My Cayman Islands Trip!

If you missed the first two posts recapping my cruise, click here and here.

The second stop on our cruise was the Cayman Islands. Thankfully my sister was feeling better and was able to go with me on our excursion in Grand Cayman. Unlike in Cozumel where the ship was able to park by the dock (wait, do ships "park"?), we had to anchor a ways out and ride a smaller boat called a tender to the shore. Let's just say the ride on the tender wasn't as smooth as the main ship. Thankfully the ride wasn't that long.

Me and my sister getting ready for our day in the Cayman Islands

I was super excited about our Grand Cayman excursion because I was finally going to get to fulfill my lifelong dream of swimming with a dolphin! As a kid I would watch reruns of the old TV show Flipper so I guess that's how my dream started. 

We took about a thirty minute bus ride over to Dolphin Discovery. On the Cayman Islands they drive on the left side of the road, so it took me a little bit to get used to looking out and seeing cars on the "other" side of the road (I don't want to say "wrong" side of the road because it's not wrong to them. Lol). I thought it was funny that their "Yield" sign said "Give Way". Also, gas prices there were so high. EEK!

Once we got to Dolphin Discovery, we were provided lockers to store our belongings and handed life jackets (no exceptions, everyone wore one). There were no personal cameras allowed in the area with the dolphins but there were photographers on hand to take our pictures throughout our swim and we had the option to buy copies at the end of our adventure (because of course they want to find another way to get money out of you, and of course I paid for it because I WAS SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS AND WANTED PICTURES). Lol.

We were divided into smaller groups of about 10-12 people. My dolphin's name was Richie and his human counterparts were Marco and Carlos. They gave us some pointers and quick dolphin 101 training before we actually got in the water. At first Richie was a little shy and didn't swim too close to us. Carlos told us if a dolphin doesn't feel like participating, they don't force them, and we could just wait for another group to be done and swim with that dolphin. But after a minute, Richie came over and warmed up to all of us. He even showed off a little by doing flips in the air.

Richie came by and gave kisses to all of us (but he did want a kiss in return). We then got to dance with him and posed for a quick side by side picture.

One by one we each swam to the other side of the body of water and when Richie got to us, we held on to his flippers and he pulled to back to the group. We also got to ride a boogie board and Richie came up behind us and pushed our feet. The whole adventure lasted maybe just over 90 minutes, but again, it was so worth it. 

Like I said, you had to pay if you wanted any pictures. There was an option to purchase a CD which had every picture they took of me and my sister with Richie, (there were 40 pictures total), so I got that. They also printed out two of the pictures with that option.

When the bus dropped us off at the port, we had two hours before we had to be back on the ship, so we walked around for a bit. We decided we wanted a light snack (because we missed lunch and still had three hours until dinner on the ship). We found a Hard Rock Cafe a few blocks from the port. I got this lemonade type drink (yes it was JUST lemonade) and it was amazing. 

On our way back to the ship, we LITERALLY saw a chicken cross the road. I ran after him yelling "I have questions for you!" but he didn't answer me. Lol. 

Thankfully we didn't have to wait too long for a tender to get back to the ship. Cayman Islands was beautiful. It's another place I want to visit when I can spend more than just half a day. And next time I hope to check out one of the beaches!

I hope to get my Jamaica recap up tomorrow!! :)

XOXO!!

My Cozumel Trip!

If you missed the post yesterday regarding my Royal Caribbean cruise, check it out here.

Like I mentioned in that post, we made three stops on our cruise. The first one was in Cozumel. I definitely want to go back when I can spend more than about five hours. My sister was supposed to go with me on the excursion to the Mayan ruins and the beach, but unfortunately she woke up sick that morning. :( So, I headed out to explore Cozumel by myself (well, I was with a group of other passengers from my cruise) but I felt like I was out exploring another country alone. :)

Everyone got a name tag with their tour guide's name on it (so we would remember who was all in our group). My tour guide was named Denisse (so yes, everyone in my pictures has the name Denisse on their shirt). She was running a little late so I had time to explore the port area before we left to go to the Mayan Archaeological Site. There were some natives dressed up in costumes, ready to pose for pictures with tourists (wait, is natives a PC term? I don't know what I can and can't say anymore). There were also some natives in costumes performing a dance, they did a great job! I tried to upload the video but it wouldn't work- boo. Oh well. Oh, I passed on stopping in at Margaritaville but I did take a picture in the over-sized chair out front. 

We took about a 20 minute bus ride to the San Gervasio Mayan Archaeological site. I'm a history nerd buff, so I found it very interesting. If you ever go, I recommend taking a guided tour. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be, but if you go on a tour, you can learn so much more about the history than if you just walked through by yourself. The guided tour gave us plenty of time to take pictures and to venture off by ourselves to get a better look at the ruins. 

Our wonderful tour guide Denisse. Here is she talking about the Mayan calendar

Touching some of the Mayan ruins (hey, I didn't see a sign that told me NOT to)

Yes, I'm a nerd who takes a picture walking along the Mayan path, judge me if you must

I wasn't sure if this statue was a Mayan god or just a random statue. I refused to touch it though (hey- I saw that episode of The Brady Bunch when they were on vacation and touched a statue of some random god and all this bad luck starting happening. I was taking NO chances). Lol

This sign in the gift shop made me laugh. I did buy some cute homemade magnets while I was there

I noticed there were a lot of iguanas around the site. They must be used to humans because they didn't scare off easily. In fact, it seemed as if they were posing for pictures. I tried to get a picture with one- if you look closely, you can see him (or her) in the background. They seemed to have the motto "if you don't bother me, I won't bother you.". I like that motto. :)

After our tour of the Mayan ruins, we got back on the bus and headed to one of the beautiful beaches of Cozumel. It was right by a restaurant called El Pescador (I got a beverage there- it was fantastic). There were beach chairs just outside the patio area (some were covered, some were not) and they were perfect for lying out and soaking up some sun. Thanks to my Mary Kay sunscreen, I didn't get burnt (I'm the only person who can go on a Caribbean vacation and come back as pale as when she left. Lol. There were two guys walking up and down the beach, one had a macaw and one had an iguana on their shoulder. You could pay to have a picture with one of them. If I had taken cash, I would have posed with the iguana, but alas, I was cash-less. I'll do that next time. Words can't describe how beautiful it was- so I'll let pictures do the talking. :)

I was possibly casting a shadow on my legs to make them look tan. Lol

I was seriously in love with the color of the water. And my swimsuit matched it. :)

I love Texas beaches and all, but I can never see my feet when I'm walking in the water in Galveston. Lol.

Pale girl problems: Trying to take a picture on the beach and your legs match the color of the white sand

Stop judging my selfies. I was testing out my new waterproof digital camera. It is capable of taking underwater pictures, but I didn't test it this trip. I wanted to make sure it took good pictures above water first.

It was maybe about 85 degrees or so, but the sand never felt hot. It was very soft sand

Before my tour left, I met some new friends while waiting in the port area. They let me tag along with them during the excursion so I wouldn't be totally by myself. They are awesome! :) Yeah for meeting new friends!

It was definitely a fun day! I loved all of it. I can't wait to go back. I definitely want to spend more time on the beaches! :)

I'll recap Grand Cayman and Jamaica hopefully by next week!

XOXO!

My Royal Caribbean Cruise!

Since most of my blog readers follow me on some form of social media, most of you already know that I went on a 7-day cruise a few weeks ago. But for those of you who don't, I'm finally getting around to updating my blog about it!

Quick blog housekeeping update: In case you haven't noticed, I've added another tab. If you are interested in reading (or re-reading) any of my previous vacation/road trip posts, you can find them all under "Rachel's Travels". 

Okay, back to my cruise. First of all: I. Had. A. Blast! This was my first cruise and I was NOT disappointed. There is SO MUCH to recap that I'm going to divide it up over multiple posts (otherwise you will be scrolling FOREVER through pictures). We won't mention about many pictures I took over the seven days (1430). Don't worry, I'm not going to post ALL of them. :)

I saw so many wonderful places and made some new friends while I was on vacation. Today's post is going to focus on the cruise ship- Liberty of the Seas. Like I mentioned earlier, this was my first cruise so I can't compare Royal Caribbean to any other cruise line, but in my opinion, I think they are fantastic. The ship itself was beautiful. Honestly when you were walking around, you would forget you were on a ship. There were stores, restaurants, shows, swimming pools, putt-putt golf, and water slides. The crew and employees were so nice and helpful. Anytime you passed one (even if you were just walking around), they made a point to say hello to you. They are all from different countries so their name badge not only had their name, but what country they are from. I loved meeting people from all over the world!

We were in one of the cheaper smaller rooms on the ship (think the level that Leonardo DiCaprio's character was on in Titanic) BUT it didn't matter since we were really only in our rooms to sleep. My sister and I shared a room and my folks had their own room. 

The floor of the elevator always had the day of the week listed so you knew what day it was!

The first day I ventured out by myself before supper (dinner, whatever) and took some pictures of the sunset. This picture does not do it justice.

Day 2 we were at sea all day. It was kinda weird to look out a window or walk on the deck and see NOTHING but water around you. I had this unrealistic fear that I was going to fall overboard. Fun fact: I refused to get near the railing at night. Something about total darkness freaked me out. I kept thinking we would hit a bump and I would fly overboard and become shark food (no, I don't know what kind of bump we would hit in the middle of the ocean, it's just how my brain works).

I wasn't kidding when I said you could forget you were on a ship. We saw a FANTASTIC ice skating show that first day. In fact, we saw it again a few days later because it was so good. These skaters were not only on a small rink while twisting, spinning, flipping, and turning at speeds I could never reach while on skates, BUT, they were on a moving ship. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but I did snap a few at the end when they were taking their bows (get it- bows...ship...nevermind, it was a corny joke to begin with).

The second night we got all dressed up fancy for supper and then caught a show afterward. The show had four wonderful singers and they were performing random musical hits.  

The had professional photographers taking pictures around the ship all week

The fifth level of the ship was the shopping level (and my mom's favorite part). There were so many stores: Jewelry. Clothes. Souvenirs. They had a general store that sold items you might have forgotten to pack (toothpaste, razors, sunscreen, Twix bars, you know, important items). There were also a few food places on this level, including a cafe and pizza parlor, all that were free (well, it was included with your ticket). If you wanted a slice of pizza at midnight, you could get one at no extra charge. I possibly ate a lot of pizza at random hours of the day/night. Lol.

This is Jovan, he's from Montenegro. He worked mainly in the general store. We had conversations about American football and basketball. He promised me that he would try and watch baseball at some point (doing what I can to convert people to baseball). :) And yes, I told him to become a Rangers fan.

There was an art gallery on the third level and most of the paintings were for sale or up for auction. My folks enjoyed the Thomas Kinkade exhibit the most, BUT we didn't buy any of them (I think the cheapest one was going for $500. Just a LITTLE out of my price range).

On days we were just at sea we spent time on the 11th and 12th level. That is where the pool, putt-putt golf course, water slides, and free ice cream were located. :) Although we didn't actually swim, we just relaxed in a chair and read. Oh, fun story about the picture on the top left of the collage below. I told you how I had this unrealistic fear of falling over. You will never know how much courage it took to have my feet practically dangling off the edge. Some of the decks had shuffleboard so my dad and sister decided to play a few games of that while my mom and I read.

My parents relaxing in a swing (that faced the water). I know, they are adorable. :)

There was a buffet type place on the 11th level called the WindJammer. It had every type of food you could think of. We ate lunch there a few times, but we usually ate in the main dining room (they served breakfast, lunch, and dinner). The main dining room was divided into three levels. We ate in the Rembrandt level (on the third level of the ship). The WindJammer and main dining room were all included in the price of the ticket- so it was all you could eat. For those wondering, I have started my post cruise diet to lose all the weight I gained on the ship. Lol.

No, I didn't take a picture of every meal. But I did have steak more than once. :) And I did pretty much have sherbet each night for dessert. Except the night that they had white chocolate mousse. 

Like I mentioned before, the staff was amazing. Starting on Day 3, our dinner reservations were at the same time so we ended up with the same wait staff each night. We loved them!

This was Daniel- he is from Romania. He was the maître d and he mainly walked around and told people they looked beautiful. He was always so sweet to my mother. One night she didn't really want anything on the menu so he said he would fix anything she wanted. He made her a chicken Caesar salad.

This was our head waiter Krisna and he's from Indonesia. If one of us couldn't make up our mind what we wanted for dessert, he would bring extras so we could try them all. He loved to make jokes too. 

This is Ping, she's from China. She was so sweet. One evening I started to feel bad during dinner so I left without eating my food (it was on a day where I had spent the whole day out in the sun without eating, so I had heat exhaustion). The next day she asked me how I was feeling (she remembered I had left early). She gave us all a hug on our last night. 

Every room had a stateroom attendant and they would make our beds each morning and then would turn down our beds in the evening. They also left the next day's agenda for us. Our attendant was a man named Dwight- he was so sweet. He was from Jamaica and anytime we saw us, he asked if we were heading out to party all night. He also left amazing towel animals for us each evening. 

On the second to last day, my dad, sister, and I got up at an ungodly hour early to go out on deck and see the sunrise (I had already seen a sunset). At first it was super cloudy and we were afraid we were going to miss it, but the sun broke through the clouds and we saw an amazing sunrise. 

It was SUPER windy that morning. I was convinced I was going to blow overboard. Lol.

I know, this was a lot of pictures today (now you see why I'm dividing my posts up). We stopped in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica, where yes, I took a lot more pictures. I'll try and do a individual post for all of them. Tease for an upcoming post: I GOT TO SWIM WITH A DOLPHIN!!! :) 

101 in 1001 update: I can now cross off #1. Travel outside of the United States. 

XOXO!!