Cruise (Part 2) The Destinations

We went to Labadee, Haiti first.

This is part of an Island that is owned by Royal Caribbean, so it was basically an extension of the ship with the exception that you’re supposed to tip the guys who drag a lounge chair out for you. I actually didn’t get any pictures here because we were having camera difficulties this day.  We didn’t do much, though.  We went on this cruise with Scott’s parents and his two sisters and their husbands.  There were eight of us altogether, and when we got to Labadee, we walked all the way down to the end of the beach and found a little tree.  We crammed eight lounge chairs under this tree and all of us just laid their reading for at least an hour!  Some of us tried to get in the water, but the beach we were near was not very nice—slimy and kind of stinky.  If Labadee is ever on our destinations again for a future cruise, we would probably rent some wave runners or something.   Their was a big buffet lunch with jerk chicken and jerk ribs among other food ~nothing too amazing, but it was ok for a day.  We bought our first souvenir here—a little 8x10 painting:

Next we went to Falmouth, Jamaica.  The boys all went on a tour through Real Jamaican Tours.  They hiked Dunn River Falls, Secret Falls and did crazy things like jump off cliff edges and hiked through the waterfalls. 

Us ladies walked into town, roamed around for a while as a bazillion Jamaicans tried to sell us tours and goods. 

We eventually decided to take a taxi van to Montego Bay.  It was about a 40 minute drive, then we got out and spent a while shopping up and down the main street.  At one point we ended up following a Jamaican lady who was waiting for us outside one of the stores.  She took us all the way down the road and into an alley that was jam-packed full of  little shack-shops.  Everyone is trying to get you to buy things.  I did end up buying earrings from the lady we followed all the way there—just to be nice.  Not before I haggled a good deal, though.  I was nervous to go shopping without Scott—he’s my haggle-go-to-guy.  But I think I did pretty good.  When we were done haggling and being hassled, we walked back down the street in search of a beach.  We found a really nice one (but you had to pay $6/person to get in)  we were tired of looking for the free beach, so we paid it.  And it was a really really nice beach with beautiful water and soft sand.

We got in an hour or so of swimming, laying out and then we got hungry.  It was about that same time that the clouds started rolling in.  We were sitting at a table at an outside restaurant.  We ordered what we thought was safe choices and then we waited over 45 minutes for the food to come.  It started pouring rain while we were sitting there.  We were mostly covered, but the winds blew some of the wind on us. 

Then the food came…

Remind me never to get food in Jamaica again…the only edible looking thing was the French fries!  The fish…not so much.  The jerk chicken was still pink inside. 

   We were meeting the taxi van group at 3:30, and by that point it was 3:00 and pouring rain, so we started walking back to the van location under our towels. Luckily the rest of the group was there too, so we left a bit earlier than planned. 

We got back to the ship and then I took a shower and got ready for dinner. I waited for Scott to return, but I really wanted to go back to the terminal to pick up an wooden sword for Luke.  The ship was going to leave port in less than an hour and Scott wasn’t back, so I started just going back out on my own.  Lucky for me, I ran into hubby at the elevator and he joined me.  We decided against the sword in case there was a problem getting it through airport security, and got him a wooden alligator instead.  We also got the boys shirts and Scott got himself a hat in Jamaica. 

All in all, Jamaica was not my favorite place, but good to see what I did see there. 

Our last destination was Cozumel, Mexico.  Scott and I have been here before, but Scott went Scuba Diving and I just went shopping within the terminal, so neither one of us ever really saw much of Cozumel. The ship docked really early, so Scott and I got out into the city streets by 8am.  We wondered down the streets and bought a pair of sterling silver and red coral earrings for my mom from a street vendor. We headed back to meet up with the rest of our group to join them on our excursion. 

We wanted to do something really fun in Cozumel this time, so we signed up the whole family group for The Amazing Cozumel Race!  It’s set up like the TV show, The Amazing Race  and the race takes you to many different parts of the city.  It was a great way to explore Cozumel in a new way!  

We split up into two teams…

But all in all there were about 13 different teams racing that day.  

We were given the first clue and then we were off!

We had a map and a few wristbands to get us into places like a museum and onto a boat. 

Not these boats…I just thought they were cool.

Waiting for our boat.  The boat part was cool because they take you out on the water and then someone from your group has to jump out and snorkel in the water to find a sunken ship.  The name on the sunken ship was a clue to help you with your next destination. 

  They also had us go to a museum to find a bunch of answers to questions for a clue.  Someone had to get a tattoo (not real) of a Mayan number that would lead to the next spot.  We also had to find a couple markets and shops.  It was really fun, albeit tiring and really really really HOT outside!!

These guys even place in the top 3!  {Alison, Anthony, Darcy, and Kenny}

After the race, we could either take a cab provided by the Race, or we could find our own way back and explore some more.  We choose to explore Cozumel a bit more, so we started walking.  

We ended up at a little ice cream shop that we could get free WIFI at.  Scott and I were on the hunt for WIFI all day so we could call home. We got some ice cream so we didn’t look like cheap americans that just wanted the internet! 

After we sat down, I realized we were right next to a REAL Mexican Fabric store!!   I was dying! I had to go check it out and after calling home and leaving a message for Luke (he was at preschool) we did! 

The fabric was so cheap it was hard not to leave with armfuls and armfuls!  I decided to get just one kind.  It was measured in meters, but I think I something like 3 yards of this beautiful print:

It was a super interesting process.  I had my own guy following me around to assist me and then there’s like 3 or 4 steps (and different people) to go through before the fabric is in your hands! 

After than we went to find the main street to catch a cab.  We walked into another jewelry shop and bought these cute earrings:

I like them because they look wooden—but apparently they are really black coral. Sure.

We found the other guys (who ditched us when we went into the fabric store) and we all got a cab back to the terminal.  I still wasn’t ready to back to the ship (I guess I really love Cozumel now).  On the drive back I saw a couple spots where we could get a pretty good shot of our cruise ship and since we missed out on the awesome shot of it in Labadee, I was determined.  So we walked a long ways back down the street to get these pictures:

THEN I was ready to go back ;)  

  And once we got back and showered, we did our favorite thing…found some lounge chairs and read our books as we watched the ship pull away from Cozumel. 

I decided Cozumel is the kind of place I would go back to all on it’s own.  They have some nice hotels there and I would definitely go back to check out more of the city. 

And that was the wonderful, relaxing trip to the Caribbean on the Allure of the Seas!  Now back to reality.  Which hit pretty hard…

Thanks Mom and Dad for watching our rug-rats so we could go!! 

****

If you missed Part One, you can read that here!

Cruisin’ (Part One:The Allure of the Seas)

Scott and I just got back from a cruise a couple weeks ago…and I guess I haven’t really gotten back in the daily routine yet.  It’s highly tempting to sit around reading books (like we did on our cruise) instead of tackling laundry and editing pictures to put up on the blog…

We traveled on {currently} the largest cruise ship of the world—Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas!  It.was.big.  But then, all cruise ships seem big to me!  There was a TON of stuff to do on the ship, so it was a good thing that 3 1/2 of our 6 days on the cruise were “Sea” days spent on the ship!

Our Room was pretty cool.  It was located on the 8th deck on the very front of the ship!  The window wall was slanted forward giving us a lot of extra space and making the whole room feel much bigger!  We loved it.  It was also nice to walk through Central Park (a large garden-like area of the ship) to get our room to everywhere else.

{what you can’t see is the couch right behind this little table, and then the closet and bathroom.}

The view out our window at Labadee, Haiti. We had the helicopter deck out in front of us. 

Here’s a view of the ENTIRE ship.  I couldn’t even get it all in the shot!  {This is in Cozumel, Mex}  

Checking out the back of the ship (still in Ft Lauderdale, FL)

Love this view from the back elevators on the ship.  Glittery and beaded floating dresses! 

There are a lot of shows to see while on the ship!  Something for every night if you want. 

Waiting for the show to start in the HUGE Amber Theatre. We saw Chicago, a Headliner show with Ed Turner, Blue Planet (singing, dancing, acrobatics/gymnastics show), Love and Marriage (like the Newlywed Show), and a few other things in this theatre. 

There was a water theater at the back of the ship.  They did amazing shows with acrobatics and high diving.  This was from one of the shows for kids during the afternoon. 

There is an ice skating rink on this ship!  The ice show was my favorite—the ice skaters were amazing and the costumes were awesome.  

They even had free-skate times so we tried that out—not for very long though.  The ice was pretty bumpy and our skates weren’t the quite the right size.

  

There was also a rock climbing wall

And a zip-line

Flow rider was a favorite among our group.  This was the Boogie Board side. I never tried it because the idea of a ton of water spraying in my face and looking ridiculous in front of a stand of gawkers didn’t seem that appealing.  But I enjoyed everyone else doing it!

I even took some videos:

(you’ll have to jump to my site and outside of Google Reader to see them, probably)

They had daily activities on the ship and we joined a few.  We did a scavenger hunt around the ship, and we always tried to meet up and do the trivia sessions.

We also enjoyed LOTS of different places to eat on the ship!

This is all of us (minus Anthony who is taking the pic) at Rita's Cantina

Toward the end of our trip I discovered the Workshop.  I spent an hour one afternoon crafting up this wooden pendant.  Leave it to me to find the crafts even on a cruise ship!! 

We had some free time to kill one night, so we went to the casino for a little $5 challenge.  Scott got lucky on Roulette and Black Jack.   

By Far our most favorite thing to do on the ship was just lounge and read books on our Nooks!  Sometimes we read in the sun and worked on our tan then cooled off in the pool (the Solarium was our favorite for this because it was never crowded).  Other times we just chilled in the shade and read.  So relaxing.  

Dressing up for the two formal nights was fun.  I only got pictures the first night, though.

    

Always have to take pictures with the towel animals…

       

That’s the ship!  Next I will post pictures from the countries we visited…Jamaica, Haiti and Mexico!

{If you’re wondering why these pictures are horrible in quality, it’s because I got scared and decided not to take my DSLR.  Never again will I leave it at home!  I was using poor quality cameras the whole trip and was seriously kicking myself the whole time for not bringing it!}