10th Anniversary Cruise

For our 10th Anniversary we went on a cruise! We flew out of Florida and headed to the Western Caribbean.

Our first stop was Labadee, Haiti. Royal Caribbean owns a section of Haiti that is specifically for the cruise. There was square mile of land gated off that had a couple beaches and buildings. We laid out, got bombarded by the local vendors and acted like kids in an inflatable waterpark. 

Next up was Falmouth, Jamaica. Ben really wanted to go to Dunn's Falls. We took a bus out there and got to see lots of the countryside. We didn't know what to expect at the Falls and were completely surprised. We didn't take any pictures but got a sweet DVD of our climb. It was a 600 foot climb that we did while holding hands in a giant chain. There were at least a couple hundred people, all holding hands and winding their way around the falls. It was such a neat, bonding with complete strangers experience. I'm so glad we did it. This is what part of it looked like:

On our way back to the ship we stopped at the spot where Columbus first landed and got supplies. Ben wanted to give him a first bump.

Authentic Jamaican Jerk. Sooo good!

Next up was Grand Caymans. We decided to swim with the stingrays here and I'm so glad we did. This boat took us out in the middle of the ocean where there was a sandbar. These stingrays had been at this particular sandbar for like 30 years. They all had names and our "stingray experts" knew them and were super knowledgeable. We got to hold them, kiss them, and they rubbed our backs. It was such an unforgettable experience.

Our last port of call was Cozumel, Mexico. Ben's only request on this cruise was to see the Mayan ruins so that we did. This day was my only complaint. First off, it was almost unbearably hot. We had a brief window of time before our boat left and the majority of time was spent traveling to and from the ruins. Once we actually got to the city of Tulum we only had 2 hours to see the ruins and our tour guide decided to take his sweet time to actually get us into the "city". We spent almost an hour walking to the gates itself, then, once we were in he kept stopping us at random spots to tell his random history. Now, I'm all for learning something new, but the stuff he was telling us wasn't anything I hadn't heard before. The ruins were beautiful and we wanted to take our time to just wander but we were running out of it. We finally snuck away from the group and wandered around. I was seriously sick at this point though. I was hot, and really dehydrated so I was in a rotten mood. We took some pictures and made the long trek back to the air conditioned bus and the Dairy Queen right by it. A blizzard never tasted so good!

On the boat we had a couple formal nights, Ben tried out the FlowRider a couple times, our state room attendant left us fun towel animals and we had some AMAZING food. One night we had this dessert that we called the triple B. It was a banana creme brule that was to die for. We asked our server if we could have it another night and he pulled some strings and had the chef make our table a whole tray. We each had two! We saw some really good shows, played a hilarious game of Quest, played in the arcade and missed our kids like crazy whenever we saw kids close to their age. It was our first cruise and will most certainly not be our last. 

Once we got back to Florida we stopped by Cocoa Beach to see my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin. It was so good to see them, it had been WAY too long. Of course the kids were excited to see us again, but I think they were more excited about all the things we brought back for them. I may have gone a little overboard trying to keep the number even between them. Oh well.