The first day of the cruise was at sea. The second day was at a private island in Haiti. The only option was to take a flight to Jamaica on Tuesday, the third day of the cruise for $140 each. We booked that flight for 10 am on Tuesday. My Mom was nice enough to let us stay at her condo in Del Ray until then. We missed half of our cruise.

My Mom was really nice and tried to help us make the best of a bad time. We arrived at her house on Saturday afternoon after spending some time in South Miami Beach. On Sunday we went for an airboat ride in the everglades. It was fun. We saw a wild alligator and some pretty birds. After that we saw a gator show. I even got to try some gator bites which was deep fried gator tail. It tastes like very chewy chicken.

It has been a long time since I have seen my Mom’s condo in Del Ray. She has remodeled it since the last time I was there. It looks really good. Hopefully someday it will be mine. We also visited my Aunt Maggie’s condo in Boca Raton. Her condo is really nice with the ocean on one side and the intercoastal waterway on the other. She has a beautiful boat parked in her condos marina.

We went to Dada for dinner. We ate outside and the waiters and waitress all had a lot of tattoos for such a nice place. Dinner was good. We then went to Atlantic Ave. and walked up and down the streets looking and shops and bars.

Monday we rented a hotel room in South Miami Beach so that we could be closer to the airport and get a little beach time. My Mom dropped us off at the hotel around 3 pm. We got settled in the hotel and then walked down to South Beach which was only a block and a half away.

South Beach is beautiful. We walked down the shoreline and then came back on the street. We had lunch at a nice restaurant right on the street. We did a little shopping and walked back to the hotel for happy hour. We went to bed early.

We hope that flying to Jamaica and catching the boat there was going to work and it did. We took Air Jamaica to Montego Bay, took a taxi, and got on the ship. We met two other people on the plane that were going to the ship so we shared a taxi.

We took an hour taxi tour. We saw some nice look-outs and did some shopping. The people were very aggressive in Jamaica. They all want us to go in their little shops. We bought some stuff.

Dinner was great. I ate so much the first night. I had an appetizer, two soups, three entrees, and dessert. I was so stuffed. Our table mates were nice. One couple from Tennessee and one from England.

We woke up early on Wednesday and got ready for the Stingray Excursion. It was awesome! I even caught a stingray with my bare hands. It was a big one, too. The last time we did the Stingray Excursion, everyone got to feed the stingray, but they have passed a new law and only the instructor could feed them. They wouldn’t eat the crackers that I brought either. We then walked around some shops before getting back on the ship. It was a really hot day.

Dinner was good. We saw a really good show called Flying. I think it was one of the best shows I’ve seen on a cruise ship.

Our last stop was Cozumel, Mexico. There was a lot of good cheap shopping. Kimmy bought a tanzanite ring that she haggled down from $320 to $80. I found the purse that my boss wanted that was made from gum wrappers at a Mexican jail. There was a lot of haggling going on. As we were walking around it started to rain really hard. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant. The food was good. After that we took a taxi tour for an hour around town. We didn’t see much. The shopping was really good; but since it was a rainy day, we didn’t do too much.

The last day on the ship was at sea. We walked around the ship. I tried the Flow Rider three times on a boogie board. It was really fun. I’d like to get one for my back yard. We ate lunch on the Lido Deck. The food wasn’t as good.

Dinner was always great. We never miss dinner. I ate at least two entrees and two appetizers every night. Our waiters, Ivan and Sydney, were really good. The service was slow but excellent. It took around two hours every night to eat dinner. The people we shared our table with were friendly.