Mayan Adventure Tour with Aventuras Mayas

My main goal for our Cancun trip was to swim in a cenote. A cenote is a natural freshwater pool created when the limestone rock that makes up the soil of the Yucatan Peninsula collapses into the aquifer. There are thousands of cenotes near Cancun, but most of the cenote tours I found when I was researching were part of a day trip to Tulum or Chichen Itza. Then I read about the Mayan Adventure tour with Aventuras Mayas, which included snorkeling in three different ecosystems – a lagoon, an underground cenote, and an open-air cenote with a zipline into the water. It was exactly what I was looking for!

Beach Palace Cancun

As we flew over Isla Mujeres and into Cancun, we got our first glimpse of that spectacular blue water, a dozen shades of turquoise dotted with tiny white boats. I couldn’t wait to get to the beach! We would be spending the next five days at Beach Palace, an all-inclusive resort on the north end of the Hotel Zone, across from La Isla Mall and the new ferris wheel. We’d stayed at Beach Palace in 2013, and I still remembered how we'd loved the beautiful beach, our huge balcony, and the rooftop bar.

Dinoshores at the Sugar Sand Festival

Last weekend, Ron and I went to Clearwater Beach to see the Pier 60 Sugar Sand Festival. Clearwater Beach is known for its sparkling, soft, white sand, but when Hurricane Helen barreled through last September, it pushed mountains of sand all over the island. Before the sand could be returned to the beach, it had to go through the arduous process of separating, sifting and cleaning. Now six months later, it was back where it belonged, just in time for the annual sand sculpting event.

Celebrity Silhouette

Fort Lauderdale

Our plane landed in Fort Lauderdale at 11:15 and exactly one hour later, we were stepping onto the ship. It would have been even sooner except for the horrendous traffic getting into the port, made worse by the rain. Go away, rain!

The first thing we did after we got onboard was drop off our luggage in our cabin and pick up our Seapass cards, then we ate lunch at the Oceanview Café. We spent the rest of the afternoon learning our way around. Like other Celebrity ships we’ve been on, Silhouette had a Grand Foyer that spanned three decks with an elegant staircase, glass elevators and several bars. There was an ice-topped martini bar, a sports pub called Craft Social and the coffee and pastry shop, Café Al Bacio.