Here we are only days away from Christmas and here we are again feeling like Christmas shouldn’t be right around the corner. Two years ago we traveled to Africa and Rome over the Thanksgiving Holiday returning to the busy holiday season and this year we did the same! This time however we were on a bit more of a relaxing vacation – The Jewel Of The Seas.

We disembarked out of Miami Florida on Friday November 20th and returned Monday November 30th – a 10 day cruise. We were unsure if 10 days was going to be a little to long for us, but came to the conclusion that 10 days was perfect!

Jewel of the Seas, while not the biggest ship of the Royal Caribbean family, was a nice size with a lot of entertainment and things to keep you occupied. Josh and I spent a decent amount of time people watching while on board as well as hitting some shows and other activities. With expecting our first baby we didn’t drink like fish as we did a couple years ago. We did manage to sit in the sun a little bit, but didn’t over do it!

There were 5 different ports planned on the itinerary, the first being Labadee, Haiti. Labadee was one of my favorite ports. While many excursions were available to book, Josh and I decided to just spend the day on the beach. Again, with being prego I couldn’t really sit and sunbathe as I normally would, but we did lay in the sun and picked a partially shaded spot and took in paradise! It really was beautiful and you almost felt like you were on a stranded island… well with wait staff serving mixed beverages. ((Lima and I had virgin))

Both Colombia and Panama were extremely hot and humid. I have never in my life experienced such humidity. Colombia was rather dirty. We weren’t able to partake in the planned excursion while in Colombia because Lima was giving me little signs that he/she wasn’t up for excurating, ((is that a word?)) so instead we rested for a while on the ship and then decided to at least walk a bit so we can say we at least stepped foot onto South America! ((yes another continent – excursion or not we were there!!)) We literally stepped foot off the boat, walked to the end of the pier, through a gift shop and onto the public streets where we were hounded by taxi drivers non-stop. We looked around us and weren’t impressed with the dirty surroundings and humidity – back onto the ship we went, Lima was thankful! While Panama was humid, it was very interesting. I would go out on a limb to say the most interesting of the 5 ports visited. Luckily I was feeling better, ((Lima must have wanted to see the canal)) and we were able to walk  through a rainforest, see the 3rd lock of the Panama Canal, and while we were suppose to ride a boat on the Tigris River we couldn’t due to our safety ((rainy season in Panama and the river water levels were too high)). While the rainforest part of the excursion was not 100% what Josh and I expected, it was neat to see the wildlife and be able to say we’ve walked through a rainforest in Panama. I think the highlight to the excursion was the Panama Canal, this is really amazing and highly recommended to anyone ever visiting Panama. Now there were excursions that were 8-10 hours and you saw so much more of the canal than what we did, but what we did was perfect and we got to experience other fun things while there. Since we weren’t able to boat on the river they did have us boat around a lake which wasn’t nearly as impressive to Josh or myself. It was enjoyable but we just floated around for a good 45 minutes looking for wildlife. A good day and a good experience that we are both so happy we were able to partake in. 🙂

On Thanksgiving we were in Limon, Costa Rica.  Costa Rica = BEAUTIFUL!!! Without question Josh and I would like to return to Costa Rica someday. Limon is the 2nd poorest area in Costa Rica, but the areas we saw were just so beautiful. I can only imagine the area of Costa Rica that the all-inclusives are located! While in Costa Rica we decided to visit a Pineapple Farm. Josh is a rabid beast when it comes to pineapple, he will eat a whole pineapple by himself in one sitting so this excursion seemed like a perfect excursion for us. While on the farm we saw pineapple growing in the Dole Pineapple Farm, saw the facility where the pineapples are cleaned and then packed for shipping or chosen to be sold locally because they are a bit too ripe to be exported. I think the best part of this tour was having the opportunity to eat all the fresh pineapple you could… yes, Josh was in heaven! On the way to and from the pineapple farm we had the chance to see bananas growing in the banana fields. This was rather amazing and we walked away learning that bananas are herbs and not fruits at all!!! Learn something new every day!

Our final port visited was Grand Cayman. Josh was to Grand Cayman on a previous cruise and really wanted me to experience Stingray City, an area in the water about 40 minutes off the coast of Grand Cayman that you can swim with the Stingrays! I was so excited because my Mom had the opportunity to swim with the Stingray when she went to Grand Cayman on her cruise. Josh and I signed up for an excursion that took us to a Sea Turtle Farm, a rum cake store, Hell, and Stingray City. We started at the Sea Turtle Farm which was just very neat to both Josh and myself. We saw baby sea turtles to sea turtles up to 9 years old. This farm is designed to replenish the number of sea turtles as turtle meat is the main meat eaten in Grand Cayman. These turtles aren’t raised to be killed and if you are caught killing a sea turtle you are prosecuted. We had the chance to hold a sea turtle which was an amazing experience! From the Sea Turtle Farm we headed to the Rum Cake store and then to Hell. Both of these stops were neat. Josh tasted a few different types of Rum Cake and while in Hell we sent post cards to both our places of employment giving them a hard time about being in Hell. 😉 The reason of the naming of Hell is rock formations that look like you envision Hell to look. These rock formations pop up all over Grand Cayman but are most common in the place that is now known as Hell.
And the highlight of the excursion was Stingray City which was to memorable for words so you will have to check out the pictures that were taken while on that part of the excursion!

Take a look at the hundreds of nonalcoholic pictures from our cruise!

Oh, we also updated our map of places we’ve been – [intlink id=”132″ type=”page”]check it out![/intlink]

Once again another vacation is behind us and this time we don’t have a vacation for just the two of us planned to look forward to. We do plan to go to Myrtle Beach, SC in August with my family, which we are looking forward to. Lima is going to become an active part of our lives for some time, but the one thing we want to try to continue to do is get away together upon occasion and enjoy each other and the many eye-opening, breathtaking, wonders of our world…