Spring Break Cruise--St. Maarten

Beautiful, friendly island with the most gorgeous turquoise water and white sand beaches!  We loved St. Maarten.  We went to Maho Beach first to watch some of the airplanes overhead that take off and land right next to the beach so you are literally standing right under them.

Then we went to another beach just a mile or so past and spent the day.  It was dreamy.  Again, most of my pictures were with the underwater camera that got stolen.  Darn.  So this is all we have.  Soren is just in heaven on the beach all day.  We had to be really careful with the sun.  We all got burns this trip!

Spring Break Cruise--St. Kitts and Nevis

We were a little unprepared for St. Kitts.  It was a little rainy and we stayed on the boat longer than expected.  But we found a fun beach at St. Kitts and played in the water all day and laid out.  It wasn't super nice.  In fact the beach umbrellas were made of two by fours and tarps.  Not exactly what I was expecting.  I just didn't see a lot of nice beaches with amenities.  We'd heard of some great beaches on Nevis.  So toward the end of the day we had a boat take us the mile or so across the channel to Nevis.  There was a cute little Ouallie Beach with a quaint restaurant we ate at.  And later they took us back to the port by boat instead of taking a taxi.  St. Kitts is known for being the "Caribbean the way it used to be."  I liked the new Caribbean better.  The ones with lots of nice beach chairs and clean restrooms and nice restaurants.  To be honest we didn't see much in St. Kitts.  I wish we'd had more of a tour of the island to see what else was there.  Cockleshell Beach and Friars Beach were nothing compared to the DR or St. Maarten.  But it was a fun day and we really enjoyed ourselves!  The kids favorite part was the monkeys.

Spring Break Cruise--Puerto Rico

Parrots, Yummy Empanadas, Pina Coladas, Super cool Fort and lots of history.  I loved Puerto Rico!  Old Town San Juan was super cool!  Simone's favorite part was an old cat park.  Lol.  There were tons of stray cats everywhere and she wanted to pet them all.  Yikes!  I loved the colorful buildings and cobbled streets.  I want to come back to Puerto Rico and spend at least five days.  It was beautiful!  We ended the day by sending the kids back to the boat and having Sushi with Deb and Gordon and Skye and Elise.  It was such a fun day!

Spring Break Cruise--Labadee, Haiti

Such a fun Beach Day in Labadee!  We loved floating around the ocean on mats and just relaxing.  Our underwater camera that we used the whole day got stolen off the ship the night before we disembarked.  Bummer!  So this is all we have.  But Royal Caribbean owns this little beach area of Labadee.  Everything is fenced off so you really don't see the real Haiti.  But you do get a feel for how beautiful it is!  Some of the locals have shops set up in an area of this beach that the kids love to go to.  Soren particularly loved his wooden pirate sword!  There are lots of things to do here besides lay on the beach: zipline, snorkel, waterslides, inflatables, etc.  We just bummed around and it was perfect.

Spring Break Cruise--Navigator of the Seas

The cruise was so fun! The Rusts joined us, so that was a good time! Cruises are so much more fun with friends. Elise and Skye made friends with some boys and did some missionary work. Lol. It was good for Elise to see how the rest of the world views Mormons. Growing up in Utah you don't have to answer too many questions about your faith. The ports were: Labadee, Haiti, San Juan, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts, and St. Maarten. We spent a lot of the port days at the beaches. Except for Puerto Rico where we toured San Juan. St Maarten was my favorite. The water was so pretty and I loved the beach there.

The Ship was similar to others we've been on with RC.  We felt right at home right away!

watching the flying fish!

at sea days were a lot of fun!

Jared dominated at basketball and dodgeball!

Dinner!