Cruise!

Above is a view from the airplane.

Jer and I went on a cruise Feb. 23-28. This is the cruise that Jer got me for Christmas that we went on over my birthday. It was so much fun. We went with my college friend, Joanna, and her husband, Chris. Joanna and I have been on a cruise together before, and we were both really looking forward to going on another one with our hubbies instead of my parents. We even went and got cute matching pedicures a couple of days in advance.....french tips with a little white and blue flower on each big toe with a little sparkly thing in the middle of the flowers-fancy us. We left on the morning of Fri, Feb. 22, flew from Salt Lake to Atlanta, then after a 2 1/2 hr layover, flew to New Orleans. Long day of flying, but it was so fun to get to Louisiana for our first time. Once we got off the plane and gathered our luggage and Chris (he had different flights from the rest of us J name people), we got in a taxi and went to our hotel. The Marriott convention center hotel was... WOW. It was beautiful and big and the beds were oh so comfy. Joanna works for Marriott, so she hooked us up big time. After dropping off our stuff we walked around town, found Bourbon Street, got accosted by some street performer/shoe shine dude, saw a bunch of drunks, and realized we were in the midst of a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, so we left that area, found a nice restaurant, ate, went to the hotel and crashed.This is the street our hotel was off of, just past the palm tree is one of the entrances to the Riverwalk Shopping Centre, it has great views of the Mississippi River.

The next day (Sat, Feb. 23) we got up, walked around, went to Decatur St. to Cafe Du Monde and got their famous beignets (basically scones with lots of powdered sugar on them) so yummy. Here's Jer enjoying one :

After this, we checked out of the hotel and went searching for where to get on our boat. We were pretty excited to get the vacation started.
We explored the ship a bit, ate lunch and went through the necessary training for in case of emergency. Jer goofed off a bunch with his life vest, it was pretty funny.Our first day after boarding the ship was my birthday (Sun, Feb. 24), a day at sea, formal night, and the fancy midnight buffet. Sadly, the food wasn't as good as it looked, but it was fun to see.





The next day (Mon, Feb. 25) we stopped in Cozumel, Mexico. When we got off the ship, we didn't really have any plans, but as we were walking, we were approached by a snorkel/glass bottom boat salesman, and we got a deal (compared to what the people who booked the excursion through the cruise line paid). We got all we could drink beverages, snorkel gear, glass bottom boat, and 2 snorkel stops in beautiful water for $45/person (the people who booked through the cruise line paid about $73/person). It was fun, but I got stung by mini jellyfish (luckily it cleared up after a couple of hours) and I got really worn out so I chilled in the boat while most everyone else was checking out the fish. After that we changed and walked around town.



The next day (Tues, Feb. 26) we were docked in Progreso, Mexico. We didn't really have any plans for this stop either. We walked around, took a 20 min. tour of the town (for just $2/person), stood on the beach, and went back to the boat. Progreso is a really cute and quaint town, but the main attractions are the Mayan ruins about 3 hrs away by bus. We didn't go that route this time, though it would have been pretty cool.



That night we sang some karaoke, it was fun. Through a strange turn of events, Jer and Chris were dubbed "the bad husbands", though they redeemed themselves by singing some karaoke too. I'd post the video or pics, but the video won't post and the pics are really dark.

The day after that (Wed, Feb. 27) was another day at sea, and boy was it rough. The ship was rocking like crazy and it was chilly outside-everyone was inside filling up all the space making everything crowded and uncomfortable, so we napped, watched t.v. and read in our room most of the day.

Our waiters were awesome. They were funny and friendly. Our head waiter was Muhameed from Turkey and our asst. waiter was Dewa from Thailand.
The next day (Thurs, Feb. 28) I woke up feeling absolutely horrible(I'm still sick, and so is Jer)- sinus infections are nasty little things. Luckily it was the day of debarkation and we traveled home, it was so nice to be back with more space and our own bed.

If you want to see more pictures and hear more of the trip, check out Chris and Joanna's blog entry.

We had a great time and I think we both needed that for our sanity with the next big thing coming up - my surgery.