Our cruise left Galveston on Thursday evening, and then we spent all of Friday at sea, waking up on Saturday morning in Cozumel, Mexico. We were so excited to be out and adventuring, and so as soon as we were able, we left the ship and headed out.
The ten of us had rented cabanas side by side on the beach and they were perfect. I wish we had been able to spend way more time there, because it was my favorite part of the trip. The view, the ocean, the soft sand, the company, and the yummy food. Perfection, and definitely my idea of a vacation.
The cabanas were on a private beach and were so cute, with fun little touches and character.
They even had snorkel gear for us to use, and just steps from the cabana was a beautiful area to snorkel. So much fun! Lily especially loved it. I enjoyed snorkeling once I fixed my mask so that it wasn't filling with salt water and drowning me - that part was not fun, especially because the water had a very high salt content. Once I got that fixed, I had a great time.
But like I said, my favorite part was just relaxing at the cabana. We even had a visitor - a big old lizard that decided to hang out right in front of us, which was pretty cool. Especially because I was safe up on our cabana - ha ha!
After a while, it was time for our swimming with dolphins adventure. We were so excited, and truly had no idea what stood in store for us.
Karen, Erica, Janalee, Myself, Brandi, Angela, and Lily all did the "Royal Dolphin Swim," which was pretty amazing. First, we each got a turn to pet and play with the dolphins. Lily loved it!
I think it was my favorite thing ever. Dolphins have always been my favorite animal, and as you can see by my cheesy smile, I was pretty darn happy.
I mean, I got to be up close and personal and pet and hold the dolphin!!
And I may have been so distracted that I mistook the instructions and instead of giving the dolphin a high five, I may have grabbed onto his flippers, which totally almost pulled me off the platform. Ha ha! I did eventually get it right on the second try.
The coolest and scariest part of the whole experience was getting to swim with the dolphins. There were two different swimming adventures, but for both of them, we had to swim way out into the water, and then the dolphins would come up behind us and we would grab on and go for a wild ride.
The second swim was insane! You swam way out, put yourself in the water like superman, with your hands out front and legs behind you and straight, and each of the dolphins put their nose to your foot and they pushed you up out of the water!! It was crazy! Lily was in heaven!
My friends and I weren't quite as sure about it. One of them screamed bloody murder the whole time, another one yelled and screamed too, and as for me, it was just the craziest experience and I had no idea how to react - terror one second, joy the next. It was highly entertaining to see each other experience it. And then the dolphins dropped you and face plant in the water. Nice.
After we were finished with the dolphin swim, we actually got to have a manatees encounter, which was really cool. I guess it was included in our royal swim, although we didn't get any pictures of it. They were huge and slow, and a tad too friendly, but it was really cool. After that, we had to rush back to our cabana to gather our things and meet the taxi. We did manage to stop and get a few awesome pictures on the way back though.
There wasn't time to do much shopping when we got back to the port, but I managed to get some good Mexican vanilla, as well as a super cute cover-up to wear with my swimsuit. It was such a wonderful Mexico adventure, but I was only sad that we had to leave and get back on the ship. It was definitely my favorite part of the trip.
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