Western Carribean Cruise...February 26th - March 5th

About a year ago, Kelly won a cruise through Mountain West Finance...a whole year in the waiting! If finally came & we were so ready! We flew into Miami Saturday with a group of St. Georgians & stayed over night in Miami. We boarded the Liberty of Seas through Royal Carribean around noonish & just hung out on the ship until we left.

Neither Kel or I have been a cruise before so we were excited {mainly for the food}. The ship was HUGE & amazing. It was awesome walking straight onto the promenade to see the shopping & food area - it was amazing we were on a ship & not at a mall.

We walked around the ship waiting to leave. I hardly took any pictures of it at all - but the whole top of the ship was swimming pools & splash pads - it was pretty sweet.
Miami in the background

We finally left about fivish & I felt fine. Neither of us brought any motion sickness medication because so many people told us the ship is so big you won't feel anything. I could definitely feel once we took off but was not sick. We were on the sea all day Monday & ported in Belize bright & early Tuesday morning. Yes, I got incredibly sick Monday. It was pretty windy & the ocean was choppy - not fun! We woke up & actually went to the fitness center - which was awesome. I worked out on the top of the ship overlooking the vast ocean. We did LOTS & LOTS & LOTS of eating....lots of good food. We did some swimming on Monday & took a BIG nap. Our trip consisted of many naps & plenty of sleep.

I didn't take my camera off the ship in Belize because we went CAVE TUBING & I didn't want it to get ruined or stolen. We had to take a tendor to get to Belize that was about 20 minutes long. So Belize was really not that pretty {atleast what we saw}. It was a disappointment & very dirty. Trash all over the streets. We were on a spider web nasty old no AC bus for an hour both ways. It was about a twenty minute hike, carrying our tubes, following other tour groups to get to the beginning point. In our group, we tagged along with some people from St. George that are Ryan & Melinda's {kelly's bro & wife} friends so it was nice to have someone we knew. The cave tubing was cool - just pretty much sat in a tube, hooked our feet to the people in front of us & went down {slowly} the river as the guide paddled all of us! We had lights on our head so we could see all around us.

By the time this day had come, with all the traveling & being in the heat & around a million people, I had a major headache & once again went to bed at eight. I woke up in the morning to find Kelly had ordered room service & just watched movies & all through the night. I felt bad I was such a loser.

On Wednesday, we ported in Costa Maya {this was the place we had heard is most people's least favorite}. We got off the ship with NO plans. It was by far my favorite day. The ocean was crystal clear BLUE. It was beautiful. The beaches were not as pretty cuz they were really rocky. We decided to hit a beach. Of course there are a million people trying to get you to buy things from them....we took a table & chairs & layed out for awhile. We got massages on the beach that was pretty awesome...there may or maynot have been some exposure going on since they do it right there. Kind of crazy. We ate a very delicious meal on the beach with chips & guac. & salsa. That was probably my favorite food of the whole trip. But when we got the bill - we were not happy. We overpayed & Kelly was not going to talk him down {they kept telling us they were getting a menu next week & wouldn't tell you prices & our meal probably should have been $20-$30 & we payed $60 for it!!} I was not happy about how much we payed for our meal but Kelly kept saying it was well worth just sitting on the beach which is true.

We went snorkeling with random people. The guys we were with picked up a HUGE star fish, & these little tiny starfish that looked like spiders & they were crawling all over us. He kept finding conshells every time he would go down. He also found a sand dollar. It was an awesome snorkeling adventure. We decided to walk back to the ship instead of catching a taxi. We could see the ship & we just had to walk along the beach - but it was probably just less than 2 miles. Oh - what a smart idea! We totally were on a gravel road with bushes & trees so high we couldn't see the ships anymore. When we finally made it back to the shopping center where you port, there was barbed wired fences all around & a security guard had to let us in. Thank goodness Kelly can speak Spanish.

We had 2 formal nights. The first one, we discovered Kelly forgot to bring his white dress shirt!! He just needed some gold chains to go with the outfit!

Instead, he wore a white thermal shirt & he looked awesome....

These are the people on our table. Everyone we were with happened to be from St. george. Scott & Glenda Hirshi, me & Kel & Heidi & Brandon Condie.

We loved watching the FlowRider & see many suits come flying off! Girls were brave trying that in their tiny string bikinis. We didn't do it since Kel was nervous it would jack his shoulder up even more & I was ok on the sidelines. This is Keler, my roommate from Utah State's husband. Her dad is actually the one who owns the company & her husband and brother both work for the company so I got to spend some time with her which was super fun. Keler was awesome on the flowrider & pulling out tricks.

Each night we came home to little surprises

On Thursday, we ported in Cozumel {which was supposed to be the best of all 3}. We weren't really on Cozumel since we went to Tulum so we didn't see much of it. We had to take a 30 minute ferry to get off Cozumel since it's an island & Tulum was probably another 40 minutes from there. We went with John & Jessica Jones {one of Ryan & Melinda's friends that were there}. Our tour guide was LDS & we felt like he rushed through the whole thing & didn't really show us what we wanted. However, it is an amazing city that sits next to the ocean. I can't believe that it is still standing. It was very interesting.

On some buildings, you can still see the carvings pretty well. They think the buildings were painted blue & red.

This is the view that they had. It was unreal.

The temple...the back faced the ocean view. Why??? I'm pretty sure I would have had the front face the view.

Boarding back to the ship. Everywhere we went there were atleast 1 or 2 other ships. Our ship is the one on the left.

Cozumel and our first impression

It is amazing how massive these ships are.

Every night, there was so much to do. Tons of entertainment. Comedians, musicals, kareoking, games, ice skating shows. You could go all night long with all the entertainment there was to do. The last day we were there, Mountain West rented out the ice skating rink. It was tiny. It was amazing people were able to skate & do tricks on it. It was Kelly's first time ice skating.

We made it back safe & sound late Saturday night. It was a long traveling day where we had to wait in Miami forever for our flight so we all went to a movie & ate more food. It was such a fun trip but I missed my kids who were with Kyle & Megan most the time with help from other family members. I'm so grateful for family that they were able to help out so we could enjoy a vacation.