Cruise 2010--Spring Break Trip to the Caribbean

Spring Break, 2010!! Here we are in the Spring Break Capitol of the USA--Ft. Lauderdale, FL!

There were so many college students on the beach and some pretty crazy partying going on. We were glad we were just there for an hour and heading out to sea the next day. We got to go on a cruise for our spring break! It was a fantastic trip. Our ports were Belize City, Belize, Costa Maya, Mexico, and Cozumel, Mexico. There are a lot of pictures ahead, so relax and enjoy the journey!
Let me just say that the food was divine! We ate all our dinners in the dining room and had the same wait staff each night. They took such good care of us and gave us anything we wanted and as much of it as we could stand! Lobster night was the best. It was lobster tails and shrimp. They ran out of shrimp on my plate, so I got two lobster tails. I wasn't too unhappy about it at all! We were pretty full, but I think we each kind of wanted to keep ordering those tails!!
Eric and Hannah were fun travelers. They had the time of their lives!

It got pretty windy on the top deck! We were on the Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas ship and it was incredible. It was like a floating city!

Chillin' at the pool.

Three floors of formal dining rooms and this was some of the dining room staff! You would not believe how many employees there were on this ship! They worked so hard to meet every guests every need. We were very impressed at how smoothly everything ran.

Ours is the gigantic ship in the background. This is the pier in Costa Maya.

We took a shuttle bus to a nearby beach and just hung out for the day enjoying the sun, the sea, and the sand!

Hannah and Mike were treated to wonderful massages right there on the beach. They loved every minute of it!

This was one of our formal nights in the dining room. It was fun to dress up and be treated like royalty!

Every night our room attendant made us some fun little towel creature!

This is our cruise director, some of the singers and dancers, and some of the chefs and cooking staff. The cruise director is from England and one of his brothers is the farm manager for Paul McCartney's farm!!! We thought that was pretty cool. He was a very talented cruise director and the entertainment was fantastic. There was even an ice skating rink and an ice show!

Here is our waitress, Ngalaton, from India. They came from over 55 countries! They were telling us that they work for about 7 months straight without seeing their families and then they have a two month break and then back to work for another 7 months! What a hard life if you have a spouse and children!

This is a little out of order, but we rode around Ft. Lauderdale on this trolley. We missed the stop we were supposed to change trolley's at, so we got to pretty much see the entire downtown district! It's a pretty nice city.

This is an overlook to the main promenade of the ship. It is kind of like a little shopping plaza with restaurants and stores. There was even a Ben and Jerry's!

Eric and Hannah's stateroom.

Is it just me, or is Eric starting to look older? I noticed on this trip that his face doesn't look as babyish, but more like that of a college boy!

We thought this was weird! These were the magazines in our stateroom! Also, in the teen lounge there was a video of Celine Dion singing, "My Heart Will Go On." Kind of creepy!

Hannah in one of the many, many bars on board. (Before hours of course.)

We thought the ship resembled something in Las Vegas. The casino of course, but just the overall feel of it was very glitzy!

The three stories of dining rooms!

The front of the ship and the helicopter pad.

Jack waiting at the front of the ship for Rose.

Tendering into Belize.

Belize City, Belize
One of our favorite days was our stop in Belize. We took an all day excursion to do cave tubing and zip lining. It was so much fun. We didn't have a waterproof camera so no pics of the cave tubing, but we pretty much hiked thru the jungle carrying our inner tubes and then got into a river and floated through a huge cave system. We had helmets and headlights and it was pretty amazing.
Waiting for our van to pick us up for our hour drive to the jungle.

The lady in charge of the tour asked if anyone wanted to ride in this horse and boogie.

After the tubing, we had some lunch and then got suited up for zip lining. We got to go on a series of 7 different lines. Mike was a little unsure and has some issues with heights, but he came along anyway and gave it his all!

Mike's face pretty much describes how much he loved it! Oh well, he gets an A+ for being a good sport! The rest of us really did enjoy it a lot. It was an amazing feeling to be flying through the air in the treetops!

Just a couple of fun shots of our ship!

Our excursion in Cozumel was snorkeling. We booked a trip that wasn't with the cruise line and we were the only ones on our tour. It was awesome. We rode in this little (slow) boat out to a reef and got to snorkel for about an hour. We saw eels, turtles, rays, and lots of beautiful fish. We had lunch at a local restaurant on the beach. I had the best chicken tacos I ever tasted! Then we got to snorkel for another hour before heading back to the pier.

Us with Tony and Carlos on the Miguelito.

Captain Jack Sparrow?

The Miguelito.

It was a fantastic trip and we loved every minute of it. We wish we could have taken all of our family and friends along! That would have made it perfect!!