My incredibly generous in-laws took the whole family on a cruise as their Hanukkah gift to us all. Our route took us to:
1) Tampa, Florida (embarkation port)
2) Cozumel, Mexico
3) George Town, Grand Cayman
4) Oranjestad, Aruba
5) San Juan, Puerto Rico (disembarkation port)
This was my and Mr Hazel's first time cruising and it was a very interesting experience.
Here are a few pictures to start with - our ship, the Grandeur of the Seas. My first up close glimpse of it was awe-inspiring.
This is the atrium in the center of the ship.
The front of the Grandeur as we docked in Cozumel.
Here is the Grandeur anchored off the coast of Grand Cayman along with a Carnival ship.
In Cozumel, we went to see the Mayan ruins at Tulum, which is a pre-Colombian walled city. This is the main temple.
We also walked through the town of Playa Del Carmen, which was charming and reminded me a little of Laoag, Philippines. We sampled some quesadillas, and I bought a corn on the cob rubbed with lime and sprinkled with queso and chili powder from a street vendor.
In Grand Cayman, we visited a turtle farm and the town of Hell, swam with stingrays (or in my case, ran away from them), and sampled rum cake. Mr Hazel fell in love with the rum cake and bought a box to take home with us. They tendered us to shore - here is a picture of the tenders coming towards our ship.
The town of Hell.
The devil hanging out on some hell rock.
Visiting the stingrays!
This is Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman.
In Aruba, we boarded a submarine that took us 130 feet to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea.
We saw a shipwreck, which sank 9 years ago.
And then we saw divers!
One of them came right up to our porthole to say hello.
And finally, here we are docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico on our last morning.
Since I've been away all week and don't have anything in the way of new jewelry to list at my shop, I'll be posting some more pictures throughout the week.
This makes me sad. I wish we were still back there!
8 comments:
Looks like you had a fantastic time in the sun! Did you get a nice tan?
I was hoping for a chance to go to San Juan thru work in a few months. But since I went to California for work last week, I had to pass up Puerto Rico and give it up to another coworker. After seeing your pictures, what a shame.
welcome back. Sounds like you had a great time. Work was so quiet without you!
Come to Cancun with us!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm green with envy right now!
M2A, I saw your San Diego pics - it looked like you had a great time out there too! Unfortunately we didn't get to see much of San Juan because we went straight to the airport, so I'd love to go back there someday - I heard they have a really wonderful rainforest.
K, I really, REALLY want to!!! Especially because it's only an hour away from Playa del Carmen and I want to go back there and eat at all the restaurants and food vendors we passed.
Meri, I missed you too!
HMM, me this week is also green with envy of me last week :(
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