Cruisin'

We went cruisin' in June, and I don't mean cruisin' in a car on a Saturday night either. We went on A CRUISE (our first) and had the best time. I'm going to be sharing lots of photos and details of our 7-day Mediterranean cruise with you over the next several days. First, allow me to show and tell you a little about our ship.


We sailed with Norwegian Cruise Line's "Jade," flying to Barcelona, Spain (where the ship would depart), making stops in the following port locations, before returning to Barcelona...

Monte Carlo, Monaco
Livorno, Italy
Civitavecchia, Italy
Naples, Italy
Palma de Majorca, Spain


Here she is... Norwegian's "Jade." The ship is known for its freestyle cruising concept, which basically means passengers have no set dining times, no assigned tables and a relaxed dress code.



I'm still amazed when I look at photos of the ship. The Jade is quite impressive with the capacity to accommodate over 2000 passengers and another 1000 or so crew members. It has 12 passenger decks, pools, spa, fitness center, several restaurants and bars, casino, live entertainment, etc.


Because we'd never been on a cruise before, we had no idea if any of us would be seasick, therefore we loaded up on motion sickness meds... just in case. Never needed 'em!


I'd always thought it would be fun to take a cruise, but just wasn't sure I'd ever have the opportunity. Living in Spain made cruising the Mediterranean very convenient since we just had to fly to Barcelona, which was a short trip for us. This was the perfect opportunity for our family!


My hubby told me he'd used some of our timeshare points to upgrade our cabin to one of the penthouse suites, but I had no clue what that really meant. Imagine my surprise (and utter pleasure) when we walked into our room and saw this! This was the family room area with our own balcony, a fold-out couch and wall-mounted TV.


This is a different view of the same room. We had a table and chairs, mini-bar and a machine to make coffee/cappuchino/tea.


This was our bedroom. The boys had their own bedroom and bathroom. The master bathroom was large with double sinks, and a separate tub and shower with ocean views in each. There were 4 TVs in our suite... one each in the family room, boys' bedroom, master bedroom and master bathroom. Seriously!


Here's the front of the ship. I'm wondering if anyone ever got in that little pool down below.


This is the unisex area of the spa. These chairs were heated and quite relaxing.


We could lounge in the chairs in the previous photo and this was our view. Nice, huh?


My hubby relaxes in the super-sized spa hot tub.


We frequented the pool deck area as the boys had a blast in the pool.


M chills in the pool.


The boys must have gone up and down the slide at least 500 times.


D comes zooming down the slide. The kid at the bottom of the slide just camped out there, refusing to move out of the way, no matter how many times the boys asked him. The kid's father was right there too, but it didn't seem to phase either of them, so the boys finally gave up and just started going down the slide as they normally would. If they happened to run into the kid, so be it. This was probably the only negative thing that happened on the cruise.


My hubby and I spent some time in the poolside hot tubs. There were 4 of them surrounding the pool area, so we could enjoy ourselves while watching the boys swim, slip and slide.


This is a view of the pool deck from the deck above.


Sunbathers enjoy lounging one deck above the pool.


These hand sanitizer auto-dispensers could be found in various locations around the ship. With all the stories we'd heard about people getting sick on cruise ships, it was no surprise to see these everywhere. Where there was no auto-dispenser, there was a crew member with pump in hand to dispense hand sanitizer. We were made to sanitize our hands before entering the eating establishments, as well as before coming back onto the ship after an excursion. This was a germophobe's dream come true!


Playing shuffleboard on the sports deck.


There was even a basketball court on board!


Of course our family doesn't always need entertaining. Sometimes we make our own entertainment. Here my hubby is playing keep away with my son's hoodie. I can't take 'em anywhere!


The boys chill out.


A couple of times we found towels folded into the shapes of animals upon our return to the room. The boys were anxious to see which animals they'd find after returning from an excursion. The ship's housekeeping crew even held a special towel folding class for passengers.

The food was good, the crew members were helpful and very friendly, and of course the ship had lots to offer... something for everyone. We've decided we'd like to become "frequent floaters." Where do we sign up?

Stay tuned for more on the excursions we enjoyed while on our cruise...