Telling My Own Story (ISP)

Nicala Henderson Presents

My “Telling my own story” is based around a vacation that my family took last year. It is a new, thrilling experience that none of us had ever anticipated being able to go on.

Before I begin though I should mention that my family and I have been on several trips before, including Florida where we went para sailing Niagara Falls, Georgia, Great wolf lodge, and Ottawa Valley where our family owns a cottage that we go to every year.

But we have never been anywhere outside of the United States and Canada. We have always vacationed around those areas so when my mother announced last October that we were going on a cruise, you can only imagine the reaction our family had. We were going on the cruise for my aunts wedding and the entire trip was paid for by my Grandpa who had invited everybody along which only added to the excitement to be going onto the new journey.

It all began with packing for our trip that took a very long time to accomplish since we are a pretty big family and had to pack in all sorts of suitcases and bags into our van. By the time we finished packing the van was filled to the top and we could barely see out of the back window. For our trip we had to go to the Detroit airport and find a parking space for our van. Then we had to take a very small and crowed shuttle to the airport itself and somehow manage to find the rest of our family so that we could leave for the flight on time. Keep in mind, last October was very cold and we had to wear our jackets through the cold and dark streets at very early in the morning.

As it turns out we made great time, and this ended up making us wait extra-long in the airport until the flight was ready to leave. It took longer than the scheduled time to get into the airport itself and then it took another hour before we were finally allowed to board.

As soon as we got onto the plane and were finally ready to take off it turns out that we were driving around the airport in the plane for an hour and not able to take off. Some people suspected something was wrong with the plane and some people thought we had terrorists on board. Well they had nothing to fear it was simply that this “gentleman” had been arguing with the flight attendants and after having refused to turn off his cellphone he had to be escorted off the plane so that we were able to finally leave. 

 I had never been up in the air before and it was most amusing since the clouds looked like snow on mountains where we could walk on without difficulty. It was also interesting because we had passed another plane when flying up in the sky and then we could see the shadow of the plane on the clouds interestingly.

When we landed it was a mad rush to get to a hotel that we stayed at in Florida for a day before we would take a hotel-provided shuttle to get to the boat. And once that day had ended it was line after line to board the ship and actually get going on the cruise itself.

To be completely honest with you my family and I had gotten lost when we were searching for our cabin.

We managed to find it anyways, but it did take quite some time even with the help of the reception desk.

Then it was out to sea and the real fun finally began the following day.

The first leg of our journey was from Fort Lauderdale to Key West. On the Key West islands we had taken a train tour where we were educated in the searing heat on the houses of the area. Interestingly they were built mainly by rich families who instead of moving and having a new house built for them they had completely deconstructed their houses in England and moved them to the key west islands.

Then we were out to sea again for the entire following day we were just on the ship and sailing across open waters where we spotted flying fish jumping out of the water.

Then we arrived in Grand Cayman where the highlight adventure of that day was that we had signed up to go on a submarine tour. The most interesting aspect of this tour was that the further down underwater we got the less color we could see. Eventually everything, in and out of the sub was in black and white but primarily grey. We had seen sea turtles, rare fish and all sorts of coral formations under the water as we traveled. After that we had toured around Grand Cayman some more before heading back to the boat again.

The following morning we had awoken to find ourselves in Ocho Rios Jamaica. 

We had gone to a resort of sorts where we were surrounded by tropical birds but the primary and most exciting part of that day was that we went swimming with Dolphins on the resort.

The following day was all sea again, where we enjoyed a musical that the ship hosted late at night for all the families to come and enjoy. At this point in our journey it was a two day trip until we arrived back in Fort Lauderdale where we had first come from.

Then it was yet another flight home back to the bitter cold of last October’s early winter. It was truly an amazing trip and one I doubt I will ever forget.

This concludes the end of my "Telling My Own Story" ISP Project. Thank You for reading.