Adventures With The Dodges: Cruise 2005

This was probably the most memorable vacation that we've ever been on. We traveled with several friends (Jeremy, Kristy, Rory and Kyle aka: Boner) We started out the vacation by spending 3 days in New Orleans. Which at the time that we booked it sounded like a good idea. This was the year that Mardi Gras was a full month early. We actually booked the trip planning to avoid Mardi Gras but ended up spending three days smack dab in the middle of it. In the end Mardi Gras was fine it was the rest of the city that scared the hell out of us. I felt safer on Bourbon street than walking to and from my hotel. At one point there were 8 murders/shootings in 24 hours. One guy was shot then lit on fire on a street corner that we had been on only a few hours prior to that. This was about 6 months before Katrina so you can imagine when I saw on the news that they were shooting each other up while being trapped in the dome that I wasn't surprised at all. It was a pretty nerve racking 3 days but in the end we got alot of cool experiences ou

t of it. In the picture above we were on a jet boat tour of the swamp. Just FYI February is not the time to go on a jet boat ride because its so freaking cold even the gators are hiding. We also rented a car a car and took a tour of the Oak Alley Plantation.

Just in case you're wondering how much you'd be worth as a slave see the pic below:

We did have fun checking out Bourbon street at night. I even managed to weasel my way onto a balcony to get a few pictures. We had so many beads thrown at us that we would have to go back to our hotel to unload beads because they got to heavy before heading back out. We also had fun checking out all of the parades everyday.

We made it back to our hotel every night for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich bar. (Who would have thought)

After 3 days fearing for your life it was very refreshing to finally board the boat and feel safe again. Even the governor of Louisiana was escaping th

e mayhem. We met her on board the ship and even

danced with her on stage one night.

Our first stop on the boat was Jamaica, and our first order of business was marrying Kyle and Rory. We started out by catching a cab to a private beach where James (having previously gotten ordained via internet for only $50) performed the ceremony in surf. We took hundreds of pictures then went swimming in the ocean.

After leaving the private beach we went back to the ship to change out of our wet dresses. We then headed out on a snorkeling cruise that also dropped us off at Margaritaville. It's the best one we've been to yet because it had a two story water slide that dumped you into the ocean.

Our second stop was Grand Cayman. This is one of our favorite and probably safest places we've been to. We spent the day hiking around the city and laying in the sun on a local beach. We swam, played in the ocean and enjoyed so very expensive daiquiris.

The last stop was to Cozumel, Mexico. Early that morning we set out on a ferry to Playa Del Carmen where we would load up on a bus and head down to Tulum to see the Mayan ruins. This is another one of those adventures that sounded like a good idea while booking it. As it turned out the seas were so rough that morning that all of the water excursions were canceled. Lucky for us the ferry was still running. Now this might have not been such an isssue except for the fact that half of the ferry was hung over from the fat tuesday party on the ship the night before and the other half had just stuffed themselves at the all you can eat breakfest buffet. As it turned out we were just about the only people who didn't throw up their breakfest on the ferry. Fortunatley the ride back was calmer.