Cruise Recap: Day at Sea and Miami

 

 The next day of our cruise was a day at sea.  Ryan insisted on getting up early to watch the sunrise over the water. I got up grudgingly but was glad I did in the end.  It was peaceful and beautiful.

 

 

 

We had a leisurely breakfast and then settled in on the deck with a couple of books, our iPods, and a beautiful ocean view.  That was my second favorite moment after the honeymoon.  Just relaxing with each other without a care in the world. 

 

I also scheduled a manicure for myself at the ship spa as a celebrating for not biting them for so long. It was a "fire and ice" manicure where they rubbed cooling gel all over my hands and arms and then massaged them with hot stones. 

 

We also spent some time in the Caribbean Lounge playing more bingo.  

 

I ended up winning five dollars.  Ryan persuaded me to try to "invest it" in the slot machines.

 

So of course, I promptly lost the five dollars.  I still don't understand the appeal of casinos one bit.  I could have taken my five dollars and chucked it over the side of the ship with the same results.

 

After dinner we checked out another show at the ship, and then we went to the comedy show.  We loved the one comedian Rob Little.  Ryan got his picture taken with him.

 

We returned to our room, packed our luggage and left it out for the porters.  When we woke up we were back in Miami.  We had booked ourselves a flight the next day, so we could have an extra day to explore Miami. The ship offered Miami excursions and since we hadn't been successful at finding much on our own we decided to book a double decker bus tour through the Carnival. That bumped us up from being one of the last people allowed off the ship to one of the first people.

 

We sadly said good-bye to the Carnival Victory and headed off on a scorching hot tour of the city.

 

The picture above is for Isaac.  The home of his beloved Miami Heat.

 

You can't read the temperature gauge that well but it was over 100 degrees!

I loved all of the art deco architecture of South Beach and fancy schmancy houses.

We escaped to our hotel to cool down for a bit and then to figure out public transportation to South Beach.  Our hotel had a free airport shuttle, so we took that to the airport and then transfered to a bus.  Not the most direct route to South Beach but definitely the cheapest.   South Beach was beautiful.

 

Blue skies, blue water, white sand.  Amazing.  How can I ever be satisfied with the Jersey Shore again?

We wanted to stay for the sunset thinking it would setting over the water. 

 

But it actually set the opposite direction.  Oh well.  Still pretty.

 

The next day we slept in and then it was time to say good-bye to Miami and head home.

We had such an amazing trip.  It was so nice to take a break from all of the stresses and worries of everyday life and to just focus on each other and talk about our goals and our kids and our life.  We are so grateful to my parents who basically made the trip possible and who watched Isaac the whole time we were gone.   Who knows when we will get a chance to have another long getaway just the two of us with the baby on the way, so it was really special.

Cruise Day 3: Cozumel

Cruise recap continues.  I apologize in advance for the amount of time it will probably take this page to load with all of the photos.

Day 3 was Cozumel.  We didn't get there until the afternoon so we had some time to relax around the ship.  

 

We played Bingo and Ryan won 25 dollars!

We found another towel animal friend in our room.  The next picture shows the view from our ship as we pulled into Cozumel. 

The little area where the ship docked was a total tourist trap full of stores selling junky souvenirs and bars pushing cheap drinks.  We had done a lot of research on excursions in Cozumel.  I have always wanted to see South American ruins and Ryan was game, but the tour to see Tulum required taking a boat over to the mainland and wouldn't have left time for the beach.  We decided to compromise by seeing the Mayan ruins at San Gervasio which was much closer and would still leave time for other things. 

The meeting spot for our tour was in front of that little temple shaped fountain.  It was sooo hot and sunny there and I was already terribly sunburned by this point, so not good for me.

They relocated us to a shadier spot and Ryan decided to enjoy a Corona, since we were in Mexico after all.

Soon we were on our bus with our tour guide Alex.  

Familiar sights along the way.  We also passed a Costco.  Cozumel was a cute little island.  Tourism is their only industry really, so they take it pretty seriously.  I really loved it and would love to have a chance to visit the island again.

Getting a tour of the ruins and learning all about the Mayans.  It was fascinating. The Mayans were so advanced in math and science it is unreal.  

The descriptions were all in Spanish, English and Mayan.  Our tour guide spoke all three as well.  He was excellent!

I don't know if you can tell how sweaty we were, but we were out in the middle of the jungle and it was HOT and humid and we had our bathing suits under our clothes.  Thank goodness they gave us a free bottle of water. 

There were also lots of these iguanas running around sunning themselves.  Ryan enjoyed chasing after them but they really creeped me out.

We picked up a few souvenirs from the shops there.  Ryan loved haggling with the vendors we encountered and was tickled by seeing how cheap he could get them down to.  It was interesting because even though we we were in Mexico, every where we went in Cozumel people were speaking English and accepted American dollars. 

Next it was back to the bus to head to the beach.  The beach was my favorite part of the whole cruise.  It was so beautiful and the water was clear and warm.

First view of the beach:

Toes in the sand.

Seriously, is this not the definition of paradise?

 You could stand in water up to your waist and still see your toes and tiny fish swimming near you.  It was amazing.  Again, a far cry from the water at the Jersey Shore.  Although it was a bit rocky as you can sort of see in the pictures above.

We also had free wifi there so we texted family and sent them some pictures so they could all be jealous.  

My only complaint about the excursions was I wish we could have had more beach time.  It was so peaceful and beautiful and romantic.  When you hear the word "honeymoon" this beach is actually what came to my mind.

Our next stop was dinner.  We knew we wanted to go all out for dinner in Mexico.  Ryan had bought a Fodor's guidebook to Carribean ports and the Cozumel chapter had recommended a place called Pancho's Backyard.  It turned out to be a stone's throw away from our ship.

The book had given them great reviews and we were not disappointed!  We each ordered sort of a sample platter type meal at our waiter's recommendation, as well as appetizers and dessert.

   

Ryan braved their special habenero hot sauce and while he enjoyed it, it made his nose start to run and little beads of sweat form on his forehead.  He loved it though and poured it on his entree.  I touched a little bit to my tongue and had to gulp down water, so I don't know how he managed it.  We bought a bottle to take home though.

on the bathroom door

We watched the sun setting over the water and wished we could stay in Cozumel in that moment forever.  But soon, it was time to head back to the ship.

Carnival is very tricky in that they route all of the traffic coming back to the ship through a huge gift shop. You have no choice but to go through it.  Performers of all sorts are in it too, trying to get any last tips or pesos and encouraging the drunk people to buy condoms (TMI, but true).

We were exhausted when we got back to the ship.  They had scheduled a huge Mexican buffet and dance party that evening.  We were going to rest and then get up to go, but we ended up sleeping right through, which was probably just as well.  We came back to the room to find a swan friend left for us.

We loved every second of Cozumel but were ready to recuperate on our day at sea.