We spent the day snorkeling and lounging on the beach. They had guys on the beach that you could or

We just got back from a new adventure.  As most of you know we downsized many aspects of our lives in order to make more room for activities sleep inn fort lauderdale and adventures.  We went to extreme measures in our downsizing, including selling our house, in order to make more time and money available for these adventures.  Last week was an adventure that reminds us that all our sacrifices have been worth it.
We went on a seven day cruise to the Western Caribbean.  We traveled aboard the Carnival Dream, leaving Port Canaveral, Florida and making stops in Cozumel, Mexico; Belize; Isla Roatan, sleep inn fort lauderdale Honduras; and Costa Maya, Mexico.  We have cruised before, but this was our first seven day cruise.  The prior three cruises had been three or four day cruises to the Bahamas.  Today I will share a bunch of photos from our trip and tell you a little about each stop we made and about the trip in general.  In my next post I m going to follow up with some of the things we learned about traveling, cruising, and packing for the trip.
Our cruise started at Port Canaveral.  This port is only about an hour from our house.  We received a phone call a couple sleep inn fort lauderdale days ahead of time saying that the ship would be undergoing a mandatory Coast Guard inspection so it would start boarding at 1:30 instead of 11:30.  We arrived around noon and they were already boarding, so apparently the inspection went pretty fast.  We departed Port Canaveral at 4:30.  It was cloudy when we left and we were really hoping the weather would clear up.  (We ended up having beautiful sunny skies all week, and after we got back we found it had rained most of the week at home.)
The Carnival Dream is a big ship, holding over 3500 passengers. sleep inn fort lauderdale  It has some cool water slides on the upper deck, a nice mini golf course, a basketball court, several three swimming pools, and a bunch of hot tubs.  It also has two theaters, one for broadway style shows and the other for comedy shows.  Here are a couple of pictures from the top decks.
Day 1 is a day at sea.  It was a good time for us learn our way around the ship.  They offer a tour of the ship as one of the activities, and it was a good way to learn about the ship and figure sleep inn fort lauderdale out where everything sleep inn fort lauderdale was.  The tour guide said it was one of his biggest groups with about 30 or 40 people, and with over 3500 people on board I m a little surprised that more people didn t take advantage of the free tour.
Almost everything on board the ship is free.  (Or maybe more accurately included in the price of the cruise.)   Meals are included, Broadway style shows, comedy shows, movies in the on-deck theater, and much more.  They do charge for plenty of other things though, like adult beverages, sodas, bingo, gambling, and on-board shopping.  We opted for some mixed drinks on a few of the days, but other than that didn t spend much on the ship.
Our stateroom was an interior cabin.  On past cruises we ve had exterior with either a porthole or a balcony.  We decided to try the interior cabin because sleep inn fort lauderdale it was a bit cheaper and we wanted to save most of our money for off-ship sleep inn fort lauderdale tours and adventures.
We arrived in Cozumel on a beautiful sunny day.  Cozumel is an island off the coast of Mexico.  I had always heard of people sleep inn fort lauderdale going to Cozumel, but I never realized it was an island until I started reading about it before our trip.  I should mention here that if you are looking for information on what to do at each stop you should sleep inn fort lauderdale check out the forums on CruiseCritic.com .  That is where we found all our information for tours and places to see.  It s also great to find off-ship tours, as they are quite a bit cheaper than the tours offered by the cruise line.
In Cozumel we passed sleep inn fort lauderdale on guided tours and instead took a taxi to Chankanaab National Park. The entry fee was $21 each for adults and $14 for kids.  When I was researching places to visit I must have missed the entry fee, as I was a bit surprised at the cost.  I left my credit card on the ship and only brought cash.  It was a good thing I brought a little sleep inn fort lauderdale extra cash with us that day.
Once inside the park you have access to free beach chairs under thatched covers. sleep inn fort lauderdale  You can also get a free life vest for snorkeling by leaving your ID with the attendant.  We brought our own snorkel gear, but they also had it available to rent.  We like to bring our own to save a little money.
We spent the day snorkeling and lounging on the beach.  They had guys on the beach that you could order drinks and food from.  They were like waiters or runners that would take your order and then walk over to the on-site restaurant to pick it up.  At lunch time we ordered some bottled waters and quesadillas.  It was nice to be able to order from the comfort of our lounge chairs.
The snorkeling was good.  It was rocky terrain with one little sleep inn fort lauderdale patch of coral.  We saw some of those fish from Finding Nemo, the silver colored ones that were all balled up together and formed an arrow to point Nemo s dad in the right direction.  It was neat to see them, it was big ball of fish sitting near the bottom and every once in a while a few fish would change position.  We also saw some more colorful fish.  The snorkel area also had several sunken sleep inn fort lauderdale statues that gave us something to look at and encouraged us to travel all around the snorkel area.
On Day 3 the ship stopped in Belize.  We didn t plan any tours in Belize.  With the other tours we had planned in Isla Roatan and Costa Maya, we decided to save a little money and make day 3 a ship day.  It was lucky we did as Dream and Faith got sick overnight.  For Dream it was a few too many FunShip drinks combined with a bit of sea sickness.  For Faith, I think she overexerted herself in Cozumel and a bit of sea sickness.  This ship moved a lot more than the others we have been on.  I m not sure if it was the location of our room, which was in the very front of the ship, or the speed of the ship, or simply rougher seas.  The seas didn t seem that rough and I noticed sleep inn fort lauderdale that when the ship went faster it seemed to rock more.  In any case, Dream and Faith weren t up to any tours in Belize so it was a good thing we didn t have any booked.
Isla Roatan was our favorite stop of the trip.  The island is beautiful and has lots of lush great foliage surrounded by turquoise caribbean waters.  We booked the Best of Roatan tour through Bodden Tours .  This tour included our own private tour guide, a tour in an air conditioned van around Roatan, sleep inn fort lauderdale and stops wherever we wanted to go.  We added stops at Victor Bodden s zip line and monkey exhibit and at Bananarama beach club.
Kenny was our tour guide and he did a great job telling us all about Roatan and the different areas we passed through.  Kenny showed us the ex-mayor s house.  He said the ex-mayor was corrupt and got voted out, only to be replaced with another mayor that was just as corrupt.  We also drove through some of the island villages and saw how the locals lived.  We saw areas of locals living in poverty and areas where retired Americans and Canadians lived in luxury.  We drove by the island homes of Johnny Depp and Silvester Stalone. We also took in some views from some of the mountainous areas.
After our tour around the island we went to Victor sleep inn fort lauderdale Bodden s place and rode the zip lines.  The zip lines weren t super high, but they were a lot of fun, and just right for Faith s first zip lining sleep inn fort lauderdale adventure.  They had no minimum age or height requirements here, as opposed to the ones in our home state where Faith can only do the kiddie course ones.  One a couple of the zip lines Faith was hooked up with me or Dream as she would have been too light to make it across on her own.  They even let us hang upside down and on one of the longer zip lines Faith and I flipped upside sleep inn fort lauderdale down together.  The zip lines were great fun and all the guides were playful and fun.
After the zip lines we toured the mini-zoo.  They let us go inside the cage with the Capuchin Monkeys.  The guide gave them sunflower seeds to eat and they climbed on our heads and backs and hung out there while they ate.  We also got to go inside the cages with the Macaws. sleep inn fort lauderdale  The Scarlet Macaws landed on our shoulders while the guide fed them sunflower seeds.  The Green Macaws were smaller and Faith was able to let one land on her arm.  While she was holding one another flew down and landed on my head.  We had a good laugh at that.
After the zip line and monkey visit we headed to the beach.  Our driver/tour guide took us to Bananarama.  The beach was lined with small beach resorts, each having a small slice of beach front, a restaurant and/or bar, bathrooms, showers, and beach chairs.  We had some tortilla chips and salsa and a pizza for lunch.  Our guide hung out with some of the other guides as we enjoyed our time at the beach.
The reef on this part of the island is only a few yards/meters from shore.  From everything I had read online, this is some of the best snorkeling in the Caribbean and is probably tops for snorkeling from shore.  We snorkeled in front of a resort called Infinity Bay.  There was a pink buoy marking a small channel through the reef.  At some point the reef is so close to the surface that you can t swim over it.  We swam along the channel and the reef changed from rocky to more coral like.  Along the outer edge of the reef was real living coral in many different colors and varieties.  We saw various colored fish swimming about.  It really was some of the best snorkeling we had ever done and it was awesome that we could get to it from shore.  We took a few pictures, but our digital camera glitched after the first few and we weren t able to take pictures of the prettier side of the reef.  We snorkeled for about an hour and then headed up to the beach to relax for a short time before sleep inn fort lauderdale heading back to the ship.
Day five was a shorter stay than the other days.  We only had five or six hours on shore, so we opted to take one of the shorter tours to the Chacchoben Mayan Ruins.  There are some other Mayan Ruins near Costa Maya, but th