Our first cruise - but definitely not our last!

Our friends Rod and Chere Iverson from Las Vegas (he's one of Dave's old missionary companions) have been trying to get us to go on a cruise with them for several years. We always had to tell them that we couldn't afford it. They fixed that when they called in 2006 and told us that they had a free cruise and we were going to be the beneficiaries of it. We certainly couldn't argue with that (and why would we want to!) We got our passports, booked our airline tickets, took vacation time, and headed to Miami to head into the Caribbean. This cruise far exceeded our expectations. We loved every minute of it and were sorry to see it come to an end. Our first stop was the Royal Caribbean private beach in Labadee, Haiti where we just relaxed on the beach. The next stop was Jamaica - where we experienced the zipline through the jungle - quite the neat experience. Then it was on to the Cayman Islands where we went snorkling, and our final stop was at Tulum - ancient Mayan ruins. On board we watched an ice skating show, attended a concert by Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees (ooh, that dates us!), and saw a couple of other shows presented by the cruise line entertainers. When traveling at sea I soaked up some rays while reading. Dave on the last day at sea tried his hand at wakeboarding (and a little surfing) onboard the ship and fell in love with it. Everyone had always talked about cruise food, and boy - they weren't exaggerating! You could have as much as you wanted and had a wide variety of choices.
After we got back and were telling the kids about it and showing them the pictures they were all enthused and indicated they'd also like to go on a cruise. Since our plans are to pick up Mitch next summer we decided we'd shoot for the spring of 2010 to take our next one. We haven't decided exactly where we'll go - it may very well be the same itinerary as this one was - but it'll be somewhere in the Caribbean. We absolutely loved the cruise scene and can't wait to do it again! It's a whole new world we didn't really even know existed!!