Vacation!

Last week, my husband and I went on vacation to celebrate our five year anniversary (as well as my MBA graduation!). We chose an Eastern Caribbean cruise to Nassau Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Maarten on the Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas. (Albany people - if you are looking for a cruise travel agent contact me and I will refer you to the person we used!).

We had a ton of fun! Some of the highlights: 

• I was extremely impressed by the dinners on the ship. We had an awesome waiter who made sure my husband had more gluten free bread than he could eat each night. 
• The breakfasts and lunches, notsomuch. I thought a lot of the food was mediocre. A chef walked around with my husband and showed him what he could and couldn't eat but my husband didn't trust a lot of it - for example they said the bacon was fine, but later in the week we found out they put toast at the bottom of the pan. Be forewarned. 
• That said, they did have gluten free pancakes, bagels, hot dog and hamburger buns, and even Udi's GF cookies available. Individually wrapped, which was nice. 
• St. Maarten was by far my favorite island of the three. We went kayaking, snorkeling, and shopping there and had a blast! I also thought they had the nicest beaches. We stuck to the Dutch side. 
• St. Thomas is supposedly this place where you can clean up and get super-cheap jewelry... I didn't find that to necessarily be the case, or maybe I'm just cheap. 
• Atlantis, on Paradise Island, is pretty amazing. 
• The best drink that I had, hands down, was a rum drink in a coconut in Nassau. Yes, in a coconut. Awesome. The second best was on the ship, a strawberry daiquiri mixed with mango sherbet. A-mazing. 
• The cheesy game shows and events hosted on the ship are often hilarious, and are must-sees, even if you think the description sounds lame. We died laughing most evenings! 
• We had layovers in ATL airport. The first time was around breakfast time and NOTHING had gluten free dining options. That was OK since we brought food. The second time we were coming from the ship (and are not allowed to bring fruits through customs) so we had nothing and had to pick up some lunch. Places with GF menus don't know enough to not put bread on salads. It took two thirds of our hour-long layover just to get a salad that was supposedly safe to eat. Not impressed. 
• It was 45 degrees when we got back. When did that happen!?!?