In January I was invited to teach a photo styling workshop with my good pal, Meta Coleman, aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of The Seas, the largest ship in the world for Click Retreat, a conference for bloggers that focuses on photography and social media in the Caribbean for a week. When I got the email the only words I saw were “January”, “cruise”, “Caribbean” and immediately responded “YES!”. We visited Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten.
But, what would make them think I would even like it? I mean, it’s not like the Bahamas had photogenic pink buildings everywhere or anything…
And it’s not like the scenery was very scenic. Bleh.
Seriously, I couldn’t find a single pink building ANYWHERE in the Bahamas! It was so BORING!
It’s not like we had colorful props to work with or delicious fruits to make smoothies with…
Meta and I pretended we were recently engaged and on a romantic getaway the whole time taking our engagement photos…Somehow we keep getting invited to rad places around the world…just the two of us without our families…when in Rome!
One of the sponsors of the trip was Southwest Airlines. They always have the most entertaining flights.
Look at the size of the ship! It’s so so massive. It’s SO massive that the inside is basically a 17 story mall with everything from Kate Spade to Coach to Starbucks, to a full track (that we really meant to use…).
It looks like I only brought one outfit, but it was really just the one day we were in the Bahamas and it happened to have the most colorful buildings of the whole trip. You know me—I have a thing for pink. And if you look closely, you’ll see that I got sunburned ONLY ON MY ANKLES.
By far, the best part of the trip was meeting the wonderful ladies and gents. There are some seriously funny and kind people in this world like Angie of Biggest Little and Today Show correspondent Meredith of Meredith Plays and not pictured, Carina Hoskisson. These two were put together as roommates and by the end of the trip duetted to Paula Abul’s Opposites Attract (aka: the best music video in the world, am I right?!)
I have no recollection of this photo being taken. I guess I just do this all the time. It’s my thing. Photo by Angie Anderson.
Was it Coco Chanel who said, “When in doubt, buy all the bracelets?”
Seriously, could they do something about these views? Meh!
I just loved the color of this wall so I had the document it.
I loved making friends with the locals.
But really loved making friends with people on the trip.
The boat I ordered with Captain Sparrow was ready when we docked at St. Thomas. What you can’t see/hear is that a bunch of locals are doing Zumba to the Macarena waiting for its arrival.
Just a classic “I’m the King of the World” only I was a big scaredy pants and couldn’t look the other way. It happens. I never could have been Jack or Rose. Nor Leo nor Kate.
Turns out…there’s such thing as “cruise culture” and it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen, unless you’ve been on a cruise, of course. There are certain dinners where you’re supposed to dress up and such. To be honest, it’s been awhile since I’ve had to dress up so I forgot about make up and shaving. And I couldn’t quite zip my dress all the way either…I blame it on the unlimited break sticks. And sometimes your room attendant (ours was Dion from the Philippines) leaves you towel animals hanging from your ceiling that freak you out when you walk in late at night. Thanks Dion! (not pictured!).
Like I said, the views were terrible, the scenery was meh, and the company was ok. 🙂 This is all to not make you feel terrible for being stuck in snow for all of January.
Ok, I can’t keep up the sarcasm anymore! Thank you Today’s Mama for hosting us, especially Rachel, at Click Retreat. You ladies are the best! Please take us everywhere you go! Wink, wink! And if you’d like to see more pics, take a lookie here. I loved meeting so many amazing bloggers on the trip. I’ll be talking a bit more about them in the next post.
And thank you to all the sponsors: Royal Caribbean, Southwest, Canon, Chat Books, Studio Design app, Blurb
Stay tuned for 2 more posts about the cruise including some styling tips we gave during our workshop!
photos by me on my iphone, Me Ra Koh, and Angie Anderson