Caribbean Cruise - March 2011!!!!

Yay!  It's finally time for a tropical vacation and a healthy dose of vitamin D!  We flew to Orlando, FL and spent a few days in the area before our cruise was scheduled to leave.  This was a great way to "explore" with our rental car, and stretched our vacation out a little longer too!

The most epic mini golf place EVER!  Sooo fun!

 

 

 

Turtles...

and Gators.... (yeah, seriously, LIVE gators)...

...and Geckos!  Oh my!

Our first view of Cocoa Beach.  We went through the surf shops, sunned on the sand, and played football out in the ocean.

 

Finally time for our cruise to leave.  Here we are navigating the channel out to the open ocean (in the background).  From there we turned left (south), and followed the Florida coastline until dark.  Notice how small the fishing and ski boats look!



Outdoor shuffleboard on Deck 11 - awesome!

After dinner one night, exploring outside.

We had a new "towel creature" waiting for us every night when we headed to our room.



Pulling into port - Cozumel, Mexico

A great view of our ship

Streets of Cozumel

In Mexico we couldn't wait for more time on the beach, so our excursion was a "Beach Break" at this all inclusive resort.

 

 

Beautiful sunsets off the boat every night - this was after our day in Mexico.

Next stop - Guatemala!!

We took a River excursion up the Rio Dulce - took this small boat along the coastline to the mouth of the river, and then turned upstream.

Some places were sooo dreamy...

...and others not so dreamy.

These sheer limestone cliffs flanked us on both sides as we zoomed through the jungle.  We almost ran over a manatee!



Local kiddos in their dugout canoes

This kid was catching dinner for his family - blue crabs and fish.

We stopped to explore some natural hot springs, and do a little spelunking in the caves.

A little hesitant to be the first one in!!

Beautiful hand crafted wares for sale.

Snack break!

The front boat was ours.

Such a beautiful country!

Children at the Mayan boarding school learn to play the marimba.

Ancient Mayan ruins - kinda like a sundial.



This looks like a gift wrapped bow, but is the bloom on this bamboo species!

We stopped in the town of Livingston for some lunch.

Wild crocodiles! Yikes!

Next stop: Belize!  Yay!  Our excursion was cave tubing and zip-lining... and it lived up to all expectations.  So much fun!  We even spotted wild howler monkeys playing in the trees as we packed our tubes to the "put in" spot.

After tubing, and a traditional Belizean meal, we suited up for the zip line adventure.



Um... kinda impossible to look cool!

Central American driving can get a little intense!



Of course.... even in Belize!  But alas, no poncho for Chance.

Our shuttle to take us back our to our cruise ship.  The C.A. is for Central America, not California!

And our last stop - Key West, Florida!

Hop aboard this "train" to go into town.



Everything in this store is made of sea sponges.

There were wild chickens everywhere!  They really keep the bugs down, so no mosquitos here!

Somehow this didn't seem as tasty as an apple fritter.  We didn't try them.

This building is huge! Notice the "small" statues of man and woman in front.

Just for some perspective - now you see how big those statues actually were!!!

By Hemmingway's mansion.

This banyan tree is not quite as large as the one on Maui, but is still one of the largest known in the world!

What an epic road trip to go from Mile 0 Key West to Mile 0 Neah Bay... someday!

Having a little fun with the Cuban influence!

And then.... one more night on board and it was back to Port Canaveral.  We had such an amazing trip - can't wait to start planning our next cruise!