Eleven Years and Our Winter Get Away

Today Scott and I celebrate 11 years of marriage.

I doubt that Scott and I will ever take a vacation on our anniversary because running away from cold Pittsburgh in the winter is far too appealing. Today is as good as any to finish the blog post I started in February when we returned from vacation. For the third year my mom stayed at our house for a week so that Scott and I could take a vacation. We picked a great week to leave, there was snow in Pittsburgh and it was so cold that school was closed 3 days that week. By the end of the week I feared that this would be the last time my mom would stay with the kids in the winter.

We sailed on our smallest ship – Royal Carribbean’s Vision. The smaller ship allowed us to sail out of Tampa (a small, efficient port) and visit some places we haven’t been to on previous cruises. It also meant that when we had a few days of rough weather that we felt those high waves. There were 4 stops on this cruise with no at sea days between them so it was a busy cruise.

Day 1 at sea was spent relaxing (reading on our balcony, napping), exploring the ship (and our annual shuffleboard match), and wrapped up with dinner at the Chef’s Table – amazing food and wine and a fabulous experience.

Day 2 we docked at the island of Roaton, Hondorus. It was a lovely island and we were the only ship at port. Unfortunately the port was tiny so unless you had a tour planned there wasn’t anything to do. Scott had plans to dive and left the ship early. I wandered around the port, paid $5 for an hour of wifi and checked in at home (found out that school was closed), and went back to the ship and relaxed by the pool.

Day 3 was our favorite day. We docked off the coast of Belize and went on an excursion that included zip-lining and cave tubing. Not only was the excursion fantastic, the food, our tour guide and everyone we encountered were great! It was my first time zip-lining and it was lots of fun. Then we walked down into a cave with a river running through it. We sat in large intertubes and floated through the cave and at the end we were able to swim through the cave which was pretty cool.

Day 4 we docked in Cozumel and the water was very choppy. We immediately boarded a small boat to take us to the mainland. We had read in advance that the ferry ride was often very rough and the high waves that day made it a challenging ride. At least Scott and I managed not to get sick unlike some of our fellow passengers in that enclosed space. After the boat, we boarded a bus for a long ride to Chichen Itza. We only had an hour to see everything so our tour guide hurried us through the ruins and provided a brief explanation of what we were seeing (head phones = listening to tour guide). I don’t know that we would do this again – we spent 6 hours traveling to spend an hour seeing the ruins. When we arrived back, the sea was even worse, the gangplank on both the smaller boat and our ship were bouncing and moving back and forth. That night the upper decks were closed and we were advised not to use balconies due to the high waves.

Day 5 we docked in Costa Maya. Scott had plans to dive and I was going to see more ruins. He had left to grab breakfast before his dive when the call came that all diving and boat activities were canceled by the port authority due to the rough sea. So I found Scott and he changed and left his dive stuff in our cabin while I waited in the excursions line to buy a ticket for him to go on my ruins tour. We ended up having a great time at the Chacchoben ruins. The weather was lovely and we had lots of time to explore.

Day 6 was spent at sea and it was a rainy and cold day so it was not the greatest end to our cruise and no, it certainly wasn’t as cold as Pittsburgh was that day.