Cruisin' Together

The day after Christmas was the start of an adventure for our family. Instead of eating leftover Christmas dinner and watching the kids play with their new toys, we spent it by (tearfully, at least on my part) leaving our kids to travel to New Orleans for a family cruise! My parents treated us kids and our spouses to a Western Caribbean cruise and we have waited almost a year for it! We were soooo excited! It was Bryan's and my first cruise, and we didn't know what to expect. To read about our adventure in New Orleans click here.

Sunday morning, after traipsing around New Orleans like a bunch of unashamed tourists, we got into some taxis (warning: taxi drivers in New Orleans are CRAZY!!) and headed to the terminal. There was a big building where we went through customs and checked in with the cruise line to receive our ship cards. The ship cards are what Norwegian Cruise Lines (and I'm sure other cruise lines) use to keep track of your charges. Instead of using your credit card or cash every time you want something on the cruise, you just use your ship card and it keeps a tab for you! Then we walked out of the building and TA-DA! There was our ship! It was huge! All I could think about was the movie Titanic (before it sank) because I was so in awe!

We got on the ship and went to one of the buffet restaurants called Raffles to eat lunch and wait for our rooms to be done. When they were ready, we got to finally explore our room! The beds were separated into two twin beds (we had them pushed together by the second night, but the first night I slept so good!!) and we had a huge window that we could look out and see the ocean (I highly recommend an oceanview room instead of an inside cabin!). Our room was so cute and I loved it!

This is our room! Isn't it cute? You can see which side of the room is Bryan's side (aka: the messy side). And do you see the cute little washrag mouse? They made this cute little mouse out of a washrag?? So talented!That night we went to dinner at the Italian restaurant for Jeremiah's birthday dinner. It was tasty and also our first experience with "all you can eat" dining!Happy Birthday Jage!That night we went to the welcome party show. Bryan and I decided against buying a "soda card" for $50 a piece, even if it meant unlimited soda for the remainder of the cruise. But $100? On soda? I'm too cheap for that. I did tell Bryan he could buy a soda a day (which cost $2 a piece) but we later learned that soda is cheap at the ports, so we stocked up there instead. We figure we spent a total of maybe $20 on soda the entire week. But anyway, this was Bryan's first soda of the cruise, and he sucked it dry! He literally was slurping the drips out of the can!

Carissa, Mom, and Kelli getting ready to play bingo! They kept telling us to wave our hands in the air, and, well, the girls obliged!

Here is Bryan outside my parent's balcony on the ship. Look at the color of the water! If I didn't want to be shark bait, I would have jumped overboard for a quick little swim!

Bryan and I at the Japanese dinner the next night. It was so yummy and I totally ordered like three appetizers and two dinners (no, I didn't eat all of it - but most of it!).

No cruise is complete without towel animals! It's a bulldog!!!

PORT 1: COSTA MAYA

All of the ports had these little "towns" meant just for cruise tourists. It's where we got off the ship and they were basically tourist traps full of souvenir shops and bars. This one had a pool! We often stayed here for a little bit because the store owners would bargain with you, but we wanted to see the real places, so we always left the tourist towns and hung out in the actual cities.

At the real Costa Maya! And yes, I'm wearing a sweater! In the Caribbean! For some reason I was cold in the shade! We ate lunch at a restaurant that served us on the beach and then lounged in beach chairs and hung out. The area had a terrible hurricane a few years ago and they are still rebuilding, so it was interesting to see shops and restaurants set up in the broken and delapidated buildings. Not much had been actually rebuilt!

Diet Coke?? Nope, Coke Light. Get it right people! And we saw NO Pepsi products where ever we went...weird.

Adam, Bryan, and Carissa getting a massage. On the beach! And an hour massage was only $20! So worth it! I got a half hour for $10. It was so awesome and very cool to get a massage while hearing the waves crashing!

Ahhhh! Beached hairy things!! Oh, I mean, Jage and Adam working on their tans?

Bryan and I on the beach. A nice white sandy beach with warm water. *sigh*

Me and the boat. I like standing by large things because it makes me look skinnier :)

Guatemala:

In Guatemala we took a boat tour to see the jungles, the Rio Dulce (which was beautiful!), and Livingston, a town not far from where we docked. We were a little worried about Guatemala because we had heard of warfare and violence, but we figured NCL wouldn't dock somewhere super dangerous right? I am SO glad we did the boat tour - it was one of the highlights of the tour!

Pelican Pier.

On the way into the Rio Dulce. This is an important part of the Guatemala culture. Why? Because it is the only place in the country where two religions (voodoo-ism and another religion) come together and practice both religions together. (That was for you Adam! Why? Because you love Jessie!)

Some of the homes on the river were beautiful!

And some were not as beautiful! But the best part of the tour was seeing how the local people really lived. This home had little monkeys for pets, and we stayed awhile looking for the monkeys and letting the little children in the house wave to us. So cute! Everyone there dried their clothes outside.

The walls of the Rio Dulce. Carissa and I kept singing the Jurassic Park theme song... (Kelli and Jage were on another excursion).

We pulled up to a little house that also served as a little shop, and the local kids paddled up in homemade canoes to sell us shells. None of them had life jackets, and the were probably as young as three or four years old! I bought a ring made from a nut shell and my parents bought a shell from the kids. They also had animals like parrots, turtles, and chickens in their canoes. It was so weird, but so cool!

These are lotus flowers! It was so beautiful!

We ate lunch at Livingston at this hotel. It had no windows and an awesome view of the ocean.Bryan and Carissa walking down the street in Livingston. We didn't have a lot of time to shop, but I thought it had some of the best shopping around!

In the "tourist town" in Guatemala. They stamped our passports here too!

Belize:

In Belize we were without our official tour guide (my dad) and Kory and Ana Lee, who did an excursion on their own from the cruise ship. Bryan negotiated with several taxi drivers until we found the best price to get to the beach. Our taxi driver also took us on a city tour and showed us how the locals live and some cool historical sites. When we got to the beach we were surprised to find out there was a water slide included with the admission to the beach! It was so fun, but in the end we had to stop going down because it was bruising our bottoms!

Welcome to Belize? There were a couple checkpoints where the taxi driver had to show his credentials. I think they were supposed to make us feel more secure, but we felt a little intimidated!

Bryan at the enterance to the beach. It was also a local museum, so it was decorated all pretty. I don't know what Carissa is doing...

To be completely honest, I'm not sure if that is me or Kelli in the brown swimsuit because we have the same swim suit (help me out here Kelli!). The beach was man-made on this side for the water slide, but it was still a little chilly!

Here is the water slide! It was so high up and so fun!

Adam landing from the waterslide.

Bryan had a thing where he would buy authentic food where ever he could. In Belize he got red beans and rice. And besides the potato salad looking questionable the beans and rice were delicious!

For New Year's we went to the steakhouse on the ship. We even all dressed up! It was fun and fancy. Cheers to your nasty shrimp cocktail!

My dad told us girls that he would give us each $20 if we ate an oyster. Carissa is basically showing you how we felt about eating it! They were nasty, although Kelli thought they weren't that bad...gross! I gagged afterwards, and I will never eat them again! (Well, only if the price is right? Does someone want to offer $100??)

Bryan and me on New Year's after dinner. We took pictures with the boat's professional photographers, and while we were waiting Bryan bought me a rose :) Isn't he sweet?

The GIRLS! Such a good looking bunch!

Cozumel:

Bryan and I in Cozumel. I had to wear his hat because my forehead was super sunburned! Cozumel was by far our favorite port because the beaches were awesome!

Waiting for the water taxi to take us to Playa Del Carmen (another awesome beach town) where we were to meet our "Book of Mormon Tour" guide. And look at our breakfast!

See what I mean about beautiful beaches? This was at Playa Del Carmen.

At the enterance to Tulum, an old temple ruin site that we explored with our guide. It has amazing Book of Mormon ties!

This is one of the priest's houses. Notice the pillars and the separate rooms? They mimic the set-up of the actual temple, including an alter for prayers.

The temple at Tulum.

One of the watchtowers. There were watchtowers on every corner. You can't see it well in the picture, but there are remnants of blue paint on the stones, showing that the buildings here used to be painted bright blue!!

The family at Tulum. It was hot! But we were good sports!

You can see that Tulum is right on the beach. (See the water in the back?). It served as a lighthouse both physically and spiritually.

This is the foundation of another high priest's house (on the bottom of the picture) and in the middle is the tomb where he was buried. Uh-huh! They were buried in their homes! And then another high priest would move in. So in each tomb are several bodies of dead high priests.

Do you see the mask (or face) on the corner? Its eyes are in one section and its mouth in the other? This is basically their art building, where they carved and painted pictures.

A carving of the "descending god" who would come out of the heaven's shining like the sun. (Who could that be?) They show him upside down because he descended, but he didn't actually come down upside down. These carvings of this are everywhere in Tulum.

See the red handprints? These are on the art building and painted thousands of years ago. They were to symbolize the "healing done by laying on of hands" by the descending god.

The temple at Tulum. On the very top are three nitches. The left one is Heavenly Father, the middle is of his son (the descending god), and the third is empty. Why? It's for the Holy Ghost. This is one of few places where you see depictions of all three!

The beach at Tulum. *Sigh*

Remember I said Tulum was also a lighthouse? It's because there are reefs surrounding the temple that caused boats to wreck, but if you came in where the temple was you would find a break in the reefs, allowing you to sail right through without crashing. You can see white caps where the reefs are, but in the middle there are no white caps. That is where the break is.

Bryan back in Cozumel.

At dinner - and of course - being silly!

Chocolate sculptures!

They had a...get ready for it...chocolate buffet!!!

For the last night on the boat we went to Teppanyaki, where they cook the food right in front of you! It was so cool! And yummy!

Saying good-bye to the Utah group at the airport.