My husband and I love to travel! When we started to think about our next vacation, we wanted something that would be fun and easy to plan. We had thought about going on a cruise for a while since cruises seem to have everything in one place! Cruises provide you with your lodging, unlimited open access to food, multiple locations to visit, and off-ship excursions. It all sounded amazing, and it was!

When choosing our cruise, we chose the Holland America Cruise line (Ms Nieuw Amsterdam ship) because we really loved the locations that this specific cruise were to take us and because of the ships spectacular online reviews. In March, we embarked on a 7 night trip that took us to Grand Turk Turks and Caicos, San Juan Puerto Rico, St.Thomas US Virgin Islands, and Half Moon Cay Bahamas. In my next few blogs, I will be highlighting our experiences on each of these islands. The blog images were taken using my Canon 6D SLR camera, the GoPro Hero 4 waterproof camera, and my husbands basic digital Canon camera.

GRAND TURK, TURKS & CAICOS:

The first island we went to was Grand Turk in Turks & Caicos. Since this was our first island to experience, we were filled with joy as soon as we saw the beautiful blue water. We got off the ship where we took a left turn off a bridge into the sandy beach. There was a row of beach chairs provided by our cruise line where the friendly local dogs were lounging under. We dipped our toes in the water. The temperature was perfect and we enjoyed our swim. With our swimming goggles on, we looked under the water and saw many beautiful fish and a sting ray.

A few steps ahead of the beach chairs, there were some local Turks & Caicos Islanders selling tour excursions. “Snorkeling over here!” one said. We asked them about the snorkeling tour and the locals said that they would take us on a boat and off the island to go into the ocean to see fish and sharks. Frankly, we did not feel safe leaving the island with strangers we just met. However, we did notice some horses in the distance and asked the locals if we could ride the horses. We made a deal, hopped on the horses, and the horses followed the local tour guide on the beach and into the ocean. It was a great experience that we will never forget! After lots of laughter and fun, we relaxed at the beach and on a hammock near by.

Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos is definitely a beautiful place to check out! Until the next blog, enjoy these photos! <3