Another Day at Sea...

One of the things about this cruise that was different from our first was that we had an extra day at sea. We had a day at the beginning and a day at the end, which was good. We needed that extra day to figure out how to pack all of our stuff! The girls spent some time at Camp Carnival while we got to go listen to all the hoopla about getting off the ship the next day!

The girls spent the afternoon on the Lido deck - hanging out in the pool, or more frequently, the hot tub, since it was a bit overcast and quite windy!

Some of the other things we enjoyed during our stay aboard the Carnival Legend, were a couple of awesome comedians and other fun shows. The last night was a talent show, of sorts.... some of the other ship guests, dressed up as famous singers. THAT was interesting! The best was Elvis... who turned out to be one of the guys that was on our cabe tubing excursion in Belize. He was great. The guy that tried to be Garth Brooks was pretty good too. The rest, well, not so much, but you've gotta give them credit for trying!

Having "professional" photographs taken aboard the ship seemed to be another "in" thing. After our day in Grand Cayman, where Colby purchased a really cute sundress, she was in the mood to pose. She had a blast... acting like a little model! I had already decided that I had to settle on ONE photo since I take photos of her ALL the time! Guess it's different when it's not Mom taking your picture. Then Jessica decided that, even though she wasn't dressed for the occasion (and hadn't even brushed her hair!), she would have her picture taken too. Turned out cute though... very Jessica.

Did I mention our wait staff at dinner? Those guys were really great! Ted had the beverage guy bring him a Coke with each meal and by the 2nd or 3rd day, the guy brought it to him without Ted even having to ask! Colby had our waiter, Ryan from Jamaica, totally WRAPPED around her finger! She got shrimp cocktail as an appetizer at EVERY meal! She didn't even have to order it, he just brought it anyway! And Darma, Ryan's helper, was always one step ahead as well! Once Ted and the girls discovered the Warm Chocolate Melting Cake (or something along those lines), that's all she wrote for the rest of the week! I, on the other hand, enjoyed sampling all the different desserts they had to offer, since I very rarely partake at home! My favorite was the Creme Brulee! YUM! Every meal was delicious... I don't believe there was really anything we didn't like! And if we wanted to try 2 of anything, Ryan always brought both with a smile and a wonderful laugh! Ahhhh... great times!

And then there were the friends... one advantage of going to Camp Carnival was meeting new people. The disadvantage was not being able to bring them home with you... Colby did meet a friend who lives in Angier, NC. That was about as close as we got!

One more thing... the FUN towel creatures! Every night, while we were at dinner, our fabulous room steward, Lucky, mysteriously came in our room, made our beds, and left behind a little friend, made out of towels. We always wondered what they'd come up with next...

I can't say this enough, folks, what a WONDERFUL vacation! If you've never been on a cruise, you should really try it! Until next time... Bon Voyage!

4th Stop: Grand Caymans

We visited the Cayman Islands on Friday, January 23. This was our last island stop of the trip. Ted had researched all of the excursion companies and read that "Moby Dick's Tours" was the BEST! We had to take a ferry over to the dock again, though this time it was only about a 5 minute ride.

When we got off the ferry, sure enough, there were the people from "Moby Dick's Tours" waiting to greet us! We only had to wait about 15 minutes, then we were on our way! This was a GREAT excursion. We opted for the Snorkel and Sting Ray City Tour. The guys could not have been more friendly!

Because Sting Ray City was so busy when we went by in the boat, they took us snorkling first. This was the first time we used fins too... we went cheap when we bought our snorkel gear & only got masks and snorkels. I found that you really could swim faster with the fins. There was lots of coral and all types of schools of fish, though Ted and I agreed that we thought the fish were more plentiful and pretty at some of our other stops. Anyway, we had a great swim nevertheless. We had all loaded back on our little boat when one of the other passengers accidentally threw a swim shoe overboard and decided to dive in to get it. Personally, I think I would have let it go!

Our next stop was Sting Ray City. WOW! I have never seen so many sting rays in one spot. People keep asking me if we were afraid of them. Once we figured out how tame they were, we weren't scared at all. It took the girls a little while to get used to them, but once they did, they discovered what wonderful creatures they were! Ted and I both "kissed" the sting rays. Supposedly, this was to bring us 7 years of good luck. Personally, I think they just wanted to see how many people they could get to kiss them! I must say, they were quite slimey kissers! Interesting experience!

The girls were happy to discover that a friend from "Camp Carnival" was on this same excursion. Sydney was from Canada and was fun to have along.

After our excursion, we went back to town and shopped for a little while before heading back to the boat. Another fun filled day!

3rd Stop: Roatan, Honduras

On Thursday, January 22nd, we headed out to Roatan, Honduras. While we got into port pretty early, our day was to be a short one, as we had to be back on the ship to set sail by 3:00! We made the most of it and headed on into town to see what was in store for us! There were many things we WANTED to do, but just didn't have the time, so we settled on going back to the beach for more snorkling.

Once again, we rented a car so that we could "do our own thing". It appeared that none of the streets were labeled, but after a couple of wrong turns, we found our way to Tabanya Beach. At least there was a lot of scenery on the drive!!

Fortunately we found some retired Americans who visit Roatan frequently and were able to point us in the right direction and give us some tips on the best snorkling spots.

The walk to the beach was a short one and there were very pretty flowers along the way. We were greeted by a woman who wanted to braid Colby's hair before it got wet. Colby wasn't thrilled, but I knew it would be pretty, so I persuaded her to go ahead. Jessica ran ahead with Ted so that they wouldn't "get her" next!

We found a spot among some other Carnival Legend guests and settled in for the day. Once again, the snorkling proved to be amazing (just as long as you didn't go beyond the man in the canoe - apparently his job was to keep all the snorklers from going out too far)! Again, snorkling photos will come later (I hope!). What always amazes me is how quickly my girls TAN! We smother them with 30 spf sunscreen and they tan straight through!

I heard that the "Monkey La-La" drinks were awesome, so I bought myself a couple (YUMMY!) and Ted tried some of the local beer for a minimal $2.50 a bottle! I had to cut him off at 2 because the car we rented was a stick-shift, which I don't know how to drive!!

We had a great day, though short and soon headed back to town for some brief shopping before heading back to the ship...

One advantage of getting back to the ship a little earlier was having some "play time" on the ship while it was still daylight!

2nd Stop: Belize

On Wednesday, January 21st, we "tendered" near Belize, which meant we had to take a little ferry boat to the Belize dock. We made sure we headed out first thing, since we had a reservation for a Cave Tubing Expedition. Of course, we were early, and ended up having to wait for the rest of the guests anyway. There was NO snorkling to be done in these waters! The water was very dark and gloomy looking!

We took a ~45 minute bus ride to the place where we picked up our tubes and headlamps. We got down to the river and had the option of walking across (with tubes in tow!) or going up to a small cliff & jumping off. The girls and I opted to walk across (the girls got help, I did not!!) and Ted jumped in. Then we walked for quite awhile through the rainforest until we got to another part of the river where we did our cabe tubing! Because of a fatal accident, Carnival no longer offers this excursion anymore. I was a little intimidated at first (we had our kids with us for Pete's Sake!), but once we heard the full story, we decided it was safe to continue with our journey. Basically, when the cruise ships were offering this excursion, they allowed too many people to go through the caves at a time and a woman got wedged against a wall. Our guide only had the 4 of us in his "chain" and was EXTREMELY careful. Aside from the water being VERY chilly, this was an awesome excursion! It was like going through a cavern (like the ones in the mountains), but in an innertube!! Obviously, I couldn't bring my fancy camera, so hopefully our dinky waterproof film camera produces some good shots!

Belize was not somewhere that you wanted to spend a lot of time in the port (especially unattended by a tour guide!), so we shopped very briefly when we returned, then got back on our tender to head back to the ship.

First Stop: Cozumel Mexico!

We sailed into Cozumel early Tuesday morning, January 20th. We didn't have a scheduled "excursion", so we went to the travel assistance booth to see what they recommended. It was exceptionally windy that day, so the assistant suggested that we rent a car and head on the other side of the island where the water would be calmer (we were originally headed for "Paradise Beach" and afterwards learned that it was extremely choppy and there was not to be much water activity that day!). He circled a few points of interest and we were on our way. Renting a car was only $60, compared to the $100 or more it would cost for a taxi to take us to one stop & back! This way we could do our own thing. We had to quickly learn a few Spanish words (the kids were NO help, even though they have Spanish class once a week at school!). Words like "Alto" (Stop) and "No Habla Espanol" (I don't speak Spanish) came in handy!! Now, granted we missed a couple of things along the way due to some children fighting in the back seat of the car, but the beach we stumbled upon was absolutely stunning!! We did see some interesting things along the way, like horses coming out of no where & running out in the middle of the road!

When we arrived at our destination, Chen Rio, we had the beach/water to ourselves. This was the kids' first attempt at snorkling (we brought our own gear) and my first time without hypervenilating!! There were all sorts of schools of fish (once I get photos developed, I can post those on my blog!) and shells that we could dive down for!

We decided to move down the beach, closer to the little restaurant on the beach... we swam out beyond some rocks and found ourselves in our own little paradise! Just beyond the large rocks, there was a little cove where we saw even more fish of all kinds! It was fabulous!

After our snorkling adventures, we decided we should eat some lunch at the little "cafe". They told us of a special for 4 for only $55, so we decided to partake. It consisted of snapper, mahi mahi, FOUR lobster tails, shrimp, and conch, along with tortillas and tortilla chips (we were in Mexico afterall!) and soda served in old-style soda bottles! Amazing!

Another neat thing was that some of the locals were making little grasshoppers and hats out of grass. They gave the girls each a grasshopper and Colby said, "they gave them to us for FREE, but we gave them $1 because it took a lot of time to make them".

We headed back into town for a little shopping before heading back to the ship. The girls learned that if you chat with the locals that you can bargin with them a bit. Colby got a beautiful hand-made dress for $18!

What a fun day in Cozumel!