Caribbean Cruise: Sept 20-27

This past week we went on our first cruise! About a month ago, we decided that it was time to splurge a little bit and go on a nice vacation. Since we never really got a break this summer, since Daniel's grades this year don't matter too much, since our anniversary is next week, and since we won't get a chance to do something like this again before Olivia is born, we decided to head to the Caribbean. Although travelling in that part of the world during hurricane season can be risky, we lucked out and had good weather in all four of our ports: Labadee, Haiti; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Georgetown, Grand Cayman; and Cozumel, Mexico. We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas, which is the largest cruise ship in the world. We had a wonderful time.

I got to spend a lot of time during the cruise with three of my favorites: Daniel, food, and sleep. Here is a picture of us in the dining room on one of the nights that we got to dress up.

Olivia really liked the cruise. I'm pretty sure she never got seasick, and I think she liked the food too. And while I have been able to feel her movements for nearly a month now, Daniel can also feel her kicks regularly. We think she's pretty strong for me being only 21 weeks into my pregnancy.

I didn't let Daniel do anything crazy on the cruise, like parasailing, scuba diving, or hiking. We'll have to save those things for when I'm not pregnant and can join in. But he did get into a little scuffle with some ancient Egyptians!

I did, however, let him do some climbing on the rock wall on the top deck (Deck 14) of the ship.

One of our favorite excursions was in Grand Cayman. We took a snorkeling trip with Captain Marvin, which took us to a coral garden and a coral reef. The fish there were beautiful. But the coolest thing was swimming with the stingrays in the middle of the ocean. There was a sandbar that was only about 4 feet deep (even though it took a 30 minute boatride to get there), and so we could stand up in the ocean and play with the tame stingrays. Yes, those dark shadows under the water are all stingrays.

There is a legend that kissing a stingray will give you 7 years of good luck. So I guess we'll be lucky folks for the next few years!

On Thursday, we took a ferry from Cozumel to mainland Mexico to visit the Tulum ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula. The Mayan ruins overlooked the ocean and were pretty amazing.

All in all, we had a wonderful week together. It was hard to come back to New York after such nice weather and beautiful ocean views. But now we are hooked on cruises and can't wait to go on another one!