Party Cruise

While all the details are fresh in my mind, I wanted to document our cruise we took last week. It's going to be long, just be warned...

We had talked about cruising with our friends, Joe and Jenn Whitesides, for years now. They are big cruisers, and we always thought it would be so fun to go with them. Finally, we made it happen. We picked the best week for both families and then narrowed our choices down to two ships: the brand new Royal Caribbean one or the Carnival Liberty. After a lot of back and forth, we opted to go with Carnival. It made more stops (Jeff and I were excited about that), and we could get a balcony room for a lot less than a regular room on RC. It was worth it for us, as our goal for cruising was more about the exotic experience and less about the amazing boat.

Of course, the week before we left, the Carnival Triumph, out of Galveston, made national news when it caught fire and drifted out to sea for an extra five days (or so). We were a little nervous, but really felt like the chances of something like that happening again so soon, and on a newer boat, were very slim. And so after my parents arrived on Friday, Jeff and I started our adventure. We took a red eye flight to Atlanta and then to Ft Lauderdale (you always think you'll be able to sleep on those flights, but that doesn't always happen very well). We took a shuttle for $15/person to Port Miami and boarded our ship quite easily, not having to wait long at all. After a quick meal, we went to check out our room. Our luggage hadn't been delivered yet, so we couldn't shower and change, but that didn't stop me from crawling into bed and sleeping for a few hours!

The Whitesides' arrived around 3:00 and we met up with them after the safety drill. We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening hanging out in the hot tub (that wasn't really hot enough at all), and getting caught up. We also had our first dinner in the dining room and the gorging began. For those who haven't cruised before, your room is taken care of by an attendant who comes in twice a day to clean, make the bed, replace towels, and then again at night to turn it down for you. It's tradition for the attendant to leave the towels in animal shapes. This was one of my favorites, from the first night.

SUNDAY was our first day at sea. We spent the day lounging, reading, playing some basketball (Jeff, Joe and I all won medals during the Knockout games, which was pretty cool. There are a LOT more young people on Carnival, so it's not a given that you'll be able to win anything), attending Scattergories and 90's Music Trivia games and just hanging out. It was quite relaxing, and we managed to eat plenty.  Then we headed back to our room to get ready for dinner. We loved spending time out on our balcony, where the views were amazing.

The bathrobes were fun, too. Especially if you had nothing on underneath and a nice breeze was blowing. :)

Sunday night was the first formal night of the cruise, and it was also lobster night!

Yum, that was a good lobster. On a cruise, you can order as much food as you want. We girls tried, but we couldn't begin to keep up with the guys. Two appetizers, two rolls, one entree and one dessert was about as much as I could do! The boys, on the other hand, probably averaged three appetizers, two entrees, two or three pieces of bread, and then dessert! Wow, how did they do that?! 

Our waiter learned pretty quick that we liked apple juice with our dinner and always had a pitcher waiting for us. It was quite concentrated, too, and needed quite a bit of ice to tone it down. As Jeff liked to say, "Angel liked to give it to us hard!"

MONDAY we docked in Cozumel, Mexico. Our plan for the day was to get on the first possible ferry over to the mainland, rent a car, and drive ourselves to the Mayan ruins at Tulum. We hustled off the boat, took a taxi down to the ferry, and found that it was only running every 2 hours, instead of every hour like we thought. And we had missed the last one by about 20 minutes, so our wait was going to be an hour and 40 minutes. We talked about it, and decided our time schedule was just going to be too tight, so we decided to stay on Cozumel. We ended up renting a Jeep from a local company (at a gas station across the street from the cruise terminal). We thought about the "Mexican convertible," and took a couple pics, but ended up with the Jeep right behind.

Jeff and Joe took turns driving us around the island. It was a really windy day, and the water conditions weren't great, so we ended up on the north east part of the island at some smaller Mayan ruins. Mostly, we were interested in all the iguanas that were there (behind Jeff to the left). They were everywhere and had free access to all the ruins!

On our way back down the island, we stopped at a stand for some fresh coconut. For $3, they would hack the coconut open with a machete, let you drink the cold milk, then cut it open and take the meat out. Yummy! Jeff tried to give me his tough guy pose, and Jenn started laughing at him. Which, of course, made Jeff crack up too.

He did eventually give me the tough guy pose, though.

We drove back to resort, Mr. Sancho's, where they let us use their beach chairs and facility for free, if we'd buy food there. So we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out there, using their wifi to send some emails home, and got a massage on the beach. Wow, that was fun! Everyone had a great "therapist," except for me. I think she was still training because she didn't quite have it down. It was still awesome, though, and we talked about them the rest of the trip.

We were looking for some authentic Mexican shirts for our boys, and heard that we might be able to find them at a local shop, so we drove to the city and started walking. We saw the real Cozumel, which was a lot of fun. And eventually we found the little shops that had the shirts. Unfortunately, they weren't the right size and we didn't get any. Jeff did get a Nacho Libre mask for Damon which made us laugh.

 We were supposed to be back on the boat at 5:30, with a 6:00 departure, and we returned the Jeep about 5:45 and hustled back over to the shops at the cruise terminal (Joe and Jenn wanted to look for something else). We didn't see anyone around, though, so we headed back to the ship. As we were walking down the pier, we thought it would make a great picture, so we stopped to snap a few.

Joe thought it would be funny to try to make it look like a horn was coming out of Jeff's head, and he was taking this one.

All of a sudden, the boat started blaring its horn at us. We looked up and realized they were honking at us. So we headed down the pier toward the boat. There were people on their balconies heckling us ("you owe us a drink"), and yelling for us to hurry. We started running and they started cheering, like we were finishing a marathon or something. It was hilarious! They workers had already moved the gangway away from the boat, and had to put it back for us. We were literally the last four people on the boat, not even realizing that we should have been in a hurry, not taking our sweet time to get on board. 

TUESDAY we stopped in Belize. We had been advised that the best thing to do in Belize is cave tubing. So I did a little research and found that there are a bunch of companies that will take you to do that. We opted to go with cave-tubing.com and made a reservation for the four of us. We rode on a bus about an hour outside Belize City (which isn't very nice) to the ATV center. We decided that in addition to cave tubing, we wanted to add the ATV adventure as well.  The guides told us, "you can wear a helmet if you want, but we're not in America, so you don't have to." They didn't ask if we had any experience with ATVs, but just told us where the brake was, where the gas was, and to lift your legs when you went through water. That was the extent of our training. Then we took off on the course through the jungle. It was a muddy mess, and was anything but an easy course. But, man, was it fun!

In line ready to take off

You can see how muddy it was. People were constantly getting stuck (myself included) and having to be pushed out by our guides

The guy in front of Jeff lost a tire. Don't ask me how that happened! It was crazy! We had to wait until they could bring him a new ATV before carrying on. By the time we were finished, we were filthy dirty and really wanting to do it again. Seriously, that was so fun! I'm glad we added that on to our tour.

After the ATV adventure, we joined up with the rest of the group for the cave tubing. We had to do a short hike to the river and then we got to float through this cave. It was amazing! We had headlamps because there were parts of the cave that were extremely dark. Our guides talked to us about the Maya people and how they believed the caves were the first level of the underworld their spirits would go through. Cool stuff. There were parts of the river that were very shallow, so the group's motto is "Butt's up!" and they would say it anytime we needed to be aware of the shallow water and sharp rocks. We didn't take our camera on this part, because we didn't think we'd be able to keep it dry.

Jeff posing by the Butt's Up sign on the bus

After we finished our cave tubing, we headed back to the ATV center for lunch. They gave us some chicken tamales that had been prepared for us and warned us, "they will be the best tamales you have ever eaten!" They were right. I don't usually like tamales, but these were amazing, bones and all. We ate, took a quick pic of the four of us, and then headed back to the cruise terminal.

Sidenote: Carnival offers excursions at every stop, which are always way more expensive than booking on your own. For the exact same cave tubing experience, Carnival was charging $95/person, and they didn't even get to tube the whole river. We paid $75/person (50 for cave tubing, 25 for ATV), got to do the ATV course and had longer on the river. Don't ever do excursions through your cruise ship!

We wanted to do a little local shopping in Belize, so we walked around the shops outside the cruise terminal. The city itself is a little sketchy. I definitely wouldn't feel safe renting a car and exploring on our own. We were offered marijuana just feet outside the terminal. Crazy stuff. And quite an adventure! We got back on the boat with about 30 minutes to spare this day. We learned our lesson from Cozumel!

WEDNESDAY we stopped in Roatan, Honduras. This island was long, skinny, and absolutely beautiful! It was green and hilly and so picturesque. This was the one place we didn't have anything planned, and so we got off the boat and asked how much a taxi to the west end (the most popular place with the best beaches and snorkeling) would be. A guy wanted $25/person and he would drive us there and back. That didn't include any amenities at the beach or anything! We didn't do it. Instead, we walked over to the car rental counter, rented a car for $50 for the day, and drove ourselves around the island. 

We took the advice of the rental agent, and went to Palm Beach Resort, where we paid $10/person to go in and use their amenities. It was absolutely the right decision!

Look at that view from my lounge chair!

There were fewer than 50 people at the whole resort, unlike the hundreds or thousands that would have been at the crowded beaches. We paid another $10/person to have a guide take us out in that speed boat to the reef, about 5-10 minutes away, and snorkel with us for an hour. It was our own private snorkeling tour, and our guide found an eel and a sea cucumber for us. It was seriously amazing! The water was crystal clear and just like you'd imagine a Caribbean island to be.

Jenn and Joe snoozing on the beach chairs (they did that a lot:) and Jeff reading in the shade. I preferred the sun, although with my 30 SPF I didn't get much of a tan. Oh well, it felt amazing.

Unfortunately, this was our shortest day of the trip. We had to be back on the boat at 2:30, so we sadly had to leave around 1:30 so we could do a little shopping. We stopped at a local market and I found some cute dresses for the girls. She wanted $28 for each one, and I didn't want to pay that. We ended up getting both of them for $27, and Jeff worked a deal out with a local who needed a ride. We would take him down into town if he would show us where the local supermarket was so we could buy some Honduras vanilla for cheaper than the stands were selling it (they wanted $5 for one or $8 for two). Inside the store, we got 5 things of vanilla and a coke. They rang us up and told us our total was $7. But all we had was $6 cash, so they took out one of the bottles of vanilla and told us our new total was $6. Haha, what an inexact conversion, but we were happy to take it! 

We sadly said good-bye to Roatan, and I sure hope we'll make our way back there again someday. 

THURSDAY we stopped in Grand Cayman. This is a really small island, and very Americanized. We had pre-booked an excursion to stingray city (which our friends had already done, so they did something else) for $35/person. We got on a bus with 20 other people, and our driver then told us he had to make a stop at the grocery store to get some ice for our drinks and some squid to feed the stingray. Here he comes out of the store!

We took a boat out to the sandbar, which took about an hour. Sidenote: I found a bunch of different companies that offered the same excursion for different prices. I think the main difference in the cost is the kind of boat you are on. Ours was small and kind of smelly (like exhaust), so we rode on top, but it was perfect for us. Our guide on the boat was a local who has been doing tours for 26  years. His four front teeth are bombed out and he was a funny dude. 

Once we got to the sandbar, along with numerous other boats, we got to get in the water with the stingray. That was a cool experience, even if there were hundreds of other people in the water. We got to feed them, touch them, and even hold them with the help of our guide.

I couldn't get a good picture of all of them in the water, but they were everywhere. The water was barely waist deep and crystal clear. So beautiful!

We then took the boat out a little ways to do some snorkeling. We anchored, and hopped in and saw some amazing stuff! Again, the visibility was unbelievable and we saw a puffer fish! Our guide gathered a bunch of conch and gave us a little show back on the boat. He would bang the conch out of the shell, eat part of it, save the rest, and throw the shell back in the water. I'm not sure how common/legal that practice is, but it was fun to watch. That's not an experience you'd have on one of the more expensive excursions, I'm sure!

We headed back to the island and back on the boat, completely out of money. But very happy. 

FRIDAY was our last day at sea. We were hoping for a nice day for lounging, but our good weather finally ran out. It was rainy and cold all the way back to Miami. I went up to the gym and worked out for the first time all week. Yikes! We then hung out inside, watching the Jodi Arias trial a lot, playing games, reading, eating, and just talking about how sad we were that it was all coming to an end. There was one more formal night at dinner, and we had our waiter take some pics for us. Notice our "hard" apple juice on the table.

SATURDAY morning we were back in Miami. What a fun time we had! It was so much fun to see the Whitesides' again, and to have so much time to spend together. We laughed so much (a couple of our favorite activities were spotting a woman who was a dead ringer for Meredith on the Office and checking out all the pictures that were taken onboard to find the most ridiculous ones). 

Carnival surprised us. We went in with low expectations (our last cruise on RC was amazing), and everything was exceeded. The food was good, especially the seafood, and although everything wasn't good (we didn't care for the lunch buffet, and most of the beef dishes at dinner weren't too good), we always found a few things every night that we really liked. The breakfast burrito bar was awesome and the burger shop was great too (although there was only one day I felt like having a burger). We loved the ice cream machines and had several small cones a day. And our wait staff at dinner was so great and really cared about us. That was great.

We didn't care for the layout of the boat, as only two decks go all the way across. You have to pass the casino to get to dinner every night, which is one of the few places you are allowed to smoke. So we were always having to get around the smokers, which made it seem like the whole boat was smoky. That was pretty gross. 

There wasn't a ton to do onboard. There was a small basketball court, which we only used once, and mini golf, which we didn't get to do because of the weather on the last day. There were a couple of small pools, but we never got in. We did use the hot tubs occasionally, but only one was even the least bit hot. There was a fun water slide that I'm sure my kids would have loved. 

We went to most of the shows, and they were okay. Some were good, some weren't. We really liked one of the comedians they had, Cowboy Bill Murray, and I would imagine he won't be doing too many more cruises. He is that good. 

There were tons of parties and music and karaoke and dancing all over the place. We watched karaoke one night, but didn't really do many of the other parties. Still it was fun to watch other people (read: wasted people) having fun doing limbo contests, hairy chest contests and mixed drink contests. 

I would cruise Carnival again. I would also like to try Royal Caribbean and maybe some of the bigger ships as well. Cruising is a lot of fun, and I can absolutely see why people love it, but it's not the only way I want to travel. 

If you're still reading, wow, I'm impressed. That was a novel, but it was fun to write and will be even more fun to remember years from now.