Caribbean 2010, Part II

In case you missed it, Part I is here

Last month we took a week long cruise to the Western Caribbean. Before I continue with the daily activities and shore excursion recaps, here's some of the basic details I should have gotten out of the way first.  (I never claimed to be a good writer)

We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas. Up until December of '09 was among the largest class of ships afloat, but has now been surpassed by the Oasis of the Seas and now the Allure of the Seas.  They're apparently like huge, floating cities... where the Liberty and her sisters are more like... slightly smaller floating cities.

Here's what our ship looks like at night:

1,112 feet from stem to stern, just a smidge over the length of 3 football fields.

We had to walk over 2/3 of that distance for every meal on board.

Pau-Pau, Kou-Fu and Sahm-Yi were in the adjoining room.... and Juliana spent quite a bit of time going back and forth between the rooms.

 A favorite activity was covering her Kou-Fu with pillows:

Until he turned the tables:

 There were a lot of photo opportunities on board (cruise line photographers ready to take your picture, which you can purchase later after review), but we didn't do too many. If you wanted, they would take your picture on the pier at every port of call, at different points in the promenade on formal nights, at your dining table on said formal nights and even private portrait sessions if you cared to book an appointment.

Here are the few we did purchase:

           the day we boarded the ship:

          formal night #2:

Yes, I forgot to bring a necklace to wear for the formal nights. 

            formal night #2 with my family:

Please note Juliana's feet position... do all kids do that?

We ended up taking some pictures on our own, too, though:

         Presenting the amazing floating child on formal night #1

You can see the lighting equipment at the station behind us where one of the ship's photographers was set up.
             and here's one of our travel group:

Hey, look!  Derek isn't the only non-Asian in the picture!

26 people which included my Uncle and his family (3 boys and 1 grandson plus one on the way), my Uncle's schoolmates and their families.  One of his classmates is named Dragon.  Yes, his first name.  Derek thought that was the best name EVER!

Next post... more shore excursions!

Caribbean 2010, Part I (Costa Maya, Mexico)

I’m going to have to break this post up into 2 or 3 parts.  I just got a copy of Photoshop Elements ("PSE") last week and it has been giving me some problems.  Derek helped me fix it today, which didn’t give me enough time to prepare all the photos I wanted to share with you.  So while I work on the next part, you can read what is ready thus far:

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What a busy, busy month.  The last two weeks of April was filled with travel and the first half of the month was busy with preparations for the trip.  And since we got back, we've had Pau-Pau visit with us for the better part of two weeks and have been trying to get things organized for the boys' visit this summer.

All the preparations were rather mundane, so we'll talk about the trip.  Courtesy of Pau-Pau, our little family went for a 10 day cruise along the Western Caribbean.  It was Derek's and Jing's first cruise and my second.  We had ports of calls in Belize, Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Costa Maya.... not in that order.

Saying goodbye to Fort Lauderdale:



We had one full day at sea before we would arrive at our first stop.  The cruise lines has their own magazines with advertisements for shops at the various ports of call. 


Anyone else feel a little uneasy about the cruise now?

Juliana spent a couple of hours in the H2O zone and was ready to spend a few more there by the time we left to get ready for dinner.



It was our first formal dinner night (there were two on this particular sailing).
I'll put some pictures up from this night on the next post, since they were part of the group thwarted by PSE. Hint: We clean up real good.

The next day was busy… We all went ashore to wait for our respective transportation.



Derek rode a bus inland for a few hours and went hiking up some Mayan Ruins (no pictures yet - - a little help, Sahm-Yi? Kou-Fu?).  From what I heard, they did climb the steps to the top of the pyramids, but the steps were rather steep that some made their way back down by scooting down a step at a time on their backsides.  Derek says he wasn’t one of them.

Juliana, Pau-Pau and I hopped on a smaller bus (45 min ride) and went to a small park with a private beach. It used to be a worksite where the gum (from real gum trees) used to be harvested (and some pineapples, too), but when the gum industry moved towards artificial ingredients, the people moved away (well, a few miles inland to be by the main roads) and the area was made into a park.  The buildings the workers lived in are currently a changing room, a mini-museum and the caretaker’s residence.



It was a warm day.  Oooo… shade!



While walking underneath, we got the feeling we were being watched.  Not by the guy across the way… from somewhere… above?



These bats apparently eat bugs.  The fruit eating bats live in the pit where they used to keep their prisoners.  Yes, there really is a pit and it was at least 20 feet deep. No, I didn’t take a picture.  I was too busy chasing a two-year old and keeping her away from said pit. And the fire ants. 

I can officially say I’ve seen honest-to-goodness fire ants.  Tiny little things… and no pictures of them either.  Again, I was steering Juliana away from them… and steering her requires every hand you can spare plus one.

Those of you with kids, I’m sure you can relate.

But I digress… back to the recap…

Juliana and I took a dip in the lagoon:



As usual, once she was allowed to go in the water, she didn’t want to get out.  Luckily, she was getting a little peckish, so we were able to convince her to dry off to have a snack. That’s my uncle off to the left.

After a long afternoon of chasing and swimming, we had to walk down this long, long pier to get back to the ship.



(For those of you considering a cruise on a large ship like this, keep in mind that it was always a long pier or a wait for tender to take you from the ship to shore.)

When we got back to our room, Juliana had a little friend waiting on the bed for her:



To be continued...

New post coming

Thank you all for being so patient. I'm in the process of working on a new post and will have it up tomorrow at the latest.  (I'm scanning some more pictures for you all to see)