When each of our children are between the ages of 12-13 they get to pick one parent to go on a trip with - anywhere they want (within reason) for some one on one adventure. Lillie picked to cruise the Caribbean with me for a week and we were so freakin' excited for this trip! Sadly, the night before we left we got an email that told us due to heavy fog the ship would not be leaving Galveston the next day as expected. They were hoping the fog would clear but couldn't say for sure when the voyage could begin or if it would have to be canceled all together. We were disappointed to say the least. To say the most - I was consoling a crying Lillie in the checkout line of Hobby Lobby (where we got the news) and I was feeling super bummed as well. I was excited to go but more than that I wanted this trip to be perfect for Ms. L! So we went home and made a plan: this trip was supposed to be 8 days and gosh darn it we were going to have fun for 8 days - not just 7!
DAY 1 - Galveston, TX (We refer to this as Port #1)
We decided to leave the next morning anyway. We were able to book a great room at a super fun hotel in Galveston. We spent Sunday afternoon exploring the super cute beachfront by renting a Surrey Bike, shopping for souvenirs in the cute shops, exploring pleasure pier, eating at Bubba Gumps, and swimming for hours in the heated pool (situated in the freezing outdoors!). It was a total blast!
This was a huge shop that was full of tons of shells and cute souvenirs.
As Burwell/Doolittle women we obviously were able to spend lots of time
browsing and immensely enjoyed that no boys were around to hurry us along.
This was a fun experience, but so tiring and we had some scary moments along the way where the sidewalk was very narrow and had given way on either side to a couple foot drop. We went slow though and I just told L to close her eyes!
DAY 2 - Embarkation
We slept in the next morning, killed time grabbing some last minute items at good 'ol Wal Mart and enjoyed some blenders at Rita's which we had heard about from friends.
And we're off!
The ship was beautiful and we couldn't wait to dive right in to the fun!
So the ice-cream....It's 24 hour all you can eat...and this girl took full advantage! She averaged 6-7 cones/cups a day and was known to sneak out of the room while I napped to grab more.
Our first towel animal
Having a glam time at Formal Night #1
Trying Lobster for the first time - consensus: not a fan
But the rest of the meal was fantastic!
Getting ready to enjoy the live entertainment
Pizza by the pool at midnight because cruising...
Relaxing is exhausting!
The live Caribbean music by the pool was fantastic!
The water park on board was pretty great
Towel animal #2
This was one of our favorite spots to relax, read, and catch an ocean view
On this ride, cramped in this teeny, rickety, seat belt-less van,
I feared for my daughter's safety just a little bit
L, mom, and our friend Mary that we met on our ziplining trip.
This lady was awesome and so sweet! The friends she was cruising with thought zip lining
was too intense for them so she went by herself! Even though she was incredibly scared of both
this and holding the monkeys she went and did it anyway because she wanted to try new
things and have an adventure. We had a great time with her!
L was so excited to try this and she loved it!
Seriously, I have the coolest daughter ever.
I've only done this once before in Wimberly, TX. Both times were awesome but the
experience in Honduras definitely won for height, intensity, and view.
We rock!
Oh foreign Coca Cola...you beat America every time for flavor.
The iguanas here were absolutely ENORMOUS!
Embarking on our first ever real (not at a playground) rope bridge
The monkeys were L's absolute favorite thing of the entire trip! I seriously had no idea they
would be but she loved them so much. She didn't want to leave them and continued talking
about them the entire week. We ended up being glad that the Belize port was canceled
because it prompted us to switch our excursion in Honduras so we could zip line.
The monkeys were an added bonus but turned out to be the highlight of her trip!
Also, what WHAT?!?
For this reason alone I will never consider living in a tropical environment
Towel animal #3!
Goodbye Honduras! You're gorgeous!
Fun family game show. We tried so hard to be a part of this.
We showed up early, got seats in the front, and screamed our hearts out to get on stage.
But alas we were not picked. Great memories though!
L with her hammock.
Pretty much her only souvenir of the trip and that's ok because it's all she really wanted!
Just off the ferry to Play del Carmen (mainland)
to catch our bus to XCARET
After getting all sun screened with our Mexican approved brand (bought on the bus) - not sure if I got scammed but I'm thinking I did...
Awesome trees we saw on the way there!
Xcaret
This was a beautiful ecological park that had a lot of things to do - way more that we had time for. But most importantly it had the clear river that you could snorkel through - it's what I had been waiting for!
A replica of culturally accurate Mexican cemeteries.
They graves are arranged in concentric circles up a hill. Our guide told us lots of facts
about why they're done this way and some of what the different symbols meant....
and I can remember none of them. But it was truly beautiful.
There was another one of these domed dishes on the other side of the very long rope bridge. When you stood next to it all you had to do was speak normally and the person standing at the other dish would be able to converse with you no sweat!
Under the waterfall
A view of the river we were dying to get it. It was so hot!!!
Butterflied feasting on fruit. At first glance these look like fish heads - nature, you're so cool
At last! It's time to cool off!
The river was one of my favorite things the entire trip. After about 15 minutes it was no longer enjoyable to L. We misheard our guide and thought he told us we didn't need flippers so didn't put them on. Then we spent a lot of time wondering why everyone was going faster than us. The river had a flow but it was incredibly slow and we had to work enormously hard to get to the end. I still loved it but poor L was exhausted! And we'll always have the awesome memory of having to swim in the pitch dark, very long, tunnel (the lights had all burned out). We had to swim in the water, with the fish, in the dark, and reach under the water to grab a rope that was connected to the slimy-ish wall. And no one else was in there with us. I still can't believe that we did that. And probably the only reason that we did is because there was no other choice. Still, I loved the whole experience!
THE BEST FOOD OF THE ENTIRE TRIP!
Plus it had a gorgeous view of the ocean!
....Aaaaaand this is where they brought me a super mild salsa and I asked if they had anything spicier. They looked at me like I was a crazy white woman who had no idea what she was asking...but they brought me the spicy stuff. I have never had my tongue burst into flames quite so quickly. But what did I do? Why continue to eat the salsa of course. I couldn't be a white woman in Mexico claiming to like spicy salsa and then say "never mind it's too hot" as all the cooler than me Mexican servers looked on at the hilarity. Nope. I ate it on everything.
Towel animal #4
This was a lot of the same as the other days at sea so not too many pics. Napping, ice cream, napping, ice cream and pizza, swimming, ice cream, reading, ice cream and pizza, napping, ice cream. Are you seeing a trend here? L could not get enough of the 24 hour ice cream and I could not get enough of the 24 hour brick oven pizza. As per cruise standards we were never, ever, hungry.
On the last night we finally went to the Dive In Movies. It was such a blast!
The note we left for our porter Sudana in the last towel "animal" he made for us.
This was our last day. And of course didn't amount to much besides sitting around on the ship being literally the last group of people called off AND the absolutely last ones through customs. I mean, I know somebody has to be last it was just crazy!
But we bided our time by napping at the table, reading, and Lillie of course managed to grab 2 more servings of ice cream :)
What a fantastic adventure we had together! I love you Lillie and I am so glad that we were able to do this trip together!
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