New Orleans and Cozumel, Mexico

Fun times traveling with AB!

New Orleans:
It was fun getting to see old friends (DJ), and walk around the French Quarter. Walked around Royal Street with its art galleries, visited St. Louis Cathedral with its beautiful painted ceiling and reminisced about our times in St. Louis, and ate some delicious beignets at Cafe du Monde with Cafe au Lait to wash it down. Ended the day with some delicious chargrilled oysters and crawfish etouffee at Acme Oysters!

Cafe du Monde, post beignet and cafe au lait

St. Louis Cathedral

Acme chargrilled oysters...mmmmm

The next day we walked around the beautiful Garden District with its enormous houses on St. Charles and surrounding streets.  Saw famous author Ann Rice's home, where the first and last Confederate President lived, where Benjamin Button was filmed, learned about Victorian vs. Italian vs. Gothic architecture.   Then before getting on our cruise, ate some NOLA famous Muffaletta sandwiches at the Cochon Butcher.  Mmmm..nothing like fresh meat!

Where Benjamin Button was filmed; One of the many fancy St. Charles/Garden District houses

Cochon Butcher - watching pig decapitation and
eating delicious Muffuletta sandwiches (fresh pork, olive)!

Home of the one and only confederate president

Cruise was more fun than I expected!  A lot of entertainment, relaxation, and more food than I can imagine.  First night we thought we could only order one appetizer, one entree, and one dessert, and the next morning, was when we realized we could order unlimited amounts of food, so we went crazy with the appetizers.  One time, we accidentally ordered 4 entrees thinking half of them were appetizers.  Thankfully the waiter gave us an astonished look and asked us, "you do realize you ordered 4 entrees?"  That was kind of embarrassing.  Another night, I had asked to replaced the ice cream in one of my desserts with sugar-free ice cream, but the server mistakenly thought I asked for an additional order of ice cream - oh boy....

The dancing shows were really good too - it was so much at such a fast pace.  Really had new appreciation for these dancers after trying to learn the Thriller dance on the cruise. :D  Meanwhile, the adult comedy shows really were crass.  It was still pretty entertaining, but I think overall I liked the family friendly ones more.  One of the more entertaining game shows was probably the adult oriented scavenger hunt.  It was amusing to watch AB skip around holding another guy's hand...hahahaha....  I also really hope the bald guy I dragged into the show isn't too upset he got a whole bunch of kisses on his forehead by male and female strangers (long story).

We also went to an art auction, and half the time, we were guessing among ourselves what the the estimated price of the paintings were.  Learned a little about lithographs and gisees (spelling?), so we weren't too off for most of the paintings, but some we were off by 10x. O_o

Enjoying the view on the ship

Participating in a magic show!

Here's our ship! Arrived in Cozumel!

Here's our ship with pool, water slide, stage, and various other activities.
Favorites: mini golf and table tennis - although I still can't believe I lost to AB.  Sighs.

 Although we only had one day in Cozumel, it was jam packed with a lot of fun.  They had so many promotions of "excursions" we can go on, but thankfully we just went on our own to Chankanaab Park.  It was this beautiful beach with many water activities.  Although we didn't really take the time to relax - I'm bad at relaxing - we got to pet/kiss/hug dolphins and watch a sea lion show.  Even the massive downpour in the afternoon didn't bother us, we just went swimming and explored the underwater reefs and fish.

Chankanaab Park in Cozumel, Mexico

It's real!

Dancing with the dolphin

Beso!

Last day in New Orleans, we just spent the whole day in the National WWII Museum.  Didn't realize how big it was, and we ran out of time - didn't get to see the Pacific part of the museum.  But it was amazing, especially the new part where we heard individual stories about the war heroes.