Let's Set Sail!! 10/12/14

 

A few weekends ago we were sitting in Lori and Marshall's living room in Gatesville visiting with them and the Greenawalt's. They were talking about their upcoming cruise and someone mentioned that Paul and I should look into flying down to Cozumel to meet them while they were at port. Knowing that we are both always up for an adventure Paul looked at me and said, "Well, do you want to go to Mexico, pretty girl?" We toyed around with the idea for a few days and then the week before decided, Why Not? Let's do this!

 

After looking into all inclusive resorts and coordinating flight times, for some reason I found myself glancing at the carnival website. Much to my surprise the 7 day cruise everyone was going on was only $329!! That was less than HALF of what we were going to pay to fly to Mexico for only 3 nights! We just didn't feel like we could pass that deal up so with 5 days to pack and prepare - we booked the LAST room available on the ship. Literally.

 

 

Friday evening we headed to Kemah to meet Lori and Marshall, after drinks and dinner we were off to bed and up the next morning headed to Galveston to meet the Faulkners, Grangers, Greenwalts and Higginbothams for a night of pre cruise fun! Sunday morning we boarded the ship and were off on yet another adventure, and just like everything else we do - there were a slew of unexpected turns and excitement!

 

Our first stop was Honduras! We boarded a Catamaran and set sail to a remote location for some snorkeling. The seas were super rough and at one point I even asked one of the deck hands if my boyfriend had paid them to try to throw me over board or something! We saw some BEAUTIFUL fish and reefs before they bused us back to the mainland (the seas were too rough to take the boat back) where we found ourselves at Fat Tuesdays enjoying drinks and music with Lori and Marshall, Sherman and Donella and the Nikki's. 

 

 

Next stop - Belize! Platinum Phil had originally set up an AMAZING excursion for us - cave tubing down the Amazon, but the rain had a different idea. The water was far too high so the excursion got cancelled. Luckily we ran into Speedy, an excursion tour guide(who liked to hear himself talk - ALOT) and before we knew it we were on a bus headed to zip line and then to ride ATVs in the jungle. Zip lining was a blast (aside from the HUGE Mosquitos!! Paul used them as an excuse to slap me every few minutes while smirking, "mosquito") and while we had both zip lined before it was our first time overwater - the Amazon River at that! The ATVs were a muddy blast due to all the rain. Paul made the mistake of getting on the 4 wheeler behind me - he once bumped into me and I turned around to remind him that one little spin of my tires and he would be COVERED in mud. He admitted he didn't think that one out fully and I never got bumped again :)

Once back on the boat Paul's feet began to swell LIKE CRAZY!!! We can only assume from standing all day in crocks without much support. (It couldn't possibly be from all the salt we were consuming eating pizza multiple times every single day!) Needless to say, it was early to bed that night with Paul's feet elevated on 4 pillows in the bed to try to get the swelling to go down!

 

The next morning we were scheduled to arrive in Cozumel around 8AM, when we woke up and headed to breakfast around 7 - we realized we were nowhere near land and THAT'S where things got interesting! A few minutes later the Captain came over the speaker and notified us that there was a lab supervisor on board from the hospital in Dallas that had treated the Ebola patient. Ill never forget sitting across the breakfast table from Paul and hearing the Captain say "I am standing here on the bridge with our Medical Physician..." I immediately looked at Paul and said "it's freaking EBOLA!!" Most of you already know the story from there, the poor lady was quarantined in her room for 4 days even though she didn't have any symptoms, Mexico wouldn't let us dock, Carnival gave each of us a $200 on board credit as well as 50% off our next cruise. Oh, and we got chased to sea out of Mexico by gun carrying military boats! What was left to do? DRINK IT FUN! 

Drinkin' it fun consisted of attempting to max out our 15 drinks per day max (I DID IT ONE DAY!!!) and of course SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS! Mainly Fireball for the men - Rumor has it, this group is the reason Carnival Cruise ships now have Fireball available!

 



After docking in Galveston and getting off the boat, we were greeted by a gazillion reporters trying to shove cameras and microphones in our faces. Luckily we were able to dodge them and we were quickly on our way to Midland! (I rode back to Midland with Paul and flew home the next morning so that he didn't have to make the 7 hour drive solo.) 




A week or so prior, Marie posted a picture on Facebook of this fabulous little diner in San Antonio, LuLu's. The food looked amazing and it was featured on Man vs Food so we decided to check it out for lunch. It certainly did not disappoint!! The only downside was that we enjoyed our food so much that we were too full to order the 3 LB cinnamon roll we had heard so much about!!





Chicken Fried Chicken with Queso on Top at LuLu's

 The perfect end of the trip was when we stopped for gas. Paul went into the store, without me knowing, and brought back my all time favorite candy and road trip food - gummy bears!! And not just any gummy bears - HARIBO!! Best boyfriend award, by far :)