We usually take land vacations in the Caribbean or Mexico and stay in smaller boutique style resorts. This time we didn't want to be lying out in the sun all day, so I thought a cruise would give us a balance between the beach and non sun activities. We wanted to take an easy week long jaunt and I wanted to go somewhere that we hadn't been before. We decided on a cruise to Belize, Honduras, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Belize sounded intriguing to me and cave tubing was just the adventure that we needed.

For our pre cruise night we were fortunate to get a room on points at the Hyatt Coral Gables. We have stayed at Hyatt Hotels in Cancun, Maui and Aruba in the past and never used any of our points. I was happily surprised that we qualified for a free room. The Hyatt Coral Gables is an older distinguished hotel that has a Spanish hacienda vibe to it. It isn’t on the beach so we had to settle for a few hours lounging by the pool. I would definitely stay there again for a short stay. They had interesting breakfast selections like key lime waffles and orange French toast. Their concierge was helpful in suggesting a Cuban restaurant, Azucar for dinner. We shared several tapas dishes and listened to live music from the Cuban band.

Since we had FTTF we slept in a little and left the hotel around 10 AM. It was an easy twenty minute cab ride from the hotel to the airport. We made sure to tell the porters at the terminal that we had FTTF, so they would put the special tags on our luggage. My husband had money out to tip the porters, but it turned me off when one of the porters said "We’re the ones who make sure your bags get on the ship.” It sounded like a threat the way he said it. We gave him the money and had no problems, but it wasn’t a very welcoming way to start the trip. Read more