Belize

Belize was our second port on our 30th Anniversary Cruise on the Carnival Glory. It's a tender port - which means that the cruise ship cannot dock at the actual port. So the cruise ship provides boats, or tenders, to transport you to shore. We chose to do a shore excursion , snorkeling and visiting a private island, through the cruise line this time. Our snorkeling boat picked us up right at the Glory - we just had to walk right off the cruise ship onto our excursion boat.

We would be snorkeling the Meso-American reef. It's the second largest barrier reef in the world, second only to the Great Barrier Reef off of Australia. It stretches from Guatemala to Mexico and we were lucky enough to snorkel this same reef 3 times on our cruise.

We were split into 2 groups - beginners and advanced. This was the first time that I had ever been on a guided snorkeling trip. I liked it. I was in the beginners group because even though I had snorkeled before, I don't have alot of confidence in rough water. We were fortunate that the water was calm that day but I  still decided to stick with the beginner group.

My guide was great. He dove down and pointed out different sea life to us - 2 yellow stingrays (yellow!), a coupla spiny starfish which he brought up for us to hold and even a barracuda! It wasn't very colorful but I really enjoyed seeing all the sea life. The funny thing is that if you ask each of the four of us which snorkeling trip we enjoyed the most you would get 3 different answers. This trip was my favorite.

After the snorkeling, we were off to Starfish Island. Starfish Island is a very small private island with a bar, snack bar, store, kitchen, roped off lagoon, beach chairs, showers and a boat dock.

We had about 2 hours to spend on the island.Our excursion didn't include food or drink so we paid for drinks and found some beach chairs to relax in.

We got back on our boat to transport us back to the cruise ship. The rum punch was flowing freely and everyone seemed to be enjoying the sunshine and being on the water. I know I was!

Once again I'm linking up with #FridayPostcards!