To Start the Year

Now this is the right way to start the new year! Ryan and I took a five-night Caribbean cruise this past week. We were already heading down to Lakeland, FL to celebrate Grandpa Hooks birthday, and we decided to add a vacation on to celebrate our anniversary, which is January 12 (9 years!). Last Sunday, January 2, we drove down to Tifton, GA, and then on Monday morning, we got up and drove to Tampa, FL. We were supposed to board the ship between noon and 4:00, so we could sail at 5:00. Unfortunately, there was fog in Tampa that morning which kept our ship, Radiance of the Seas by Royal Caribbean, from arriving in port on time. That meant they were late disembarking everyone on the previous cruise, so we were late boarding. The parking attendant gave us a heads up about that so we went into Tampa to grab some lunch and stop at Wal-Mart to pick up some snacks for our trip. When we returned to port, we waited in another terminal for about an hour; Ryan read some of his book, and I worked on our digital scrapbooks. We finally boarded the ship about 6:00, and we set sail about 7:00. Here's a picture of the ship taken later in the week; the Tampa port didn't look this beautiful!
After getting on board, we dropped our things off in our stateroom and headed to dinner. We opted for the "My Time Dining" option which meant we could go whenever we wanted instead of choosing a stated first or second dining time. We both enjoyed a delicious fresh kiwi, strawberry, pineapple with a honey-lime sauce appetizer. Then Ryan had one of the best strip steaks he had ever tasted while I enjoyed a prime rib. He finished dinner off with a chocolate cherry cake slice while I loved my strawberry meringue dessert. What a great first meal! After dinner, we participated in the required muster drill and then just enjoyed walking around a bit before heading to bed.

Tuesday was our first full day on board, and we were sailing the entire day. It was so nice to sleep in a bit! We enjoyed a bit of breakfast, and then headed to the movie theatre to watch "Toy Story 3." It was a pretty cute little movie. After the movie, we walked around the ship for a little bit and then we ate some lunch (BBQ sandwich for Ryan and a turkey spinach wrap for me). After lunch, we headed back to our cabin and this picture shows what we did until dinner:

It was a gorgeous day, so we sat out on our balcony and read all afternoon. Actually, I worked on our digital scrapbooks some too, but it was mostly reading. A day of relaxation was just what we wanted! This picture shows the view we had on Tuesday from our balcony. Gorgeous, right?

And this was the sunset we enjoyed that evening. Again, gorgeous!

It was formal dinner night, so we eventually got dressed up and headed to dinner. Ryan started his meal with a papaya pineapple soup that was fantastic. My lobster bisque was very good too. We both enjoyed steak and strawberry cheesecake too. Another good meal in the books! Here's a picture we took just before heading to dinner.After dinner we went to the theatre to watch the ship's production called "City of Dreams." You know Ryan and I love to go to the theatre, and we have seen our fair share of shows. Most cruise ships have excellent entertainment on board; to be honest, this production was alright, but nothing to brag about. It was still fun to see a show though!

When we woke up the next morning, we were docked in Costa Maya, Mexico. When we looked over the railing to the water below, this is what we saw. Amazing!

Ryan and I really wanted this vacation to be nothing but relaxing, so we picked the "Jungle Beach Break" excursion to go on. A bus picked us up from the port and drove about 20 minutes away to a secluded beach. We quickly scouted out the perfect place to sit, on the chairs behind this palm tree.

For most of the day, we sat in two of these lounge chairs and enjoyed this view. Our waitress brought us drinks, we read and simply looked out at the water. Perfect.

We did get up to go get some lunch (nachos and quesadillas), but otherwise, I was planted in that chair. Ryan went for a long walk though. Here's what he saw while he was out.

This too. I thought this was a really cool picture.

They had a few little boats like this available too, but we didn't get one.

Our wonderfully relaxing afternoon finally came to an end and the bus took us back to port. This was the sunset we saw as we were leaving Costa Maya.

We went to dinner after watching the sunset. We both started off with a wonderful cranberry mango soup (they really had some yummy soup combos). Ryan enjoyed his parmesan turkey and I loved my asparagus and brie tart. We were so full we skipped dessert this evening. After dinner we went to the theatre where we enjoyed an act by Paul Boland, "the man of 1000 voices." He is an impressionist, and he was fantastic! We were really impressed with his talents. At one point, he had about 5 kids come up on stage to help with his Kermit the Frog set. One adorable little boy was named George; he appeared to be about 5. Well, two skits after Kermit, he did the Beatles, and in his Paul McCartney voice said "Are you ready George?" When he said that, the little boy, George, came running back up on stage which took Paul (and George's family) completely by surprise. Well, little George apparently liked being on stage, so Paul let him. He sat near him and watched, and Paul involved him in a few songs too. It was obvious this was not planned, but it was adorable to watch and made the evening a little bit more fun!

The next morning, we woke up in Cozumel, Mexico. This was the sunrise we enjoyed over the city.

After a quick breakfast, Ryan and I disembarked and met up with the rest of our group to go on a snorkeling excursion. There were about two dozen of us on this trip. We went to three different reefs and spent about 20 minutes at each one. The fish we saw were amazing! They were so brightly colored, just like what we imagined they would like. The water was perfect too; fairly warm and completely clear. We actually took an underwater disposable camera, but we haven't had a chance to develop the pictures yet. This was a great excursion!

We did a small amount of shopping when we returned and then we headed back to the ship for lunch. We spent the afternoon laying near and playing in the ship's pool. Not surprisingly, we got a little too much sun this afternoon. In the evening, we cleaned up and went to one of the ship's specialty restaurant called "Chops." It's an upscale steak restaurant, and it didn't disappoint. Our filets were delicious and the potato sides were yummy too. After dinner, Ryan went to watch one of the bowl games (and win $30 on the casino's slots!) while I went to see Levent perform a show. Levent is an illusionist, and he was pretty good. I enjoyed his show a lot. Ryan and I met up afterwards and listened to a performer give a Billy Joel and Elton John tribute for awhile.

Friday morning was our last day onboard, and it was another full day at sea. It was a beautiful day, but unfortunately, the seas were a little more choppy. You could definitely feel the boat moving! However, we wanted to enjoy our last day. Mid-morning we participated in a mile long walk around the top deck for "Walk for Wishes." Royal Caribbean partners with the Make-A-Wish Foundation since cruising is now the second most requested wish for participating children. After lunch we went to the theatre for a backstage tour they were offering. It was really interesting to hear a few of the performers and technicians talk about what it takes to run the shows on the ships. We got to go up on stage to see how it is set up, and we went backstage to see what all goes on back there. We both enjoyed this tour. However, when this was over, neither of us were feeling well, so we went back to our cabin, took motion sickness medicine and promptly fell asleep for a couple of hours. Soon after waking up, this was the sunset we saw. Not a bad way to end the trip!

After not feeling well, neither of us wanted a really big dinner, so we went to the buffet where we could get a variety of smaller portions. We didn't feel up to watching the entertainment that night, so we just took it easy. Finally about 11, we realized we had to pack up and get our bags outside our stateroom so the crew could get them.

On Saturday morning, they actually called us to disembark about 2 hours ahead of schedule. We realized later though they made everyone (customers, crew, etc) disembark so they could thoroughly disinfect the ship. There was a virus going around that affected about 150 passengers, so the CDC made them go through extra cleaning procedures. It delayed the next group's cruise by about 5 hours.

Once we disembarked, we called Ryan's mom to check in. She had been keeping the girls all week for us. Thank you so much Liz! Also, thank you to my parents who kept the girls multiple times during the week to give Liz a break. We really appreciate your willingness to stay with the girls so we could enjoy this amazing and beautiful week! This was absolutely a great way to start out the new year!