Back from another vacation! I had the most relaxing week onboard the Celebrity Beyond while in the Caribbean. With four ports on this cruise, I got to cross off another four countries I’ve visited. That finally puts me at 20 countries!

Initially when I was planning my trip, I knew I wanted to be away for my birthday but I wasn’t sure where I wanted to travel to. Even though I’ve never gravitated towards cruises or all-inclusive vacations, I wanted something simple for the week away. The dates for this cruise seemed to work best with my schedule, so we settled on it and booked our flight to Miami. 

On the first day of our cruise, we boarded our flight that early morning. I contemplated arriving a day earlier in case of any delays, but I really didn’t want to be in Miami longer than needed, so we were really lucky the timing worked out. Once we landed, we stopped by Gilbert’s for some Cuban sandwiches, then took a taxi to the port. There were so many ships docked it was crazy seeing how many people were coming and going from one location. 

Once we got through security we had to go to our muster stations for a quick briefing, then we were able to head to our room to rest. I was happy we paid extra for the veranda stateroom cause it was so nice being able to have a view outside. Afterwards we went to check out the rest of the ship, stopping by the Oceanview Cafe for food. Later that afternoon we went to a presentation on our first port of call.

For dinner that evening we chose to eat at the Cyprus restaurant, which is one of the four main dining restaurants. They had the most amazing grilled octopus and short ribs. We saw an early seating of the comedy show, then it was off to bed as we’d already been up since 4am that morning. The first port of call was for the next day – CocoCay in the Bahamas.