Gwilliam Gazette : It's Cruise Time!

It's finally time!!! We booked this cruise a year ago and it seemed so far away! But it's finally time to go! This would be Shelley and my 11th cruise and what made this one so special is because our whole family is coming, including Meghan, Marissa and their new husbands! This cruise was to celebrate many things: Meghan and Marissa's 1 year wedding anniversary, my birthday, our families Christmas, and 1 year since I ended treatments (again)! Gotta have things to celebrate, right?

We went on Carnival Breeze, their newest and biggest ship and went out of Miami. We stopped in Jamaica, Cozumel, and Grand Cayman. This was the first cruise we've gone on that it rained a lot! It rained in two of the ports on and off, and the third, (Cozumel) POURED rain all day long. But we didn't let that ruin our vacation! Both sea days were sunny, and spectacular!

In Jamaica, we toured the countryside, and ended up at the beach..It was overcast, and sprinkled a tiny bit, but other than that was nice. It wasn't super hot. Grand Cayman was stormy when we got off the ship. We had booked a sting ray trip and it was just us 8 on the tour. They take you out 6 miles into the ocean and there is a natural sand bar, where the water is about waist high. You feed them squid and they love it! They are very playful and gentle animals. They would come up and rub you wanting to get food. When we left from the dock in a very tiny boat, it was super windy, rainy, lightning....I thought we were going on a 3 hour tour and the tiny ship was going to be lost..It was just like Gilligan's Island! Even our "captain" seemed worried, but not wanting to miss out on money, he took us out. It took about 20 minutes to get out to the sand bar, and some of the way, we couldn't even see it was rainy and windy so much. We finally reached it, and the weather had gotten much calmer. Winds stopped, the rain stopped...with just a few sprinkles every now and then.

Normally there are probably 20-30 boats out there at a time, but this time there were maybe 4-5. We had all the stingrays to ourselves! It was so much fun! This was the highlight of our trip! We loved loved it! Then we went to a very active reef along the Great Barrier Reef and snorkeled for some time...and then went to another area close by that had no rocks, and not even any plants, just sand...and TONS of starfish! HUGE starfish - probably some a foot across. And giant sand dollars too.

In Cozumel, we were going to go to the beach, but the rain stopped that, by not stopping raining..and not just a few sprinkles either. We went into town and did some shopping, running for cover during the downpours...we also had a special tour of the Bridge on the ship that I had arranged for just our family. That was very fun too.

Of course, there were movies on the big screen under the stars, food, food, food, fun shows, comedians, game playing, food, mini golf, this ship also had a ropes course above the deck that was pretty fun, and sometimes scary, food, waterslides, and some food. The best part was being together as a family though! It ended all too soon!

Leaving Salt Lake! Hannah and Jacob's first time on a plane!

So excited to finally be on our way!

Wow! This is the line to get on! With almost 3000 passengers (and 1500 crew) this is alot of people!

Our first look at our ship

Checking out the dining room where we will be sitting

We've been on the ship 30 mins and people are already swimming!

This is where all the action is

Trying out the cabana's

Leaving Miami

Looking down into the atrium

Trying out the ropes course. It was very fun and had many different "tracks" to try

Dancing send off party. So fun to watch people!

Of course, Carnival's famous towel animals. A different animal each night on our bed

Very L O N G hallway!

Moon!

Sailing through the night

With 3000 people on here, where are they all? I have this whole side to myself!

This is the life! Just relaxing and reading and enjoying the endless view

Oh..here's where everyone is!

There were two formal nights where we all dressed up for dinner

Jacob always tried to give a different pose....Hannah is learning to do the same

Another towel animal

Jamaica...this was an old cemetery and this goat found a nice resting spot.

Very old church in Jamaica

This is the Martha Brae river...they take you for rides on these homemade bamboo rafts

Jamaica's countryside

Authentic jerk chicken cooking. It was really good!

Beach stop

Montego Bay, Jamaica

Found Matt taking a nap.

Going ashore in Grand Cayman

This was our "captain" for our private tour in Grand Cayman going to Stingrays

The shadows underwater are the stingrays coming to greet us

Approaching our home for the week

Yum..this chocolate cake was so good!

Dinner time!

Jacob looking hungry

Getting ready to take a pic

The many faces of Jacob

Jacob's had enough

Buffet area late at night - nobody's here!

24 hour soft serve ice cream....they must have eaten gallons of it!

Rainy Cozumel

Good parking job!

There was a geocache here!

Looking back on the ship from the Bridge

From the Bridge, looking straight down through a window in the floor

Bridge staff

Flags for all the different countries they visit. They fly that country's flag when they arrive.

From the Bridge.....

View from the Bridge and the port

Towel animal making class

All the different towel animals

Another try at the ropes course

Mini golf

You could upload photos of your cruise and they would show up on the big screen by the pool. Somehow, my cousin Dean, got accidentally uploaded and he ended up being on our cruise with us!