Exuse the length, I was on a cruise

I'm officially addicted. Cruises are THE only way to go. Ross and I just got back from a 7 day Western Caribbean cruise. It was our first cruise and definitely not our last. Ross and I like to get out and see a lot, but on longer vacations it gets exhausting moving around so much, but with a cruise you get the same room and you don't have to pack up so much, your room moves for you and you wake up in a new location. Not to mention the food. I think by myself I ate a half of a cow, so much prime rib, steaks, fillet minion etc. I think I did start off kind of strong cause by day 4 of 7 I was getting tired of food. Every meal in the dinning room starts with appetizers, main course and ends with desert and you can order as many of each as you want. My downfall was ordering a couple appetizers and a couple main courses and many deserts each meal. I def slowed down after day 4. But I did get to try lobster and escargot, I didn't care for the lobster but the escargot wasn't too bad at all. For the dinning room we were assigned to a table with 2 other couples. Before we got to dinner we watched the people outside waiting and I was so paranoid of who we would be sitting with but it turned out very good. We had two other young couples and we all seemed to get along and have good conversations, not the awkwardness I was dreading with some of the weirdos we had seen on the boat.

On the ship there was almost always something to do and something to eat. They had food around the clock and usually had something happening from 9am to 12:30am and that's not counting the pools, water slide, mini golf, basketball court or running track. At night they had comedians and Vegas style shows, lots of trivia and game shows and bingo. We watched a lot of the trivia and game shows, we were always too late for Ross to get in on them, but Ross knew most of the answers so the next cruise he has to participate.

Every day we got our room cleaned twice a day. Usually mid morning while we were out doing activities or off the ship and then when we were at dinner we got turn down service where they cleaned again, turned down the bed and left towel animals on our bed. It was nice to always have a clean room and clean towels.

Grand Cayman

I think this was one of my favorite ports we stopped in because due to the rain it was not sweltering hot and humid. It was warm enough that we didn't freeze when it was pouring and it was cool enough that the rain didn't make it more humid. My understanding was that the Island was at the edge of a hurricane when we were there. But, since we were there to get wet a little rain was ok. The hard part for me was the wind. When we were on the little boat stopped at the snorkel spots the water was so choppy that the boat was all over the place and it was making me sick, luckily I wasn't one of the 2 on the boat that actually threw up. The snorkeling was ok, what I was really looking forward to was Stingray City. On the excursion we booked we were to go to a reef to snorkel and then go to Stingray City and then another snorkel location. Stingray City was a sandbar out in the middle of the ocean (we were so far out we couldn't see land at all) that was between waste and chest deep and there were hundreds of wild stingrays swimming around. They also brought some squid we could feed the stingrays, which was quite the experience. I had to talk Ross into it, he was a little nervous of their tails. We got to kiss and hold stingrays too, the legend on Grand Cayman is that if you kiss a stingray you get 7 years of good luck, needless to say Ross was kissing every stingray he could get a hold of.

On our way out to the first snorkel site we looked to the side of the boat and this random wild dolphin was following the boat. It was so cool, it was able to keep up for a while.

With our excursion we didn't have much time to do anything else at this port. Next time we want to go to Hell. There is a city a little ways away from the port named Hell. We were told it was named that cause it looked like what they thought hell would look like. That's on our list if we ever get back to Grand Cayman. We did get some shopping done at the beginning of the day but didn't dare do too much after. We went to a thing the cruise director did on the ship talking about all the ports, what there is to do, how the tender works at a couple of the ports and most of all he stressed to NEVER be late back to the boat cause you will get left, so we were a little nervous to make it on a tender to get back to the ship. But it all went well and we were never left behind.

Grand Cayman was pretty cool, the port was in Georgetown, and the town was a pirate theme. Tortuga, the slutty island from Pirates of the Caribbean, was on the island and everywhere you look its pirates.

This was the only day I got sea sick. After being on the small boat snorkeling and then I had to get on the tender (small shuttle boat between the boat and the port) and was sitting in the back breathing in the exhaust, then even the ship was really moving, I think half the ship was sick that day. However, I would rather hit the outskirts of a hurricane and be a little sick than have to be averted to a different port or miss a port all together.

Roatan Island, Honduras

We learned the hard way in this port that you need to have excursions to get the most out of the ports. All the ports had the same shops and it was an expensive taxi ride to get anywhere else. When we got to shore here we were going to shop a little and then maybe check out the island, but the taxi would be like $30 a person each direction, which is about as much as an excursion would cost, so we decided maybe staying around port wouldn't be so bad. We did find a zip line company in the jungle across the street, once you got out of the shopping section.

This port was so freaking hot and humid, I could have swum through the air. This was the only port that had a beach right off the boat but it was so crowded most of the time so we just went in for like 10 min before we had to get back on the boat. The beach was pretty, soft white sand and very blue water.

Belize City, Belize

I think this was one of my favorite ports. We signed up for extreme cave tubing before we left home and on the bus ride to the location we got to go through Belize City and a lot of the country side. This one and Roatan Island were very 3rd world, not the best living conditions. When we were going through the city in Belize and the driver was pointing out parts of the city, I wanted to get pictures but the windows were so tinted I wasn't able to get photos. Most of the city was dilapidated shacks that were 10' by 10', some were up on stilts and some were just boards stuck together on the ground. We passed a part of the town that was a tad nicer and the driver said it was where the doctors and lawyers lived, those with money, and they were 20' by 20' homes made of cinder blocks on stilts. He said they usually cost about $200-$300,000 US. The conditions got worse as we went through the countryside. We had a 45 min drive and my eyes were just glued to the window.

While we were driving one of the tour guides breaks out some cashew wine and little cups and started passing it around to the passengers. He said he doesn't care how young you are, if your parents are ok with it then take a drink. I think the legal drinking age in Belize was 18. Also, while we were driving through the city if the bus didn't answer with the amount of enthusiasm the guide was hoping for they would stop the bus in the middle of the busy road. They don't have much in the way of traffic laws here, the red lights are more of a suggestion and no one cares if you run them. We did pass a checkpoint where there was soldiers in full military garb with machine guns standing at the side of the road.

The cave tubing was pretty cool. Our guide told us the history of the caves and the blood letting rituals and human sacrifices the Mayans used to do in the cave. The history was really interesting.

To get to the opening of the caves we had about a 30 min hike through the jungle/rain forest. It was really pretty scenery and it was really pretty hot too. We didn't have but spray and I got eaten alive by mosquito's and their mosquito's there put our puny little brown ones to shame. They are big and black and have long legs that just dangle and they are HUGE. I was joking with Ross that maybe we will come home with Malaria and later that day he came down with a nasty nasty cold and sore throat.

Cozumel, Mexico

We learned in Honduras we needed excursions to get the most out of the ports and the night before getting into Cozumel we decided to do a swim with the dolphins. The other two couples at our table was doing it and we had heard from others how amazing it was and decided we may as well, after all its something I have always wanted to do. The big shock was how excited Ross was. I never thought he would get this excited to swim with the dolphins. When we got to the facility we found out there were 3 babies and we got to swim with one of the moms and her baby. It was fun, but they wouldn't let us take our cameras so I didn't get many pictures. They did have some you could sell your soul for and I bit the bullet and got 3 of them. I mean, how can you swim with the dolphins and not have a picture to show for it. We got to kiss, be kissed, dance, hug and ride a dolphin and lots and lots and lots of petting.