Cruise to Mexico March 2026

Day One (and previous travel day)

Kate created a longer video of the day which is pretty amazing. Find it below. When she finishes her other videos, I will update the post.

For Spring Break we went on our first ever cruise. Amanda was worried about getting seasick, but she was just fine. Chris was worried about getting sunburned, but we were all OK. The kids were worried about losing their parents and they did that just fine too. They explored the cruise ship alone on several occasions and picked their own schedule.

I spy three teens!

Some items to note: We used the Royal Caribbean Cruise lines, and our ship was called "The Enchantment Under the Sea" giving us some Back to the Future vibes. (Here is a picture of our ship in miniature).

We even time traveled twice on the trip by changing the hours, AND with our spotty WiFi service, Kairi was able to record that she existed in three different times at once! (It was 7:30pm ship time).

Another item to note: TSA (airport security) lines have been notoriously long (up to 5 hours or something) in some places in the U.S. right now due to the government being partially shut down (yet again). While we were worried that we might have some long lines, we didn't have any with the airport that we went through, so that was fantastic. The only hiccup we had was that Amanda had to be patted down and her shoes searched extra. Emily had to have shoes searched extra on the return trip through the airport. We flew in to Tampa, Florida where we took an Uber to a hotel and then walked our luggage to the port the next day.

Here we are walking beside some train tracks to get the luggage on the ship. We then had a few hours to explore, so we took a free trolley and went to get smoothies, sunglasses, and sunscreen. You know, the important things.

Here are Kate, Kairi, and Emily on the free trolley. Kairi didn't have time to finish her smoothie before getting into the line to board the ship. Chris and Emily were able to go right through the line after updating Emily's picture, but after updating Amanda, Kate, and Kairi's pictures, we were not allowed to progress. We were walked over to a booth, where we were told that our barcode wasn't working. After checking us in, we were allowed to walk through the stanchions, but not allowed through the next checkpoint, because.... our barcodes were still not scanning. So, after being pulled aside again, Amanda was allowed to take screenshots of the new barcodes and allowed through without further hassle.

After our mandatory safety check-in, we found our bedrooms.

This is the teen room. In this picture the "bunk" bed wasn't down yet.

Here is the room with the bunk down. This was the cleanest this place was. It was covered in clothes by the end of the trip.

Here is the adult room next door. It is two beds pushed together. Amanda wouldn't have noticed if Chris hadn't said anything, but then she sleeps on the edge usually anyway.

The bathrooms looked like this.

A typical lunch. The teens really enjoyed eating lots of fruit and bread with every meal.

Other food included American style foods of hamburgers, hot dogs, salad, pasta dishes, and international foods with steak, chicken, curries, meat pies, etc. Every day there was a new item to try out.

Emily, Kairi, and Chris eating.

Kate eating.

They even had some reduced sugar dessert options!

Food on a plate.

These food pictures were taken by Kairi.

Lunch meat flowers.

Cheese and strawberries.

Watermelon.

These food pictures were taken by Kate:

Crepe.

Waffle

Happy pancake.

On our last day, we learned how to make a napkin rose. Kate with her rose.

Here is Amanda on the first day inside the central area.

Once the ship got moving, they had a balloon drop party.

In one of the areas the "Schooner Bar" (?), there was this decorative pirate post. Amanda spent a lot of time near here since this was were they held the trivia competitions. Our family never won anything, but it was fun to play. Did you know that a flamingo is the only bird that can eat with its head upside down?

The views from the ship on the way to Mexico were at times, more than just water.

This is a panorama from the front of the ship.

Here we are leaving port.

We passed a small airfield and watched two planes take off.

The teens went off to the teen center and eventually won this Royal Caribbean Cruise line rubber duck from the arcade. They tried a few times to get a plushie, but the claw machine "scammed" them out of it even if they had clawed it up.

An image of the teen arcade area.

Chris and Amanda watched the welcome to the ship show. The sign on the right says "Welcome Aboard."

We also saw Drew Thomas perform. He performed at the start and the end of the cruise. The first show was better. The second one, wasn't for us an intended audience and was a bit offensive and not fit for teens. His first show had a few jokes about the pandemic and grocery stores that weren't too bad and were more relatable.

An image of Drew Thomas hanging his hat on a microphone stand on the Enchantment Under the Sea cruise ship.

Kate's video Blog of her first day!

Cruise shenanigans. Day Two. First full day on the ship.

The first full day on the ship was on March 24th, 2026. Even without an alarm to wake Amanda up, she was awake at her usual time, which meant that she was awake at 5:00 am ship time and no one else was out and about.

Here is proof that Amanda was awake at 5 am (phone screenshot shows 6, but it's an hour off) traveling through the Gulf of Mexico (America), and the weather was going to be a beautiful day instead of the ups and down of March in Wisconsin where it can be anywhere from 25 F to 70 F in the same week.

Here is the top of the ship early in the morning.

Amanda is sitting around waiting for the sunrise.

Sunrise and sunsets come incredibly FAST in the gulf. It must be because we are so close to the equator. This picture was taken at 6:08 am.

This picture was taken at 6:22 am.

This picture was taken at 6:52 am. At this point, Amanda went to check on Emily who was likewise awake, and they got breakfast together, which opened at 7.

From March 24th, the sunset vanishes in a blink.

Emily and Amanda played shuffleboard.

A lounge on the ship.

Probably deck 4 of the ship. We had 11 floors.

We got to try out an inflatable archery range where we shot at floating ping pong balls.

The start of the towel animals. Each day our room attendant, Bastian, would leave us a new towel animal. I think this one is a pig.

Here is a bear towel animal.

We watched a towel folding demonstration and they made a ram, turtle, dragon, donkey, and penguin.

The elevators.

Chris looking at the ocean. I mean. Chris looking away from the ocean.

Other things we did (not pictured): A word search challenge, an "escape room" mystery game where we teamed up with another family to solve clues in only 40 minutes. Our team didn't produce a final answer and Amanda and Emily had no idea what we were even trying to solve at the end since they never saw most of the clues. We were trying to identify a few culprits for stolen artwork. The teens went rock climbing. Chris and Amanda did line dancing, attended an 80's song trivia event, the girls started a charm bracelet collection where they get you with a free charm, but the end bracelet is more expensive than it should be, family karaoke (K and K sang Taylor Swifts "Trouble"), Rock the Room show.

A video of the line dancing, and Karaoke.

Day Three of the Cruise: Off ship. Costa Maya, Mexico

It got a little windy for Kairi.

There was a "technical difficulty" somewhere on the ship that delayed us docking in Mexico at our scheduled time on the first day. This meant that many people had their excursion plans canceled/ rescheduled. We had booked an experience with "The Native Choice: Costa Maya Excursions" which was not sponsored through the ship, so it caused some anxiety if we would be able to change our time. Luckily, we were still able to go an hour late. This meant that we had less time at the rest stops and actually seeing the Mayan ruins an hour drive out, but it all worked out in the end.

Things we learned on the excursion:

Maya means "deer water." Malo Kim means "good day, and I may have spelled that wrong. Cornish means "let's go." The Mayan timeline is split in thirds (Pre-Classic: before Christ, Classic: to about 900 A.D, and Post-Classic: till now.) The Mayans themselves used three different calendars. One had hieroglyphics, one used animals, one used a base 20 dot and line system. Every 53 years the three calendars would line up and a new ruler was chosen. Since the area has jungles with snakes, tarantulas, alligators, mosquitos, monkeys, etc, prisoners of war were sent to the area (to die) who introduced Spanish to the Mayans.

Chacchoben

The Mayan rulers would build on top of the existing temple structures. Whoever made the tallest building was the better ruler. Because of this, you can see in the picture below how there is a wall built around the wall on the inside. This has led to temple ruins being mostly intact on the inside when they are excavated, so we know that they were covered in white plaster and painted red here.

We saw three different temple structures at Chacchoben. The sign informed visitors that the area was most used between 700-900 A.D, and that the people traded with the Yucatan Peninsula. The buildings were used again around 1550 AD when the Spanish arrived.

Here is an image of the layer of the ruins at Chacchoben.

Temple 1 or 2

The stairs leading up to the twin temples 1 and 2. It looks like you might fall right off a straight cliff, but nope. It's stairs.

Structure 24 (a temple). This place is also called the Venus temple because it has a mural of Venus on one of the inside layers. We were allowed to walk up a few steps, but not past the rope in order to take pictures.

Venus Temple again.

Us walking up to Structure 24 / Venus temple with our tour guide.

Amanda and Chris at the Mayan ruins.

Would you look at that?! A family photo! Chris, Kate, Amanda, Kairi, Emily.

Amanda and Kairi at one of the temples.

One of the twin temples. We also learned that twins were considered lucky, and Kate and Kairi would probably have been sacrificed in a year for Godly blessings. Yikes!

As part of our excursion, we then drove to an area with native Mayans. Two sisters had prepared us lunch in a traditional fashion. Most everything they made was grown in the yard around us! They let us practice making our own corn tortillas, and if they rose on the stove (got poofy), then it meant that girls were good enough to get married. Everyone's tortillas got poofy as we didn't have to mix our own dough. Kate and Amanda couldn't eat the corn products, so they didn't get to eat their own tortilla or the tamales or the flan, but they did get to eat the chicken, rice, black beans, and vegetables. They gave us dates for dessert instead. It was pretty amazing. Pictures below.

The rice dish.

The chicken dish.

This is their house with a thatched roof.

Here is the inside of the house. They added a fridge and a single electric light at the top. They sleep from hammocks from the two rafter beams at night and spend most of their time outside.

Here is the stove and a pot that is holding warm tortillas. The pot is made from a gourd and shellacked.

The roof in the kitchen area has turned black from the smoke, and every 6-8 years, they need to replace the entire roof.

Here is one of the sisters who served us food. She is wearing a traditional holiday dress which is hand embroidered. Must have taken forever!

Kate, Emily, and Kairi press down their tortillas.

A video of Kairi getting her tortilla cooked.

Chris eats the rice, tamale, chicken, beans, and veggies. They also had home made hibiscus juice.

Here is the side of a stove. This one was not cooked on during our visit.

There were two bathrooms: the white buildings. Kairi and Kate are exiting the house. It has two doors that are a "tunnel" through the house so that evil spirits that come in, go back out.

Here is one of the trees that was used for our food. We got to guess what the plants were by smelling their leaves. There was wild garlic, banana, allspice, cocoa beans, and such.

Here is the side of the front entrance area.

I found it interesting to see the homes we passed on our drive through Mexico. Most of the places looked run down and reminded me of yo shacks. Stores were single room buildings, as was the doctor office, and fire station.

A white building in Mexico.

A house in Mexico.

The farmer's market in Mexico beside the highway.

More of the farmer's market in Mexico. They sell a lot of pineapple products here.

A farm house in Mexico with cows.

A teal house in Mexico.

Another house in Mexico.

A store in Mexico.

Kairi and Chris in the van/shuttle with our tour group.

The front of our ship and a man either hiding from the camera or putting on his hat.

Costa Maya shoreline.

Walking on Mexican ground!

More of the shoreline.

We wandered through some shops and saw flamingos!

Here the flamingos are moving.

Kairi, Chris, and Emily walking through a shopping area.

The walkway from our ship. It is smaller than the cruise ship beside us from Norwegian Cruise lines.

A horse of course in Mexico.

Day Four: Cozumel Mexico.

Instead of being an hour late to our next stop on the cruise, we were on time to Cozumel! We got in line for our excursion only to realize that we had not brought the tickets off the ship! Chris ran back to the ship to get them (going back through security) and managed to return with the tickets half a minute before we were supposed to start. It was a close call, but we had to also fill out paperwork because we were going to enter a small boat. Not just any boat, but a submersible sub! This is where a boat has glass around the bottom of it allowing people to see the fish of a coral reef.

Starting out, we saw a lot of seaweed flying past the windows, but once we reached the reef, we were able to see some fish and even some scuba divers.

We had to walk through a shopping center to reach a taxi to get to the submersible boat. Here is Kate waiting for our taxi. We were in the third group and there were 30 of us total.