Our newly refurbished ship, The Grandeur of the Seas, left Baltimore Harbor on December 6, 2013. We were excited to celebrate our 34th Wedding Anniversary visiting the ports of Port Canaveral, Nassau, Key West and Coco Cay.
We were looking forward to having our Anniversary Lunch with good buddies, Rich and Jane, who would be picking us up in Port Canaveral. They live in Winter Springs which is a little more than a half hour from the port. The pic below was taken with the zoom lens on the camera from quite a distance away.
After a fantastic lunch at Dixie Crossroads (Thanks Rich and Jane), Rich brought us to Cape Canaveral National Seashore. We had a really beautiful day! Back at the ship, I tried my hand at line dancing.
The above photos were taken in Nassau, including the one immediately above which was the ceiling in Senor Frogs.
Our next port of call was Coco Cay, the private island of Royal Caribbean. It truly is like paradise. Beautiful aqua water, white sand, and private little spaces under the palm trees. The ship does a barbecue for lunch of chicken, burgers, hot dogs and spare ribs, with all the trimmings. A wonderful day.
Unfortunately, when we returned to the ship, we were told that our little Lula was seriously ill. We were able to contact the doctor and were told that she was not going to live through the night. Heart failure. So, we gave permission to put her down. We were devastated. Below is the photo we took of her just weeks earlier to use for our Christmas card. So Sad. 4/23/02-12/10/13
Rest in Peace Lula
After that news, the rest of the cruise was a blur. We visited Key West, but just wandered around aimlessly. Then 2 days at sea before getting home on 12/14.
Below we are “photo-bombed” by our concierge, Francis, who was absolutely wonderful. We are pictured with Mary Beth and Drew, who we met on 2 previous cruises and really hit it off. We enjoyed their company immensely and plan to keep in touch and hopefully cruise again together.
