Day 1:  Driving down to the port of Miami to board the Carnival Breeze.   Along the way we stopped at a Sushi restaurant she had eaten at in the past.   It was excellent and even with our check in on Yelp, received a FREE desert!  Photo credit, Sharon.

I was invited along for a cruise to the Caribbean with my good friend Sharon.   We were on their ship called the Carnival Breeze that left on Sunday August 11th, 2013

1.  Sunday August -  Set Sail
2.  Monday – At Sea
3.  Tuesday – Grand Turk 7am – 2pm
4.  Wednesday – Ocho Rios, Jamaica 11am – 6pm
5.  Thursday – At Sea
6.  Friday – Nassau Bahamas 8am – 5pm
7.  Saturday – Back in Miami

Below here is the ship that came into port early on Sunday Morning, getting ready for us to board it around 1pm.   I learned during the week on the ship that the employees do not get days off and typically work 6-8 months at a time, then take 2 months off to visit home.   It sure would be hard on the employees, but at the same time a better quality of life than they had back at home.

Being at the port of Miami, they were working on Sunday and loading a ship.  Pretty neat to watch the cranes work efficiently and quickly.

Turning the ship around and stirring up the bottom.

View looking out of the port into Atlantic Ocean.

South Beach Miami flooded with people enjoying the sun.

This guy here accompanied the ship out for some many miles and then picked up the "pilot" which was on our ship guiding or assisting us out of the port.   It's regulation that this is done.   When speaking to the Captain, he seemed annoyed that someone needed to assist.

One neat thing about this ship is it is the newest and largest that Carnival has on their fleet.  The disadvantage to this is the amount of passengers it can hold.   We heard numerous times that there were 4,500 guest. on this 120' beam by 1001' ship.  That is a lot of people!  It truly was a moving city, amazing it itself.

Here would have been the main entrance area with their grand staircase.   Decorations were done extremely well.

Here is a picture of the same lights from the picture above from the 12th floor.  Neat set up, and well designed.

This was our main dining room where you could be served 4 course meals every evening.  You could order as much as you wanted off the menu, even double entrees.   Food was good, but nothing fabulous.

On the ship they had little restaurants, here was their Sushi place.   This was about the only place where I could find fresh Tea on the ship.  Everything else was that concentrate crap, not very tasty.

Below was the RedFrog Pub, filled by the night with laughter and people drinking.

The ship cannot be complete without a Club, this was called Liquid, their night Club.

You cannot make money off of cheap rooms and unlimited food, but you sure can make money off of casinos and crappy drinks.   This had to be one of the big money make spots for the ship.  

Piano Bar, with a grand Piano right int he middle which is hard to see.  Live entertainment every night.

Comedy club which was filled with events and comedians by the night.

Fancy light fixture that I felt worth of being photographed.

Here was the spot for excellent food.  This was their steakhouse Fahrenheit 555, with absolutely awesome food.  It was at an additional cost, but the food was that good.   I ordered the Sea Bass which was prepared perfectly and was able to drink an unlimited about of fresh brewed tea.  A limited commodity on this ship.

Kids Club!   I accidentally recommended that we go here to hang out on the first night.  Unfortunately the staff did not like that and would not let us in.

Theater on the ship.    We seen one decent show, but the second one we ended up walking out of.  it needed some more work to be tolerable.

I was excited about this place.   Guy Fieri has a show that go to speciality restaurants and explains how they make the food and what their nitch is.  I like Guy, but this didn't meet my expectations.  They were serving burgers as a fast food joint, all ready pre-made and nothing to write home about.   

First port of call was Grand Turk.  i wasn't even sure what that was, so here is map of where the island is.   Pretty far out there, and beautiful Island.

Sunrise with Grand Turk int he background.

Welcome to Grand Turk!

Panoramic of Grand Turk.  Along this beach is were i found the beach glass that has been sent to my Mom.

Carnival Breeze in all it's glory.  Pretty amazing that this thing can be engineering as a moving city.

At port there was another ship, and you could see side by side how much larger the Breeze really was.  It's a monster!

Sharon is snorkeling at a spot we found in Grand Turk.

Default picture of me and the ship. 

In Grand Turk we took an excursion where we went snorkeling.   They took us out into about 30' of water and there was a drop off point.  Once you were over the drop off, you could not see bottom.  Must have been pretty deep.

Lots of pretty fish and one of the tour guides in the water.

Once we were done snorkeling, they took us to a little beach for a bit.

They made us wear a silly vest in case we needed to fill it with air for flotation.

Thanks to Sharon and her military perks we upgraded to a balcony room.  Here is the view from our room while at Grand Turk.

Ocho Rios, Jamaica.   This is the only picture I have from my camera.  We did an excursion at this port which involved hiking up a waterfall, and I left my camera at shore.  I did manage to take lots and lots of GoPro footage.

In Nassau Bahamas, this was probably the best stop.   We meet up with some cool folks and was able to share the day with them.   Made our way out to a secluded beach and then ended up with some awesome food.

Our cab driver Joey, who was showing us the true ropes in Nassau and not the touristy crap.

Another shot from the same beach.   There was tons of beach glass here that I picked up and have sent to Mom.

Leaving the port of Nassau on the last day.  It's sad, but at the same time nice to know tomorrow, I'll be in my own bed.

Same picture as above, but with light house included.

Sharon and I at our last dinner on the cruise.