Cruisin Belize and a Day at Sea

Thursday (may 21) we went to Belize. This was another port that we tendered at and they told us we weren't allowed to leave the port area and explore the island because it was dangerous. So... we booked another excursion! This time it was snorkeling in the 2nd biggest barrier reef second only to the great barrier reef in Australia. Pretty cool huh?! Most of the pictures for this were taken with underwater cameras so I'll add those once we get them developed. Here we are suited up for snorkeling. These vests made it so we didn't have to really swim. They pretty much made us float, but are alot smaller than a life jacket. I was really glad to have them since we ended up swimming around for over an hour without anywhere to take a break.

Casey and I have both never snorkeled before and it was amazing! It was like being in Finding Nemo! Or a huge aquarium! I definitely want to do it again! At first I felt like I was going to hyperventilate or something because I wasn't used to breathing through the tube thing and not at all through my nose, but it ended up being super easy. We saw so many fish and coral. We saw one fish that was like 5 feet long and ugly. The guy in our group said it was probably a barracuda. The other fish we saw were all really bright colors- blues, greens, yellows, purple. This is after we finished snorkeling. You can still see the lines from my goggles. And again- super clear, turquoise blue water!! I was loving it and stayed in the water as long as possible.

After snorkeling they took us back to a little beach for a few minutes before going back to the ship. It was beautiful. Belize had the most turquoise looking water that we saw the whole trip. Check out this beach... palm trees with hammocks, white sand, warm beautiful water! It was heaven!

Heading back to the ship after our day at Belize.

Our towel animal of the day

The next day was a Day at Sea. We tried the specialty drinks for the first time. They were so good! It's a good thing that we didn't have them until the 2nd to last day because we would have spent a lot of money on these yummies! This one was a mango/raspberry daiquiri.

That night it was elegant evening again. This is us with our table group. We felt really lucky to get such a great table! These people were all so fun to be with! A few nights after dinner we went to shows or lounges together. We asked them questions about drinking and they asked us questions about being "Mormon". They couldn't believe how fast we got married (9 months after first date). haha- It was pretty entertaining.

After dinner drinking a miami vice (strawberry daiquiri and pina colada). Oooh... so good!

Towel animal of the day: snake. "You know they love you when they make you a snake. I could make a snake- role the towel up, put on sunglasses, and ta-da."

Cruisin Isla Roatan

Isla Roatan is an island town of Honduras. It was like a jungle! It is so green and the plants are all huge. This picture is from the top of the ship before we got off for the day.

These people were playing the drums and dancing around to welcome all the tourists (us!)

We had another excursion planned through the cruise line. We went to a park called Gumbalimba nature park. We took a tour to see plants that are found in Honduras. This is a cashew tree. The cashew is on the end of the red cashew fruit.

We thought this palm tree was cool.

See what I mean by jungle! This is us crossing a rope bridge.

Across the bridge was the bird sanctuary. There were tons of parrots flying all over.

Next up was monkeys! I know it seems like we went on a petting zoo cruise- turtles, stingrays, parrots, monkeys! It was super fun though. You just don't see animals like that around Utah so we had to take advantage. The monkeys would just jump from person to person. One of them kept stealing people's sunglasses and trying to put them on his face. It was so funny. They are pretty smart little animals.

After Gumbalimba park I was feeling sad about not actually having gone to a beach yet to swim so Casey took pitty on me and we payed a taxi to take us to the beach for the 1 1/2 hours we had left on the island. He took us to this beach where we were pretty much the only ones there. The tide was coming in so it made the water kind of mucky but it was still a beach! I was so happy that Casey took me I decided to write it in the sand. He really does love me. Casey isn't a big fan of swimming in the ocean. He hates the salt water. So I swam around by myself for a while.

Casey loves to play in the sand though so we made a sea turtle out of sand in remembrance of Grand Cayman the day before.

Then we took some beautiful pictures of us in the ocean and kissed on the cute swinging chairs. It was so perfect.

After dinner that night I still wasn't sick of pictures. I tried to take some cute ones of us but when Casey has had way too many pictures in a day this is how they turn out.

Cruisin Grand Cayman

The first place we stopped at was Grand Cayman. We didn't dock right on the shore so we used tender boats. Here we are leaving the ship on the tender boat.

We looked around at some of the shops, then we had an excursion planned through the cruise line. First stop the Turtle Farm. The Turtle Farm ended up being one of our favorite things (or at least one of Caseys). They had different pools with different sized turtles and the smaller turtles we could grab and hold. Casey loved going around and picking up all the turtles.


After the turtle farm we went to a little place called Hell. It was named Hell because of all the black rock stuff. We sent both our families postcards from Hell.


The last stop was going to see the sting rays. We got on a boat and took about a 30 minute ride to the middle of the ocean. There was a big sandbar that was 3-4 feet deep, the water was crystal clear, and there were stingrays everywhere! When I first got off the boat they totally freaked me out. They would just swim by and brush against you. Plus they were huge! Our tour guides would laugh at us for being so scared of them. They loved to take the stingrays over to people and put the stingray on our backs. After a little bit I decided I wasn't going to get this chance again so I held, kissed, and even got a sting ray massage (another things our guides thought was super funny).


When we got back on the boat to leave the stingrays our guides drove a little ways then stopped. When I looked down in the water I could see tons of huge starfish down on the bottom. I mean tons! It was way cool. Our guide dove down and grabbed one so we could all have pictures. I've never seen one so big!


The amazing water one more time! I was in shock that it was actually so clear and turquoise! I loved it! And Casey loved how warm it was.


Leaving Grand Cayman with our ship in the background. Oh, and I got completely fried on this first day at port. Sadness. Casey's shoulder's got burnt too, but of course his tanned up nicely.



That night we had another towel animal! We still don't know what it is though??

Cruisin the Caribbean the Beginning

Yahoo! We went on our first (and definitely no last) cruise! It's official, cruises are by far the most relaxing vacation imaginable. You don't have to worry/think/do anything once you get there. They take care of you so well. We loved it! We left Saturday May 16th, spent the night in a hotel, got on the ship on Sunday the 17th, then went on a 7 day Western Caribbean cruise. Thank you to both of our parents for watching our little Jocey while we went. We couldn't have gone without all your help.

Be prepared for about a billion pictures...

Here we are on the airplane. We thought we hated airplanes after riding with a baby the last two times, but turns out it was just the baby that made it so hard.


When we arrived in Miami we realized it's like it's own little country, and it's not an English speaking one either. Here's Casey waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the hotel.


We got to the port the next morning (sunday). The ships are huge! It was awesome to be on the ground and look up to it. This is us on top of the ship as it was leaving the port of Miami. It was so fun to see all the buildings from up high.


There are some annoying things about the first day, like no sleep from traveling, waiting in lots of lines (Casey can't stand lots of people), trying to take a nap when every other minute there's another "Tex messages" (our director's name was Tex so he said, "here's another Tex message" every time he came on the speaker that is so loud), and doing the life jacket drill smashed up against the boat between sweaty gross people that you can't even understand. We tried to make it fun because after all we were on a cruise!!


We spent the first day exploring the ship. We sailed on Carnival because of the price and itinerary so our ship kind of was lacking a little in activities for us non-alcoholic, non-gamblers. We did have a mini golf course though that we ended up playing a bunch, three pools, and plenty of space to lay out and soak up some sun.


The next day was a day on the ship. We spent the day golfing, laying out, sleeping, eating, and doing absolutely nothing. So nice! That night it was elegant evening. It was fun to dress up a little and actually have the time to get ready without Jocelyn "helping" me put on my makeup and comb my hair. :)

Loved these little animals!