
We cruised Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL for short), our ship was the Dawn which ported out of Boston. None of the four of us had ever been to Boston before so right off the bat we were pumped to be able to spend an afternoon & evening sightseeing, drinking, eating, & having a blast. We did a tour of Sam Adams brewery which I am so glad we did. Great tour, great information, & lots of samples of one of our favorite beers. The tour is free, they will accept donations, it’s about an hour long, & you get an awesome souvenir glass to take home (or four if you’re like me and wanted one of each of the four they had). After the tour we hopped on a party trolley that took us to one of the oldest bars in Boston, Doyle’s. Our tour guide was a riot, he was 100% Bostonian, he loved his job, his city, & mostly he loved Doyle’s. We went there to get another souvenir Sam Adams glass, had a late lunch, then hopped back on his trolley for a tour of the city. We stopped at the nearest liquor store where we paid $14 for a six pack of Sam Adams IPA & headed off in the trolley to learn all about Boston’s rich history. What an amazing city. We are definitely planning to go back for a vacation. We ate at the Union Oyster House (I had filet mignon) & finally called it a night around 10 PM.
Cute little tasting glasses
Our brewmaster & tour guide Mike
A couple Bostonian's we met that told us about Doyles & let us tag along with them!
Cheers!
Cheers-ing at Cheers!
Lobster scampi at Union Oyster House
We hit the port late morning. Everything went smooth, we got on the ship & immediately got a drink & took a self-guided tour. We found the Pearly King’s Pub to be one of our go-to bars the entire trip. Our favorite bartender, Ed, knew our drinks by heart & it felt the most like home. We spent a couple hours there before we set sail drinking & taking it all in.
The first day at sea we spent on the deck, having cocktails & people watching. It was warm, but windy, not the perfect conditions, but we dealt with them. We had two restaurants to choose from that were free style dining, meaning you can eat at any time rather than having a set time (like you would on Carnival) to eat. Each night the menu would change. The food was amazing. You could also pay extra for a couple of other restaurants on the ship like the Italian or Brazilian places. We switched off between the two freestyle restaurants each night. The buffet was also open for breakfast, lunch, & dinner, and the 24 hour restaurant, Blue Lagoon had the best chicken wings and wonton soup you could ask for. Lots of good late night comfort food on their menu.
Sail Away drinks!
Karaoke in the Pearly King's Pub night #1
singing Friends in Low Places... our signature song!!
Bermuda was absolutely breathtaking. Perfect weather, high 70’s, low 80’s. Beautiful scenery, only 22 miles long, fairly easy to navigate, clean & virtually empty beaches, nothing really negative to say about the island. The first day we hit Horseshoe Bay which is their most famous beach. We were the only cruise ship in port so it was not crowded at all. We bummed it all day, got our tan & our drink on, & just relaxed and had fun in the sun. That evening we did an excursion at 10PM of the Bermuda Triangle. It was a glass bottom boat tour & it was amazing. Of course we had to do something Triangle related & this was perfect. We got to check out some wreckage & sip on Rum Razzles while we learned some history about the Triangle itself. Such a neat experience & for $50 a person we thought it was well worth it!
Now that is some true Bermuda scenery ;-)
glass bottom boat tour!
Our second day on the island we rented scooters. Such a blast, maybe a little scary at times too?! They drive on the left side of the road, Bermudians are only allowed to have one car per household, most people ride scooters, & I can see why when gas is $8.50 a gallon! A six pack of Coors lite was around $12 and a six pack of Amstel Lite was around $14. We loaded the scooters up with drinks and snacks and hit a bunch of beaches along the coast.
day two!
absolutely gorgeous!
Our last day on the island we decided to hit the Maritime Museum, do a little shopping, & check out the Frog & Onion Pub for some local brew. It was a perfect day. The museum was great, fun & interesting. Shopping was shopping, probably spent more than we should’ve on things that we didn’t need, but that’s what you do on vacation. The Frog & Onion Pub was our last stop on the island. They brew their own beer so we each ordered a flight while enjoying some live music and some last laughs before getting back onto the ship to sail away at five. It was so awesome being in the same port for three days, highly recommend Bermuda, and can’t wait to go back!
nice view of our ship from the Maritime Museum
big guns!
flight at the Frog & Onion Pub
Our last two days of the trip were spent at sea shopping on the ship, drinking, eating, playing shuffle board, lounging on the deck, & just taking in the last few moments of vacation before it was over for forever. Our last night on the ship we paid a little extra to eat at the Brazilian Steakhouse for Joe’s birthday. Such a neat experience. You get to try everything on the menu. They bring around skewers with all different types of meat & you can pick and choose what you want to try. If you’ve ever seen Bridesmaids you know what I’m talking about. Luckily we all weren’t shittin in the street in a wedding dress when it was all over. It was a lot of fun & really yummy & filling. All in all 100% happy with the entire vacation, it was fun, the price was reasonable, the weather was good, no one got sick, the company was great, & we got to celebrate Joe’s birthday.
