Cruising the Caribbean

Brad and I were fortunate enough to enjoy an all expense paid vacation from Brad's firm.  This particular vacation took us to the caribbean where we ventured on a 7-day cruise with 11 other lucky couples. We had known about it 9 months prior to our departure and I spent most of those 9 months worried about leaving my kids.  Not because I didn't trust my very capable and generous sister-in-law, Erin ( I knew they were in excellent hands) but I was more worried about Erin's sanity.  She has 2 angelic kids that hardly give her trouble while I have 3 highly rambunctious boys and one very melodramatic girl.  Once our plane touched down in Orlando, I decided to let it all go and enjoy my week free of working, cleaning, cooking and refereeing kids.  It was one of the best vacations we have ever experienced.  Warning:  Long post and picture overload!!! 

We spent our first night in Orlando where we ate at Downtown Disney and took in a Cirque du Soleil show called La Nouba.  Amazing!     

Day One - Embarkation:  We boarded our ship early Saturday morning and became acquainted with The Carnival Dream.  As we waited for the evening show to start they offered a game show similar to "name that tune".  Brad was wacky enough to become a contestant.  He smoked the competition and won the coveted prize.  

The name of this song required Brad to show off his dancing skills.  

Here he is doing "the twist"

Brad's sweet prize for winning the game show - a carnival cruise ship trophy, which I "accidentally" left in our stateroom - whoops!

Day Two - Sea Day:  The women got massages and facials from the ship's spa while the men sat in the jacuzzi and steam rooms.  We took our daily nap and got ready for dinner.
  

You are not cruising unless you order more than one entree.  Brad loves him some lobster and steak.  

Our friend, Deb, is addicted to Diet Coke and finally figured out to order two at one time.

We spent our nights dancing at Club Caliente, laughing at the comedy shows and taking in the music of karaoke.  At one point Brad decided to bust a move during someone's karaoke rendition of Ice, Ice Baby.  Something about the song brought back memories of choreographing dances with friends for Church dances in Florida.  Must be an out of state thing :)

Day 3 - Cozumel, Mexico:  Our first port was Cozumel and here we participated in the Cozumel Amazing Race.  It is just like the show, The Amazing Race, where you have to solve clues, find city landmarks, figure out riddles and rush around the City to beat the other teams.  Our team, The Gators (of course), was heavily favored since we had a Spanish speaking member.  Brad did all the work while the rest of us tried to keep up with the red shirt.  I hardly saw any of the sights because I was afraid I would lose Brad in the throngs of people.  We all bought teams hats to make it more official.

We were taken by taxi to downtown Cozumel, given a few instructions and then let free into the City.

One of the clues for the next destination was on a temporary tattoo.

The ocean portion of the race is where it turns controversial.  One member from each team is suppose to dive into the ocean to find the name of the sunken ship.  We were on the boat with 2 other teams but no one from the other teams would get in the water.  Brad and Neal, from our team, were the only two to dive into the water to locate the boat.  Once they surfaced and passed on the information to the rest of our team, the other two teams copied our answer to get them to the next clue - cheaters!!!  

In the end, our team placed 3rd out of 16 teams.  We didn't report the actions of the other two teams who beat us but we did stew about it the rest of the trip.  Good thing 1 million dollars was not on the line or there would have been a few people going overboard :).

Day 4 - Belize:  We anchored off the coast of Belize and took a 35 minute tender ride to the dock.  Our entire group loaded a bus while it drove us through the jungles of Belize.  Half of our group rode ATVs in the mud while we chose to zip line over the tropical treetops.

A short-walk from zip-lining took us to our cave tubing adventure where we joined the rest of the group.  We hiked for 30 minutes through the lush forest to the cave openings.

This is the where the first mishap of the trip happened, besides taking third in the Amazing Race.  We had brought our flip camera and Brad's still Cannon camera on the trip.  We put them both in "waterproof" bags but somehow the seam separated and our cameras were waterlogged.  No chance in saving them but at least we were able to save the memory card.  The rest of the trip we used the camera on Brad's iphone.

We are testing out Brad's iphone camera as we wait for the evening show to start.

Day 5 - Roatan Island Honduras:  This stop was definitely the highlight of our trip.  We have been planning this port for months since Brad served his mission in Honduras.  Roatan Island is 40 miles north from the mainland of Honduras.  Originally we were going to fly on a small plane to the mainland and visit with members Brad had baptized.  The cruise ship had changed the day of when we were going to port to a later day in the week and when Brad called to change our tickets, the airline informed Brad the flight did not exist.  In the end we had the members take a ferry over to the island and hang out with us for the day.

Picture from our balcony with Roatan Island in the background.  

Hanging out on the beach waiting for Brad's friends to arrive.  

Mishap #2:  While on the beach I was watching a yellow float plane take off and land as it gave tours of the island.  I thought to myself "that does not look safe".  I may have been a bit bias, considering my fear of flying, but the plane looked very rickety.  A few hours later my thoughts were confirmed as it stalled in midair and the engine fell off causing the plane to crash into the ocean.  Luckily many boats were in the area and converged on the spot to rescue the pilot, two adults and their 4 year-old son from the submerged plane.  

Brad's friends from Honduras.  

Enrique Contreras was one of Brad's baptisms.  

He was 12 years-old when Brad baptized him.  

The Mejia family was Brad's favorite member family while serving in the area of El Confite. Their oldest son, Eric, was 7 and the younger son, Kevin, was not even born when Brad served in the area.  We spent the day snorkeling, hanging out on the beach and shopping.  The Mejia family and Enrique do not speak any English and I do not speak one bit of Spanish, so I just read my book and smiled.  Every once in a while I would ask Brad to ask them a question for me and he would translate back and forth.   

You could see the love these people had for Brad.  When it was time to say goodbye there were hugs and many tears shed.  The last time they saw Brad was over 14 years ago.  This day made the entire trip worth it.  We just wish we could have spent more time with them.

Picture from our balcony as we leave Roatan Island.  

Day 6 - Costa Maya, Mexico:  This day started off well, as you can see the guys enjoying their hour long massages on the beach.  Shortly after this picture was taken we decided to go into the ocean.  We were walking carefully because the guys had discovered conch shells earlier.  There just happened to be a conch shell very well hidden in the sand and Brad stepped right on top of it.  One of the prongs went through his foot (mishap #3).  

We had to take a taxi back to the port and then walk approximately 1 mile on the pier to the ship.  Even though Brad's foot was gushing blood, he was kind enough to humor me and take some pictures with our boat in the background.

Brad ended up getting 5 stitches in his foot.  I watched as they cleaned out the wound and stitched him up.  I got a little nauseated from the site and had to sit down.

Day 7 - Sea Day:  We spent our last day sleeping, eating and reading.  Things we don't necessarily get to do as much as we like to at home.  

I had to take a picture of this cute elephant towel.  Every night we had a different creature waiting for us but this one was my favorite.  

Debarkation:  One last picture from our balcony with the Disney Cruise Line in the background (hopefully our next cruise as a family)!  I can honestly say this was my favorite trip, even better than our honeymoon :).