Cruising Through Spring Break

About 9 months ago, my sister-in-law and I got the crazy idea to take our families on a cruise together for spring break.  We have spent the last 9 months planning and looking forward to when spring break would finally arrive.  We had such a great time on our trip and our families enjoyed each other immensely!

We started out our vacation by leaving to Florida a couple of days before our cruise was to depart.  We met Jeremy's brother Jason and his family at Universal Studios Orlando.  We loved the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Diagon Alley.  We did our best to soak it all in!

Gringotts Bank.  The details were amazing.  They really thought things through when building this place and we are big Harry Potter fans.  We appreciated and loved it it all!

 We started the day by riding Escape from Gringgotts.  It was a fun ride and the inside of the bank where the line winds was amazing.  Everything looked so real and just how you would imagine it.  McKay was an excellent model for the special 3D glasses that you have to wear for the ride.

 Some of the details in Diagon Alley.  The brink wall that you must enter through to get to Diagon Alley.  It is well hidden from Muggles as we walked by it three times before we realized it was the entrance to the Wizarding World!  We also loved the Zonko Joke shop and Olivaders Wand Shop.  The dragon perched on the top of Gringotts Bank was very majestic!

 

We at lunch at the Leaky Cauldron and it was fantastic!  The food was amazingly good and all the details that were inside was fun to notice--all the way down to the leaky cauldron the boys are standing in front of (upper left).  Of course we had to get some Butter Beer--YUM!  We also tried every dessert on the menu!

Just outside of Diagon Alley (in London) we found the Night Bus (upper right).  More inside Diagon Alley (upper left).  Jaxon and I went exploring and found Knockturn Alley and found the vanishing cabinet that is in Borgin and Burkes.  You can even hear a bird tweeting inside of it.  Like I said it was all about the details.  We also found a shop full of magical creatures.

 We enjoyed the rest of the park as well.  It was fun to see the Delorean car from Back to the Future.   It was a long day and we stayed well into the evening.  I discovered that I am not as young as I used to be so I didn't enjoy the rides as much as I used to.  Jaxon didn't like most of the rides seeing how he still hates roller coasters.  We spent a good part of the day exploring the park together while everyone else went roller coaster hopping.

We picked up a pizza on the way back to the hotel and had fun eating and relaxing.  Jaxon fell asleep while cheking Instagram while everyone else was still getting ready for bed.  The next morning everyone was up and ready to go board our ship so we could start our cruise!

Ship life:

 

We loved cruising with Jason, Melodie and their family.  Above, (top) we were waiting to board the ship.  Jeremy and Jason had to return the rental cars. (Lower) We weren't able to sit with all the cousins for our dinner time, so we went to breakfast in the dining room one morning and all the kids sat together.  They loved being together!

 

There were some amazing views from the ship.  We only caught the sunset one night though and it was spectacular!

 Jaxon and Savannah became best friends.  He really watched out for her and she loved to hang out with him in the evenings.  These are just a few of the pictures that I have of the two of them.

 Checking out the views from one of the port windows.  Most of the time we only saw water, but it was fun to see the landscape as we pulled into dock.

 We had the same servers every night Martin and Ivana (top).  They took such good care of us and our boys thought for sure we were their favorite table.  They had a night were they asked that everyone dress up.  My boys looked so handsome.  I loved every minute that we were able to spend together!

 

We enjoyed going to karaoke night.  Emma and Ben were brave and got up and sang at the beginning of the week.  It was fun to watch them along with everyone else.  Let me tell you, there are some karaoke crazies.

 McKay joinged in on the fun by the end of the week.  He was told he would get extra credit in Spanish if he sang karaoke to La Bamba so there was no stopping him.  He was very brave as it was harder than he thought it would be.  He was quite.....entertaining.

Each night when we went to go to bed there would be some sort of towel creation on our beds.  These were a few of the ones we caught on camera.

Josh (left) and Kayden (right) loved climbing the rock wall that was located on the ship.  They got quite good at it by the end of the week!

Port 1 Grand Cayman: Snorkeling and Stingray City

 Our first port was at Grand Cayman.  We did a two snorkel dives as well as Sting Ray City for our tour that day.  We took a big boat out into the Caribbean were we did some snorkeling first.  We saw lots of fish and some sting rays.  It was fun to explore and the boys love snorkeling.  Kayden was thrilled that I didn't make him wear a life jacket.  The water was clear and beautiful!

Enjoying the boat ride in the beautiful Caribbean!  Melodie and I (top left) enjoyed watching all of our plans unfold.  The kids all had such a good time together!

 This was our first real day in the sun in months and our skin knew it.  Despite our best efforts with sunscreen, we all got pretty burnt!

 Sting Ray City was a lot of fun!  We each got to have some time with a sting ray.  We got to hold and touch the sting ray, kiss it and it also gave us each a back massage!

 Jeremy and Jaxon and their experience with the sting ray.

We all had fun watching each other enjoy the sting ray.  The below picture is a favorite as it show Savannah kissing the sting ray and all of us looking on.

Port 2 Cozumel: All inclusive resort at Mr. Sancho's

Our second day at port we went to Mr. Sancho's and camped out on the beach all day eating as much as we wanted and drinking pina coladas as fast as they could make them.  We were also able to go paragliding and enjoy the activities out in the ocean.

We were all excited to try out paragliding!  Jeremy and Kayden went first.  We were each up in the air for about 10 minutes.

Kayden and Jeremy having a good time going out and coming in.  We have a video of everyone's ride as well, but I am having a hard time getting video feed to upload to the blog.
 

 I got to ride with Joshua.  While we were up in the air we could see a sea turtle swimming around that everyone in the boat had no idea about!  It was a great ride!

McKay and Jaxon enjoyed riding together.  It was a beautiful day and we love Cozumel!

A panoramic view from above.  The boat is way down below and Kayden is to the right.

 They had lots of inflatables to climb on, jump on and off of and slide off of.  Of course Kayden also loved playing in the sand.  Kayden builds Ba Sing Se from the Avatar the Last Airbender whatever beach he goes to.

 

Enjoying more of the inflatables and the water.

 The resort also had a couple of swimming pools that you could enjoy.  We didn't get in those until the end of the day once the crowds died down.  By then we practically had the place to ourselves!

 Getting ready to board back onto the Rhapsody of the Seas after a long day of fun in Cozumel!

Port 3 Belize: Zip lining and cave tubing

 

 We took a long fairy from our ship to Belize for our next adventure.  Then we took an even long bus ride to the site where we did our zip line and cave tour.

 

Listening to instruction and getting ready to have some fun.  You can also see the kids on the bus that we had to take from the parking lot.  It was a bumpy road!

Waiting our turn to get all geared up (top).  Savannah must of told Melodie and I some bad news because we are both pulling faces.  Below the kids are all geared up and ready to go on the zip line!

 We had to hike up to the zip line and wait our turn to go.  It was hot and humid!  We were anxious to go once we reached the top!

 

 Taking a water break (top) along with more waiting in line (bottom).

 

 Everyone looked so cute in all their gear.  Thankfully we had each other to keep us entertained during the wait.  It made it quite enjoyable.

 Finally the zip line!  Jaxon (top left), Kayden (bottom left) and Josh (right).  McKay took off before we could catch a picture.  He was anxious to go!

 Kayden jumping off a platform for the zip line.  He zip lined all the way down to lunch.  If you look closely you can see lunch all over his chin all while he enjoyed a bottled Coca-Cola!

We enjoyed our lunch of chicken and rice very much.  We shared some bottled drinks that always taste best in Mexico.  It was also nice to relax while we waited for the rest of the group to eat.

 After lunch we enjoyed our cave tube tour.  It was a different section of the cave than Jeremy and I did last time.  We didn't spend as much time in the tubes floating.  But we were able to get out of our tubes and walk around to see different Mayan ruins and different areas of the cave.  Top: walking with our tubes down into the cave.  Bottom left: Kayden floating along.  Bottom right: McKay chillin'.

 Bottom: Exploring the inside of the cave and hearing the story of the ruins that were visible.  Something must have concerned me due to the face I am pulling (right).  Josh (left) thought everything was pretty cool.  The top picture is the staircase to get out of the cave at the end.  It was beautiful.  We did some swimming while in the cave and it was quite refreshing!

 

After cave tubing, the kids were able to take a quick dip in a pool that they had just outside the bottom of the zip line and entrance to the cave tubing.  It was very refreshing to jump in and cool off!

Port 4 Costa Maya: Crazy Lobster Beach

We didn't have any plans for our last day at port in Costa Maya.  None of the tours looked like anything we were interested in and I think we were tired of spending money!  Our dining room servier, Martin, gave us the suggestion to go to Crazy Lobster Beach.  He said the food and drinks were good and inexpensive.  My kind of fun.  So we took a taxi and went.

Just outside of the Costa Maya Pier.  The kids were sitting on a frog fountain while we were figuring out about taxis.  From left to right: Maddie, Kayden, Josh, Jaxon (seated at the table), Ben and McKay

 The boys loved the pina coladas that we ordered.  They were tasty!  McKay took the liberty of finishing off anyone's who didn't want to finish theirs (bottom right).

 

 We had fun playing card games and walking around the shops.

 

 Oh Jaxon (top with Nick) who likes to be silly for the camera.  Below is the view of Costa Maya while we were walking down the pier.

  

The kids all had fun playing in the water and kayaking.  Kayden and I even got pretty good at skipping rocks.  At the end of the day I owed him $2 for bets that we placed for how many times he could skip a rock.

 It was a great day and one of our favorites.  It was a good way to end all of our port stops--and by far the cheapest!

Flight Home: A really long wait

We didn't have much choice on our flights home.  We couldn't leave before a certain time to allow for disembarking, but we didn't want to get home extremely late either.  That lead us to this:

We had to wait for our flight.  I mean several hours for our flight.  The airline wouldn't let us check in our luggage until just before our flight so we were stuck.  When it came time to get some lunch, we ordered Dominoes pizza and had them deliver it to the airport.  It made for some fun memories.  Other than that we did a lot of exploring around the airport, watched a lot of movies and I think some homework was even attempted.
 

 I sure love my family and all of the memories that we made together.  It was a wonderful vacation!