8th Anniversary Cruise!

October 02, 2016 to October 09, 2016

Day 1:

I joked with Jeff several times throughout the week that we were on a celebrity cruise because of all the celebrity doppelgangers  we kept spotting. It all started with a pirate who looked like Aziz Ansari posing for pictures with guests at the port in Galveston. He insisted Jeff get out of the picture so it could just be he and I. Ha!

On the ship, we tried boogie boarding on the flowrider -- the on-board attraction we were most excited about -- and my years of experience boogie boarding on actual waves made it much more difficult than I expected! What is this law of physics that requires more weight on the BACK of the board to go DOWN the wave??

In line to boogie board on the flowrider. We couldn't wait to try surfing the next day!


Texas flag and long horns -- Jeff approves.


Clifford? What are you doing here?

Day 2:

Sea Day

Jeff and I went straight to the flowrider when it opened at 9:30am and caught the end of the advanced time with “THE Flow Rider,” "#2,” and “#3,” the three guys on our cruise with significant flowrider experience. We would later learn their names were Ronnie, Tim, and Chris. They made it look easy! After watching them and considering our experience wakeboarding and wakesurfing, Jeff and I thought it would be a piece of cake for us – wrong! It feels nothing like anything we’ve done and the habits we’ve made wakeboarding and surfing actually messed us up! We were in for a challenge!

We tried the two-person inner tube slide next; it has a super steep drop – so fun! Jeff and I tried so hard to get high enough up the ramp after the drop that I could touch my foot to the wall at the end, but never quite made it.

We had a blast sliding down the two long racing tube slides in different ways. We tried spinning ourselves on our backs like turtles as many times as we could on the way down. Easily the funnest way to slide if you ask me! Later on, as we finished up another session of flowboarding, Jeff asked what we should do next, and I casually replied, “We should turtle since we’re already wet.” It only took us a half a second to realize how ridiculous that sounded and crack up. Haha!

Jeff bought me the new Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, before the cruise and I quickly discovered I really should have brought more than one book. I finished it on day 2. It was just fantastic! I loved it! Particularly everything to do with Snape, but so much of it addressed things I’d thought and wondered about since the first seven books came out. It was so satisfying and perfect and hilarious and heartwarming and I cried lots and lots – in a good way!

That night, we watched Monday night football on the big screen on deck, and I actually gave it my full attention the whole time and learned a few new things.

Day 3:

Cozumel

Jeff and I worked out in the morning in the wonderfully enormous on-board gym, like we did every morning, and then headed off the ship for our “save the turtles” excursion. This excursion is only offered at this time of year when baby sea turtles are hatching on the beach each night. After they hatch, most of the babies make their way out of the sand and into the ocean, but the nests are buried up to 5 or 6 feet down in the sand, so a few usually don’t make it out. Once they have hatched, baby sea turtles can only survive about 72 hours in the sand before they need to make it to water.

We took a bus out to a beach where nests had been marked the night before. Our group split up to dig down to each of the five nests and rescue any stragglers that hadn't made their way out yet.  I got to dig first, and about 2-3 feet down, I found our very first itty bitty baby sea turtle! I was expecting them to be cute, but oh my goodness were they cute!! So tiny and wiggly! Jeff totally suggested this excursion for my benefit because he knew I’d love it. He’s not the animal lover I am, but even he had fun with this! After we had dug to the bottom of our nest and rescued all seven babies, we all lined up on the beach, let them go on the count of three, and watched them scramble into the surf with impressive speed!

In five nests, we saved twenty babies – our nest had the most. (The previous night, the group saved a total of eighty-seven babies – the most of the season so far!) The last baby we pulled out had a gimpy fin, so we called him Nemo. He struggled a bit more than the others to make his way to the water, and swim out past the waves, but we all cheered him on and hope he made it!

Little Nemo and his gimpy fin

After we finished up with the turtles, we took the bus to a beautiful Mayan village and garden. We watched a demonstration, explored, and tasted traditional Mayan foods.

Cringe, cringe, cringe! He just held his foot in the fire so many times before he finally put it out with his heel! 

Why so awkward? Hahaha. Jeff and I clearly should have leaned together instead of away from each other!

I bought this gorgeous necklace from fire foot guy. Man's got skills!

So gorgeous! Jeff and I walked to this beach for a nice long swim before we got back on the ship.

We climbed all three of the rock climbing walls and my forearms were screaming by the end! Phew! I'm out of shape!

A sweet couple very enthusiastically cheered me on while I raced Jeff up this wall. He gave me a head start and he still kicked my butt! Thanks for believing in me, cute couple!

Beautiful Cozumel. We love you!

     

Day 4:

Grand Cayman/Sea Day

We couldn’t stop at port due to weather. Instead we spent a little more time on the flowrider, making a little more progress – Jeff more than me. Surprise, surprise! I continued to be the only girl out there most of the time and received lots of extra encouragement and high fives from all our new buddies in line. Jeff and I go on cruises together for the “us time” away from the kids, so we never really go into it looking to make friends on the ship, but the flowrider brings a lot of the same crowd back day after day, so it’s like we’re part of a little club and we made quite a few friends. I really enjoyed meeting people and chatting in line during the 20+ minute wait between turns.

The crowd watching from the bleachers that morning was the biggest I’d ever seen and at one point I looked to the back bleachers and saw David Hasslehoff sitting there! (Okay, not really. But it seriously could have been!) I’d already seen Con-Air Nicolas Cage a few times (minus the muscles – alright, mostly just the hair), and “Bruce Willis” that morning at breakfast, so it was really turning into a celebrity cruise!

Can you spot The Hoff?

My turn came up and after a short run, I fell and got blasted up to the top of the wave, ungracefully, per usual. Typically, the 30+ mph water pushes me so hard and fast that I go up over the wave and slam into the wall at the back of it, but for some reason, this time, I went up over the wave and landed right inside the wall of water coming up over the crest. I could tell that my swimsuit bottoms were down a bit in the back, but sitting in that rushing water was causing a bigger problem – it was doing it’s very best to forcefully push my top off to the side! I couldn’t hold my top on and fix my bottoms at the same time and in a moment I wouldn’t even be able to keep my top on, so I quickly stood up ... mooning the entire audience below. Turns out my bottoms were down about halfway in the back, so everyone got a good look before I yanked them up. The crowd CHEERED! Gahhh! So embarrassing! I couldn’t look anybody in the eye for the next twenty minutes until my next turn, but I eventually got over it. It became a story that got a guaranteed laugh any time I told it, so.. worth it? Almost. I can’t believe I mooned David Hasslehoff.

Later that day, Jeff I walked out on deck to find “David Hasslehoff” playing keyboard in a band. He was AMAZING! Totally made the band! They were okay, and the lead singer had some fantastic energy, but Jeff and I wondered what the Hoff was doing in this “eh” band when his talent far exceeded everyone else’s. Find a band worthy of your skills, Dave!

During our afternoon session of flowboarding, Jeff made some serious progress, while I didn’t make much and the poor guy had to deal with me getting frustrated about it. It’s not easy being a competitive person married to such a ridiculously talented guy sometimes! I should really be used to it now, but every now and then, it bums me out a little to realize when it comes to most things remotely athletic, no matter how good I get, he’ll always be better. And the man is amazing at just about every non-athletic thing he does too! I just have to remember to avoid comparing us and work on improving myself and beating my previous skill level. I really do love that I’m married to someone who pushes me to be my best and push myself beyond what I’ve previously thought I was capable of. Also, what a stud! If all else fails, I just brag about him and take credit for his talent. I’m married to him – that counts for something, right??

After dinner, one of the amazing waiters made Jeff and I hot chocolate special. There are hot chocolate machines on the Carnival cruise ships, but not on Royal Caribbean. Two nights earlier, Jeff asked a waiter if there was hot chocolate and he went to ask. He came back with two mugs of hot water and two packets of hot chocolate mix. The following night, we asked another waiter – the head waiter. He brought us the hot chocolate already stirred up. It was this same head waiter who took it a step further on this night when he remembered us and asked if we wanted hot chocolate again. A few minutes later, he came out with hot chocolate he had made special, with milk this time, and another ingredient or two – creamer maybe? It was so creamy and delicious! We told him so, and he promised to make it for us every night. What an awesome guy! I have since noticed him constantly going above and beyond with other passengers too. After going from being bummed about not making as much progress as I wanted to on the flowboard, to being a little sad about missing our kids, this guy totally made my night!

A bat!

Day 5:

Jamaica

Jeff and I signed up for the “Ultimate Adventure” excursion, which included zip lining, ATV’s, lunch, a challenge course (ropes course), and river tubing. It was awesome! I didn’t have my camera with me for any of it, but we had a blast!

When we were getting suited up for zip lining, the guy putting on my harness hit on me so hard, but told me not to tell Jeff because he didn’t want a black eye. Hahaha!

During zip lining, one of our guides grabbed my hand as he was jumping off the platform to zip across and pulled me forward toward the edge causing me to emit an embarrassing girly scream and fall back into the poor people behind me. The same guy gave me a hard time about not attaching myself to the line. Even though I knew he was joking, I played with my carabiners and figured out how to do it myself. I was a little disappointed that there was only one zip line left and another guide hooked me up, so I didn’t get a chance to try it.

At the end of the zip line course, our whole group stood around calmly waiting for everyone to finish while I hopped around trying not to get eaten alive by mosquitoes. WHY do they love me so much?!  It was like nobody else even noticed them, while I was covered in bites. Aye aye aye!

Riding ATV’s was Jeff’s and my favorite part of the excursion! It was SO fun! We rode through lots of hills and rocky paths full of ditches and mud puddles. The guy in front of me kept avoiding those things, but I went straight for them because that only makes it more fun! I got a faulty ATV with a bad battery, so the engine kept cutting out and I’d have to hold down the break and turn the key in the ignition to start it back up again. That may sound like a bad thing, but it was actually AWESOME, because every time it happened, a considerable gap would form between me and the person in front of me (Jeff was the only one behind me), so I could gun it and go REALLY fast to catch up! So, so fun! But eventually my battery died completely, and I had to climb into the dune buggy with our guide at the front of the line. Our other guide peeled me an enormous orange he’d plucked right off the tree. It was the biggest one I’ve ever seen! And so juicy and sweet!

After a while, Jeff kindly offered to switch with me, so I got to ride his ATV the rest of the way. He didn’t have to sit in the dune buggy very long though because the lady at the front of the line gave her ATV to him since her thumb hurt from pushing the gas all that time.

After a little lunch, we did the challenge course. We got through it faster than anyone else we saw, but we couldn’t run through each section like we could on the Carnival Magic ship a couple years ago. This was a lot more swingy and unstable, so we weren’t exactly graceful on it!

After seeing a group come back from tubing almost completely dry, Jeff and I decided to take our shoes off, but leave our clothes on over our swim suits. Big mistake! Turns out, our guides like to splash, and they particularly enjoyed splashing Jeff and I! We got drenched!

As we were getting into our tubes, one of our guides said Jeff looked exactly like an actor in a movie they had recently watched. He said, “See he’s even got the guns!” He couldn’t remember the actor’s name, but he and our other guide, JJ, called Jeff “Captain” for the rest of the day.

JJ was particularly fond of floating by and splashing each and every person in our group. And when I say splash, I really mean drench because he used his paddle to create tidal waves! I had had enough of his unchallenged reign of terror, so I slid down in my tube and used my foot to splash him back, thus beginning a fight I couldn’t win! He singled Jeff and I out so much after that! But we got the last laugh when our river float was over and everyone had climbed back onto the river bank. I pulled my soaked shorts out of my life jacket and put them back on, and then pulled out an equally drenched shirt and started to ring it out. JJ feigned remorse for soaking my clothes and asked to see my shirt. He took it and went to dip it in the river. As soon as he bent down, Jeff whispered, “Push him in!” I stepped forward and shoved him into the river, much to everyone’s amusement. Thank goodness he didn’t drop my shirt! And he still rang it out for me when he got out of the water. 

JJ is on the left side of this picture and our other river guide, who's name I can't remember is on the right. Guy who kept hitting on me snuck in too. Haha! He's the one next to me if you couldn't guess. ;)

I found this license plate with my wonderful sister's name on it while shopping for souvenirs for the kids. As usual, they had Kim AND Kimberly, but no Kira. It's okay. I'm used to it. ;)

Jeff and I decided to join a couple of our new friends, Andrew and Heman, in a one-hour private flowboarding session that evening. We surfed as the sun went down and it was amazing! I learned a little more and made a little progress, but mostly just enjoyed the experience of surfing without the crowds and lines during a beautiful sunset with a few awesome people! That night, for Jeff, it just CLICKED. He was doing almost as well as Tim (a.k.a. #2 ;)) by the end of our session! Everyone was so impressed and our two instructors were so excited about their star pupil! Yevgenii, one of our two instructors, even offered to let Jeff try a particular board, proclaiming it a "race horse." Jeff wasn't sure he was quite ready for that! My newly adopted easy-breezy, non-competitive attitude since my initial frustration made this a much more enjoyable experience, and as always, it was fun to watch everyone be so impressed with Jeff. That’s my husband!

Gorgeous sunset!

It's always precious watching the guys "hold hands" with the instructors. Haha.

I was surprised and impressed to look up and see Yevgenii jumping on a board to meet me in the middle of the wave and help me out! Also, it may be an indicator of who he had more confidence in if he was offering Jeff race horses and coming out to hold my hand. Ha!

Look at this guy!!

I LOVE this towel penguin! It made me laugh so hard!

It is a penguin, right? I don't even know, which somehow only makes it even more hilarious!

Day 6

Sea Day

Surfing got off to a rocky start this morning. Of course “rocky” means a completely different thing for Jeff than me! He was still doing pretty well, but not his best, while I felt like I had completely forgotten the basics over night! I think it may have had something to do with all of the new things the instructors tried to teach me the night before when I may not have been ready for it, as well as the fact that I spent so much of our private lesson surfing with my hand being held and I may have gotten used to that. Whatever the case, it was frustrating, but thankfully, the afternoon session showed improvement for both of us. Maybe not our best yet, but better! Jeff has picked this up so fast, way faster than anyone else I’ve seen or heard of! Even Ronnie, the best of the cruise ship guests, said it took him 5 cruises using the Flowrider to get comfortable cutting back and forth! Apparently, this is his 15^th cruise. He may be one of those retire-on-a-continuous-cruise people. He’s good buddies with all the sports team ship staff and everything!

This is another one of our flowrider buddies, John. He won the belly flop contest by a landslide! Jeff and I were reading up on deck and we actually heard the smack when he hit the water. He was the CLEAR favorite when they chose the winner by applause.

While Jeff and I were getting in some slide time, I had a little “lost in translation” moment with Yevgenii at the bottom of the slide that made me laugh. A couple of the other guys from the sports team were already playing on the flowrider after closing it for the day. I asked Yevgenii why the other guys got to play on the flowrider and he didn’t. He said because he’s doing his job and they’re not. I said, “Well, good for you!” He clarified that it was NOT good for him; it was much better for them, bad for him. Haha! I can see why he was confused. I guess Ukranian sayings and American sayings are not the same!

When we collected our things to leave the sports deck, we ran into Heman, one of our flowboarder buddies. He saw our books and said, incredulously, “You guys read??” Hahaha! Yes, Heman, we’re the whole package. ;)

This is Ekbar, the head waiter who made our amazing hot chocolate every night. When I asked him for a picture, he excitedly replied, "Of course! Wow, I never get this!" Haha. Then, he hung around and chatted with us for a while. He's so fantastic!

Hot chocolate and card games.

Monkey!

Day 7

Sea Day

Jeff and I dragged ourselves out of bed for one final workout to round out a full week of daily workouts. We were a little more tired this week getting so much exercise every day when this past year, we’ve been so busy, we’ve gotten less exercise than we have up until now in our marriage. I do looove the feeling of being worn out after a full day of being active though!

The morning session of surfing on the Flowrider went much better than the morning before! Jeff and I both were performing about as well as we ever had, although I never quite managed to do another 360. I’d done two on earlier days, but we never caught them on camera. An older lady in the audience actually filmed one of them and offered to text me the video, but then took off without getting my phone number! Rats! Jeff’s 360’s, on the other hand, were starting to look really smooth! The Flowrider trainers continued to be really excited about his skills, grinning and cheering when he did particularly well, teasing him and splashing him with water to try and throw him off while he was riding, and talking to him like he was one of them. He’s pretty cool.

We rode the two person slide a few times after the surfing session ended. We had given up on touching the wall at the top of the ramp because I got reprimanded a few times for pushing myself out of the tube to reach for it and even doing that, we still hadn’t managed to touch it. But on our last ride, we somehow got close enough for me to touch it without getting out of the tube at all! Victory!

We "turtled" and raced down the other slides for a while, had lunch, read our books, and got ready for the next session of surfing to start.

The line was SUPER long for the last session, so we only got four turns each, but we still had a great time, and I got to see the awesome lady from New Zealand I’d met that morning again. She did really well!

While we waited in line, Jeff and I figured I’d crashed into at least half of the sports team while surfing. Oy! It’s embarrassing how many of them I’ve had to thank for saving me from a bad crash! Yevgenii got it particularly bad, I even stepped in the water and sprayed him in the face on at least two different occasions. He was helping me onto the board once and said, “Hey you didn’t spray me in the face today!” Haha! Poor guy!

And then my last turn came up, and OF COURSE, even though I’d been lucky to avoid exposing myself to anyone all week since the mooning incident, on my Very Last Turn, I felt my bottoms go all the way down in the back as I went over the top of the wave. Somehow, as I struggled to pull them up under the cover of the rushing water, one side of my top got pushed to the side and I didn’t realize it until I saw the female trainer down below put a hand to her face in embarrassment for me. Oh boy! I’m not sure how many people noticed, but I just had to laugh (and cringe) that it happened on my very last ride. At least I’ll never see most of these people again!

After the session ended, Jeff and I rode the slides for the next hour until they closed and then hung around to watch Adam (from Hungary) and Yevgenii (from Ukraine) play around on the flowrider. I couldn’t believe we were the only ones there! It was easily the most entertaining thing we’d seen all week! They are so good! They called up to us, asking if we wanted to see different tricks and cracked us up playing boogie board wars, trying to wipe each other out. We loved it! And we were totally jealous that they get to spend so much time practicing since they are on the ship for 6-7 months straight and can play on the flowrider every night after hours. If it wasn’t so crazy expensive, Jeff and I would totally put one in our backyard!

Ronnie and Yevgenii. Ronnie spent all week entertaining us with his flowboarding skills, encouraging us, giving us tips, and yelling helpful instructions from the the sidelines while we surfed. He's the best!

This is our friend Andrew who we shared our private session with. He was on the ship with his cute wife and adorable, smiley 2-year-old son. 

Jade! We had to snap a picture of this restaurant name!

Jeff finished this whole book by the end of the week. He really enjoyed it!

Heman, our other buddy from our private session. We had a great time getting to know him!

Chris and Tim. These guys are awesome! They came all the way from Minnesota and they are pretty great on the flowrider!

John again! If you've seen the videos of us surfing, you may have noticed me looking up and smiling at someone straight ahead of me. That would be John! He would stand in line and tell me to keep my eyes on him so I could keep my balance easier. And it really, really worked!

Yevgenii and Adam entertaining us like nobody's business!

All of the fruit and veggie creations around the buffet on the last night were adorable!

Well, what an absolutely fantastic week! These incredible, fun weeks with my amazing husband are among the happiest of happy places. I look forward to them so much! And they wouldn't be possible without our wonderful, brave family who babysit for us. This week, Renita had all four kids by herself the whole time! She's an absolute saint and we love her!