Bahama Cruise and the Atlantis Resort

growing up my family was able to go on many vacations, this is one of those trips...


the time we got a free cruise to the Bahamas and left our mark on the Atlantis hotel.

we hit up a few spots in Florida before hoping on the smallest cruise ship ever built. before the cruise we were required to sit through a time-share meeting.. and if we did then the cruise was free, or cheap, or whatever. I think free though. 

anyways, so the time-share meeting, it was supposed to last 90min. going into the meeting we all knew we were not going to buy a time-share. but we wanted the cruise. each group was paired up with a consultant worker person, our guys name was Cosmo. (and he totally looked like a Cosmo.. blonde curly hair, chubby, shorter than average.)

the meeting is just getting started when Cosmo announces that during the meeting the parents//him will leave in our van to tour around the area. my dad was not happy about that, and no one ever mentioned anything about having to drive around with the consultant. strike one.

shortly after, Cosmo says, "oh, and I've never finished one of these within the 90min time slot" that's when my dad starting getting angry, and to which he set 90min on his watch and declared that we were only staying for the 90min that we were told and then we'd be on our way. this upset Cos, his response? "sir, every time you look at your watch I'm going to start over." strike two.

my dad really started getting angry then. they went back and fourth a bit just getting more and more upset. my dad then went and found a small asain man who was in charge. (when I say small asian man, I mean like my height and probably skinnier than me, I'm 5'2) so anyways, my dad expressed his opinions loudly and they decided it'd just be best if we left. still getting the free cruise. they just wanted us out of there. we were at the meeting for about 20min or so. not very long, and definitely not the full 90min.

okay, now on to part two. when we visited the Atlantis hotel.

how pretty is that place?
anyways, so we decided to walk down the beach to the Atlantis hotel. it didn't look very far away, but it was actually probably a mile or so. which isn't that bad, but when you have 8 kids between 15ish and 5ish, a mile on a hot day in sand seems more like 10 miles.

we finally make it to Atlantis, hot and tired. we immediately go inside to get out of the sun and happened upon the casino area. my dad gave me a quarter and told me to play it on a slot machine (I'm like 13ish). that's when security came over and told us I can't gamble and asked us to leave the casino area.

but that didn't stop us.

instead of leaving we made our way to the pool area. in order to have access to the pool you had to be a guest at the hotel, and wear a wristband they provide for you. we were not guests so we didn't have wristbands. our parents said "just keep your hands under water and they won't be able to tell." so that's what we did. we went swimming in a pool we weren't supposed to be in, after gambling illegally.

the Malone's and my family still reminisce on the Cosmo story, because it was just too damn funny. such a great vacation!

if you've read about my families trip to Nashville and Kings Island you know that we basically do whatever we want whenever we want. so this shouldn't surprise you.

Kings Island Takeover Ends

after recapping my vacation, (one, two, three, four, KI) I'm down to the last two days. which I'm just going to group together since I didn't take many pictures. see, the last two days in Kings Island were spent at the park and the water park so I didn't have my camera, nor my phone, with me for fear of losing//breaking them.

but, our day at the park was awesome. I went on twenty-one rides in one single day. 21. including five times on The Beast (my favorite ride). and we stopped for dinner and what not for about two hours. my cousin and I were the only ones to hit 21 rides, everyone else had 20 or fewer.

group picture

our day in the water park was like any other day in a water park. a few water slides, and some sunshine. with a few cold beverages.

the last night was spent playing a lot of beer pong.

my aunt

Brian and my uncle buried a bottle of vod there.

Goodbye Nashville, Hello KI

after four (one, two, three, four) fantastic days in Nashville, TN it was time to say goodbye and head out to Kings Island, Cincinnati, Ohio, to meet up with my cousins/aunt/uncle.

first we had to make a pit stop at Terry's Turf Club. it was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, so I had to eat there. everything we ate was delicious, their burger was one of the best I've ever had (and we all know how much I love a good burger) and their filet mignon chili was fantastic.

when we got to our hotel (which was super gross, it was like a summer camp style cabin thing, and there were questionable blood-looking stains in my cousin's room) we just wanted to spend as little time as possible there. so we gps-ed a bar/restaurant near by and did what we know best, drank. and my cousins gf ordered these extremely hot wings (I mean like seriously hot, like make you cry hot) so naturally we all had to try them.

both my cousins found them to be freakishly hot. I definitely thought they were hot but handled it better than they did. my cousins gf ate seven of them, which the waitress said was better than most people do. of course, we had to leave our mark somehow.

 and a picture of our bill...

we like long islands.
upon leaving the guys thought it'd be a good idea to get a quick workout in.

but we didn't want to go back to our crackass hotel so we hit up another bar, Viva Tequila. where we sat at a bar that made you feel like a midget, and played a very inappropriate version of the telephone game.

after a few pitchers of margs, we decided to check out the hotel we could have stayed at, The Great Wolf Lodge. which had a creepy display in their lobby. what's with the kid in the tree trunk?

we kinda wanted a souvenir. so we borrowed a mat.

we decided we caused enough mayhem and it was time to head back to our hotel. but we weren't ready for bed without a makeshift fire.

yes, we actually had a fire. but only for a few minutes before we decided we might get kicked out of our hotel if they caught us.

the first night was very successful, I'd say.

Nashville, TN (day four)

after a successful first three days in Nash (one, two, three) here's how day four went...

we woke up bright and early to attend the taping of the CMT Hot 20 Countdown (which aired last weekend, and yes, you could see us) it was alright, we basically just stood for three hours clapping. wasn't the most fun thing in the world, and my dad got tired of it pretty quick, but hey, we were on national television.

see how much fun we're having? Brian and Mom actually enjoyed it. Dad and I, not so much. afterwards we ate at Jacks BBQ, which we were told was some of the best bbq in Nashville. and it really was quite good. I got the smoked chicken, but the real kicker is their sauces. they had like six different sauces, and all of them were amazing. 

then we went to check out the Grand Ole Opry and took the backstage tour. it was really neat to see some of the dressing rooms, and see where all the stars hang out before the show.

"America!" dressing room

the famous circle

after checking out the Grand Ole Opry, it was back to our Opryland hotel to cause more mayhem.

awkward family photo, round two.

we weren't supposed to be in there...

fountain show!

we ended the night eating some pizza while watching the fountain show. it was basically a smaller version of the Bellagio's fountain show, equipped with music and everything. then we hit up a bar inside our hotel for a few draanks.

Nashville, TN (day three)

on the third day we switched up hotels, we went from a hotel in downtown to the Opryland. the Opryland hotel is giant and marvelous.

awkward family photo

the awkward family photo was not planned, we just happened to be standing that far apart and my dad decided to take our picture, that's how it turned out. which makes me laugh every time I see it.

the picture of dad up on the round thing, and he has his hands in the air, afterwards he said "it looked like something was supposed to be there, I made it happen"

myself in front of the Shrek thing, yea I wasn't supposed to be in there. see how it's roped off? but that's never stopped me before.

this hotel is so giant they have a little river where you can take a short boat ride around the place, it was pretty neat. on the boat I learned that the little tree there is 109 years old. and when the flood happened in Nashville the water was up to the bottom of the bridge.. crazy!

we spent the whole day checking out this awesome place. looked at all the restaurants, and what not. the place has like 4 or 5 huge sections and it's all indoors, so it took us a while to scope it out. it was really neat to see all the different areas. we ended the night by taking it easy and watching Alex Cross in our room. it was a good movie.

Nashville, TN (day two)

after a first great night in Nashville, here's how day two went...

first we drove to Lynchburg, TN to visit the Jack Daniel's distillery. which was so cool.

the picture of a small man is Mr. Jack Daniels, he was only 5'2". which is how tall I am. he also died because he went to work early one day and couldn't get the safe open so he kicked it, broke his toe, which then got infected. they had to amputate it, and eventually take his whole foot then his whole leg before it ended his life. crazy huh?!
and the last picture there I wasn't supposed to take, they said no pictures allowed.. but if you didn't know already, my family basically does whatever we want.
by the way, did you know Lynchburg,TN is a dry town? you can't buy alcohol there. which is cray since that's where JD is.

after visiting JD we checked out the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. which was also neat to see.

oh, hey Brad :)

my husband, Luke.

then it was night numero dos on the Broadway strip. we spent most of the night (and money) in Tootsie's. our bill was almost $300, and that was only alcohol. I don't think I need to explain how much fun we had that night.