cruisin'

Take two Howells who love to travel, one who gets a bad case of mid-winter blahs, a five year anniversary, a super saver cruise deal, a couple of adventure seeker friends, and grandparents willing to take some time to babysit, and that gives you a February trip to the Caribbean! 

We chose a western Caribbean five night cruise specifically for the port of call in the Grand Cayman. We wanted to do Sting Ray City and it did not disappoint!! We learned a lot on our last cruise and decided to book excursions online in advance, instead of through the cruise line. That ended up being a brilliant idea. Our two stop catamaran took us to the sting rays and then snorkeling. Instead of a huge 50 person water bus, we had twelve people on a small, new catamaran. They even took pictures of us in the water and put them on their facebook page for free so we didn't have to worry about cameras. Not to mention the pizza that came with it. We loved how personal it was!

We did a little shopping by the port in Grand Cayman.

Thanks to Jordan and Elyse, we all got into the Minute to Win It on the ship. They had to race each other through the lounge bouncing a ping pong ball on a paddle. Every time they dropped it they had to run on stage, do five squats, then start over. They both won a plastic gold 'ship on a stick' trophy.

We raced against two other couples to pop three balloons against each other. We totally won :). Our prize was kind of lame though. Instead of the cool plastic trophies everyone else got, we got champagne. Major bummer. :) We ended up giving it to the couple in front of us, haha. 

This is what happens when you turn your camera over to friends while you're on stage. :)

 Our second port was Cozumel, Mexico. We spent time around the port there as well. I forgot how forward shop owners are in Mexico! And how much of the same junk there is, over and over. It was fun to explore, though.

While Jordan and Elyse went scuba diving, we did a totally different and AWESOME excursion. We decided to do an Xrail tour in the jungle. It was kind a cross between a dune buggy and a go cart. We went on a mud and dirt trail through the jungle out to a cenote called Jade Caverns. We jumped off a 10 ft ledge into the caverns and got to swim under all the stalagtites and fruit bats. Steve drove on the way out and I drove on the way back. It was SO fun. Sometimes you need to just let loose, scream over big bumps in the road and get totally dirty! 

The ledge in the back with the big opening is where we jumped in at the cavern.

 We didn't take many pictures on the ship, because we just relaxed and had fun. And ate. And ate. And ate. Jordan and Elyse were the perfect couple to travel with and we had a blast! We loved our ship, the ports, the excursions, the WARM 78 degree weather, and most of all, the vacation time together. We've traveled a lot in the last few years, but this is the first vacation we've taken with just the two of us since Jaden joined our family. We decided we're really good at trips and we need to get better at taking vacations :). It was so good for the soul and for our friendship to go kiss some sting rays and get mexican mud all over. And if you knew how little we spent on this trip you'd be out the door yourself next year at the same time. February is a great month! Shop the cruise deals. It's so worth it!