Getting on the ship!
The Miami Shore line when we were first sailing away. Yes, it was VERY windy and stormy the first day!
This is in the theater where all of the shows were performed every night.
Yes, we did "kick up our heels" and do a little dancing! It didn't last for very long, but here is our proof!
Formal Night!!
These were our dinner table partners every night. No one else ever came to sit at our big table, but these guys were so much fun! They were from Toronto, Canada and they were married, yes, married! Let's just say we had a "gay" time! :)
Our first stop of the cruise was at Grand Cayman Islands. Our excursion here was to go to Stingray City and see dolphins at this Dolphin Cove place. At Stingray City, the water was only about 4 feet deep and all of these stingrays were swimming all around us. Our guides would grab a stingray and show us how to hold it, then have us kiss it and give us a back rub! It was freaky when the stingrays would swim RIGHT next to you and touch you when you weren't paying attention...but it was absolutely GORGEOUS and AMAZING!
Then we were taken back to the Dolphin Cove and got to watch, touch, and kiss a dolphin. That was AMAZING as well! I didn't get many pictures because we had to leave our cameras in our bags, but I did buy one of the dolphin kissing me...I just didn't scan it to put on here.
On our way to get to our boat that would take us to Stingray City, they took us through this "jungley" place to see some exotic birds!
One of the cute Carribean guides! :)
Our dolphin friends in the Dolphin Cove!
This is on our way to Stingray City in our AWESOME lifejackets!
On the way back from Stingray City, one of our guides dove into the water and pulled up a lobster, starfish, and seashell! Neat!
Our second stop was at Isla Roatan, Honduras. At first look I remember thinking "This place is really GREEN!" It was totally filled with trees and bushes spilling over on these "mountains" (I guess that is what you call them, but they were nothing compared to Utah mountains!). My second thought, as we were riding along on our bus that would take us to the beach, was "Wow, these people live a lot different than I do!" We passed TONS of houses as we rode along the coast that were just TINY and were actually built on tall poles with no foundations. I know I have seen these types of homes on movies or in books, but to see it in REAL life was definately a shocker!
Anyway, once we got through with our twisty, windy, and bumpy bus ride, we finally made it to Tabyana Beach. We spent a good afternoon there under the sun, soaking it in, along with the salt water!
This lady was really begging me to get my hair done in braids, so I said yes. Then she kept bugging Sally, so she got roped into it too...
And TADA...this was the result!! I didn't think I would leave mine in for long, but I actually did leave them for the rest of the trip. It made it a lot easier to do my hair! We didn't like the beads though, so I took them out and put the elastics in, but Sally just plain took hers out. :)
Candyce took this GREAT picture of Isla Roatan at sunset back on the ship when we were about to pull away from port. BEAUTIFUL!
Our third stop was in Belize. On this excursion, we got in a little boat and rode for a couple of hours on the River Wallace (the main river in Belize). Our guide would stop the boat at various places and point out the wild life and plants of Belize. We saw all sorts of things like crocodiles, bats, iguanas, and even a monkey!
After the boat ride, we got off and ate lunch at this little resort place on the river and took an hour or so VERY BUMPY bus ride to Altun Ha Mayan Ruins. Once there, our tour guide told us about the history and we walked up one of them. It was way neat to be there and think about ancient people living there and maybe even Christ, visiting when he was on the Earth. I would have loved to have had a historian from our Church talk about it in terms of our Church's history!
Here are a few of our animal friends we saw along the river:
Can you guess what all of these are?
Can you see what and where our friends were in these 2 pictures?
Our final stop was at Cozumel, Mexico. It was probably the prettiest place we stopped and the one we had the most fun at too! We started out our excursion getting our very own red and shiny BEACH BUGGY for the day! We then followed, in a big, long line of beach buggies along the BEAUTIFUL coast to our snorkeling destination.
We spent about an hour snorkeling there (pictures getting developed from my underwater Kodak camera as of now). I could have spent ALL day!!! It seemed like I was just getting used to not getting ocean water in my mouth and down my throat and not hyperventilating in my snorkel gear, when it was time to get out and embark upon the next part of our journey!
We got back in our buggies and went down the coast some more to our lunch destination. I wish we would have taken a picture of the food, but we had some REAL, authentic Mexican food that wasn't too bad! I have to say I was a little nervous about eating it, but it turned out great. We then got to lay out on the GORGEOUS beach there for a little while (Again, I could have stayed all day!), until we were wisked away again!
The final place our guide took us was a light house and crocodile "pit". The views from on top of the light house were breathtaking as we looked out over the ocean! The crocodile "pit" was...well a crocodile "pit"! We saw about 4 or 5 of them just chilling around in the water. Pretty creepy if you ask me!
Just as we were about to get back on the ship in Cozumel, this big, black storm cloud started coming in! It actually delayed us from getting out of the port for about 2 hours!
More ship activities! Yes, we did BINGO! Sally was really close to winning the $1000 blackout one, but came up 2 numbers short! Shucks!
One night we watched The Proposal on the outdoor theater they had on the ship. FUN, FUN, FUN!!
This is on the main lobby of the ship. What cute girls we are!!!
All in all it was a great trip! I am sad that my "tan" will quickly fade away in the cold Utah climate, but I am hoping summer will come soon here!! For now it is BACK TO WORK!!! :)
