Caribbean Cruise 2012!

Ok this is going to take FOREVER! But I need to get it done before I forget everything!
But I won't put all the pictures on... that would be 569... I don't even think I can do that... they are all on Facebook though if you're friends with me! Plus they have captions that basically explain them all. 

Duh Duh Duh Duh!

Day 1

We headed to the airport at 4:30am! Whew! It didn't help that we went to bed at 1:00 the night before... we procrastinate... and plus, when we get really excited about something we usually end up wrestling and laughing all night long. But we all got up and our super sweet neighbor Sinika took us to the airport. It was slightly confusing because we haven’t been in an airport forever! As you can see from the pictures we were pretty tired, but SO excited!

I was supposed to be studying… I didn’t study at all on our way there, I was way too excited!

The flights were confusing. First we flew into Minneapolis then Tampa, then Miami. Minisoda’s airport was fun because we ate at Chili’s, went around to all the shops, and got some Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory goodies. The only annoying thing was that we had to carry our bags around because we all had carry-on’s- my mom didn’t want us all to bring big bags… and I’m gald we didn’t, you’ll see why later. Ok lied, you’ll see why now.

THEY LOST DANNY’S BAG! It had ALL of his stuff in it! He even brought all of his favorite clothes. He basically just threw his ENTIRE closet in his bag. We were not happy. So that made the wait at the airport even long. We were not happy. But airports have the best customer service (basically they did NOTHING). They gave him a bag with “complementary” things like toothpaste a toothbrush a razor and a stick of deoderent (you lost his bag. Really? You think that’s going to make up for it, if anything it would have made me more annoyed). They said if they found it they would send it to the hotel in the morning. It was a LONG day! We ended up getting to Miami at about 9:00pm (which in our brains time was 11:00pm), and our hotel at about 10:00. But since we are all fish, we had to swim in the hotel pool! I also got an awesome new underwater camera for the trip/my birthday so I wanted to try it out! And as you can see… we definitely tried it out!!! Planking was our thing… we tried to do it in a lot of places. The only problem was that we kinda kept forgetting once we got on the cruise.

Day 2

EASTER!

We ate some yummy breakfast. Guess what, they didn’t find the bag, and our cruise was that day…. So my mom and Danny took a taxi to the nearest wal-mart to buy him everything he needed. The only problem they had trouble finding a taxi coming back so we were all extremely stressed because we had to get on our shuttle to the port and they weren’t here. We missed the first shuttle. Then the second. Luckly a nice lady helped us and they found us some other transportation because they got back late. We ended up having to check out of the hotel and figure everything out without my mom. We were pretty proud. 2 years ago we were at the same hotel but in Vegas for Easter and they had an Easter bunny but we never got a picture so my mom was determined to get one this time. We refused. But the bunny came by us while we were waiting for them to get back from walmart so we took a picture. She was pretty happy.

Once we were in the shuttle everything was better. We could relax for a second. Finally.

Then we got in the long line to get on the ship. I wore by BYU shirt pretty much all the trip but while we moving in the line I heard 2 men yell, “GO COUGARS!” I turned around and saw these men smiling at me and I just gave them a smile and thumbs up. We found friends through my shirt! We ended up talking to them later and found out that one of them had gone to BYU. After the line we GOT ON THE SHIP! YES! We were so excited! All we did for line an hour was explore and go to the fun safety thing….

Then… of course, we swam! The pool was the coolest because it was just salt water and depending on how faster the ship was going there were waves. It entertained us for a long time!

Eating. Oh dear. That’s all we did. We ate icecream at least once a day (mostly like 5 times a day) and had crepes every single night. The ship was pretty much what I expected, but better! There was so much to do and we just had fun all the time!

Day 3

BAHAMAS!

Our ship owned a private island on the Bahamas so it was really nice because we were the only ones there. We even pretty much had a beach to ourselves! We took a ferry or whatever you call it over there and could hardly contain our excitement! We loved how the water looked! It was so clear and beautiful! We couldn’t wait to use our snorkeling gear! But first, we did our 1^st excursion, PARASAILING! We’ve always wanted to do it and thought, hey, this is the perfect time! I was a little scared because Danny’s idiot friend (his words, not mine) said that you’ll never go in the ocean ever again cuz you’ll see sharks and stuff. Well, he was sort of an idiot, ha I didn’t see any sharks.  Actually when Ashley and I went up we saw 2 real life dolphins come out of the water! SO COOL! Pretty much we freaked out. The scariest part of the whole thing was when they dunked us in the water… probably because I kept telling them to dunk everyone else in the water, payback. I just kept thinking a shark was watching us and was waiting for us to come down (irrational, I know. That’s just how I think)! But it was a blast and so cool! Besides that, our guides were the coolest ever! They were both Jamacian and hilarious.

Then we went snorkeling…. We saw the same kind of fish everywhere. It was so clear! There wasn’t much! Oh, besides the freaky JELLYFISH! Let’s just say, me and Katelyn freaked out. We are both terrified of the water….haha but, obviously, we get over it! It was so relaxing, beautiful, and nice there! Then they had a huge BBQ on the beach for us! It was yummy and much needed after we did so much! Then we did a little shopping and watched people dance silly and play volleyball. On our way back to the ship on the ferry we actually talked to some people that worked on the ship. It was fun to learn what they had to do!

Then we went to dinner at The Summer Palace. Since it was freestyle cruising, which was perfect for my family, we could choose from a bunch of different restaurants and go when we wanted every night. The food was marvelous! After that we went to a “family friendly” show! We were excited. Nope. The first act was fun, the second, getting a little…. You know… then the 3^rd act was pretty much pole dancing, without the pole. We got up right quick and left! Even though we were in the middle in like the 5^th row. We weren’t going to lower our standards for that! Then we watched the gorgeous sunset and ate more food of course! Mostly cookies, pizza and ice cream! Then we watched Harry Potter on the big screen!

Day 4

Sea Day

We weren’t excited for this day because we loved The Bahama’s and wanted to get to JAMACIA! But, that’s ok, we still had a ton of fun! We swam for a lot of the day. We ate a lot. We went to a fun jeopardy show and just kind of relaxed and hug out. Then we got all ready for dinner! We tried to look our best because we were going to get picture with the captain! Our waiter was super cool and supes funny! We even played a little “telephone” at the dinner table… it was really fun, but probably not appropriate…. Most of the conversation over the telephone involved a drunk lady and her baby sitting close to us. It was pretty entertaining! We couldn’t stop laughing and probably looked drunk ourselves! We then went and listened to “Travis” (his real name was Solomon, but we named him Travis before we knew what his name was) play the piano. He was this amazing man who played the piano in different places every day and we always searched to find him cuz pretty much we all had a secret crush on that guy. Especialy Danny. The first thing we said when we got home was “I miss Travis.” But we never got a picture with him…. L Then we ate our daily icecream and hung out on the back of the boat like we did almost every single night.

Day 5

JAMACIA!

My mom and Karl both like sunsets/sunrises so they really wanted to go and watch the sunrise in the morning. The rest of us were not about to get up that early to do that. So, we didn’t. They just went and we got to look at the pictures without having to wake up at the crack of dawn. I think we won.

Then we ate breakfast as fast as we could so we could get onto Jamaica as quickly as possible. We were set up to go glass bottom kayaking and climb a waterfall. So we waited for our shuttle… while we were waiting we decided to go walk around a little. BAD IDEA! Everyone was yelling at us asking us if we needed a taxi and stuff. Like everyone. It was so scary! We got out of that right quick! The glass bottom kayaking was pretty cool! We went to a water fall and were able to get out and play in it. It was fresh water and then lead into the ocean. My mom became friends with one of the guides. He was HILARIOUS! He was always singing and teasing my mom. While we were at the waterfall he would walk around and take people’s cameras and take pictures of them. He was the bomb. Then we got to the shore and climbed this huge waterfall. It was a blast! Everyone and their cow was doing it, but we still had fun. Our guide for that was name Rafiel. He was awesome. We had to all hold hands and make our way up the long waterfall. It took forever because there were so many people, and because people were slow. We could of done it probably in 20 min, but it took the group about an hour and a half. But it was so much fun!

So, if you’ve seen the movie “Cool Running’s” you know about Jamaica’s. In the movie they say, “ya mon” a ton! I thought it was over the top in the movie. NOPE! Jamaican’s literally say it every other word! It was crazy! But we thought it was hilarious! They also say, “no problem” all the time too! They were awesome. But scary. Everyone was trying to sell us stuff! We would hear things like “come here pretty girls”, “you want something for your boyfriend”, “just come and look”, and a bunch more! It was overwhelming to walk through the market! I had one guy even ask me if I wanted to stay in Jamaica with me. I told him that would be weird cuz I’m white. Then he told me I could just be a “Ja-mer-i-can.” I laughed pretty hard. But I was still secretly creeped. Then we bought some yummy mangos and did some more shopping (not in the flea market thank goodness) and talked to some locals. It was cool to be in a completely different place and learn about the people. Let’s just say, I probably wouldn’t go back, but it was so much fun anyways!

Oh, and if you thought Utah drivers were bad. You haven’t seen ANYTHING! Seriously! It’s like the other cars and even people don’t exist! We almost got ran over twice, LITERALLY! Oh my. I’m still shaken up from our driving experience there…. It was terrifying….  I can’t really remember what we did the rest of the day…. Probably karaoke night, again, and movies J

Day 6

Cayman Island’s!

Whow! My fingers hurt!

Cayman island’s was a blast! I keep saying that about everything, but it really was so much fun! We started off by trying to get an excursion, but then decided that we wanted to just relax here. Besides that, I had woken up sick with a fever and a sore throat…. That was no fun. We are a coconut from the coconut man. I liked the juice. Ash didn’t. She liked the actual coconut, I didn’t. Even though I’m a huge coconut fan.

We basically just hung out at the beach and went snorkeling and shopping. It was great to relax! I got buried in sand and looked like a mermaid, but the camera got foggy cuz we left it in the sun, so we couldn’t take a pic. We played in the ocean the whole time and made castles J One of the shopping places was called “Karl’s korner” we couldn’t believe it. As we got back on the ferry we saw a girl in a wedding dress and a bunch of bride’s maids! COOL! Then we talked to these really nice people that were siting by us on the way back. They had done things with the dolphins which was what we were originally planning on doing, but we couldn’t find the silly man. So we just relaxed.

Then just random stuff on the boat the rest of the night J

Day 7

Cozumel Mexico

This was probably one of the places I wasn’t as excited about. Just because everyone goes to Mexico and I didn’t think it would be too much fun. But, it ended up being one of my favorite places! The people weren’t trying to sell us stuff every second and it was pretty close to America so in a weird way that made it less stressful J

Besides that we got to RIDE and KISS DOLPHINS! It was one of the coolest things ever! I learned a lot of cool dolphin facts and had a blast at the same time. Katelyn actually wants to be a dolphin trainer when she grows up so they had this program that was called dolphin trainer. You got to go around with the trainer doing stuff all day and actually learn how to train the dolphins. That ended up being really smart because then they treated my family like V.IP. Even though we only paid to ride, kiss, and interact with them. They gave us our own little place to snorkel that they had, and we didn’t have to pay for it. It was like our own little private beach, and it was the best snorkeling we had done all trip! There were a billion creepy stingrays that freaked me out pretty bad. Colorful fish, squid and cool plants. We were in the water the whole time Katelyn was doing the training! Then she actually got to help with the dolphins that we were working with. So we didn’t have to be in a big group like everyone else. It was just our family, the trainer that had been with Kate all day, and then an older couple that had also been with her all day. The older couple was hilarious and made it even more fun. The man was Mister Sir from Holes and the woman was Sandra Bullock from Blind Side… but old…. With a Canadian accent. It was the best. Then we ate real Mexican food with the trainer. Katelyn even got a free meal. It was the best.

Day 8

Sea Day

This day was supes boring to write about. We woke up at like 11:00. Ate a bunch of food, swam, I think, ran around the ship, ate, watched movies, ate, and laughed. Late in the night we were sitting eating dessert and we realized we hadn’t taken any pictures. I was appalled. So we sat there and took a bunch of pictures. They are actually pretty funny because they are just action shots.

Day 9

Getting off the ship.

Yep. That’s what we did. Wow. I’m boring myself writing about this. Maybe it’s because I already wrote basically everything with the pictures on FB. But ya, we got off the ship and then went on this tour of Florida and then went to this Gator place. There we went on a tour of the Everglades, saw a bunch of Gators, watched a guy feed and talk to Gators, held Gators, ate Gator. Basically stuff like that. Man. Sorry I don’t have much details. The pictures tell everything for me!

Ok I'm going to stop putting pictures on now... it's being really slow and I'm running out of patience!!!

Day 10

We were supposed to be flying home....
Our first flight didn’t match up with our second because it had a delay. So the airport got us new tickets for the next day to SLC and we stayed in North Carolina for the night. The hotel was a blast. We got in trouble twice because we were being too loud. We might have had an ice/water/ice water fight… yep. First the lady called up to the room, then she actually came up and said she was still getting complaints. I think people need to chillax a little. It was only 11:00. Besides, we had a ton of fun!

Day 11

We woke up at 5:30 and flew home! Whooo! Then I took finals…

All in all, the trip was AMAZING! I’ll never forget it, and I don’t think my family will either! I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start off my finals and spend quality time with my family exploring and learning about new places!

*The details got less and less through the whole thing because I was getting bored writing this...*