Our most recent adventure took us to New Orleans, where we spent three days before departing on a seven-day western Caribbean cruise. Of course, any trip to New Orleans is going to include some time in the French Quarter. This photo is of Jackson Square, which is in the heart of the French Quarter.
One of the main streets that borders the French Quarter is Canal Street. It is so-named because it was orginally going to be a canal. 
Also in the French Quarter is the French Market. Think Seattle's Pike Place Market without the flying fish.
We took a New Orleans city tour that took us to, among other places, one of the city's above ground cemeteries. I believe this one is St. Louis Cemetery Number 3. Our tour also included the Ninth Ward, with was particularly hard hit by Hurricane Katrina. While some of the damage from Katrina is still apparent, there's been a lot of progress in re-building those hard-hit neighborhoods. We drove through the New Orleans Habitat Musicians' Village, a Habitat for Humanity project conceived by musicians Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr., both New Orleans natives.
Actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie also have a project called Make It Right. I believe this is one of houses that is a part of their project. 
One of the highlights of our New Orleans visit was The National WWII Museum. The reason it's located in New Orleans has a lot to do with the boat in this photo. Its proper name is Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP), but it's generally known as a Higgins Boat. It was designed by Andrew Jackson Higgins and built by Higgins Industries in New Orleans. The importance of this boat to the war effort was summarized by President Eisenhower, who said "Andrew Jackson Higgins is the man who won the war for us. Without Higgins designed boats that could land over open beaches, the whole strategy of the war would have to be re-thought."
I can't leave the New Orleans portion of the trip without mentioning the confusing pedestrian crosswalk lights. I think this pictures demonsrates that quite well. But it really wasn't much of a problem as everyone ignores the signals.
After our stay in New Orleans, we boarded Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas for a seven-day cruise. It was our fourth cruise since the summer of 2010, and the Voyager was easily the largest of the ships we've been on. It holds more than 3,000 passengers, not counting the crew. 
Our first stop was in Falmouth, Jamaica. Royal Caribbean is building a new port facility at Falmouth, with the first phase opening several months ago. You can see some of the shops here, with our ship behind them.
We also did a trolley tour that took us outside of the port area. This is a meat market on one of the commercial streets in Falmouth.
From there, we sailed to Georgetown, Grand Cayman, where there was clearly a lot more wealth than in Jamaica. And more westernized. While waiting to leave on a tour bus, we noticed a Dairy Queen across the street. One of the stops on our tour was at the Cayman Turtle Farm. Lots of big sea turtles like this one.
Our final port was Cozumel, Mexico. We mostly stayed on the ship that day. The excursions didn't interest us. We could have done some more shopping, but that would have resulted in not buying stuff at the same chain stores where we didn't buy stuff in the other ports. 
I'll finish with some photos of the ship. The larger Royal Caribbean ships have a Royal Prominade that runs down the middle of the ship. It's kind of like a little Main Street. It has a variety of shops and places to eat and drink. Note the windows on either side looking down on the Prominade. Those are staterooms. More on that later.
There is a lot of music to listen to on the ship. This reggae band, which was quite good, normally performs up on the pool deck. On this day, however, I think it was a little too windy to perform outside, so they moved to the Royal Prominade. 
This the La Scala Theater, which was the most beautiful of the cruise ship theaters we've been in. All the shows we saw were very good.
We had assigned seating for dinner each evening, and we were fortunate to have dinnermates who made our cruise even more enjoyable. To the left of us are Bill and Rose from New Mexico, and to the right of us are Randee and Kevin from California.
Remember those staterooms that looked over the Royal Prominade? Well, one of those was ours. What they didn't tell us is that the music below us was loud and lasted until 1:00 AM or so. That wasn't going to work for us.
Fortunately, there was an oceanveiw stateroom that was open due to a last-minute cancellation, so they moved us there. It was MUCH more quiet. 
This is the view from the window in our stateroom. It's the first time we've ever had an outside stateroom, so that was a bit of a treat.
Lastly, there is this from the sports deck. Here, I am demonstrating my ability to use the power of my mind to balance a basketball on the rim. I'm sure you're every bit as impressed as #3 over on the right.