Independence of the Seas

So I just got back from my cruise vacation on Saturday night. It was an absolutely fantastic week! Our weather was perfect. Apparently the week before our cruise it had rained every day...some were saying torrential downpours. But we didnt have a drop of rain. It was a little chilly sailing away from Ft. Lauderdale, but we braved the wind on Monday and laid out on the boat. We played some miniature golf and then watched some people surf on the baot. Yes..that is correct. There is a thing called the Flowrider on the boat that apparently they have on many hotels that simulates surfing. Ashley and Doug did stand up surfing one day and it was very entertaining (to say the least):) Tuesday we went to Belize. However, unless you pay to do an excursion in Belize there isn't much to do. We thought about doing the cave tubing thing but decided not to. So we went back to the boat and laid out. Also, we went to Johnny Rockets on the boat for lunch. It was great...especially for 5 dollars:) Wednesday we went to Costa Maya. Jimmy rented a golf cart for the day so we drove to a different beach from where we were ported. It was a great beach. It is really sad to see how poor some of these people there are though. Once the cruise ships leave out, it looks almost deserted. I felt really bad for those people that have to live in Mexico...but it seems like a really laid back life style. Costa Maya was beautiful and I had a spider monkey climb on my shoulder. They wanted to charge me $5 to take 3 pictures with my own camera with the monkey...so he quickly got off..haha. The next day we swam with dolphins in Cozumel. It was amazing. We all 5 were in a group with 7 other people. The dolphins were in the Gulf of Mexico. We got to kiss them, hug them, do a hand shake, be pulled on their belly, and then be pushed on a boogie board. It was so fun! Our dophin's name was America. She was so pretty. After that we got to pet and feed a manatee. It was pretty awesome. I also had awesome Mexican guacamole and a Dos Equis on the beach. Perfection!
We had great dinners every night. There was endless amounts of ice cream. We all met a wonderful bartender named Tito at the Boleros bar on the boat. We went to visit him everyday and say hi to him. He knew all of our names and we liked to talk about his family he left behind in the Phillipines. He had a 9 year old daughter and was working on the boat to support her. I wish we could have brought him home with us:) We also ice skated on the boat and watched the ice skating performance on the boat. It's amazing that they can do triple axles and such on the boat with the boat rocking. But it was great...and there were actually a whole lot more American skaters than I envisioned. And I definitely give me seal of approval for Royal Caribbean. Not sure if I'll ever sail Carnival again...and I got to meet Leslie Nielson from Naked Gun movies and Airplane on the boat. I shook his hand. So excited!