We took our very first cruise last week and had a blast! Even though this trip was technically our Valentines, Birthday, Anniversary and Christmas presents this year, we embarked on Callie's birthday. (Click on Pictures to make them bigger)
Day 1 - Denver to Miami to Sea
 |
| It started as a crazy b-day for Callie with an early flight which was delayed for an hour because of mechanical problems. The delay made it so we made it the ship in Miami with only minutes to spare. |
 |
| We relaxed the rest of the night by enjoying the beautiful sunset and getting to know the ship. |
 |
| Neither of us have really seen sunsets at sea before this, so we took advantage of them each night. (They were great but we will take a CO sunset any day) |
 |
| Each night we got a different towel animal. |
Day 2 - Key West
We really enjoyed Key West because it was such a different feel compared to what we are use to. However, we were not fans of the extreme humidity.
 |
| We arrived right at sunrise. |
 |
| We spent the first few hours just roaming the small town on foot seeing the sights. We just happened upon Pres Truman's Little White House. |
 |
| The famous Key West Light House and trollies |
 |
| We also found Ernest Hemingway's Home. (We didn't actually go in because it wasn't worth $24!) |
 |
| We did however snap some shots of the lingering descendents of Hemingway's polydactyl cat collection. Apparently there are 44 cats on the property! |
 |
| We loved the plants! |
 |
| The whole town is overrun with these roosters? |
 |
| The rest of our time in Key West was spent at the Fort Zachary Taylor beach. |
 |
| Big foot? In Florida? |
 |
| We had a lot of fun soaking up the sun and playing in the ocean. |
 |
| One of the shops had some cool birds. |
 |
| According to the shop owner this bird only lets men bet her. When I pet her she would bow her head and lift her wings to show me where to pet her. When Callie tried the bird sat straight and still. |
 |
| Our ship at port. |
 |
| Every other night everyone would dress formally for dinner. The sunsets always took priority over food though. |
 |
| Callie enjoying the panoramic sunset. |
Day 3 - Cozumel
Our next and favorite stop was Cozumel Mexico. The locals were super friendly and the area that we saw was beautiful. We shopped the markets, saw the sights, snorkeled 3 different reefs and watched the sunset while we ate dinner behind a great little restaurant.
 |
| This area is called Puerta Maya, it's the main cruise port. |
 |
| These are the glass-bottomed boats that take you to the reefs. |
 |
| Cruise ship from our snorkel boat. |
 |
| They kind of just thow you in without any instructions. Which was sort of scary since we had never done it before. My Spanish came in handy here. |
 |
| It didn't matter though cause it turns out we are naturals! |
 |
| There was a ton of tropical fish! Some of them seemed to glow and others were huge and down right ugly. |
 |
| We found a great little restaurant that had it's own beach in the back. We practically had the place to ourselves. |
 |
| The food was great... |
 |
| ...but Cal really loved the Coke in glass bottles. |
 |
| This is the panoramic view we had from the restaurant. |
 |
| I thought this shot was Post Card-esk |
 |
| Beautiful turquoise waters. |
 |
| I forgot to take my fins off and my feet swelled up something fierce! |
 |
| Not sure? |
 |
| The night life at the port was pretty crazy. |
 |
| Cube tree |
 |
| Back to the ship after a long, fun day. |
 |
| Awesome Chief Watermelon watching over the midnight buffet...yeah you heard me. |
Day 4 - Day at See
The last full day of the Cruise was all at sea. We spent the day eating and eating some more. We enjoyed the shows and activities and caught up on our rest. That evening we went to take pictures of the sunset on the top deck. While up there we noticed the ship was making a very sharp turn. After looking around we noticed a black speck out in the water and wondered if maybe someone fell overboard. After a little while they announced that the Captain spotted a small vessel and wanted to turn around to make sure there wasn't anyone in distress.
 |
| Notice the sharp curve in our wake. |
 |
| We started out as one of the only people up top, but with in moments the top deck was full of onlookers. You can see the little speck in the water. |
 |
| Turns out it was a small row boat with no one in it. That night the Comedian joked how everyone was disappointed that there wasn't anyone in distress or pirates, which was true! |
 |
| If I am ever lost at see I want a Cruise ship to rescue me! |
Last Day- Miami/Everglades
We desembarked back in Miami at 8am but our flight didn't leave until 5pm so we did an Air-boat excursion in the everglades to kill the time. It was a really cool experience and we are glad we got to do it.
 |
| The sunrise view of Miami during our last breakfast. |
 |
| Everglades Safari |
 |
| We sat right up front on the Air-boat. |
 |
| Turns out that the everglades is a massive grassy shallow river the only moves an inch a day. It felt like we were just hovering over a grassy field at 60 mile per hour. |
 |
| We pulled up by this gator and watched it from just a couple of feet away. |
 |
| We really missed Drake and were super stoked to see him when we got home. He had a fun week too with his grandparents, aunts and cousins! |
We had a wonderful time camping and exploring Zion's National Park, it is such beautiful place! Grandma and Grandpa also showed me around Grafton a ghost town, and Grandma and I took a tour of Cove Fort. The trip was fabulous, it was so great to be able to spend so much one on one time with Grandma and Grandpa. I also learned that Grandpa can cook up an amazing stew from whatever is lying around (even if it is horny-toad meat) ;).
