Just Another Caribbean Cruise

The 'Girls Cruise' has become an annual thing. And I'm okay with that. In fact, I'm great with that! I look forward to it every year now (I know... this is only the third year...) and it seems to get better every year! Not sure if it's because I'm just becoming a frequent cruiser, or if we're honestly just having a better time!

This year was a five night cruise out of Fort Lauderdale on the Liberty of the Seas (Royal Caribbean). This was our longest one yet. Well... for us girls, anyway. Jen, Karla, and I waiting to book until about 2 months out this year, hoping to get the best deal. Turns out the deal DID get better before we left, but we just got an upgrade cabin since they did that to us! So it all turned out good. We ended up with one of the forward most cabins with a balcony... they don't have balconies if you face the forward... but we had glass that we could see it, so it was pretty cool. The only downer was the sofa bed instead of the drop-down pullman bed. That kind of got in the way... but now we know for next time.

The entire first full day was at sea, which for us, meant a day out on the pool deck doing a whole lot of nothing. And I think we perfected that... We did a little ship exploration, too, since none of us had been on this class of ship before. It was the biggest I've been on, to date. Oh, and I got my full body massage in - I really needed that!

Day two was in Belize. This was a new port for all of us. We decided to take advantage of some of the Mayan Ruins here... there have quite a few site. The site we went to, Lamanai, is still an active archaeological site. In other words, they're still uncovering stuff. Granted, we didn't see any of that... but we got to climb to the top of the High Temple, which was quite a feat! Those were some steep steps, but the view was so worth it!

Day three we were back at our familiar spot in Cozumel, Nachi Cocum. This is just the perfect 'chill beach' since it's so far from the port and they limit the amount of people that can come to it. So much like the day at seas, we just mastered the art of relaxing in the sun. It was about as perfect of a day you could ever ask for!

Day four was another sea day. Believe it or not, by this point, we were almost tires of relaxing. And more so, we were beat from the previous days hiking and just being in the sun. So while we started up on the pool deck, we didn't last as long... though we still quite enjoyed the relaxing time. But then it started to get a little overcast, so we ended up back at the room a little earlier and just took our time getting ready for our last dinner on the ship. But we were just fine moving at that speed.

Just as we did last year, we took full advantage of the ship photographers. We ended up with nearly 200 shots this round! It's always the most fun the last night - by that time, you kind of know some of the photogs and they start really having fun with you. But then, we always have fun with them, if they let us.

But, just like that, we woke up the next morning back in Fort Lauderdale. These cruises seem to go by so fast... but this one did give us the length of time I think we all needed to unwind fully. I think the hardest part was having to come back to all the snow in Indy. However, I think all three of us were glad to come home and, hopefully, just ride that relaxation spell through the holidays. Guess we'll see!