Honduras

So our third stop was Roatan, Honduras. It's a small island. We came out of the port and walked up this hill to find our guides for ziplining. At the bottom of the hill there were a bunch of guys who would yell to each new tourist that came up over the hill, trying to get them to come with them. There was clearly a line they weren't allowed to cross if they weren't already meeting people.

A driver took us to the other side of the island with the ziplining course. Ziplining is the thing that Roatan is known for so we were excited. There were 11 different lines that ranged from a few hundred feet to over a thousand. As we went through the trees we could see the ocean on the other side of us. An amazing setting, for sure. Our guides took our camera and took all these pictures for us with it. 

Most of the time we just ziplined across and braked ourselves (like Lexie above), but we each got the chance to go upside down and/or "Superman" style with one of the guides. I've included those pictures because they are the funniest.

*I was the first one to try it upside down and it was actually fairly painful. My harness left bruises around my hips.

On the last line they had us go across as couples. The Cottle's picture came out cute. Ours was terrible.

We made our guides race to get the boys' harnesses off at the end. It was pretty funny and I think Fast Eddie was a little disappointed that he lost.

Lexie stopped to pose with the monkey when we were done.

After ziplining our driver took us over to West Bay beach. It was gorgeous. The water was very still and salty. I don't really like salt water, but I do like how easily you float in it.

I love this picture.

We decided it would be really cool to try to stack as many people as we could. It was all funny until Nick got squeezed out from between us and I fell straight down onto Daniel's head. Then we all laughed at how stupid we are. I got a nice bruise and I am still nursing a sore jaw from it 3 weeks later. Apparently we caused quite a scene because a woman came up to me in the ship later and asked how I was doing.

Of course any trip to the beach wouldn't be complete without digging a pointless hole. This was made especially fun by our little friend Henry joining in. His mom was selling stuff on the beach. Lexie and I refrained from writing anything in the sand this time, but just know that we were thinking it the whole time they dug.

Lexie and I took a long walk on the beach and bought all the girls some handmade Honduran dolls. Not the highest quality, but we saw the same dolls for double the cost at the ship port, so I am happy with it. 

All in all, another really great day.

Belize

Here goes stop #2, Belize. We booked a cave-tubing trip with some guy named David the week before our trip. Well, that turned out to be one of the best decisions we made. Belize was my favorite stop of the trip. One of the worst decisions we made was forgetting to buy an underwater disposable camera until we got off the ship in Belize. $18 for a crappy camera- you can see the quality of most of the pictures.

So our enthusiastic and hilarious guide David drove us an hour to the mountains to embark on our cave-tubing adventure. We carried all the gear for a 1/2 an hour hike to the cave entrance. Since we just had our group of 4 we passed a lot of the other tours. David told us about some of the vegetation we passed, but I wasn't listening that much. I just wanted to get to the caves. The Mayans thought these caves were an opening to the underworld and regularly performed rituals and sacrifices in them.

The entrance to hell. We all sat in our little tubes while David pulled us around to see the cool things. It was pitch black in the caves so we wore headlamps. There were bats flying around the ceiling and we saw a bunch of baby bats hanging at one point. The Mayans believed if unworthy people went in the caves- only priests and those being sacrificed were allowed in- that they would be turned into stone. David pointed out a lot of rock formations that looked like people.

After exiting the caves we got out and swam in the fresh spring-water river. It was the most refreshing water I have ever been in. I still can't get over it.

We swam for a while while a bunch of the other tour groups complained that they didn't get to do it. 

The setting was just breathtaking- in a fresh water river in the middle of the jungle. Nick noticed a good rock to jump off of so we did that for a while until a bunch of other people started doing it too. I did some sweet cannonballs that were a little painful, but totally worth it.

I really wish this could have been taken with a halfway decent camera. As we came around the bend there was just bright green lush jungle everywhere.

We ate a decent Belizean lunch. The empanadas were delicious, but the rice and beans didn't have much flavor. The cinnamon dusted watermelon was an interesting flavor, almost reminded me of Christmas.

On the way back to the ship David took us by the downtown LDS church. He reminisced about playing sports in the gym there as a kid.

 

We took a few pictures as we waited for our tender to go back to the ship.

 

If you are ever in Belize, look up David with cavetubingrus.com and book a tour with him!

Cozumel

Stop #1 was Cozumel, Mexico. Our first agenda item was swimming with stingrays. Stingrays are really ugly and slimy and kind of creepy. I didn't hate it by any means, but didn't love it either. How's that for a review? Actually, you might be able to say I hated feeding the stingrays. They suck the raw fish off your hand. After feeding them we got to hold them. Although, when it was my turn the stingray wriggled away from me and got away from the group. Oops. Then we snorkeled and swam with a bunch of fish and stingrays. We couldn't take any pictures during our time with the stingrays, so our pictures are afterwards.
 Do you see that green/white thing in the water behind Daniel? It's a water trampoline. We probably spent as much time on that as with the stingrays. I was sore the next day, but it was all worth it.

 

They brought out a bird and an iguana for us. I am just not an animal person, I guess. It's fine holding a tropical bird, but nothing I am going to get that excited about.

Next up was Mexican Wal-mart to get soda we had forgotten to bring on the boat. There's a cruise tip for ya- bring your own drinks if you ever want something besides water. Cans of soda are $2.50 a pop, but they are happy to give you a cup of ice if you have your own drink.

Then we drove over to a little water resort place right on the beach with a big pool. It was only $2 a person and we all crashed on beach chairs for a while. I was woken up by a group of New Jersians with strong accents and loud voices.

We headed back to the port to return our rental car and take a few touristy pictures.

Pretty sweet, right?

The group at the end of the day. This is right before witnessing a couple get in a big fight where the woman refused to give the man his ship card so he could get back on the boat. Love when drunk people act like idiots.

Caribbean Cruisin

Alright, alright. Here we go with the trip. The first week of September we went on a cruise with the Cottles. It was like our cruise in 2008, except much better. I'll make each stop on the cruise a separate post, so enjoy this post on the most exciting aspect- the boat. Boy, did we keep ourselves busy.

1. Swimming

On our last cruise it was so windy on the top deck that it we got cold. This time it was toasty every day. I got burned on my upper legs on day 1 and spent the rest of the week protecting my thighs.

2. Mini-golf

We played mini-golf a few times, including a time when Nick got screwed out of the ship mini-golf championship. Still bitter about it.

3. Eating

As with all cruises, we ate a lot. The food was pretty good. I had a very hard time coming back home and having to cook food. It's a hard knock life.

Daniel eating his disgusting frog's legs that he voluntarily ordered and ate with no pressure or daring from any of us. 

Nick and his soft serve and his love of everything orange.

*Such a cute picture. I am so disappointed this is blurry

4. Cards

We played cards for a solid 5 hours each day. Lexie and I kind of got owned. I attribute it to pregnancy brain. Not that either of us are pregnant (we aren't), but going through 2 pregnancies each has killed the brain cells that used to help us dominate in Spades.

5. Dancing

Lexie and I did a lot of dancing. We were kind of a big deal. On the beach on Grand Cayman Island some guy yelled out "Hey ladies! Loved your dancing last night!". We went to the club a couple of the nights and broke.it.down. for everyone. While they were busy grinding we were doing such legendary moves as: marching in place, pumping up the crowd, punching the floor, kicking the air, lots of pointing, and much, much more. Oh, how I wish we had video of that dancing. Probably the hardest I have laughed in a long time. 

Personal dance party on the top deck

Waiters dancing. The waiter shows were a bit disappointing.

6. Shows

We went to a few shows. They were mostly hilarious, thanks to our cheeky cruise director, James, aka Mr. Bean. The one pictured above, however, was not great. Marcus Anthony was a flop and we left early. The comedians on board were surprisingly funny and at the newlywed game I laughed so hard my entire body hurt.

We also had our own little magic show at our table. We loved it so much we asked him to come back another night.

Which he did. And we laughed really hard. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip.

7. Competitions

After winning sports trivia. It came down to a tie-breaker, but we got it. Ignore that it looks like Daniel is picking my nose.

And Lex tried to look tough after winning the movie trivia, but she really just ended up looking scared.

8. People watching

No words needed. So much great people watching on a cruise ship.

Creepy towel creature hanging- supposed to be a monkey, I think?

9. Bromance Rekindling

They are kind of in love. In a brotherly way.

Just a weird picture. I am uncomfortable looking at it.

And a pretty sunset