Liberty of the Seas

Vacation recaps are a bit of a connundrum.  On one hand, I love having a day-to-day record of what I did, when I re-read this stuff I can remember it more vividly.  On the other hand, it is probably boring as hell for anyone else to read.  So, I think I’ll split the difference this time and give you the highlights (typically, what I have pictures of), but by day.

Sunday: Embarkation Day

Galveston isn’t exactly the prettiest port, but it was nice to finally be by the sea after a 4 hour drive.

Royal Caribbean has partnered with Dreamworks and there were characters all over the ship.  This was the sail away party, Fiona and Shrek graced us with their presence.

I ate so much seafood this trip.  This was dinner the first night, and it was the first time I haven’t been squeamish about oysters.  They were not bad, and the rest of the dish was amazing.

Monday: At Sea

Slept in, read in the morning, and then hit the gym.  They left the spin bikes out from a class they did earlier, so I did my own for 20 minutes and then lifted weights and stretched for almost an hour.  And, of course on vacation, you break out the unicorn fighting a giant t-rex robot capris.  It’s mandatory.

Buffet lunches were pretty good (and pretty easy not to eat like an asshole).  This is a pretty good representation of what I ate most days – grilled chicken, some fish with lentils, dragon noodles, lots of mixed veggies, and some roasted potatoes.  Only one plate most days, if I was still hungry, I grabbed soup, but it was amazing how my appetite stayed sane.

We spent most of the day reading and taking dips in the pool.  This is a necessary part of vacation for me.

Since it was fancy night, we got all cleaned up and I wore my “diamonds”.  Zliten calls it my VEEP look.  We clean up alright.

We went dancing and made friends and had a few cocktails, and there may have been a bit of dramatic posing in the photo gallery around 3am.

Tuesday: At Sea

Another glorious vacation day – slept in, buffet lunch, hanging out at the pool, and playing games with the ‘rents.

Dinner was great – the crab cakes were OK, but the slaw underneath was to die for.  Zliten and I split the cilantro fish and the chicken cordon bleu and they were both amazing.

Our table was great, it overlooked the whole dining room and had a good view of the fancy stairs (this was the view from it).  Every other night or so, the waiters would put on a show for us.  Some of them were actually pretty great dancers!

Wednesday: Roatan, Honduras

Roatan day!  Diving day!  Hooray!  Since we had to be off the ship at 9:30, and diving takes a lot out of you, I had breakfast instead of lunch today.

Even Roatan gets political.  It was crazy to see these signs all over.

Diving with a group has it’s drawbacks, but the valet service hauling gear is super nice.

We had some great dives.  We saw two turtles, and one was feeding so we got to get really close to him!  I also saw a bunch of french angel fish, and if diving in Bonaire hadn’t spoiled me, I would have said it was my favorite dive ever, perhaps.

The rest of the day, we just chilled on the ship, drinking a few beers, eating dinner, playing games.  Next time, I’m totally doing the zipline at the port (behind me).

Thursday: Belize City, Belize

We docked in Belize around 9:30am, but we didn’t really have a full day of stuff planned, so we hit the gym in the morning.  It was empty, so I got to play on free weights and got a prime elliptical spot to do intervals.  It was nice, and a way to avoid breakfast.

After a little snack, we headed to shore on a tender.  Some people gripe about them, but I like boats and enjoyed an extra boat ride in my week.

When in Belize, we always visit the Wet Lizard bar and get Lighthouse Lagers and Belizean meat pies.  This trip was no exception.  We found our names on the ceiling from two years ago, but unfortunately they’re not letting people mark up the bar anymore, so we’ll probably be but a memory soon.  At least we’re temporarily immortalized.

After a while, we realized there was free wifi, and logged on to check facebook and post a braggy picture in Belize, and this is how we learned about layoffs and I sent some messages and made some calls.  I intended to have one drink, I may have had a few more. Simultaneously.

We made it back on the last tender, making us late for dinner.  Once I told my parents, they understood, and had ordered food for us.  We got two orders of lobster and shrimp (I enjoyed it and didn’t eat my side dishes).  After dinner, we headed out to hit the casino, and then to dance again, and we may have stayed up WAYYYY too late for the early wakeup we had.

Friday: Cozumel, Mexico

Oh my.  7am came really early, and we hadn’t gotten our shit packed or electronics charging, so we spent the morning scrambling.  However, we made it to the bus on time, and if I had to spend anywhere in the world hungover and mad at something thousands of miles away, snorkeling in Cozumel isn’t a bad place to be.

We took a break mid-snorkel to try out the waterslides.  They were super fun!  Also, we made iguana friends.  Or enemies.  They ran away, but maybe with love?

We snorkeled for 3 hours.  We saw many cool things, but this spotted ray was the highlight of the day.  We also randomly met triathletes who live in Austin and spent hours sipping beers, eating lunch, and relaxing in the pool chatting with them.

After getting back to the ship, we relaxed in the pool with more drinks and soaked up the last of the sun, and then met my parents for dinner.  After our bellies were full, we both realized how freakin’ tired we were on 4 hours sleep and being in the sun all day and went to bed around 7pm.

Saturday: At Sea

We read and slept away the morning, but we couldn’t hibernate the whole last day of vacation!  We decided to go play in the water.  We hit both waterslides, and the green one had DISCO LIGHTS.  Hawaiian Falls needs to take notes and incorporate this into their 2017 plan.

I also decided to try the Wave Rider (on the last day just in case), and pretty quickly wiped out.  But hey, I got to try it!  I’d do it again, it was probably one of the most fun ways to fall on my ass yet…

This was the first and only day I ate like an asshole.  I had breakfast, lunch, and two dinners.  We also had to drink the rest of the wine we brought on board with us, but I didn’t order any more once that was gone.

We played games with the ‘rents (since we had kind of ditched them for the last two days), and then went with them to go watch a comedy show -we saw a comedy magician (sorry, don’t recall the name and google is not my friend today), which sounds a little hokey, but it totally works for him.  And since you can’t take photos of the stage, instead, you get a selfie.

Sunday: Disembarkation 🙁

Other than Buc’ee getting fresh with me at the potty stop, it was uneventful.

If you’ve read this far and want more, you can see my full vacation album HERE (no snorkeling or diving photos yet but COMING SOOOON).