Me & 9 of my girlfriends, one being my Aunt, took this cruise for my 30th birthday. What a way to celebrate a birthday! Out of the 10 of us, only 1 had been on a cruise before, so you can imagine how excited all of us were. Our ages were from 25-34 and then my Aunt who is approx. 50 (it's not nice to share a woman's age!) 8 of us came from Dallas/Ft. Worth and the other 2 came from Richmond, VA. The 2 coming from Richmond came early and stayed with a relative in Orlando who brought them to port. They had no problems with embarkation. The other eight, including myself, ran into some horrible winter weather in Dallas the night before we were to fly out and rumors of cancelled flights the next morning were going around. So as I'm in a nail salon with my aunt and another girlfriend of mine getting manis and pedis about 6pm, I decided to call the airline (American) and see if there was any way we could get out that evening. There was no way we were going to miss our boat! After alot of confusion and holding on the line, we were all moved to the last flight out that evening. Bad news was that it left in less than 2 hours! Most of us hadn't packed a thing, hadn't showered, hadn't eaten dinner, anything! But after some frantic phone calls all 8 of us managed to get to the airport in time...and our plane was delayed! So all that rushing for nothing. But hey, we were there and that's all that mattered. We went directly to the airport bar and started the party with some drinks. Long story short, our flight was delayed 3 hours, 2 of those we spent on the actual plane. As you could guess, everyone on the plane was getting restless and we were beginning to wonder if we were going to make it out at all because it was icing and sleeting outside by this time. Luckily, we finally took off and landed in Orlando around 3am. Took taxis to a nearby hotel that one of my girlfriends reserved and we slept for about 3-4 hours. Woke up, showered and then had our shuttle service I had arranged to pick us up from the airport come and get us at the hotel instead no problem. By 10am we were in route to port! We were tired but still excited.

When we arrived at port, we checked our luggage in and got in line. The line moved very quickly and we were in and had our sail & sign cards in about 30 minutes. We then posed for our 1st of many photos and found our other 2 friends onboard. We headed to the Lido deck for the lunch buffet and the food was good, but nothing too spectacular. The ship was clean and pretty easy to navigate around. The pool was pretty small and we never even got in it. We went to our rooms to rest for a bit and my girlfriends surprised me with a completely decorated room with 2 birthday cakes, a wine cheese & fruit basket, and all kinds of goodies! We all had oceanview rooms on the Empress deck. The room was small, but well laid out and had plenty of room for all our luggage and things. The beds were extremely comfortable and we all slept very well in them. We rested for a bit and then headed up for the sail away party. It was cool and windy, but it was still a great time and sailing away from port was really incredible. We danced to the music played by the band, had some drinks and took lots of pictures. Then one of my girlfriends got the wild idea for me to get 30 birthday spankings, 1 each from a different guy. With 10 girls roaming around Lido soliciting spankings, it was quite the spectacle! Needless to say, there was no shortage of willing participants and my booty was in severe pain by the end. But it did make for some great pictures! That night we had dinner (8:30 late seating in Imagination) at a table for 10. We brought the birthday cakes with us and gave them to our waiter to save for dessert. Dinner was fabulous and the service was great. When they brought the cake along with ice cream for dessert, a group of waiters came to our table and serenaded me. It had everyone's attention around us and everybody was clapping. Luckily, I got used to this happening because it definitely wasn't the last time! After dinner we went to the show and wound up leaving halfway through because the boat was really rocking and some of my friends were sick, and also because the show was quite boring. We decided to go to the nightclub for some dancing, which we did well into the night.

Day 2 Freeport, Nassau - We had breakfast at the buffet and it was pretty good. Our group decided to split up this day because we wanted to do different things. Getting off and on the boat was a breeze. Myself and 3 others took a taxi to the Westin Hotel and paid $10 for a day pass. This gave us access to the pool, pool bar and beach area. We headed to the beach and had a waitress bringing us delicious frozen drinks. We went into the water, but it was really rough and there was sea weed and things in the water so we decided to move up to the pool area. They had the most incredible infinity pool with a swim up bar. It was beautiful. We had some more drinks and ran into some people from our ship. It was definitely a great idea to come to the Westin. It was very nice and relaxing. The other 6 girls stayed on the ship and took advantage of the topless deck. From what I heard, they had quite an exciting day and met a really nice cocktail waiter named Paul who took very good care of them. The night before, we got our capers and spa specials were listed for Freeport day and a friend and I decided to call and book a port special for a couples full body massage and facial. We were in the same room and it was very relaxing. I believe it was around $90 and it was VERY worth it. That night was formal night and the Captain's cocktail party. We had late seating dinner at 8:30 so we decided to get ready and go to the cocktail party at 8 to enjoy drinks before dinner. Well we went to the theater and the cruise director told us the party had just ended and we were too late, even for just one drink. We begged and begged stating we never heard an ending time and assumed it would go on until our dining time. He refused to let us in and turned us away. We were pretty bummed and it would have been nice to know beforehand. All we were ever told was when the party started, not when it ended. So we headed to the dining room and enjoyed our formal dinner. Most of us had 2 lobsters and I requested mashed potatoes which were fabulous and I ordered them every night after that. After dinner we went to the Jekyll & Hyde nightclub for some dancing and had a blast. Read more