A great Spring Break!

We had the very best Spring Break vacation!  In fact, so much fun, I am still trying to accomplish my "re-entry" to my normal routine after 2 days home.  I wanted to share some photos.... which as you know, I feel speak louder than words.

Sailing out of Miami

Boats in the marina

A bird along for the ride



A gorgeous Miami beach we sailed by

Our first night, we went to the "Blue Man Group" show.  It was way cool.




One night, I peeked out and caught the
full moon on the water.  It was very beautiful.

This was our mini-suite.  It was a different
design with wavy walls.  Behind the red curtain
is our balcony.  There was 2 twin beds, flat screen
TV, desk, and a large couch!

After a day at sea, we arrived in Ocho Rios Jamaica!  I love Jamaica and really enjoyed visiting again.  The water is so clear and blue!  And I love the people and their accents.  We signed up to do a shore excursion called "Flavors of Jamaica".  We went to a 1600's plantation and made a Jamaican Jerk lunch on the covered porch.  There were tons of flowers that were very fragrant.  There was a slight breeze that I swear they ordered up somehow to make the whole thing perfect.

View from the porch at the plantation.

 

The set up for cooking.

Getting ready to cook.  There were 12 of us in the group.

Me too!

This is called Callaloo.  It is similar
to spinach or collard greens.

This is the Callaloo shopped up with tomatoes,
onions, garlic, peppers, thyme, and other delicious stuff.

Philip was picked to be the Jerk cook.  He got smoke in his eyes but still did a great job!

This is called Festival.  It is a fried
bread made with flour and corn meal

After the chicken was grilled, we marinated it in Jerk sauce.



This is our lunch.  We also had rice and coconut shrimp.  It was delicious!

Camels in Jamaica!!  You could ride
the camels as a shore excursion. 
I thought it was very curious to see
 desert animals in the tropics.

Walking back to the ship.  It was huge - 4100 passengers, 1700 crew.  19 floors.

Jamaica from the ship

We played "Hand and Foot" every day.  It has become quite the habit.

We had another sea day and then we landed in Costa Maya, Mexico.  This area is known for the Mayan Ruins.  These are very proud Mayan people that honor and respect their heritage.  We signed up to visit the Kohunlich ruins.  It was a 2 hour bus ride each way and 2 hours at the ruins.  The ruins were actually closer to the border of Belize.

Some guys dressed in ancient Mayan costumes



At the speed bumps along the way, there were MANY shelters
set up with people that run out to sell stuff to the
people in the cars.  Pineapples were very popular.
 (In Jamaica, they called the speed bumps "Sleeping Policemen")
 



I'm fascinated by how the people live in these other countries.




Philip on the bus.  It was a long ride but well worth it.

Mayan Ruins



We picked this tour because you could climb the ruin and see the masks.

Climbing the ruins

This is actually a lake!

The beach by the pier.

Check out our ship!  It is so tall!  This is the butt of the ship. 
There were no "outside window" cabins and the entire side was balcony rooms. 
So you either got a balcony or an inside cabin without windows. 
This is unique in the cruise industry.  We sure didn't mind!

 The next day, we docked in Cozumel, Mexico.  I can't even express how hot it was.  Our plan there was to just go into shore and shop.  Cozumel has changed so much since I was last there about 10 years ago.  We decided to see if we could get everything we needed in an hour.  We were pretty close to that goal.  That is some quick shopping!

Philip  is getting tired of the photos.

Cozumel, Mexico

 Back on the ship, we did get tired of eating in the dining room so one night, we treated ourselves to an extra "Specialty" dining.  This is Cagney's which is their fancy chop house steak house.  You can eat in the dining room for free but Specialty dining costs you extra.  For a good steak, we were A-Okay with paying a little more.

Here we are at Le Bistro which is the ship's French restaurant (another planned speciality restaurant).  It really is delicious.  Philip and Chuck enjoyed escargot.  Mom and I skipped that part but loved our items just as much. 

One place we found almost as soon as we got on the ship was a restaurant called O-Sheenans.  It was an Irish pub that served Irish pub food.  We loved the Mozzerella Sticks, Spinich artichoke dip, and a delicious chef salad.  They also had ice cream sundaes and rootbeer floats you could purchase there.  We ate there quite a few times.  On our last day on the ship, Philip and I went to load up on our last order of mozzarella sticks.  Yum!

We tried to take in what the ship had to offer for entertainment but honestly, we enjoyed our room, balcony, and doing our own thing.  We did a few shows....Blue Man Group, Legends (impersonations), Howl at the Moon (dueling pianos), the hypnotist, and various music acts around the ship.  One of the ship activities is called "Quest".  This is sort of like an adults only savenger hunt in the lounge.  You have groups of 6-10 people  (often strangers) that group together to do/show the list of stuff called out.  Things like dentures, or a man in lipstick or no pants, or here are women on all 4s barking like a dog.  It always seems to end with men dressed as women. It amazes me what people are willing to do to win the game.  It is very irreverent and extremely funny.  I took this photo because I just knew I had to blog about it but honestly, most of it would not be right to take a photo because people were often semi-undressed.

Philip went to the teens club the first night and really didn't care for it.  He said there were about 120 teens onboard and it was a circus.  Sometimes the kids clubs are a hit, and sometimes they are a huge miss.  The good news is this meant Philip hung out with us the whole time.  He had a bunch of movies and shows downloaded on his Kindle "just in case".  We also watched the steady stream of movies in our room.  They had about 5 news stations, one entertain stations from London and one "favorite shows" station that showed one sitcom about every 45-60 minutes (which was very irritating to me).  I didn't do one stitch of reading the entire cruise (shame on me).  

I did buy Philip 1 package of internet time (270 minutes) which he rationed out so he could keep in touch with Tiffany.  They decided to instant message instead of email and he usually got between 30-40 minutes a day and then he had to wait another day to connect so it would last the entire cruise.  We never did find free wifi on shore.

One of my goals on the trip was to reconnect with Philip....and that is exactly what happened.  It was "just like old times".  We laughed until we almost peed our pants.  We had some good discussions.  We enjoyed everything we did together.  We even held hands!!  Anyone with a teen knows that is a huge deal!  To me, it was a clear indicator that going on the cruise was exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.  I came away knowing I need to be sure to make these vacations a high priority if we can.  I can't think of a better way to connect yet disconnect from the day to day routine and obligations.

Mobility wise, I did pretty good.  I found out the week we left for the cruise that I injured my SI joint in  my hip several weeks ago (remember the butt pain I mentioned when I returned to the gym???...Yeah that).  That is why I am getting the significant back and leg pain.  But I didn't  have time to fix it before the trip.  I found I was able to get around the ship okay.  This time, the movement of the ship didn't really seem to bother me....and despite being on a huge ship, it really was calm.  The piers where we docked were all really really long.  In Jamaica, I chose to walk it.  By the time I got ashore and then back, I decided I wouldn't do that again.  It was way too far.  In Costa Maya, they had a trolley that drove back and forth on the pier.  We took advantage of that.  In Cozumel, they had guys with the two seater biking cart things.  For a "tip", they would pedal you in or back.  We picked one up shortly after getting off the ship.  That poor guy really got a workout with Philip and I in the cart.  We gave him $10.  When it was time to go back, he was about 1/2 way down the pier and saw us.  He beelined for us and passed several people waiting to bike us back.  He dropped us right next to the ramp to get onboard.  Again, we gave him another $10.  Well it was well worth it to me.  I realize that is a ton of money in Mexico but it got done what I needed.  Yeah I wish I wasn't disabled and I wish I could go and do what I wanted without problems but that isn't my deck of cards.  It was obvious it would be very difficult for me to travel alone anymore which makes me pretty sad.  But I am proud of myself for doing what I could and getting around pretty well....and better than last year.

Easter morning, we got off the ship and started the long trip home. We shared a cab to the airport with Mom and Chuck but they were on a different airline so we were in different terminals.  Philip and I connected through Minneapolis.  We had a tight connection and we walked it and had about 10 minutes to spare.  We all agreed we had the best time and loved the itinerary and the ship.  I'll be watching for the next hot deal to cross my internets.