We had a really great time on our cruise. We went to Key West, Florida; Cozumel, Mexico and Belize City, Belize. Here are some pictures of our excursions. For some reason we didn’t take any pictures in Cozumel

Day 0: Boarding the Ship
We flew out of San Antonio airport early in the morning to Ft. Lauderdale with the Skidmores. We boarded the ship and went straight to the buffet for a delicious lunch. Right off the bat, we all discovered this particular type of roll (bread) that was so delicious, I think for the rest of the trip, each of us had at least one with every meal. We relaxed, toured the boat and waited to set sail (or motor).

The cruise we were on did formal dining, so every night we ate with 4 other people at a designated table in the dining room. They had really great food most of the nights and yummy desserts. It didn’t take us too long on board to figure out that we needed the all you can drink soda pass. So every night while we were eating the delicious sourdough rolls (with real butter) and waiting for our dinner, we were happily sitting there drinking way too much Diet Coke.

All of us at our dining table.

Almost everynight, after dinner, we would go to the show and then play Hearts in the game room. The first night we played until 1:30 in the morning. I don’t know what we were thinking… the rest of the week it seemed like I was trying to catch up on my sleep.

Day 1: Key West, Florida
We woke up to beautiful, sunny, Key West. We found a place to rent Jetski’s and toured around the whole island with a guide and small group. We san mangroves and the southern-most point of Florida. We were in the water south of Key West, just 90 miles of waves between us and Cuba. After our Jet Ski tour we walked around looking at shops and go some famous key lime pie from Kermit’s Key Lime Pie Shoppe.

Steve and Kendee in front of our ship in Key West.

Aimee and Kendee in front of the Marina.

Steve, Kendee, Lance and Aimee with our jetski’s.

Steve and Kendee with Kermit’s Key Lime Pie

Then, we went back to the ship to eat a late lunch in the Windjammer. There we found key lime pie too… of course I had another piece after lunch. Can you blame me? After all the sun and food, we took a nap before dinner. This cruising stuff is hard work.

After our dinner and a show, we walked around the boat outside and played a game of shuffle board… We played couples. Either the boat was really slanted and/or all of us were really bad. It think it was one of the lowest scoring games in history. Regardless, the Skidmores squeaked by for a win.

Day 2: Cozumel, Mexico
As soon as we got off the ship in Cozumel the guys got to work trying to find us some transportation. We ended up with a great deal on Jeep with a hard top and air conditioning. This ended crucial to our happiness because it was sooooo HOT in Cozumel. We drove around seeing the area and looking for a good place to snorkel or for the boys to dive. We didn’t find anything too easily. But we stopped at this really cute little area on the beach and enjoyed chips, salsa and guacamole with our Mexican Cokes and Manzanitas.

Soon after that we found a little place on a beach where the boys arranged a dive trip. While the guys were gone, Aimee and I each got a massage on the beach. Just as my massage (which was great) was over, I grabbed my book and found a lounge chair in the sun. Two minutes later it started pouring! Again, great call on the hard top jeep. So, Aimee and I found shelter in the shack restaurant and read our books until Steve and Lance got back. Then we drove around the island some more until it was time to go.

That night, after dinner, we went hung around the ship and went to the Midnight Buffet. We really were eating the WHOLE time.

Day 3: Belize City, Belize
This was my favorite day. I had been wanting to see Belize for a while and it was a big reason we decided to do this cruise. Once we were in port, we quickly found a nice gal, named Melanie, who agreed to take us to Lamanai, a Mayan city with Mayan temples. It was hard to get this tour because we didn’t have that much time in port and Lamanai is about 2 1/2 hours each way from our port. We quickly were on our way. We drove about an hour in a van and then got on a small boat with Melanie and our Lamanai guide/boat driver named Amir and went up a river for another hour and a half. I really wanted to see Lamanai, but I wasn’t too excited about how much travel it was going to be to get there. I thought that the river part was going to be torture, but it ended up being one of the best parts of the whole trip. It was beautiful. There were tons of trees on the banks and the water was like glass. It was so much fun to be on the boat. The whole time, my eyes were searching the banks for the crocodiles that live in the river. I was actually a little disappointed that I didn’t see one.

Steve and Kendee on the boat in the river.

Lamanai was absolutely amazing. It is so secluded that there aren’t too many tourist there. At least, that’s how it was for us. We had the whole place to ourselves and the others from our ship that had booked the tour through the boat. We immediately went right to the ruins and saw a smaller temple that has the face of a jaguar in the side. It was really cool to be the only ones standing in front of a Mayan temple. No one else to get in our pictures!

Steve, Kendee, Lance and Aimee in front of Lamanai, which means Submerged Crocodile in Mayan.

The large temple (obviously) was my favorite. The other tour group was at another location when we got to the large temple, so just the four of us climbed the very steep steps to the very top of temple. It was fantastic. I am not going to lie, it was a bit scary on top but so worth it. We were at the highest elevation spot in all of Belize when we were at the top of the temple and we could see for miles and miles all around. Coming down was a bit tricky and I had sore quads for days after.

All of us climbing the steep steps of the largest temple in Lamanai.

All of us on top of the tallest temple in Lamanai. We were actually at the highest point in all of Belize.

Last we saw another small temple, but the cool thing about this one is that it had an exposed face of a Mayan king on it. We are one of the last people to ever see the actual face because they are working to cover it with a relica. It is deteriorating too quickly and they want to preserve it. So we saw guys working on it. Pretty cool.

Steve and Kendee in front of the face of one of the Mayan kings.

Then we jumped back in our boat and toured back up the river. Once on land, we had a fantastic, authentic Belize meal of coconut rice, chicken, and salad. I really loved Belize. I would definitely go back for an entire vacation there.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Kendee's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.