Cruisin' time! March 2013 (part 1)

Yep, we did it.  We booked another cruise to vacation on only 1 year later from our first one.  We are hooked.  Cruises are the best.  If you haven't been on one, you HAVE to go.  Also, you need to go with the Poulton's and the Meyer's.  They are the best and made our trip so memorable and fun!

 

We booked this one like 9 months in advance.  Lots of time to prepare, anticipate, and to talk about it!  I think that was half the fun.  Before the trip, we went out to dinner a few times with these guys to get pumped and excited!  A 7 day cruise out of Puerto Rico into the Eastern Carribbean sounded amaaaazing.  And it was!  It was just like we pictured it and more fun than I thought it would be!

 

 

This is one of my all time favorite selfies.  Not bad for us older folks!  We were testing out the lounge chairs on the relaxing deck of "serenity".  The fact that I just said folks dates me a bit doesn't it?!

 Before we got on the boat we were lucky to spend 2 days in beautiful Puerto Rico.  We took the same flight as the Meyers and arrived early Friday morning.  We took a nap in our hotel and then spent the afternoon at the little beach by our hotel and the pool.  We rented a car on Saturday and had a few fun adventures.  The Poultons arrived that night.  We were onto the ship on Sunday afternoon!

No wasting time for Curtis with his snorkeling and picture taking!

 Raices is a recommended Puerto Rican restaurant in old San Juan by my sweet sister Martha!  It was so yummy and fun!  I had the best Pina Coloda of my life!  Yuuuummmmy!  Laura was so full after that she was hunched over and layed on my lap in the rental car.  I couldn't help but laugh.  She was such a good sport to put up with me!

 This was a part of our Saturday adventures.  We found the El Yunque National Rainforest.  We took a little hike to the waterfall.  I sure enjoyed all the luscious green around me!  So pretty!

 A little bit of shopping, driving, sight seeing, and walking on the beach.  Shane never did find his light house.  Pooey!

 This is the view from our hotel.  Palm trees are my favorite!

 The morning of boarding day, the guys went off to El Morro Fort.  They thought it was pretty cool and had some beautiful views!

Yay, it's time to board the Carnival Valor!  Bon voyage!  There's nothing like creme brulee for dessert to celebrate!

 We were so looking forward to 5 beautiful Caribbean ports.  St. Thomas was the first port.  We spent a good chunk of the day on Coki Beach where the snorkeling was incredible and the water was calm and aqua blue. 

A fun memory of mine is Laura grabbing clumps of sand over and over again and having the waves wash them away.  Kimberly and I joined in a few times.

The under sea world is amazing and was definitely at it's best on this beach.  Such a perfect place to snorkel!

See the iguana bottom right, below?  He was just creeping around the rocks of the beach.  I was glad to have some distance between us.  He would look frozen every now and again.  Curtis got quite close to him for a picture.  Rest assured nothing scary happened!

Here he is again at the bottom of the tree.  He is well camoflauged!

Bye bye St. Thomas!  We hope to see you again soon!

 Our first night of dancing was a blast!  Greg and Kimberly were hilarious!  I loved every minute of it!  Too bad Kimberly threw her back out.  Seriously, at the beginning of our trip??  Sorry Kimberly!  You were still so happy and postive the rest of the time, even if you couldn't dance!  Laura danced some of the time. Where was Shane?? Not his thing!

 This was such a nice and relaxing day at sea!  Suntanning, reading, eating, sleeping, watching the newlywed game, and a formal dinner.  Could life get any better!  See my swollen forehead below?  Ya that was weird!  A combination of a bad sunburn mixed with retaining water, I guess!  Glad I am not sharing the picture of my deformitive, bumpy forehead after wearing a snorkel mask.  Ha ha!  I looked hidious!

 We had the best seats by the window every night at dinner!  The girls definitely love dressing up.  The guys, not so much!  We had fun goofing around after on deck.  Charlie's Angels, watch out!

 Our second port was the beautiful Barbados!  Apparently Simon Cowell owns a beach house that we got to see.  This is Payne's Bay Beach!  I could have stayed there forever!

Gorgeous, right?!  Oh my goodness, I was LOVING it.  The soft sand and turquoise water.  I really enjoyed how spacious the beach was as well. Soooooo heavenly!

We met "magic Sam" who offered us fresh aloe for our burns.  Why did we have to look so touristy!  He had other things to offer Greg! (wink, wink) We took a mini excursion on a boat to go swim with the sea turtles.  That was so cool and amazing!  Greg's back flip off the back- of- the -boat -entrance into the water was classic!  Shane's green plant hat was the best and the monkey man wanting to have us pay him for pictures with his pet was not so great.  Greg telling me of all the monkey germs AFTER we touched the monkey also, not so great.  Oh well, you live and you learn.  Thank goodness that Curtis and I didn't end up with some type of weird rash.

Laura was so much fun and had such excitement for each new place!  She just had to try out Shane's new hat!

Here are some fun, random pictures!

 Every morning for breakfast we got to experience the great tastes of the buffet!

Uh oh, Greg is stressed.  This guy had us laughing up a storm!  SO funny!

Our dinner waiter, Warren was awesome.  He was so fun to talk to and he always told us he had "sea legs".  He had no problem carrying trays of food on the rocking boat!