first time cruiser [part one]

prepare for a long post. i apologize for all the warm looking photos in advance. this was our first time cruising, my husband and i. and we chose Princess Cruises for our first cruise ship. it was a nice choice, but the one we vacationed on (Emerald Princess) to the Caribbean had a lot of older couples. only a handful of couples our age that we seen. which was okay because we were able to relax and not worry too much. made it easier because we rarely saw any little children, so we didn't miss our little one too much for the week. but none-the-less we had an awesome experience, here is the first part of our cruise review:

the first two days were at sea. we left out of the Port of Houston at 4:00 on a Sunday. we got well acquainted with our ship. we had to have a balcony room because we didn't know how we'd take cruising and being on the water. but we are so glad we splurged for one. it was awesome to wake up in the morning, order some breakfast room service and sit on our balcony and watch the waves go by. good lord there is so much to do on ship! we spent an afternoon sun bathing and getting our tan on. we ate so much delicious food and that was all cruise long. from buffets to four course dinners. most were included but there were a couple speciality dining rooms that charged a $25.00 cover charge but still worth it. we did a little line-dancing and two stepping. played a little black jack and slots. did a little shopping (both on and off board). stuff our faces full of more food. had a couple's massage. ordered some delicious drinks and sat in the hot tub. oh and ate some more food.

our first stop: Roatan, Honduras. this was my favorite stop. we had two excursions booked for the day. in the morning we did extreme zip lining. i have done zip lining before, but as high as we were through the trees was such a cool experience. my husband had a blast for his first time. afterwards we stopped back onto the ship to grab a quick lunch and change for our second excursion. which we took a bus to a place called "Fantasy Island" resort and the guide took a group of 20 people out near the edge of the reef to snorkel. this was my husband's request. i am not much of a fan of swimming and never snorkeled before. but this was an awesome experience. after snorkeling, we were brought back to their private beach to relax a bit. we made one last stop before heading to the bus to see the monkeys they have on site. both of us were able to get photos with him. super cool!

we then rode back to the port and walked to our ship. we loved not having assigned times for dinner which allowed a lot more flexibility for us to pick and choose when and if we liked to dine with other cruise members. which we did often, we got to meet a lot of people from all over the US and some from out of country. share stories and their experiences on other cruises. after we stuffed our faces full of two appetizers, an entree, and of course two different types of dessert, it was off to bed. after a couple days we both got used to the slight rocking, even helped us sleep at night it seemed. we cruised off to Belize City that night.

Part Two  |  Part Three