First Time Cruisers

After much planning and more than 6 months of waiting, we were anxious to set sail on our cruise.  My sister Colleen and her hubby Mike had experienced their first cruise the year before and decided it would be a good idea for us to go on one together.  

So, we booked for February 2016 aboard the Norwegian Jade Cruise ship for the four of us last July.  Then my friend Jen and her hubby decided to come too.  It was starting to look like a party – yee-haw!  A few months later, my other sister Brenda and her hubby decided to join us as well.  The excitement mounted – 8 of us vacationing together.  🙂

Ports of Call

Our days in port were scheduled for Monday through Wednesday.  On Monday we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico, then onto Belize on Tuesday, followed by Roatan, Honduras on Wednesday.

Four of us (Colleen, Mike, Rick and I) had pre-booked our shore excursion for Cozumel.  It was a package that included a guided tour of the island in a dune buggy, time at a private beach, a guided tour of replica Mayan ruins, lunch and snorkeling.  It was a 4 1/2 hour package. That was one of the best days of the trip.  We had so much fun and the excursion was worth every penny and more.

Jen and George are “foodies” and opted for a different shore excursion in Cozumel.  They decided on a Mexican cooking class where they learned how to prepare authentic Mexican food. After preparation they got to enjoy eating their delightful dish.  Brenda and Jeff hit the beach to do some snorkeling.

Belize

None of us had a shore excursion planned for Belize. We decided to wing it and go on shore just to check it out and do a little shopping.  Belize is absolutely beautiful, well what we saw of it anyway.  The only disappointment with Belize was that we could not go off and explore the island.

Everything was set up for shore excursions.  So we stayed in port, did a little shopping, and a little relaxation with some drinks.  My hubby Rick had been trying all along to get himself a tropical drink with an umbrella in it.  He was unsuccessful – until Belize!

Roatan Honduras

Six of us decided to do a shore excursion in Honduras, which we booked on the ship.  So Wednesday morning, Rick and I, Brenda and Jeff and Colleen and Mike headed out.  Our shore excursion was to visit to Maya Key, a private island.

I was so amazed, I felt like “this must be earth’s paradise”.  The highlight was feeding and petting the monkeys in the animal sanctuary.  I will be writing up a separate post review for this excursion as well, because it was so amazing, it deserves it own write up.  It was well worth the money we paid for another “day in paradise”!

Days At Sea

The balance of our cruise was spent on the ship heading back to the port of Houston.  So we had two full days, Thursday and Friday at sea.  We were supposed to get back into the port of Houston early Saturday morning, but ended up there about midnight Friday night.

This gave us plenty of time to unwind and relax on the last two days of our trip.  We certainly needed it after 3 gorgeous days of sightseeing and touring the ports.