My first cruise

The year, 2012. The goal, spring break. The company- my boyfriend of three months, Brett. The other goal: hide your crazy.

I want to first off say that this was not my first travel, but my first cruise. I had trouble with it. You may love cruises. If this blog post isn’t for you, that’s ok!

Brett and I had known one another for a year and a half. We had a bit of a “will they, won’t they”. I never had good boundaries with boyfriends, and after ignoring him for three months and working on my self esteem in therapy, I laid down the law. You will treat me well, you will stay at my house, you will meet my friends and family. And if you EVER get wishy washy on me again, I’m gone. He never did get emo, “not your boyfriend”, “I’m too busy for a relationship”, doesn’t call me for a week straight again. November 12, 2011 he said “All I want to do is make you happy.” And he meant it. We married 3 and a half years later.

I couldn’t ask for a better partner. He’s my co-captain, my travel partner for life, my love song writing, hold me when I’m sobbing, puppy daddy. We’ve been married 9 and a half years now.

But those first three months were precarious. We were long distance, he, in Chicago and me at Purdue. I was waiting for something to go wrong and trying not to get too close. He was trying to show me he was all in. In February 20, 2012 he kissed me to the Get Up Kids song “I’ll Catch You” on his birthday after eating a Nyan Cat cake I had specifically ordered, and waited til my makeup was off and my mouth guard was in to tell me he loved me. I whispered back “I luff syou too”. Bastard. 🙂

So we booked a cruise for spring break. I was still trying to be the “perfect” version of myself in front of him. The “putting on makeup and getting back into bed while he was asleep” person. (Props to Kristin Wiig from the movie Bridesmaids to show this is an actual thing we do). I was trying to be the “cool girlfriend”, up for anything. “Sure I want to listen to your band play music for 5 hours on the one weekend we get together”. I waited til he left to use the bathroom. I hid my mood swings and made light of my disorder. “It’s not a big deal, I just take some pills.”

March 2012 we flew to Miami and boarded a Royal Caribbean cruise ship to Nassau, Bahamas, Coco Cay- a Royal Caribbean owned island, and Key West, Florida. I hid in the plane bathroom taking a Xanax, I turned up the volume on my headphones as loud as it would go so I didn’t have to risk hearing someone be disgruntled on the plane. Why does that bother me? It does, and it’s infuriating. Someone gets shitty and I immediately am on edge. I’m sure they’ll make a scene and I’m terrified to see it. I worry they are mad at me, and I imagine getting yelled at and crying in front of everyone. I empathize with everyone around me and I take on their discomfort at my own. I freeze and I make myself as small as possible…. And we had literally just arrived. Next up was figuring out bag tagging and getting out passports and being herded like cattle with 3000 other people onto a boat. Everyone is impatient, everyone is rushing to the front of the line. You get bumped and rustled. I HATE being touched by anyone, I need to initiate touching expect with a few select people. I make myself smaller. And smaller. And smaller.

The cabin was my safe space. It was tiny and had a porthole and no fresh air. I cried in the fetal position of the bathroom floor, telling Brett I just needed to take a shower. Would this get better?

It did, but cruises are still not my thing. I’ve been on two others, and one was to do a family trip with Brett’s parents who love to cruise, and another to take my mom to Italy and Greece because she’s amazing and has some mobility issues and I thought it would be easier on her. Those stories will come later. There’s chaos in the dining halls, chaos at the bars, expensive drinks if you don’t buy the package and the pools are packed. You have to get to the pool at 7am if you don’t want to fight for a spot. It was also spring break so there were the usual cruise fans and then the rowdy younger crowd. The only way I could cope with people being so loud and drunk was to drink myself. I have since bought Calmer ear plugs (similar to Loop) and they help immensely. And I’ve worked on the alcohol consumption. I learned there is a 30 minute “urge” period. Ride out that urge wave for thirty minutes, and a lot of it passes.

I seem negative. Maybe I am. The excursions were great honestly, if not a little short for the one in Key West. I just don’t like crowds. It’s why we moved out of Chicago after living there from 2013 to 2022. I need space and nature. I figured that out for later trips.

So on to what we actually did. Our first stop was in Nassau. We were able to dock at the port, no tender needed. I mentioned in an Instagram post (@theneuroticadventurer) that buskers and people selling things stress me out. I practically ran past the sellers at the port. We had nine hours in port. We chose a snorkeling excursion. I then found out that Brett was not a strong swimmer. We catamaraned past the Atlantis Hotel and out of a beautiful spot. The sea was rough and Brett drank more salt water than he actually swam in. Even I, a strong swimmer, had some issues. But the fish were colorful and the boat was heavenly. I would just recommend for future travelers to take a look at the sea and determine if you can handle the waves that day. They’ll take the boat out if it’s safe-ish enough and will bring in the tourists.

After the tour we cleaned up and walked the town. Nassau is beautiful, but there are certain areas to avoid. “Over the hill” south of Shirley street is one of those areas. We stuck close to the ship, did some shopping and found some bars. We ate conch fritters at the succinctly named Conch Fritters stand. We drank Bahamian beer at Sharkeez and bought Cuban Romeo y Julieta cigars. We debated sneaking a few home, but I’m to a fault, a rule follower. We even walked into the most touristy place on earth, Senor Frogs, and danced a little and watched the strangest sight of a mom pushing a stroller at 9pm at night near the dance floor.

Our next stop was CocoCay, also known as Little Stirrup Cay, Bahamas. It is owned by Royal Caribbean. it is less than a mile long and at the time we had to use tenders to get there. They have since built a port on the north side of the island. There is a water park, pools, beaches, nature trails, and a shopping and food area. There are also a bunch of activities you can book. We chose to have a relaxing day with no activities. We got lunch, a pre set buffet which was mediocre, and then found a less crowded area to put down our towels on loungers and splash around in the sea. We watched parasailers and kayakers go by, and sipped rum drinks. We walked the beach, but not the nature trails, and explored the piers and looked for shells. One side of the island was busy with families and screaming joyful laughter from kids, and the other side a little more relaxed.

On the ship that night we did the captain’s dinner which was actually very fun. I didn’t love sharing a table with strangers but I’ve since gotten better about socializing on later trips. The sunset was breathtaking and we got to dress up and sip wine with our seafood. I was calmer at this point and getting into a groove on the ship. We played blackjack and explored the ship and even peeked into the nightclub for a bit.

The third and final port was in Key West. We were able to dock in port, overlooking Mallory Square and Lands End village. This was our shortest day, only 6 hours in port. But by the time you get off and on the ship in the crowds, it’s more like 4 and a half hours. We first went parasailing. If you’ve been, you know the experience. It’s a fun diversion and a beautiful boat ride and we got to touch our feet to the water. We then went to Sloppy Joe’s bar for happy hour Yuenglings, (we couldn’t get them in Indiana at the time) and then walked up and down Duval Street. We shopped and looked at statues and 6 toed cats and iguanas. We didn’t take the trolley tour and I wish we had.

Here is where we made our mistake. We asked a local for a recommendation for an off the beaten path bar to drink at. We ended up at Pepe’s. I just looked it up on google maps and I can’t find this bar anymore. There’s a Pepe’s Cafe but that wasn’t it. It was exclusively outdoors with flowering trees and shaded picnic tables. They had $1 Yuenglings and boy did we indulge. Then we went up to the bartender to chat and he said “I have all these fresh peaches and I don’t know what to do with them, do you want to sit here and try the concoctions I make?”. Big Mistake. We of course said yes and promptly got hammered. I threw up in the restroom and we nearly missed the boat home. I practically carried Brett back to the ship, which we got lost trying to find despite it being the massive thing in the sky in front of us. We were the last ones on the boat and everyone was pissed and hooting and hollering off the decks at us. We scurried to our room with our heads down and continued to get sick and pass out.

Instead of Pepe’s, which may be gone or renamed, I recommend After Deck Bar at Louie’s. It’s got good reviews, an outdoor space and views of the water and sunset. It will likely be more touristy than what we experienced though.

The next day was tough, I was hungover and sure everyone’s eyes were on me. I hid in the room except to get lots and lots of water and caffeine and was thankful we reached Miami quickly. BUT, we forgot to put tags on our bags and put them out in the hall. So they got hauled down late with no tags and we ended up waiting for our luggage for over an hour in the cruise terminal baggage claim. Mess.

We had a few hours to kill before our flight so we found media noche sandwiches and bloody Mary’s and pretended we were Dexter Morgan, living it up in Miami. Then we got on a plane home and I was asleep long before I had time to worry about everything that had plagued me on the flight down. So there’s that at least.

Overall, we made it. I had a few snippy moments, a few tears, and Brett got me through it. He didn’t leave me, he embraced me. Find a travel partner like that.