Domincan Repubilc

After months of beaches it was great to see something different. We visited Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic last cruise. Unfortunately, 6 years of high school Spanish (3 years each) was about as helpful as hand gestures trying to navigate the city. Thanks to a helpful tip from a friend we decided to go to Tres Ojos which was amazing.

We walked around for hours trying to translate signs as we explored the city.
The oldest church in the western hemisphere.

Christopher Columbus!

On our way to Tres Ojos the cab driver stopped at this big monument. We took a picture not knowing what it was. Eventually,we found out that it is where Christopher Columbus is allegedly buried.

Tres Ojos: 3 enormous sinkholes just outside the city.

A little raft connecting the the sinkholes or "ojos".

Old Stomping Grounds

We finally returned to St. Maarten. It was so nice to be in a familiar place again. The best part was that we were there until midnight which meant...plenty of time for a good ol' game of BINGO!

The Del Sol Girls!

We randomly ran into our Bishop and his family.

We got to see his adorable daughter that was born just a few days after we left! Jump Up Casino!!

My very unlucky Bingo card.

Happy New Year!

We took the pictures, went to a comedy show, and I watched the ball drop alone because Christian fell asleep. We decided to celebrate with London. haha. Definitely not one for the books.

68 Degrees: Partly Cloudy

You know you’ve been in the Caribbean too long when you have to go back to the ship to put pants and a sweatshirt on because the temperature drops below 70 degrees. 2 cups of hot chocolate and 3 layers later… I finally started to warm up. You’d think we were in the North Pole.

Perks of being the Shopping Guides:

Christian has sweet talked his way to a free frozen & chocolate dipped key lime pie each visit!

I’ve managed to get a free 1lb chocolate chip cookie that is to die for! It’s so good that it usually ends up in a fight over who ate more!

After months of going to Key West we finally took time to explore. We started with the Conch Train Tour…a 90 minute (we got bored and hopped off around 45 min.) tour of Key West. We saw all the highlights though:

Outboard the Conch Train passing Higgs Beach.

The southernmost point of the USA...90 miles from Cuba

The start of Highway 1.

No visit to Key West would be complete without at least one crazy street performer.

Good Times in Guatemala

In Santo Tomas, Guatemala we did a horseback riding excursion. We were taken by boat to a resort. While we waited for our turn on the horses we were able to enjoy the resort facilities...which we took full advantage of. Obviously, there was no limitations on the water slides.

Holidays in Honduras

We spent Christmas Eve in Roatan, Honduras. It is a brand new port that opened just 2 weeks ago; featuring the first ever Beach Lift (as opposed to a ski lift). That evening we sang in the Christmas choir for all the guests.

Christmas morning Santa arrived and brought presents to all the kids. It was the funniest thing to watch. Some kids cried when they got close to Santa & others cried when Santa had to leave. For Christmas dinner the ship made a feast for all the officers (somehow we technically fall into that category).

Santa who closely resembled our friend Tony the Internet manager

Christmas dinner: Turkey, lobster tail, filet mignon, and my favorite...cranberry pumpkin pie

Cruising for Christmas

There are the obvious bummers about being on a cruise ship for Christmas, but I’ve been rather surprised by the number of perks:

1. You wake up one morning and literally truck loads of Christmas décor suddenly adorn every spare inch of your “home”.

2. Lobster, Filet Mignon and more is prepared every meal, but you never see a kitchen or clean a dish.

3. You still get a White Christmas (during the tree lighting ceremony "snow" was dropped from the top decks).

4. Freshly baked Christmas cookies are available 24hrs a day.

5. You wake up each morning to a beautiful Caribbean Beach- This cruise we are going to Cozumel, Costa Maya, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala & Grand Cayman

Sightings!

We went on a whale and dolphin sighting excursion in Dominica. The excursion got off to a great start and we spotted a couple whales right away. For the next 2 hours though there was nothing and we just watched the locals put their man-made sonars into the water to try to find the dolphins and whales. Eventually their efforts and our patience was rewarded. At the very end of the day we ran into about 30 dolphins that followed us for 30 min. all the way back to shore!

The first whale we saw.

And then the dolphins finally arrived.

Too good to pass up!

Technically we probably should've been in the stores, but a free Dolphin Swim excursion was too tempting! After the dolphin swim we also got to explore the entire park and participate in the other shows. We almost missed our ride back to the ship because Christian insisted on taking advantage of a "once in a lifetime chance" to pet and feed the sharks!

We spun in circles and then the dolphins immediately started doing the same thing!

Shaking hands with the Dolphin!


The trainers sent the dolphin to give me a kiss...I hadn't quite warmed up to the animals at that point.

They gave us about 30min just to be in the water petting & swimming with the dolphins


The much anticipated shark touch and feed!