The Cruise

Wed. Feb. 4th, J.J. received a call from an associate inviting us on their company cruise. The catch: we had to be in Miami on Friday the 6th! With the help of family & a lot of scrambling - we were ready for a week long cruise in 2 days!! We went to the Western Caribbean, which is: Haiti, Jamaica, Grand Cayman & Cozumel. 

Our ship, The Liberty of the Seas, is the largest cruise ship on the ocean. It holds 4,500 guests.

The beautiful sunsets we witnessed

J.J & I on the front of the ship. This was J.J.'s favorite place to come & think.

Formal Nights

THE FLOW RIDER:

This thing is crazy! It rushes 30,000 gallons of water through it at 30 MPH & you body board or surf it! Brian rented this for the group for private use 3 times. The 1st night it was 10:00 pm & too cold, I opted out. The next session was Wednesday @ 6:15. JJ & I decided we didn't want to make fools of ourselves, so we went to the public hours to get some practice in right before. Then on the last night we decided to sit out since we had to get packed & ready for dinner. We went up to watch and at the very end they let us do the stand up surfing. I had wanted to do that all week. Since we only had 15 minutes left - I jumped in with my clothes on! It was so worth it! The group was so competitive on this - everyone was out to master the barrel rolls, 360's, & standing up. This was the most fun on the ship!!

JJ doing a 'barrel roll'

Hang 10!

We had so much fun this week - is there such a thing as too much fun? I now understand why people say 'I need a vacation from my vacation'. From alligators, to hiking waterfalls, to swimming with stingrays, to swimming with dolphins & attempting the flow rider - I think we deserve a rest!!!

Everglades

Before we boarded the Cruise Ship, the group took an airboat tour of the Everglades. Did you know the Everglades is actually a river? Something new I learned. After the airboat tour we saw an alligator show, then got to hold an alligator. And of course we couldn't leave without trying "Alligator Bites" - tastes like chicken.

Haiti

Our 1st port on the Cruise was Haiti. I was nervous when I started hearing all the horror stories about Haiti, but those were put to ease when I found out the Cruise Line owns their own beach and have it heavily fenced & guarded. This was a relaxed day for us. We slept in & then took the tender to the beach. We had to experience the Haitian Market & man those people are pushy. J.J. wanted to bring them back to be sales reps for him! We did buy some souvenirs & J.J. got some water shoes. We later found out that the shoes they sell are usually ones left behind on the beach!! Oh well! The ship also provided lunch on the island, so we had some BBQ while listening to a live trio. We then relaxed in a hammock. One of our less active days on this cruise....

Jamaica

Jamica was an interesting place. We had to take a hour long bus ride to Ocho Rios where we were going to hike Dunns River Falls. That ride gave us a good look at Jamaica - on one side of the road, usually the beach side - there were huge, beautiful condos & on the other was the poverty side. House that had been destroyed in hurricanes, still had people living in them. We saw under fed children and it tugged on your heartstrings.

We went with the whole group to Dunns River Falls to hike this. Neither JJ or I knew what we were getting ourselves in to. We thought we'd be hiking a trail next to or up to the falls. Little did we know, we would be hiking IN the falls. It was awesome, sadly I had to get out half way up because my shoes kept falling off. JJ would save them by diving after them, but tore up his feet in the process. But at least by getting out I was able to get some good pictures.

On the bus ride back we went past Margaritaville where a sign was posted that said "Free Bongs on Monday". We also past this sign -

Rehab Bar & Lounge: kinda ironic huh? Our bus driver hit traffic on the way back to the ship & we almost missed boarding time. We got there right at 5:30.

Grand Cayman

We got to have a unique experience in Grand Cayman. Ok maybe not that unique since hundreds of tourist do this daily, but it was amazing for us! We took a boat 5 miles off the coast to a sandbar that is only chest deep (for me, J.J. - his waist) and swim with hundreds of stingrays. They have been hand fed for so long, they are completely safe & friendly. J.J. had one female stingray take quite a liking to him. She kept crawling up his chest & back, he realized later he had wiped the squid on his chest & that's why she wouldn't leave him alone.



Some of the stingrays were bigger than this one!






After this, we asked our bus driver if he'd take us to Hell. There is a town in Grand Cayman called Hell. It was alot of fun & we got some fun souvenirs - including Hell Hot Sauce. Now we can say we've been to Hell & Back.

In case you've ever wondered which way Hell is.

These lava formations are why the town is called Hell.

Grand Cayman is a beautiful island but next it was on to Cozumel to swim with dolphins!