Cruisin’ Just the Two of Us

I’m pretty sure I just sat down five hours ago to write my last post about going off the radar, but somehow here we are six days later already back from a wonderful getaway. All we wanted out of a getaway was simplicity and relaxation, and we definitely achieved those things by booking a cruise!

I’ve been on numerous cruises in the past and always thoroughly enjoy them, but Jamie and I had never cruised together before. We’d decided months ago that we wanted to go on a cruise to celebrate our 5th anniversary a little early as well as get away together before his upcoming deployment, but we didn’t get around to booking anything until about six weeks ago. I painfully missed Hadley when I went to New York City in July for the BlogHer conference, so I dragged my feet big time when it came to booking more time away from her. We finally found a cruise with perfect dates and a perfect price tag late one night, so we booked it on a whim and never looked back!

We flew down to Tampa late Wednesday afternoon after getting Hadley and our dog Teddy settled in with my parents, and we boarded our ship early lunchtime Thursday. Four nights on the ship was perfect for me (though Jamie says he would have preferred one more night). We had two and a half days at sea to enjoy at our leisure and one day in Cozumel, Mexico to run around at an all-inclusive beach club we booked. Though two of our vacation days consisted of nonstop rain, we still had a really fantastic time and quite literally played in the rain anyway!

There were so many moments throughout the trip that reminded us of Hadley and made us wish she was with us, but then we’d remember that she was having an absolute ball with her grandma and grandpa and that we deserved a few days of rest to focus on our relationship with each other. Though I’m very much an extrovert and recharge by being around my loved ones, I’m actually sort of an introvert when it comes to recharging as a parent; I desperately need quiet time (even if it’s only an hour) in order to recharge and be a better mom. We cruised on the Carnival Paradise in an interior room (It’s so dark – you get the best sleep!) and enjoyed it! It’s one of the smaller and older Carnival ships, but you just can’t beat what you get for the price you pay. We really got a heck of a deal! Are you ready for the funniest part of the trip though?! We accidentally booked a room with bunk beds! We tried to change our room several times, but the ship was sold out. We had a good laugh about it and just dealt with it. It was romantic, lemme tell ya! 🙂

We loved the beach club we spent the day at in Cozumel. If you’re planning to cruise there in the future, look into Playa Mia! When we booked our trip through Cruises.com we received a $50 off-shore excursion voucher, so we used it to play at Playa Mia. We couldn’t get over what an incredible place it was! We highly recommend it!

One of the best parts of our trip was meeting new friends at our dinner table. Carnival paired us with three other amazing couples, and we really enjoyed getting to know all of them! Another couple was also on a short parenting getaway, so that made us feel better about leaving Hadley out of this one. 🙂

I also did something that was extremely uncharacteristic of me: We purposely took about five pictures total. Five! Not carrying my camera or phone around for four days was BEAUTIFUL. All I cared about was having a couple decent pictures that would document our trip, but otherwise we enjoyed being out of the camera.

One quick tip: If you’re looking into booking a child-free vacation, make sure you have your wills up to date! We updated our wills before we went to Boston last year, and though it’s zero fun to think about anything happening, we never want to leave our families with decisions to make regarding our child/children. I don’t want to be a Debby downer, but you just never know and it’s the responsible thing to do for your families. 🙂

If you’re interested in doing an adult-only trip but are on the fence, I vote do it! Having alone time that’s stress and commitment free always improves our marriage and our friendship with each other, and I totally believe that a healthy marriage is a priceless gift to your kiddos! We are ALL ABOUT including Hadley and future children in our vacations (of course!), but we definitely hope to continue intentionally setting aside getaways just for us.

Let’s chat!1.) Would you recommend going on a cruise based on your past cruise experience(s)?2.) How do you recharge your marriage?