Tag Archives: snorkeling

Thursday, March 14, 2019 ~ Belize City, Belize

April 30, 2019 deladane Leave a comment

Fun Fact: Belize is the only country in Central America where the official language English.

For several years, I have been reading about how Belize is said to have the best snorkeling reef in the Caribbean, so it has been on my bucket list to experience it for myself. When I started researching ideas of what we could do with our time here, there was no question that it needed to include snorkeling. Belize is a tender port and is known for having one of the longest distances to go between the ship and the tender dock, with most people reporting the ride took them around 30 minutes. When we originally booked the cruise, we didn’t have FTTF yet (in fact, it wasn’t available for purchase until 7 weeks before the cruise… long after I would have needed to book a tour for today if I didn’t want to risk my tour of choice being sold out!), so I was a bit nervous about booking a tour through a private vendor because we would not have priority access to the tenders. I have read horror stories about people not getting off the ship until after 10am due to crazy long lines for the tenders, or on some ships where they distribute tender tickets, you need to be on line very early in the morning to get a good ticket number. Anyway, given my desire to avoid all of that drama, I actually considered booking an excursion for Belize through Carnival. I know, that’s unheard of, right?? I usually avoid ship excursions at all costs because they tend to be more expensive, more crowded, and let you spend less time at the attractions as compared to private tours, and snorkeling excursions through the ship are notorious for being over protective and not letting you go out and do your own thing. Despite this, I was still curious as to what options were available through Carnival because some of their tours left directly from the ship, saving an hour or more on the round trip tender rides, and then I wouldn’t have to worry about the tender at all so no stress and no lining up crazy early for tender tickets. I found a tour which seemed interesting called Sharks, Rays, Barrier Reef Snorkel, and Island Escape. The tour takes 5 hours, starting with a 45 minute ride by boat out to the coral reef to go snorkeling, then to a sandbar called Shark/Ray Alley to swim with nurse sharks and stingrays, then to a little island called Caye Caulker where you could buy lunch or explore on your own for an hour or so before the 45 minute ride back to the ship. Carnival was charging $99 per person for this tour, which actually sounded reasonable considering how much was included in the itinerary. I was very close to booking the tour, but I just kept having this nagging voice in my head, reminding me about how people always complain about ship excursions and did I really want to take that risk at a port which was so important to us?

Giving into my apprehension, I started to research private tour companies to see what other options I had. There were several companies offering tours that sounded incredible, with small boats taking you snorkeling at some of the best parts of the reef, but those tours seemed better suited for people visiting Belize on a land vacation. You needed to be at their offices on Caye Caulker very early in the morning and that was not possible for us coming from a cruise ship in Belize City. One of the tours even has you take an airplane to get out to their office, but that sounded very risky because we wouldn’t know the details of tendering until that day and if we missed our flight, we would also miss out on the entire tour! That sounded like more stress than I could handle, especially considering this was 7 days into our vacation and I’d probably be worried about missing the flight and not enjoying my time on vacation.

I was about to give up and just book with Carnival when I discovered Coral Breeze. They offered a tour that sounded identical to Carnival’s itinerary, but with the benefit of a smaller group on a smaller boat, and this tour only cost $75 per person. Their website was very helpful in answering all of my questions, including the biggest question: how to handle the time difference. I think this may be the first time I have ever been in a port where ship time and local time were different! On all of my prior cruises, either the ship changed its clocks to match local time at each port (Celebrity does this, as did the Carnival Sunshine when I cruised in the Mediterranean), or the embarkation city had the same time zone as all of the ports (as with my cruises out of Puerto Rico and Tahiti). Luckily, the Coral Breeze website does a great job at understanding how to convert ship time to port time, even detailing the difference between ships leaving from Eastern vs. Central time zone in the US and between when Daylight Savings Time starts and ends. We got lucky for the other ports on this cruise because Mexico and Roatan did not change their clocks as we did on Sunday, so we ended up being on the same time as them, but for Belize, ship time was one hour ahead of local time. When I booked the tour on their website, they required a $12.50 per person deposit, and the rest could be paid in cash on the day of the tour. Skip ahead to 7 weeks before the cruise when FTTF finally opened up, I breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing that we wouldn’t have any problems meeting up with our guides in Belize. The instructions that Coral Breeze emailed me said we had to meet at 10am ship time at the pier at Terminal 4 (the tenders go to Terminal 2, so it’s close by), so we would have had a little wiggle room and not needed to be on the very first tender to get there on time, but it was a whole lot less stressful when we knew for sure that we could take the first tender if we wanted to.

Today’s Fun Times

In case you were wondering, here is the tendering information for people who don’t have priority access

Waking up this morning, we could tell that we had arrived near Belize from the ship map on our TV set.

You would never know it based on the view out our window! There was nothing but water, as far as we could see.

We got dressed, slathered on a ton of sunscreen, packed up our day bags, and went upstairs to Lido in search of burritos. When we stepped outside from the mid-ship elevators, we were greeted by tons of towel animals! I had read somewhere that Carnival does this on the last port day of the cruise, but we were due to arrive at Cozumel at 7am tomorrow so maybe they did it today instead to have a little more time to complete all the animals? Who knows! Either way, it made me smile! Unfortunately, it was verrrrry windy today so a lot of the animals were decapitated because the wind blew off their heads! Oops!

Once again, there was hardly anyone in line for the breakfast burritos at Blue Iguana. The lines for the regular breakfast buffet and the omelet stations were always super long, so I’m not sure if people didn’t know about the burritos or didn’t like them or what, but I wasn’t complaining!

After breakfast, we went down to the mid-ship entrance to the MDR for our priority tender access. There were already about 100 people sitting at tables in the MDR and we were instructed to join them as the ship had not been cleared yet. While we were sitting there, one of the crew members came around to each table to make sure we had FTTF and were NOT booked a Carnival shore excursion. Those people who were booked on Carnival excursions were instructed to go to the meeting place listed on their tickets so they could leave the ship with their tour group and they were not supposed to make use of the FTTF priority tenders.

At around 8:10am, they escorted us down the stairs so we could board a tender which was specifically designated for people with priority access. Remember all of that wind up on Lido deck causing mass decapitation of towel animals? Well that same wind was wreaking havoc on the tender boat and it was bopping up and down in the waves like crazy! They had two guys on the ship and another two guys on the tender to assist passengers safely as they transferred between the two boats.

Funny little side story… While we were sitting on the tender waiting for everyone to board, the girl sitting next to us started freaking out. Long story short, she booked an excursion through Carnival and the tickets said she should meet in the theater. All of her friends were in the theater and texting her through the Carnival Hub app that they were waiting for her and why wasn’t she there yet? She told them she was already on a tender, and they said she shouldn’t be on the tender yet! We finally figured out that she missed the announcements that people with FTTF who booked excursions through Carnival should not take the priority FTTF tender because they had to go to the meeting place printed on their excursion tickets. She tried asking the crew members who helped us to board the tender if she could get off to meet her group in the theater, but they told her to just stay on this tender because her excursion group would end up exiting their tender on the same dock as us, but we would get there first so she could meet up with them when they arrived. We told her to make sure to communicate that with her friends ASAP because once our tender pulled away, she would probably lose access to the Hub app and have no way to communicate with her friends! We also wanted to make sure her friends knew not to wait for her and to just go with their group when their excursion was called. I can only imagine how stressful this whole experience was for the girl on our tender, so learn a lesson from her… read your excursion tickets carefully if you book a Carnival excursion!!!

It took white a while to load up the whole tender, but we finally pulled away at exactly 8:30am. I was happy that we were able to find seats on the lower level so we could hide in the shade because the upper level was completely exposed to the sun.

Holy moly! It was sooooo rocky as we first sailed away from the Dream. I honestly thought they were going to turn the tender back around and abort the whole thing for fear of our tender tipping over. Luckily, that did not happen and once we got a little further away from the Dream, the water was less choppy and we felt safer.

One of the (only) benefits of a tender port is getting a pretty view of the ship while we sail away!

The tender pulled up to the dock in Belize City at 8:50am, so it was a 20 minute ride, even in those rocky conditions. We wished our new friend good luck in finding her tour group as we exited the tender. The instructions from Coral Breeze said that our tender would arrive in Terminal 2 and we should walk over to Terminal 4 to meet our guide. The walk was very short, but we needed to be careful not to get mixed up with the people exiting the cruise port area. We got to our meeting place just before 9am and checked in with the Coral Breeze representative who was standing there. He said to come back in 40 minutes to get fitted for flippers, and that there were restrooms and free wifi if we wanted to go wait in the shopping mall just a few steps away. Looking back, I regret that I forgot to ask where the giant BELIZE sign was located because this would have been the perfect chance to take a photo with that sign. I never did find the sign, but I have a feeling it was to the right when exiting the tender and we missed it because we went left towards Terminal 4. Oh well!

Just a warning… while it was probably smart of us to use the bathrooms at the port shopping mall because we wouldn’t have bathroom access again for a while, those bathrooms were surprisingly messy considering how early it was in the morning! We had equally disgusting experiences for both the men’s and the women’s bathroom. You have been warned!

We returned to the meeting spot at 9:40am and at first, the guides didn’t know where to send us. One guide told us to go with this big group of 30 people, and at first, I obliged, but then I thought to second guess it. Sure enough, that was a group who booked directly through Carnival and we did not belong on that boat. The guide sent me to speak with the lady who was in charge, and I pointed out our name on her master list so she could figure out which group we were with. I was under the impression that we booked our tour directly through Coral Breeze, and that everyone else on the tour boat with us would have booked the same way. When we finally did get split up into the right groups, we were on a boat with about 10 other people, including a family of 6 people who we were wearing Carnival excursion stickers. I meant to ask them about it later in the day, but I never got the chance. I have to wonder if they booked that Carnival excursion that I saw online which cost $25 per person more than booking directly through Coral Breeze’s website? The other group was a family of 4 with two young children (perhaps 4 and 9 years old??), which seemed a bit odd considering we would be snorkeling out in open water and this didn’t seem like an appropriate excursion for a child that young.

They led us out to a pier where they had a bunch of flippers lined up so we could try them on and find our size, then they helped us load up onto the speed boat. Our boat for today was probably big enough to fit 20 people, so we had some space to spread out with only 12 of us on the tour. We had 3 guides on the boat with us, with Beto being the lead guide, Rocky was the assistant, and there was a third guide but I never heard his name (he was the one who stayed on the boat while we were in the water in case people didn’t want to swim or came back early). They told us to get comfortable because we had about 45 minutes to go before arriving at our first stop, and we left the dock at exactly 10am (ship time).

Ready for a fun day in Belize! Note that we’re both wearing long sleeve rash guards… those things are life savers on all day boat tours like this where there is basically no shade for the entire day!

I think these were the boats they used as tenders to/from the Dream

We spent the next 30 minutes speeding through the water and holding onto the benches on the boat for dear life. Speed boats are always a bit rough and uncomfortable when traveling at full speed towards a destination that is far away, but it was even worse today given all of the wind. We’ve taken enough tours like this that I was prepared for it, but I still view these longer rides as a necessary evil to get to the good part of the excursion haha

I will say that the scenery was beautiful! The water was a light shade of aqua, and we passed by lots of little islands filled with lush green palm trees.

Finally, we reached our first little “stop” at 10:30am… the mangroves. The reason I put “stop” in quotes was that we were literally here for 3 minutes lol

The guides slowed down the boat to a crawl and they talked about a few of the animals we might see here, but we didn’t actually see any animals and we once we exited the mangroves, we went right back to speeding along through the water.

Finally, at 11am, we arrived at Caye Caulker.

Beto explained that we would tie up at the dock here for about 10 minutes so we could order food for lunch if we wanted to eat at this restaurant. They would have the food ready for us when we returned in 2 hours to save us time and give us more time to explore Caye Caulker. DH and I usually eat a big enough breakfast that we can skip lunch in port and we just eat a late lunch or a snack to hold us over until dinner. Yesterday, that kind of back-fired and ruined my appetite for dinner, so we decided to order a grilled chicken breast sandwich to share. We weren’t sure how hungry we would be in 2 hours, if at all, but we figured sharing the sandwich would work out well and one of us would probably be hungry enough to eat it.

This is the restaurant where Beto recommended for us to eat lunch… The Magic Grill

The sandwich we ordered cost $8 USD, and the waitress told us we could pay for it after we ate.

Once everyone placed their orders, we got back on the speed boat for a quick trip over to the coral reef for some snorkeling. I wish I thought to take a photo of how it looked when we arrived because OMG it was crowded! There were several other tour boats anchored in the same area, and some of those boats must have had 50 people on their tours because they were super packed! Beto split our boat into two groups… the family of 6 went with Rocky, and DH and I were going to stay with Beto with the family of 4 with those two young kids. The water looked very choppy, probably because it was still windy plus there was a strong current. Beto said we would swim out away from the boat along the reef for about 20 minutes, then turn around and let the current push us back to the boat.

My notes say we finally jumped in the water at 11:55am, so 4 hours after boarding the tender, we were finally getting to snorkel here in Belize! Once we were all in the water, I could see that Beto was holding onto that little boy and swimming with him in his arms. Honestly, this really bothered me. As I suspected, that boy was not able to safely swim for himself so he needed a lot of extra attention from our guides, and that meant that DH and I had a lesser experience. I had read tons of reviews about this specific tour both through Coral Breeze and through other tour vendors, and most of them talk about how wonderful their guides were at diving down to pull up interesting animals and pointing out things to see. We did not experience this at all because 100% of Beto’s attention was focused on that little boy. If that family knew their son was not a strong enough swimmer to participate on his own, they should have paid for a private tour where the guide could focus on them and the needs of their family. Instead, they were put on our group tour which meant that DH and I did not receive the experience we paid for. I really wish I had ignored Beto’s instructions and stuck with Rocky and the family of 6 because at least they were all adults and could swim for themselves, so Rocky had his hands free to give them a great tour. I guess it just comes down to luck of the draw as to who is on a group tour with you, but this was very disappointing considering how much research I did to find the perfect tour for us and how much I was looking forward to experiencing the snorkeling in Belize.

On top of that, with all of those people snorkeling in the same spot, it was extremely difficult to stay together as a group. At one point, DH was swimming behind me and then he got separated from us and he blended into a different group. He couldn’t figure out where we were and it was very stressful because once you get separated from your guide in that situation, you have no way to know where your boat is and you start to panic. Luckily, he did eventually find us again, but it was a bit frantic for a while and I’m sure that Beto would have done a better job of keeping us together if he didn’t have all of his energy focused on towing that little boy. Ugh! Sorry for the rant, it was just so frustrating!

With all of that said, the reef was impressive and it was worth the struggle and time it took to get here. It was very similar to the snorkeling we did off the beach yesterday in Roatan and there was a ton of coral, but I think a lot of it looked bleached out and dead. When I am snorkeling, I love to linger and give the fish a chance to peek out of the rocks. That was totally impossible in this situation as I had to keep up with Beto to avoid getting lost in the water, and the conditions were so rough that I really couldn’t stop swimming and safely stay afloat. I also always try to swim with the sun behind me to get the best possible photos, but that was a lost cause in this situation. These were the best of the photos I took, but I had to delete a lot of them because they weren’t very good.

I liked seeing the purple coral as that’s a rare find

I’m pretty sure there’s an anemone down there but we were moving so fast that I couldn’t really check it out

At one point, the coral was very close to the surface of the water. It wasn’t as scary as yesterday when I thought I would bump into it, but it was still too close for comfort. I think this was around the point when we turned back towards our boat.

This was my favorite photo from today… my eye went right to the blue and yellow fish, but it wasn’t until I got home and saw the photo on my computer that I saw the bigger fish swimming up from between the coral!

Honestly, I’ll give this snorkeling experience a solid B+. While we saw a high volume of coral, I expected to see much more vibrant colors. I also expected to see many more fish than we saw as there were really very few fish, and like I mentioned, if there was anything else worth seeing that I missed (which I’m sure there was), our guide did not point anything out to us. I think our boat went to this particular reef because of its close proximity to Caye Caulker, but I wish we could have gone somewhere else, even if it was just a few minutes further away, so we weren’t at the same place as all the other boats. I don’t know… I’ve just heard such amazing things about the reefs in Belize so I had very high expectations. Maybe I’m jaded, but I don’t think those expectations were met.

Swimming back to our boat was quite chaotic. We had no idea which boat was ours because all of the boats look the same when you are in the water. When we finally found our boat, we had to swim against the current to get there so it took all of our energy. By the time I climbed back onto the boat, all I wanted to do was take a nap! Haha

Like it or not, there’s no rest for the tourist because now it was time for Shark/Ray Alley. We went about 5 minutes across the water to a sandbar that was supposed to be shallow enough for us to stand so we could play with the nurse sharks and stingrays. As we pulled up, we could see the sharks circling around the boat next to us.

When I jumped back in the water, I realized that the water was too deep for me to stand. Not only that, but the current was really rough and kept pushing me further and further from our boat. If I was able to stand, then I would have anchored myself and it would have been okay, but since I was forced to float, it felt like I was swimming in one of those endless spa pools you see on TV lol

I pulled on my snorkel mask and ducked under water to see about 10 stingrays swimming all around us!

Even though this is not the first time I have swam with stingrays (or sharks, for that matter!), I still find it thrilling! I know these animals are used to having humans in the water and it is unlikely that anything bad will happen, but there is always that tiny part of me that starts to over think the situation and worry that they might hurt me. Don’t worry, that didn’t happen, and I lived to tell the tale (and share the experience with you!)

When we were in French Polynesia, we swam with black tipped reef sharks and lemon sharks. Today, we swam with nurse sharks, so it’s another animal to add the mental checklist I have of amazing life experiences!

It’s just so mesmerizing to watch these graceful animals swim along the floor of the ocean

Crazy as it may seem, I took all of those photos in under 3 minutes! It was so completely exhausting to swim against the current, and I kept drifting further and further away from the boat. I started to panic that I wouldn’t be able to swim back to the boat, so I decided I had seen enough of the sharks and stingrays and I used all of my strength to swim back to the boat. Just as I reached the ladder, Beto was helping the little boy get in the water. I let them get in the water, then climbed back on the boat and collapsed onto one of the benches. The third guide asked what was wrong, so I told him the current was too much for me and I had to give up. He said “Why didn’t you hold onto the buoy attached to the rope at the back of the boat?” Ummmm, what buoy?!? No one told me there would be a buoy! Well it turns out that Beto was so busy helping the little boy that he didn’t throw the buoy out into the water until after I was back on the boat! Once again, that little boy got all of our guide’s attention at our expense. Maybe he could have made sure the rest of the people paying to be on this tour were taken care of before he devoted all of his time to that child?? That family really should have booked a private tour. Whatever, I was kind of over it at that point and didn’t have the energy to get back in the water. The third guide (I really wish I could remember his name!!) was awesome. He chatted with me while everyone else was still in the water, telling me about the sharks and the stingrays, and a little about his life in Belize.

There were a few birds circling the tour boats, trying to snag some of the fish used to bait the sharks and rays

Sorry for the water spots on my lens! You can see the floating buoy here, and yes, that would have made my life much easier if it was in the water before they let any of us jump in!

Not long after that, people started to return to the boat and Rocky broke out a cooler of rum punch. Honestly, I was still so tired from fighting the current that I didn’t feel like drinking at that moment, but I took some and shared the rest with DH. The ride back to Caye Caulker took about 10 minutes, and I was looking forward to spending some time on solid land. I am sad to say that my experiences snorkeling in Belize were disappointing. As cool as it was to be in the water with so many sharks and stingrays, the high winds and rough currents made it challenging to really enjoy the experience. The mother in the family of 6 said she had taken this same tour on a cruise in January and they had perfect weather with no wind at all. She said that made a huge difference and she had a much better experience that day than she had today. Such is life, I guess!

Back at Caye Caulker, Beto said we had an hour and a half until we needed to come back to the boat, so we walked back to the restaurant to let the waitress know we were ready for our lunch. Sure enough, our sandwich was ready so she told us to take a seat and she would bring it to our table.

Lunch with a beautiful view

The sandwich was plain (that’s what we expected given it was just a grilled chicken breast lol), but it was tasty and the fries were great. We were both glad we only got one sandwich because neither of us was hungry enough to eat a whole meal, but this was the perfect light lunch.

The restaurant has this two-story structure with dangling tables and chairs that swing on ropes. It looked like a fun place to sit but we opted to sit inside to be in the shade.

After lunch, we walked around the island a little bit. I wish Beto had told us where to go because we just kind of wandered around aimlessly. I’m not sure if there was more to see that we missed out on, but what we did see was very pretty. The island has a relaxed, beachy vibe, and I’m pretty sure there are no cars on the island so everyone either walks or rides golf carts or bicycles.

Not knowing exactly where we were going, we turned left down one of the side streets.

At the next intersection, we saw this mini market…

We walked inside looking for some local beer, and discovered Belikin beer. We planned to take it back to the beach to drink there, but the store clerk said it would be okay to drink it as we walked around the island. Gotta love the laid back Caribbean way of life!

Cheers!

We still had 45 minutes until we had to be back at the boat so we walked around a little bit, then went back to the Magic Grill and sat in the adirondak swinging chairs out front. At 2:30pm, Beto gathered us up and we got back on the boat for the long ride back to Belize City.

This was our boat for today’s tour

The ride back was just as scenic as the ride this morning. I love when the water is nearly the same shade as the sky, and just look at all of those palm trees!

Finally, we saw the Dream anchored off in the distance and knew we must be getting close to the end of our ride.

According to my notes, we arrived back at the dock at Terminal 4 at 3:23pm. As we were pulling up, we could see them loading passengers onto the next tender. This morning when we were on the tender, they said the return tenders would leave every half hour, on the hour, so we really wanted to make this 3:30pm tender. As soon as the boat was tied to the dock, we hopped off, said a quick thank you to the guides, and booked it as fast as possible to Terminal 2. Incredibly, not only did we make it in time, but we managed to get a seat on the lower level in the shade! We were really happy knowing that we wouldn’t have to wait 30 minutes for the next tender because we were tired and really just wanted to get back on the Dream ASAP.

Just some final thoughts about our day with Coral Breeze… I am kind of torn about how I feel about this tour. I know some people don’t like Belize and opt to stay on the ship instead of exploring this port. I think that would be a mistake considering how beautiful it is, from the bright blue water to the lush green palm trees to the soft white sand. I can’t speak to how things look on the main land, but there is no question of the natural beauty on the outer islands. My research told me that the coral reef in Belize is the best in the Caribbean, but I honestly can’t say that I agree with that. I already expressed my disappointment in our experience snorkeling at the reef. I’m not sure if Coral Breeze just took us to a bad spot, and maybe there was better snorkeling at a different spot along the reef? Or maybe we just had unlucky circumstances in having a young child in our group who demanded all of the guide’s attention? Or maybe the rough seas and strong winds and currents in the water hampered our experience? Whatever the case, I did not think what we saw could be classified as “the best in the Caribbean” and it leaves me wanting to return to Belize and go somewhere else to see if we can find something better! In terms of our experience at Shark/Ray Alley, I did enjoy my time in the water with the animals, however limited that time turned out to be, but I think the guides could have done more to enhance my experience there. Part of the reason I opt to book tours with private vendors and not through the cruise line is to have more individualized attention from the guides, and I just do not think I had that treatment from these guides with Coral Breeze. Would I book this tour again? Unfortunately, probably not. For a tour that lasted nearly 6 hours, I spent less than 1 hour in the water. I don’t think that is enough bang for my buck to warrant repeating this tour. If I am lucky enough to return to Belize, I will probably seek out a different snorkeling experience at a different location if that is possible, or maybe even a discover scuba diving course if it is available. Hmmm… honey… do you want to book another cruise????? Haha just kidding!

The tender ride back to the Dream took 30 minutes, but I think we had to wait a few minutes for the prior tender to offload passengers before we could get off. When we were eventually tied up and it looked like people were starting to get off, we realized that although we boarded on the lower level, we needed to get off on the upper level of the tender. That meant we were the last people to get off the boat. Oh well, at least we made it onto this boat and would still get back to the cabin earlier than had we taken the tender 30 minutes later, right? Once again, I was very appreciative of our Deck 1 cabin as we could quickly walk up the flight of stairs and avoid waiting for the elevator with everyone else.

This little frog greeted us when we got back to our cabin.

Strange enough, tonight was formal night again! With 4 port days in a row on a 7 day cruise, I suppose it’s not that surprising that one of the formal nights needs to be on a port day. I guess it does make sense to do it today as this was the earliest all aboard time of all our ports with the last tender leaving shore at 4:15pm. While I showered and started the long process of blowing out my hair, DH went to the bar for a drink since he didn’t need that much time to get ready. When he returned to the cabin, he was holding not one, but TWO buckets of beer! Ummmm, honey, what do you have there?? He said the casino bar was having the same happy hour deal that they had on embarkation day so he stocked up on some beers for us for the rest of the cruise! I knew that Carnival did the embarkation day happy hour but it was great to hear they offered the same deal later during the cruise too.

We both got dressed and headed up to the MDR for dinner. Here is tonight’s menu…

Setting up for another beautiful sunset during dinner

Stuffed Mushrooms

Romaine Caesar Salad (I ordered this nearly every night, and it was always delicious!)

Filet Mignon

Dessert Menu

Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake

Cheese Plate

I usually like to take photos before dinner on formal night. If we are going to take the effort to dress up, it’s nice to document the occasion and take some photos (on my personal camera, not with the ship photographers). With trying to get to dinner by 6pm, we didn’t have time for photos before dinner tonight so we did our best to keep our clothes clean while we ate so we could take photos afterwards.

Mission accomplished!

We still had some time before the Playlist Productions show started, and our favorite couch was available on Deck 4 overlooking the lobby, so we took a seat and listened to the strings trio Kudos Strings. I was very impressed with this group! They found a way to make strings appealing to a mass audience by playing unique arrangements of pop songs, so it was fun to try to name that tune as we placed what song they were playing.

Tonight’s production show was called Flick and featured songs from movies. Most of the big songs featured in movies are ballads, so this had the potential to be very demanding on the singers who have already proven to have questionable singing voices. We went in with high hopes and were pleasantly surprised. Perhaps it was just better song choice for the person singing each song, but the cast did a good job with this show.

My favorite song was actually the very first song of the show… Skyfall by Adele. Not only did the singer do a great job, but they had a really cool effect for the staging with this piece of fabric magically dancing around on the stage behind the singer. I think they controlled it with the fans on the perimeter of that platform, but it made a cool visual (and somehow it never managed to fall on top of her while she was singing haha)

I don’t remember what other specific songs they sang, but here are some photos from the show…

After the show, we went upstairs to the Lido buffet for a quick snack, and then went back to the cabin to repack our day bags. We had another early wake up time tomorrow for our final port in Cozumel!

Step Tracker Daily Total: 12,956 steps; 5.23 miles; 9 flights of stairs

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Wednesday, March 13, 2019 ~ Roatan, Honduras

April 23, 2019 deladane Leave a comment

As soon as I booked this cruise, I knew that I wanted to find a tour for one of our ports where I could hold a sloth. I have been obsessed with sloths for years, and holding one would be a bucket list experience for me. There are several monkey and sloth habitats on Roatan, so this seemed like a good day to do that. Another priority for today’s tour was to spend some time snorkeling from the shore at West Bay beach. My research told me that they have an incredible reef which is easily accessed from the shore, and photos of the beach itself looked beautiful so I knew I wanted to see it for myself. The next step was picking a tour company, and Roatan has lots of options for small group tours where they will fill a van with 15ish people and take you to play with the monkeys and sloths, to go shopping somewhere on the island, and to end the day at the beach. I considered doing that, but since holding a sloth was such a huge priority for me, I didn’t want to risk taking a group tour and possibly missing that stop. Some of the places those tours take you to have specific hours when you can hold the sloths, and I did not want to risk something delaying my tour so that we arrived at the wrong time and could not hold a sloth.

That’s when I came across Rony’s Tours. They offer lots of varieties of tours, but the one I liked the best was the private tour option. For a little bit of extra money above the cost of a group tour, DH and I could have our own driver and guide for the day in our own air conditioned car. We could pick and choose where we went, how much time we spent at each place, and in what order we made the stops. The website has a list of all the different places you can go and how much each place will cost, so it was very easy to pick out our schedule for the day. They were quick to reply to my emails and answering all of my questions, and they did not require any payment in advance (always a plus because then you don’t need to deal with getting a refund if the ship misses the port for some reason!).

Today’s Fun Times

These papers were included with our Fun Times today:

My alarm clock went off bright an early at 7am. I jumped out of bed, eager to get this exciting day started! Peeking out the window at 7:30, it looked like we were already tied up to the dock.

Once we were both dressed and with our beach bags packed, we went upstairs to Lido for breakfast. We had good timing because there were only two or three people on line at Blue Iguana, so it didn’t take long to get our breakfast burritos.

Breakfast with a view!

Like a kid in a candy store, when I finished my burrito, I left DH sitting at the table and sipping his coffee so I could go take photos of the port from the outside decks upstairs. It was shaping up to be another sunny, beautiful day in the Caribbean!

The Carnival Freedom was in port with us today

At 8am, Gary announced that the ship was cleared so I went back to get DH so we could head out. The morning sun would have put our faces in shadow, so I told DH we should skip this photo op and wait until later this afternoon, when hopefully the sun would be at a better spot in the sky for a souvenir photo.

Mahogany Bay is another highly commercialized cruise port, which means lots of walking to get from the gangway out to where the private tours can pick you up. Luckily, it was a little less confusing today compared to Costa Maya yesterday, and soon enough, we found our way up the hill, across a big parking lot, up and down another hill, and out to the sea of tour providers waiting to pick up their passengers. Someone approached me to ask which company I was looking for, and when I said Rony’s Tours, he pointed me three people down from him. When I got there, they greeted me by name and said they were my driver and guide. How did they know it was me without me saying anything?? I wonder if that meant no one else from either ship booked with Rony’s Tours today? Or maybe the group tour had a different meeting time/location? Either way, it was nice to find our guides and not need to negotiate that mess of vendors any longer!

Our guide for our day in Roatan was named Windell, and our driver was Darson. Windell explained that he would come inside all the stops with us while Darson stayed with the car all day. It was now 8:30am, and we drove off towards our first stop as Windell explained some of the history and culture of Roatan. He is a high school English teacher but in their schools, students don’t take every subject every day, so he doesn’t have to teach on Wednesdays and is free to guide cruise ship tours. In addition to those two jobs, he also attends college for a degree in English, so he’s a busy guy! With all of that English background, it was no surprise that his speech was easy for us to understand and he was completely fluent. He joked that his English was better than his Spanish!

After about 20 minutes, we arrived at our first stop at a scenic overlook. There were a few vendors selling crafts and souvenirs, and behind that was a view of Coxen Hole. I found it a little strange that Windell took us here since our ship was docked at the other cruise port in Mahogany Bay. It was a pretty view, but it would have been more fun to see our ship instead of the RCCL ship which happened to be docked over here today. Maybe there is no equivalent view over Mahogany Bay? I’m not sure, but this place seemed pretty popular with tour buses and there were probably 50 other tourists up here at the same time as us.

We didn’t have any interest in the souvenirs for sale here so we enjoyed the view for a few minutes, then got back in the car to drive to our next stop: Manawakie Eco Park. Rony’s Tours offers two places to play with the sloths and monkeys. Daniel Johnson’s costs $10 per person and is a very popular choice among cruise ship passengers, whereas Manawakie costs $15 per person and has only been opened for a few months so it is not as well known just yet, and it is located closer to West Bay (Daniel Johnson’s was actually in the opposite direction and would have involved a much longer drive). There were only a handful of reviews on Trip Advisor for Manawakie, and even fewer on Cruise Critic, but all of those reviews were excellent and said it was not crowded and they had lots of time to play with the sloths and monkeys. I thought Manawakie sounded like a better option for our needs, and it was worth the extra $5 per person cost.

We arrived at Manawakie at 9:15am and we were the only ones there! They have their own guides there so Windell did not go in with us, but he showed us where to pay our entrance fee and made sure we were set up with our guide, Hector. Although we were eager to play with the sloth, Hector had a route planned out for us. First, he walked us through their garden and explained how the locals use the various plants and herbs for home remedies and medicinal purposes.

We could tell that he really knew his information well, but honestly, his accent was so thick that we could barely understand him. He spoke very fast and his speech sounded like he memorized a script so it didn’t hold our attention as much as it should have. They have a display set up with around 10 different jars and containers, and he opened each one to tell us what was inside and how it was used. Maybe we would have enjoyed it more had he taken us there at the end of the tour, instead of at the beginning when all we really wanted to do was play with the animals?

After about 20 minutes, we reached the area where they keep the capuchin monkeys. Hector explained that the monkeys are not shy and will jump all over us, climb inside our clothing, and try to take anything hiding in our pockets. We purposely left everything in the car aside from our sunglasses and my camera, and DH made sure to empty his pockets except for the one with a zipper closure where he kept his wallet. Within seconds of us entering the cage, this happened…

This monkey was named Poncho and he was 3 years old. He really loved climbing all over DH and he kept going up onto his shoulders, then down his shirt! It was crazy but so funny at the same time! Poncho was really a handful, but I was more drawn to the other 2 monkeys. One was a tiny 6 month old baby, but he spent the whole time up in the rafters, too afraid of humans to come down and say hello.

The third monkey was 1 year old and he was just perfect for me… too shy to jump all over me, but friendly enough to let me feed him and pet him.

Hector gave us sunflower seeds to feed the monkeys, and they would take it from our hands, split it open, and eat the seeds.

I think Poncho saw me feeding the 1 year old (I wish I could remember his name!), so he came over to get some food too.

It didn’t take long before this happened…

He was a fast-moving critter! We had a lot of fun playing with the monkeys, and it felt like we were in there a long time, but I just looked at the time stamp on my photos and we were only in there for about 10 minutes. I guess it was such a frantic experience that it felt way longer than it actually was! When we were ready to leave, Hector put Poncho up in his tire swing with some sunflower seeds to keep him distracted so we could open the gate and quickly jump out without Poncho escaping.

The next two cages housed a rabbit and a few parrots, but we weren’t allowed to play with those animals for whatever reason.

We knew all that was left was to play with the sloth, but Hector wanted to share more of the history of Roatan first. He took us into this little hut with murals painted on all the walls. Luckily it was air conditioned in there so at least it was comfortable, but the acoustics were not the best, and between the echoing, the noise of the air conditioner, and Hector’s thick accent, we only understood about 30% of what he was saying. He gets credit for trying, at least!

This is Hector

A nice map of the island

At first we thought this said Prophet Joe Biden and we started to laugh. We tried explaining what we thought was so funny, but Hector had never heard of Joe Biden. He did know who Barak Obama was, so we were able to explain Biden’s role to him. It’s always interesting to me to learn what people from other countries do and do not know about America and our politics.

And with that, it was finally time for the grand finale… the sloths! The problem was, there was another group already in there! How did that happen?? We were the only ones here when we arrived, so how did they get ahead of us? As we were waiting off to the side, this deer came up behind us on the other side of the fence.

They have 4 sloths at Manawakie Eco Park… one male, one female who just had a baby, and one other female who is pregnant. So maybe I should say they have 4.5 sloths? Hehe The male sloth is the father of both babies, so they named him Real Deal, and he was the sloth we were allowed to play with. No one will be allowed to hold the baby sloth until it is 1 year old, and the two female sloths were up in the trees while we were here so we couldn’t hold them.

If you look really closely, you can see one of the females with her baby up in this tree…

Fernando is the sloth keeper and he introduced all the sloths and taught us how to safely hold Real Deal so we wouldn’t hurt him and so he wouldn’t hurt us. His nails are very sharp, and if he doesn’t feel like we are holding him securely, then he will dig into us with his nails for a better grip. To avoid that, we had to cup one hand under his bottom so he could sit on that hand and then he would just drape over our shoulders.

OMG! I am holding a sloth!!!

Sloths can turn their heads around 180 degrees, perhaps because that requires less energy than turning their whole body?

He was so cute and cuddly!

DH’s turn to hold Real Deal. BTW, only the males have that marking stripe on their backs (I had always wondered about that!)

My bucket list officially has one more check mark! In the end, we spent 45 minutes here and I think that was the perfect amount of time. Had we come with a bigger group, we may have needed more time so everyone had a turn with each of the animals, but 45 minutes was perfect for just the two of us. Windell and Darson were waiting for us at the front entrance, and as we drove away at 10am, a big 15 person van pulled up so I was glad we arrived so early.

We drove for about 20 minutes to our next stop at the Mayak Chocolate Factory. I saw it listed as one of the free stops on the Rony Tours website and mentioned it Windell that we were interested in making a brief stop there if it was on our way. Conveniently, it was about midway between Manawakie and West Bay so it made for a good place to stop.

The store was quite small, so luckily we were the only people inside at that time. Had we come with a bigger tour group, I imagine it would feel pretty crowded! One of the employees came over to explain how to harvest the beans and make chocolate.

The lady gave us samples of a few kinds of chocolate, including white chocolate, milk chocolate, 60% and 80% dark chocolate, and chili chocolate. Luckily DH tried the chili chocolate first because he said it really had a strong kick to it, and there is no way I would have liked it so I skipped that one. It was an interesting stop and the chocolate was tasty so I’m glad we took the time to visit their factory. We stayed there for less than 10 minutes, then piled back in the car to go to the beach. There was a lot of traffic backed up on the one lane road because there was construction going on to pave the road. This is the main road that leads to West Bay and Darson said it used to be very bumpy before they repaved it, so luckily the construction was nearly done and the road was smooth for us. The problem was that only one direction of traffic can pass at a time so we were backed up from letting traffic pass in the other direction. Once it was our side’s turn to go, it only took a few more minutes to arrive at West Bay beach. Rony’s lists all the options for the different beach clubs along West Bay, and we picked Bananarama.

Bananarama charges $10 per person for a day pass, which includes a lounge chair and bathroom access. There was no need for an umbrella because the beach is lined with trees for natural shade, and we could rent a locker for $5 (plus a $5 refundable deposit).

Today’s menu

Pizzarama, where we intended to order a pizza for lunch but then ended up not getting hungry so we skipped it

Pizza menu

Lots of picnic tables in the shade and a large bar area

Some live music, but you could only hear it in the bar area

We walked down to the beach to pick out our lounge chairs. There were plenty available even though we didn’t arrive until 11am

This beach was really beautiful

We told Windell that we were going to go snorkeling, so he offered to walk us down to the far end of the beach to show us where there was a break in the reef that we could use as an entrance area. I read a few posts online before the trip which explained where to go for the best snorkeling, but it’s so hard to find the right spot when you are standing on the beach. We were glad that Windell knew where to go, and he walked us all the way down to the far left side of the beach to the Grand Roatan Resort to point out these rocks in the water, which is where he said we should enter for snorkeling.

We didn’t realize he was taking us so far down the beach or we would have brought our snorkel gear with us! Now we had to walk all the way back to Bananarama to get our snorkels, and then walk all the way back down here again to get in the water. It would have made more sense if he told us to gear up first before we walked over there. Oh well, it was a beautiful day for a long walk along the beach.

Once we got back to Bananarama, DH decided he wanted a beer before snorkeling. We had asked Windell earlier this morning what the beach bars charged for a bottle of beer and he said $2. We thought that was fair and opted not to stop at a market to pick up beers prior to arriving at the beach. DH went up to the bar and was surprised that they charged $3.50 per bottle, nearly double what Windell told us. We found Windell and told him about it, and he was really surprised but said he knew where we could find cheaper beer. He led us out towards the parking lot for the beach where there were a few stores and restaurants. One of the stores sold us a 6 pack of local beer for $9, so $1.50 per bottle. Now that’s more like it!

While DH enjoyed his first bottle, I rented a locker so we could store our valuables when we were snorkeling, and since the lockers were in the shade, we stashed our beer in there too haha

Finally, it was time to go snorkeling! We walked back down to the end of the beach and started to see coral just a few feet from the shore.

Brain Coral

There were lots of Parrot Fish

All of a sudden, this huge school of Blue Tangs surrounded us. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced when snorkeling. There were hundreds of them!

Sharptail Eel

The reef here lived up to all the hype and it was definitely some of the best snorkeling we’ve done in the Caribbean, but I’m honestly not sure that we entered the reef at the right spot. There were a lot of places where the coral was very close to the surface and it was hard to swim without touching it. I am actually shocked that neither of got scraped up from the coral! Now that I’m at home and have a better understanding of the beach, I just pulled up West Bay on Google Maps. Looking at the satellite view, I can see a channel in front of the Infinity Bay Resort which may have been a better place to enter the water. I just assumed Windell knew where to send us, but now I’m not so sure that was the best place. The snorkeling was great, but I know we didn’t make it out as far as I wanted to (where the boat tours were anchored) because we just couldn’t find a safe path to get there with all the coral. We both started panicking out there and didn’t want to get injured, so we stopped after 30 minutes. I wish I had asked around while I was at the beach and found another recommendation of a good safe place to swim, but oh well, you live, you learn!

After we walked back along the beach to Bananarama, I put the fisheye attachment lens onto my camera and got back in the water to try to get some cool over/under water shots. The conditions need to be perfect for these shots to come out, with very calm clear water, and ideally, lots of fish too. The area of beach in front of Bananarama has fine, soft, white sand, which makes for a beautiful beach but usually there’s nothing exciting to see under the water in those conditions. At least there was a small boat anchored near the shore so I could try to use that as my focus point.

This was the best one with the boat… too bad there’s no fish or coral or anything worth seeing under the water!

Looking back towards the beach

I took a lot of photos, aiming the lens in different angles, but those were the best of the bunch for today! By the time I got back to our chairs, DH had retrieved the beers from our locker.

Salva Vida is the local beer in Honduras

Looking straight up from my chair, I saw that the sun was creeping beyond where the palm trees could provide shade. The beach faces west, so I knew that as the day went on, we would gradually lose our shade, but I was hoping that picking chairs in the back row, up against the wall of the restaurant, that we would keep our shade as long as possible.

Notice how the front row of chairs is partially in the sun? They were completely in the shade when we first arrived 2 hours ago!

We spent the next hour and a half relaxing on our chairs, enjoying some cold beer, and doing lots of people-watching. We had originally asked Windell and Darson to pick us up at 3:30pm to have plenty of time to drive back to the port, but by 2:30, we had lost all of our shade and finished all of our beers, so we decided to pack it up an hour early. Bananarama has a seating area off to the side which is designated for tour guides to have a place to wait while their guests are enjoying the beach, so we knew exactly where to find Windell. We needed a few minutes to dry off and put all of our stuff away, so he went to find Darson and told us to meet him out in the parking lot when we were ready. We left the beach around 2:40pm. This proved to be another advantage of taking a private tour in that we could adjust the schedule however we wanted and we didn’t need to coordinate with anyone else.

As expected, there was a bit of traffic on the drive back, but the time passed quickly as we chatted with Windell, learning more about his life on the island. We actually got to talk with him about some topics that tour guides usually stay away from (politics and sexual orientation), and he was very open and honest with us. Windell was a great tour guide and we really enjoyed our day with him. The drive back to Mahogany Bay took around 45 minutes, and Darson was able to drive into the port area to drop us off a little closer than where we had to meet him this morning. We thanked them both for a wonderful day in Roatan, and then made our way passed the shops and back towards the ship.

Of course, we needed to stop for a quick photo on the way, now that the sun was at a better angle!

We boarded this ship and went up one quick flight of stairs to our cabin to drop off our bags. This little guy was waiting to greet us…

We also had a letter in our mailbox with instructions for priority tendering tomorrow in Belize.

We started to regret our decision not to get some pizza at the beach because it was now 4pm and we were starving! We had yet to try Guy’s Burger Joint, and even though we knew it was dangerously close to our 6pm dinner time, we knew we couldn’t wait 2 more hours to eat. Luckily, the line was really short at the grill and at the toppings bar, so we were seated at a table and ready to eat in no time.

I love that you can add your own toppings, with as much or as little of each as you like… let’s face it, the toppings are the best part! In an effort to not completely ruin my appetite for dinner, I left the bun off and only ate the burger and toppings, and I shared my fries with DH.

After our not-so-light snack, we went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner. By 5pm, I felt exhausted and needed to lie down for a while to regain some energy. I guess all that fun in the sun got to me because I was really tired. We turned on the TV to catch up on the news, and finally gathered up enough energy to go upstairs for dinner right around 6pm. When we arrived, Prudence’s section was nearly deserted. All aboard time was at 5:30pm today, so maybe people didn’t have enough time to get ready for the early dining time? Or maybe they all just wanted to eat at Lido instead?

Tonight’s menu

Roatan Port of Call Menu

None of the entrees appealed to me, and as expected, I wasn’t really hungry anyway, so I just ordered 2 appetizers and that was it.

Cannelloni (this was really good, and had I been more hungry, I may have ordered another one and considered it an entrée sized portion)

Braised Ox Tongue (This was not as good. I thought I would like it because I love cow’s tongue at the delis back in New York, but this was tough and rubbery and I did not care for the flavor. For me, this was a rare miss in the Carnival MDR)

I don’t remember what DH ordered, but I think he was also full from his burger and didn’t eat much, and I know for sure that neither of us ordered dessert.

Poor Prudence was very confused as to why we left dinner so early, but we explained that we were exhausted from our day in port and had a very late lunch, so we just weren’t in the mood for a big dinner tonight. We left the dining room around 6:50pm and realized that it was so early that we could catch the early show for 80’s Pop to the Max in the Encore! Theater. I was doubtful that I would still be awake for the 9:30pm show, so this worked out really well. I love 80’s music and I was looking forward to seeing this show, and the thought that I might fall asleep and miss it made me sad, so it’s a good thing that things worked out as they did.

The doors opened at 7pm and we were able to sit in our favorite seats in the front of the balcony, to the left of the control boards.

A few minutes before showtime, the dancers came out to warm up the crowd. Since it is necessary to arrive somewhat early for shows on cruise ships if you want a good seat, I like that Carnival did these pre-shows to give us something to do while we’re waiting. I mean, I could just scroll through my Thumbs Up feed, but what fun would that be?

I know I was a bit harsh when I shared my thoughts about Motor City, but I was really hopeful that tonight’s show would be better. Like I said, I love 80’s music. It’s fun and upbeat, and lends itself to great costumes and dance routines. The song selection for this show was pretty good, including a mash up of a bunch of one hit wonders which I really enjoyed, but unfortunately, the singing was just not good. The set for this show uses several giant electronic boards as the back drop, which added lots of opportunities for creativity in the show. My favorite part was that they had 3 or 4 treadmill bases which they kept moving into different configurations and incorporating into lots of the songs. That was actually really cool and original! Unfortunately, if you strip that away, the singing was mediocre at best. The reason I emphasize this so much is that we heard on Thursday that there were technical difficulties in the late show. They made it through two songs and then the electronic backdrop boards died. They tried to fix them but couldn’t figure it out, so the cast brought out some stools and sat on the stage to sing through the rest of the show. I honestly cannot imagine how miserable that would have been, and I heard some pretty bad reviews from people who witnessed it. We were extremely grateful that we finished dinner early enough to catch the early show because at least we got to see all the dancing and special effects!

My apologies for the blurry photos… it was the best I could do sitting that far away and without using a flash.

This was for Whitney Houston’s song “I want to dance with somebody”… the dancers were supposed to look like they were dancing with the silhouettes on the screens. I liked the concept, but not sure that it translated well on such a large scale.

The photos I took of the dancers using the treadmills did not come out well because there was too much movement and the people looked very blurry, but you can see them on the ground at the back of the stage in the next two photos.

The finale song was Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”… kind of an odd choice for a finale considering it’s more of a ballad than an upbeat pop song, but I appreciated that they were trying to share the message of change and bettering yourself.

When the show ended, we grabbed our favorite seats on deck 4 overlooking the lobby to watch Gary host the Decades Music Trivia Party. This was a lot of fun (perhaps more fun than the show was!). They played a quick one second clip of a 3 popular songs from each decade (60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s), and we had to yell out if we knew the name of the song. Then they played a verse or two of each song to see if we were correct. Several times throughout the game, Gary pulled up people from the audience to do a little something extra like an air guitar contest, or a dance off, or something like that, and he gave out prizes to those winners. It went on for about 45 minutes and was well attended judging from the people watching from all 3 decks in the atrium.

They shot off streamers at one point… and then had to rush to collect them before they got tangled up in the glass elevator pulleys! Haha

When they played “I Had the Time of my Life” from Dirty Dancing, Gary and one of the guys from the entertainment team reenacted the famous lift. That was pretty impressive!

After the trivia ended, I realized I was getting hungry. Of course, that shouldn’t surprise anyone since I barely ate dinner and it was close to 9pm, so 5 hours after our late lunch at Guy’s Burgers. We went up to the Lido Buffet to see what options were available tonight. The deli was serving a special grilled cheese sandwich today which sounded really good, with grilled onions, spinach, and muenster and cheddar cheese, so I ordered it. They did a great job of toasting it this time and I had high hopes… until I took a bite and realized it was covered with mayo! This really annoyed me because they listed out all of the ingredients on the sign advertising the special sandwich (sorry, I forgot to take a photo) but made no mention of mayo! Had I known, I would have asked for no mayo since I really dislike mayo. There was so much of it, and with the gooey cheese, it was impossible to scrape it off. DH said he would eat some of it, so at least it didn’t totally go to waste.

At least I got lucky because there was no one in like at the pizza place and I had no wait at all for a few slices of the Funghi pizza!

That was the perfect snack to fill me up enough that I wasn’t hungry anymore, but not so filling that it prevented me from sleeping well. And with that, we got ready for bed and fell asleep early to recharge for another exciting day tomorrow in Belize!

Step Tracker Daily Total: 8,965 steps; 3.62 miles; 14 flights of stairs

Cruise

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 11

May 14, 2016 deladane Leave a comment

Wednesday, March 23 ~ Grand Cayman

I know many frequent cruisers have been to Grand Cayman so many times that they don’t even bother to get off the ship at this port, but I was super excited to come here as it was a brand new port to me! After years of reading other peoples reviews, I knew there was one place I HAD to go when I finally got to Grand Cayman… Sting Ray City!! The idea of standing out there on a sand bar in waist-deep crystal clear blue water while sting rays swim around my legs, and getting to touch and hold the sting rays sounded so incredible that I knew I wanted to experience it first hand. There are many private companies offering boat tours to Sting Ray City plus one or two snorkel stops, so I sent out a few emails to see if anyone had space for us. Unfortunately, I got many replies saying they were already booked that day! As popular of a port as Grand Cayman is, the day we would be there was one for the record books as there would be over 21,000 cruise ship passengers on 7 ships in port that day! After contacting a few more companies, I was finally able to book us on a tour with Captain Marvin’s, going to 2 snorkel stops plus Sting Ray City, for $45 per person. This is the description of the tour from their website:

Captain Marvin Three-Stop Stingray/Snorkel Tours: Our three-stop stingray/snorkel tour lasts three hours, dock to dock. The three-stop stingray/snorkel trip goes to the Stingray City sandbar plus TWO snorkel stops, both the Barrier Reef AND the Coral Gardens. The cost of this tour is US$45/person for ages 12 and over, US$30/person for ages 4-11, and free for children under age 4. We strongly recommend that you bring flotation devices for children under age 4, as our snorkel gear is for ages 4 and over. We provide snorkel vests, life vests, mask, snorkel and fins for everyone ages 4 and over. You are welcome to bring your own gear if you like. We offer complimentary shuttle service from your hotel or condo on Seven Mile Beach. It is also strongly recommended that you know how to swim in order to be safe for the snorkeling stop. Our three-stop stingray/snorkel tour is available every day of the week. The schedule from Monday through Friday is 10 AM until 1 PM, and 2:30 until 5:30 PM. On weekends, the schedule is from 9 AM until 12 noon, and from 1:00 until 4:00 PM.

Our original plan was to go to Seven Mile Beach after the tour as it is said to be a beautiful beach, and they said they could drop us off there free of
charge. In addition to this being my first time in Grand Cayman, it would also be my first time at a tender port. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of not being able to come and go from the ship whenever we wanted to, and I was unsure of how the ticket process worked. Since we weren’t booked in a suite and don’t have elite status, I was afraid we might have a long wait before we could get off the ship. Our tour started at 10am, but we needed to check in at Captain Marvin’s office by 9:15am. With the first tender starting around 8am, we knew we had to be on one of the first tenders to be on time for our tour. We spoke to someone at guest services the day before to find out the logistics of how the tendering process works. She said that they will have tickets available for pick up from the Gastrobar starting at 8am on a first come, first served basis. Our plan was to be there promptly at 8am in hopes of getting one of the lower tender numbers so we could get off the ship ASAP.

Knowing it would be another early morning, we put our room service breakfast door tag out last night and requested the 7-7:30am time slot. We were still fast asleep when the phone rang at 6:42am to tell us our food was on the way. I guess I can’t really complain because I would rather it be delivered early than late, but geez! We weren’t ready to eat THAT early! On the bright side, we were able to eat breakfast outside on the balcony as we watched the ships sailing into port.

The local tenders were much bigger than I expected, with 2 levels that held hundreds of people.

The weather was so beautiful for the entire cruise, but those dark grey clouds didn’t look promising for today’s forecast!

I was on my way down to the Gastrobar at 8am to get our tender tickets when John came on the overhead to announce that the first tender was ready and we could get on now with no wait. I did an about-face in the hallway and went back to the cabin to get J, and we went down to deck 2 to board the tender. Having never done this before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the whole process was fairly painless. We walked down a few stairs to a platform where crew members were waiting to help us climb onto the tender.

The tender was only about half full when we got there so we waited for 5 minutes while the rest of the boat filled up. We found seats on the upstairs deck hoping for a pretty view of the Equinox as we sailed to shore.

Once enough people were onboard, they took in the ropes and we were on our way.

Remember those scary dark clouds hovering above our ship all morning? Well they decided to open up and rain down on us while we were on the 10 minute tender ride! So much for the pretty views from the top deck!! I went downstairs to seek cover as the rain was cold and uncomfortable while on a moving boat. We reached the pier on shore by 8:15am and filed out of the boat, down the short pier, and into the port.

Since we were still very early for our tour, we spent a few minutes walking around the port area and checking out the stores. It was already getting crowded because some of the other ships started running their tenders earlier than us.

Captain Marvin’s store was located 1 block to the left of the port area, and it was very easy to find with this huge sign out front.

There were already tons of people waiting around, so we got in line and tried to figure out what to do next. They passed around a clipboard with a waiver we had to sign… you know, the usual stuff- if we die, we can’t sue them! haha Once we got to the front of the line, the lady asked us to pay our $45 per person in US dollars, gave us a receipt, and told us to come back at 9:30am for our bus to the boat. It was only 8:45 so we spent some time at the nearby stores and walking around the port area.

We went back to check in again at Captain Marvin’s store at 9:15am (15 minutes before we were told to return), and the lady organizing everyone to get on the buses, Anna, was very upset with us. She said she was looking for us and yelling our name, but that our bus left without us at 9am. I said the lady in the store told us to return at 9:30, but Anna said we should have been back by 9am. We wouldn’t have left the area had we known we only had 15 minutes to wait!! What’s more, the tour details that came with our original confirmation email stated we needed to check in by 9:15am so why would we need to be back to their office by 9am?? Had the tender not worked out so easily, it is possible that we would still be trying to get ashore at 9am!!

Anyway, Anna found space for us on a different boat, and a bus came within 2 minutes so we hopped on and headed off to the boat dock. Our bus driver’s name was Dennis, and he spent the entire 30 minute ride giving us a very entertaining speech about Grand Cayman. Did you know that the rental cars in Grand Cayman have white license plates whereas the locals have yellow license plates? They drive on the left side of the road, so the white plates help the locals identify the tourists so they can stay a safe distance away because most tourists aren’t used to driving on the left side of the road! haha!

Our boat for the tour was 2 stories tall, and we had 3 guides and 40 people on the tour. When we booked the tour, I was told we would have a maximum of 20 people on our tour, and the guides said they hadn’t had 40 people on a tour in many months, but with over 21,000 people in port, I guess they allowed more people to book the tour. There was enough seating for everyone on one of the two decks, but I doubt we could have comfortably fit anyone else! J and I sat upstairs and enjoyed a 30 minute ride to Sting Ray City.

Today was extremely windy and the water was very choppy. At 10:30, we arrived at Sting Ray City and it was already very crowded.

The guides tried to park our boat between the other boats, but the winds were tossing us around a lot. There was so little space that he gave up and said we would go snorkeling first and come back here later when it was less crowded. I doubted his logic, knowing that popular tour destinations tend to get more crowded as the day goes on, not less crowded! I had also read that many of the sting rays leave the sand bar after they get fed by the first few tourists in the morning so I was really bummed to have to come back later.

We motored away from Sting Ray City to a reef about 5 minutes away (we could still see Sting Ray City from the reef). The guides said we could borrow snorkels, masks, and fins if we wanted to, and we could spend 30 minutes snorkeling at the reef. The waves were pretty rough, but it wasn’t that hard to snorkel because you could just float and let the current take you around. There was excellent snorkeling at this site with so many interesting fish to see. This is just a handful of the many photos I took while snorkeling…

I got tired pretty quickly so I swam back to the boat after about 20 minutes. Once everyone else was on board, we motored back to Sting Ray City, and of course, it was even more crowded than it was an hour ago!

The winds were still very high so I wished we had stayed here before. It was scary to watch them attempt to park the boat as we came close to hitting our neighbors many times. Eventually they were able to squeeze into a small spot and drop the anchor so we could climb out into the water.

Sting Ray City is a sand bar in the middle of the sea where it is shallow enough to stand and it is usually fairly calm waters, but today with the high winds and rough current, we were getting knocked around a lot. It was very hard to keep our balance as the waves kept crashing over us. Once all 40 people from our boat were in the water, we all crowded around one guide with one sting ray. In my research prior to the cruise, all the photos I had seen of Sting Ray City showed tons of Sting Rays swimming around, but we did not experience that at all today. All 40 of us had to ‘share’ this one sting ray so we had very limited time to really play with it.

The guide told us we could touch the sting ray

Then the guide held up the sting ray so we could see the bottom… I took this photo at exactly the right second as he was spitting out water!

Then the guide told us it was time for us to hold the sting rays. We all took turns taking our photos and holding the sting rays, and we were able to find one of the other tourists on our boat to take photos for us.

They say you get 7 years of good luck if you kiss a sting ray…

The guide pushed the sting ray up onto our back for a back massage!

Some people had a chance to feed the sting rays but I didn’t know where to get the food and I was tired of being tossed around and bumping into people so I just got back on the boat. Sting Ray City has the potential to be lots of fun, but we hit a double whammy with rougher than normal seas and winds, and a more crowded than normal port day. Hopefully I get a chance to take this tour again some day with better conditions!

I was glad our boat wasn’t as crowded as their boat!!

Once we were all back on the boat, we motored about 10 minutes to another reef for some more snorkeling. There were 2 stingrays who frequently swim around this reef- one without a tail, so they called him Frisbee! haha

There was a lot of coral at this reef, but I thought the fish were better at the first stop. The real highlight was swimming with the sting rays! Unlike at Sting Ray City, we had plenty of space to spread out and explore and have one-on-one time with the sting rays. They are so elegant as they glide across through the water, and it was amazing that they were totally unthreatened by us swimming in their waters.

This was Frisbee haha

It was very hard to swim back to the boat when I was ready to stop snorkeling as I was swimming against the current. Once everyone was back on board, we spent 30 minutes motoring back to the dock. On the way, the guides served us water and fruit juice.

Apparently in Grand Cayman, they steer motorized vehicles with their feet! haha

We had exactly 3 hours on the boat, plus 30-40 minutes on the bus each way. Overall, I thought Captain Marvin offered good value at $45 per person, but they could use better organization with the buses. Only one bus came to pick us up after we got off the boat, but that bus only holds 25 people and we had 40 people on our tour. I’m sure the 25 person bus is normally big enough, but they knew we had 40 people on this tour and they should have sent 2 buses to get us. We were lucky enough to fit on the bus, but there were 15 people left waiting at the dock when we pulled away. I am sure another bus came to pick them up, but I don’t know how long they had to wait.

We got back to the Captain Marvin store near the cruise port at 1:45pm. J and I originally considered going to Seven Mile Beach after our tour, and the bus driver was willing to drop us off there if we so desired, but dark rain clouds were rolling back in and we were tired from all that time in the water, so we just wanted to go back to the ship. Also, I had a feeling that the beach would be a mob scene by this time of the day with all these ships in port and I didn’t feel like fighting the crowds.

There is a little stand-alone cigar shop directly across the street from Captain Marvin’s store (unfortunately, I don’t remember the store name). J was curious so we went in for a few minutes and ended up having a really great shopping experience. Giuliano was the guy working behind the counter and he gave helpful advice and was very knowledgeable about the different types of cigars sold in his store.

After that, we went back through the port area to find a long line at the tender dock. Luckily, a tender pulled up just after we got there and everyone on line was able to fit on this boat. Once we were back on the Equinox, we went straight up to the Oceanview Cafe for a late lunch. J had a burger and I had the stir fry. Again, it seemed like no one knew about the stir fry station and there was no line to place my order.

We grabbed a table outside and ordered a round of frozen cocktails to cool off as we enjoyed our lunch with a view.

After lunch, we went back to the cabin to spend some time relaxing on the balcony and watching the tenders return to our ship and other ships leave port.

Celebrity Silhouette

Carnival Magic

Our first stop on tonight’s pre-dinner drinks tour brought us to the Ensemble Lounge. We didn’t spend much time here during the cruise, but I did like that they usually had some live music playing whenever we walked by. I ordered the Kir Royale (Domaine Chandon Brut sparkling wine and Chambord Black Raspberry liquor) and J had a beer.

Our next stop was the World Class Bar. Aside from the time we spent here during the mixology class, we had yet to spend any time at this bar. For some reason, I thought all of the drinks here were above the $13 limit of the Premium Beverage Package… maybe that was something I had read here on Cruise Critic prior to the cruise? We were pleasantly surprised to learn that EVERY drink on the menu at the World Class Bar cost $12, just like at the martini bar, so we could have any drink we wanted! We spent the next 2 days trying every drink on the menu (to be fair, there’s only 10 drinks and we each only ordered 5 and then tasted each others drinks). We started with 2 of the most exotic drinks on the menu…

Bulleit Infusion (I thought they would give us the entire pitcher, but they only pour out a little into a glass and put the rest of the pitcher back behind the counter)…

Double fisting the shakers

Mystic Ketel One

Infusing the rum in the Zacapa Above the Clouds with applewood smoke

The Ciroc Tropically Yours tasted like a gourmet pina colada!

Dinner was delicious as usual, although I didn’t have a huge appetite tonight (likely due to all those yummy drinks at the World Class Bar, plus the fact that we ate lunch fairly late).

Whole Wheat Orecchiette

Crispy Salt Cod Bacalao Croquettes

Fusilli Pasta

We decided to skip dessert tonight, so I apologize for not having photos of that menu.

Tonight’s show was the Tenors of Rock and we thought it was one of the best shows over the whole cruise! They were a group of 4 singers who did a variety of rock songs from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, and some of them were in unique arrangements to put their own spin on the song. Their voices were far better than the voices of the singers in the production shows, so that really added to our enjoyment of this show.

After the show, we walked around the ship for a bit. At around 10:50pm, J decided he wanted to use his Captain’s Club coupon for the free scoop of gelato (this was the only perk we cared about so we wanted to make sure to use it before the end of the cruise!), so we figured we would be fine to get it before the gelato bar closed at 11pm. I was told earlier in the week by someone at guest services that we did not need the paper coupon when we redeemed our free scoop because the info was on our seapass card and the person at the counter would know we hadn’t redeemed it yet when they swiped our card. When we got there, the lady said that she did need to have the paper coupon to give us the free scoop. Of course we didn’t have it on us because we didn’t think we would need it! So with 10 minutes to go until they closed, we ran back to the cabin, grabbed the paper coupon, and ran back downstairs to the gelato bar, arriving at 10:57pm. By now, there was a second woman behind the counter who was helping to clean up, and she was very strict. She would not let him make an ice cream sandwich (which I had read on Cruise Critic that people were able to do that on their cruises), and she said he could only pick 1 flavor and no toppings. J opted for rum raisin, and I opted to hold off on my scoop until tomorrow since I really wasn’t very hungry. That was one of many times during the cruise that we got false or inaccurate information from the people at guest services (J got at least 4 different answers when he asked 4 different people how many laps around the track equal one mile HAHA And he also got false information about the pricing for the mixology class).

On our way leaving the gelato bar, we ran into some people from our tour in Panama at Cafe al Bacio, so we sat and chatted with them until midnight, then went back to the cabin to go to bed.

Up Next: our last sea day 😦

Cruise

Carnival Valor Cruise ~ Day 10

April 16, 2015 deladane Leave a comment

Saturday, March 21 ~ Birthday celebration on a speed boat in St. Maarten!

Today was my birthday and we had a fun day planned. After we booked the cruise, I checked to see how many ships would be in each port with us each day. Most of the time we only had 0, 1, or 2 other ships with us, but today we would have 6 big ships! I could only imagine how much traffic there would be and how crowded the beaches would get!! So I knew immediately that we needed to find an alternative option. After some research, I found a speed boat tour that left from a marina located 10 minutes walking distance from the port. That meant we wouldn’t need to worry about taking a taxi or sitting in traffic on the way back to the port in the afternoon. There were 2 companies offering similar tours: Mike Robinson and Bob Cass. They both left from the same marina, both cost $109 per person, lasted from 10am to 4pm, made a few snorkeling stops, and included water/soda/beer on board and lunch on a beach. They had slight differences in where they stopped to eat lunch and what order they visited the snorkel stops. The reviews were excellent for both captains, so I emailed both of them to get some more details about booking the tours. Captain Bob never replied to my email, but Captain Mike wrote back within a day, and he replied to several follow up emails to answer all of my questions. I was impressed with his help, so I decided to book with him. I also requested that we be placed on his boat for the tour, as I had read reviews that some people ended up on boats with other guides but I couldn’t find any reviews specifically recommending another great guide. All of the reviews about Mike were excellent so I wanted to be sure we would have the best day possible. Mike said he would put us on his boat as long as he was working that day (he wasn’t sure if our tour would fall during his vacation time). This was back in August, so we agreed to touch base again closer to the tour date. About 2 weeks before the cruise, I emailed Mike to confirm that we were all set and he replied that we were.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early, got ready, and headed up to the Lido buffet for a quick breakfast. You can see another ship coming into port towards the left of this photo:

We left the ship by 9am to walk over to the marina. Mike’s directions were a bit vague, so we weren’t totally sure about where we needed to go, but there were many security guards stationed throughout the port area and they pointed us in the right direction. It was an easy 10 minute walk along a sidewalk to reach the Chesterfield Marina, and we found Mike sitting at the bar. We checked in and paid him in cash for the tour, and he told us to wait in the shade as some people hadn’t arrived yet. At 9:30, Mike came over and said that we would be on Jimmy’s boat. What?!? I thought you told me we would be on your boat?!? Well apparently he didn’t have space for us or something, and we ended up on Jimmy’s boat with a bunch of other couples who booked with Bob’s tour company. I was really disappointed about this. I know the tours are similar, but what was the point of doing my research and booking with Mike if he was going to pass me off to a different company and a different guide?? Not only that, but Mike took the people on his boat and they left the marina by 9:35am. We were left waiting on the dock until 10:15am because one couple was late. They never showed up, so we ended up with only 8 people on our boat, but we didn’t get going until 10:15am so our tour was 40 minutes shorter than the tour we should have been on. We had to be back by 4pm to have time to get back to the ship before the 4:30pm all aboard time, so it’s not like they could extend the tour at the end. This was quite a bummer and not the best way to start our day.

We decided to make the best of it and enjoy the day as much as possible. Jimmy turned out to be very nice and informative. After briefly giving us some safety info, he helped us board the boat. We were not allowed to wear shoes/flip flops on board, but he did have a safe dry place to store our bags for the day. Our boat held up to 12 people, so we had a little extra space with only 8 people on the tour. Jimmy warned us that the ride is bumpier but drier in the front of the boat, versus a smoother ride with more splashing in the back of the boat. J and I ended up sitting in the front on top of the cooler (it was stocked with water, Coke, Diet Coke, Heineken, and Coors Light), and while it was a bit rocky and jumpy at spots, I never felt like I would be thrown from my seat into the water.

Looking back towards the cruise port as we left the marina…

Once we left the marina, we sped through the water for about 20 minutes to Simpson Bay to see all the huge yachts. Jimmy took us under a bridge and into the bay and told us to grab a few drinks as it would be calm cruising for the next few minutes.

At some point, we crossed over from the Dutch to the French side of the island. Jimmy said we would spend the rest of the day on the French side because the waters were calmer here. From there, we sped along the coast for another 30 minutes or so, passing all the places we would return to later in the day, to get to our furthest point: Tintamarre island. This was probably the bumpiest portion of the ride, so I’m happy to report that I did not get bounced off the boat! When we approached Tintamarre, it looked like a secret tropical oasis in the sea.

Looking back towards St. Maarten:

Jimmy handed out snorkel masks, fins, pool noodles, and life vests to anyone who needed it. He also had a little spray bottle filled with Johnson’s Baby Shampoo and water. He told us to spray the goggles and to rinse them off in the ocean, and that would prevent the goggles from fogging up. Wow did this stuff ever work like a charm! I don’t know how I never knew to do that before, but I am definitely packing a spray bottle with that mixture on future cruises because it made such a huge difference! We spent about 40 minutes snorkeling here. The highlight of this location is there are a few sea turtles hidden in the grass. Unlike in Barbados where we had a ton of tourists kicking us in the face as we tried to swim with the turtles, there were only a handful of people with us in the water at Tintamarre and we could take our time and leisurely swim with the turtles without feeling crowded. I spent a solid 5 minutes completely alone swimming with one turtle off to the side of the island… it was so relaxing and intimate.

Ready to jump in the water!

Not many fish in the water here

Hanging out with some sea turtles!

Once we were all tired, we climbed back on the boat and sped over to Pinel Island. Jimmy anchored the boat a few feet off shore and told us we could have 20 minutes to swim ashore, use the restrooms, buy a drink, and explore the beach. There was a small trail that is supposed to have lots of wildlife, but I didn’t get a chance to see it. The water here was very shallow… when I jumped off the side of the boat, I could easily stand with my feet on the sand, so we walked ashore instead of swimming hehe This beach was absolutely beautiful!! Definitely one of the prettiest beaches I have ever seen, with crystal clear water and powder soft white sand (warning: the sand further up on shore is VERY hot on your feet so stay closer to where the tides come in and out to avoid the pain! haha) I have read other reviews where people spent the whole day here and now I know why… I could definitely see spending a whole day on Pinel Island if (when) I return to St. Maarten again. I wished we could have spent more than 20 minutes here, and I know the original tour I booked with Captain Mike was scheduled to eat lunch here, so I was a little upset that we had to miss out on that opportunity because he changed our boat.

Sorry for the blurry photo (I think there was water on the lens), but I just wanted to show how shallow the water was, even this far from shore. I am 5’2″ and the water only came up to my waist

Swimming back to the boat:

Once everyone was back on board, it was time for lunch. We headed back in the direction we came from until we got to Grand Case Beach. Jimmy told us we would be eating lunch near the orange umbrellas on the right side of this beach:

We had to swim ashore again, but the water here is much deeper than at Pinel Island. While lunch was included in the excursion price, it did not include drinks so Jimmy offered to carry a dry bag ashore for us with our cash or anything else we needed (I brought my suntan lotion!) Jimmy took our lunch orders: we had a choice of chicken, ribs, or fish, and either rice and beans or french fries as a side. Once we got to the beach, we found that most of the lounge chairs in our section were occupied by other people’s towels. How ironic that I hadn’t even thought about chair hogs on the ship all week, but I found them on our excursion. We were able to find 2 chairs that were not directly next to each other, but they were both in the shade so we took them.

Lunch was ready in 20 minutes and it was worth the wait! The fish was very fresh and delicious! I easily could have eaten a second portion haha

After lunch, we had a few more minutes to hang out on the beach, but I really just wanted to continue on with our day. By now, it was 2:30pm and I was getting nervous about getting back to the ship on time. After a little prompting, Jimmy came over and told us it was time to leave. We swam back out to the boat and went 2 minutes out into the water to reach Creole Rock.

Rumor had it that Creole Rock offers some of the best snorkeling in the Caribbean so I was really looking forward to our time here. Jimmy said we could have 25 minutes to snorkel here, and he showed us where the best spots were to find the fish and coral. He also warned us that there is alot of fire coral and sea urchins, and instructed us to avoid touching it (obviously!!). I jumped in the water as soon as we were anchored and swam for a few minutes until I reached the most incredible underwater experience I have ever had! There were so many colorful fish and interesting types of coral, and I felt so lucky to be able to see it all first-hand.

Poor attempt at a selfie with the coral in the background

Our 25 minutes ended far too quickly, but by now it was after 3pm and we still had a long way to travel. I am fairly sure Jimmy was driving much faster on this leg than he had earlier in the day, but at 3:30pm, we arrived on the shores of Maho Beach. I spent some time here in 2012 to watch the jumbo jets landing at the airport. Unfortunately, those planes only arrive in the morning and early afternoon, so we missed all the action. At this time, there were just a few smaller planes landing and it wasn’t nearly as exciting as the last time I was there.

We only stayed for about 10 minutes, and then we had to get on our way back to the marina. I know this photo is a little blurry, but I just wanted to share it because this was another speed boat traveling back to the marina alongside our boat (and you can also see one of the cruise ships behind it leaving port).

We arrived back at the marina promptly at 4pm. We gathered our belongings, tipped Jimmy and thanked him for a (mostly) wonderful day, quickly used the restrooms, and went to the little store at the marina for some free ice cream! They had those little paper cups of ice cream that you get as a kid with the wood “spoons” and we could choose between vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, pistachio, and rum raisin. I had the pistachio and J had the rum raisin. We enjoyed our refreshing treat on the walk back to the ship. We got back by 4:20pm, so we didn’t have a chance to do any shopping at the port (we knew that we would be back close to all aboard time so we hadn’t planned to shop there anyway).

Looking back, we had a fantastic time on this excursion. It was a bit rocky in the beginning, and I am still disappointed in how Mike switched our boats because I really would have loved to eat lunch on Pinel Island, and I think the day would have been more relaxed if we were on the boat that started at 9:30am instead of 10:15am, but Jimmy was great and the beauty of the island speaks for itself.

Once back onboard at 4:30, we ran up to Lido for a snack since we were still hungry after the ice cream and didn’t want to wait until dinner. When we got there, they were cleaning up from the chocolate buffet. I had assumed this would be long over by the time we got back to the ship, and I hadn’t planned on participating, so I was thrilled to see they were still serving stuff. When we got to the end of the line, there was a crew member holding a sign saying the buffet was closed. What?!? But there is still cake there and I wanted a piece!! I asked if we could quickly get some food, and she said no. I then resorted to begging, and pulled the “it’s my birthday” card! I figured I had nothing to lose and I really wanted that chocolate cake! There were other people next to me who also wanted some of the chocolately yumminess, so the crew member gave in and let us take a plate. There weren’t many options left and they were literally clearing the cakes away as we walked down the buffet, but at least we got a few little things to try. I didn’t take any photos because it was all so hectic and rushed, but they had a few types of chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, and some fruit to dip in the chocolate fountain. Pure chocolate heaven! It’s the little things in life! haha

We took our plates to go and headed up to our balcony to watch one last sail away. At 5pm, they announced 3 names over the pager system… it looked like we would have a few pier runners coming our way! It was exciting but nerve-wracking at the same time, not knowing if these 3 people would get back to the ship or how long the Captain was willing to wait for them. There were golf carts running up and down the pier and soon enough, we saw all 3 people come back to the ship. Everyone was cheering and clapping as they walked up the gangway! In the end, they were only 10 minutes late, but they were lucky that the ship waited for them because I have read stories of people getting left behind in similar situations.

The last few people going up the gangway before all aboard time:

Here are the guys on the bridge trying to see if those pier runners are on their way:

With everyone back on board, we could finally set sail!

After sail away, we got showered and ready for dinner. It was finally time to break out that fancy champagne J bought at the San Juan pier duty free shop!!

The steward brought us champagne flutes earlier in the day, so we poured two glasses and took the bottle with us down to the dining room to enjoy over dinner. There was only about a 5 minute wait to be seated at dinner tonight. I’m not sure if the hostess didn’t see the bottle, or didn’t care because it was already opened, but we did not get charged a corking fee. Once again, we arrived as the waiters were doing their little show. A word of advice: try to avoid getting to the dining room at 7:15pm if you can because that’s when they do their shows and the waiters aren’t available to take your orders or serve your food. It’s not a huge deal since the show only takes 10 minutes or so, but when you are hungry and rushing to make it to the theater for a show, it’s annoying to have to sit through the waiters dancing. I think another issue is that the anytime dining people are seated on the lower level of the MDR and there is a glass partition that blocks our view from the show so we can’t see what’s happening. I have always had a good view of the waiters dancing on other cruises, so I guess it never bothered me before, but this time it just seemed annoying. At least we had a wonderful bottle of champagne to enjoy while we waited!

Dinner was tasty as always. I had the fettuccine with mushroom sauce and chicken as an appetizer, and the sweet potato and cheddar cheese soup, followed by the prime rib for an entree, and one last warm chocolate melting cake for dessert.

While we were eating dessert, the waiter came over and started chatting with us. I had a feeling I knew what was coming. Sure enough, a few minutes later, 2 other waiters joined him with a piece of pie with a candle in it and they sang happy birthday to me! This was my first time celebrating a birthday on a cruise ship, so it was a fun way to end the meal.

After dinner, we tried going to guest services to settle our bill, but the line was realllllly long. Instead, we went to the Carnival Legends show in the theater with plans to go to guest services after the show. The Legends show is like karaoke on steroids. They hold auditions for the show throughout the week at karaoke each night, and assign 10 passengers one of the song to perform. The passengers were dressed in costume and had back up dancers for their performances. They had someone dressed as Britney Spears, Elvis, Gloria Estefan, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and a few others. All of the passengers were terrific and I give them a lot of credit for getting up on stage in front of hundreds of fellow passengers! My only issue with it was that it seemed like Carnival cheaped out by enlisting the passengers as free entertainment instead of hiring a professional to perform like on my prior cruises.

When the show ended, we tried to go to guest services again, but the line was still super long. We found one of the self-service kiosks to check our accounts but it didn’t work. We decided to wait it out until the morning, and just head back to the cabin to pack. One of the many benefits of traveling with only carry-on bags is that we didn’t have to put our suitcases outside the cabin tonight, so we could pack a little now, and finish the rest in the morning.

It’s always a little bittersweet to see this towel “animal” on our bed at the end of the cruise…

Cruise

Carnival Valor Cruise ~ Day 7

April 5, 2015 deladane Leave a comment

Wednesday, March 18 ~ Boatyard Beach in Barbados

We woke up at 7:15am, got omelets for breakfast at the Lido buffet at 8am, and left the ship at 9am to grab a taxi to the Boatyard Beach on Carlisle Bay.

The taxi costs $5 per person, and we shared the taxi with 13 other people. The whole time we were in the taxi, the driver tried to convince us to go to Harbor Lights, saying that there would be a long wait for taxis at the Boatyard when we wanted to leave (spoiler alert: we had no wait at all). Anyway, no one in our taxi fell for his tricks and we arrived at the Boatyard by 9:30am. The driver then proceeded to escort us to the check in spot so he could collect his commission! Go figure! We paid a $15 per person entrance fee which included lounge chairs, an umbrella, a cup of rum punch, use of the rope swing and water toys, and the bathrooms/changing rooms. There were already a lot of people there when we arrived, but we were able to get front row seats on the right side of the pier (red umbrellas). By 11am, I heard the staff say they ran out of chairs, so plan to get there early if you want a chair at the Boatyard (and we were the only ship in port that day- I’m sure they fill up faster on days with more ships docked).

Within minutes of putting our bags down, the local vendors were asking if we wanted to rent jet skis or go swimming with the turtles. If you plan to swim with the turtles, it is a good idea to head out early in the day because a) more boats filled with tourists show up as the day progresses so it will get very crowded, and b) the guides feed the turtles to entice them, but as the day goes on, they fill up and don’t respond as well to the bait. There are many different vendors, and most charge $20 per person for the tour, which includes life vests, rum punch, and snorkel equipment if needed (the people on the lounge chairs next to us bargained it down to $15 per person!). We found it a bit annoying at how aggressive the vendors were. There are a bunch of guys on the beach soliciting tourists to take the tour, and they expect you to be loyal to them if they approach you first. Well, we noticed that some of our friends from Cruise Critic were going to snorkel at the same time so we joined up with them on their boat, and our original vendor got very upset and started harassing me about it. It was a stressful situation and I felt uncomfortable about it, but luckily the guy didn’t bother us once we got back from the tour. It’s just something to be aware of if you do go to the Boatyard- the water sports vendors are verrrry pushy!

Anyway, back to the story… We went out on a double-decker glass-bottom boat right away, and were gone for about an hour. We chose to bring our beach bags with us, but noticed many others leaving their bags on their lounge chairs later in the day. Here is the view looking back at the Boatyard as we sailed away…

First, we went snorkeling over a ship wreck. In my opinion, the snorkeling here was sub-par. There weren’t that many fish, there was a bit of a current that we had to swim against, and the water was too cloudy. It was my first time snorkeling in 2.5 years, so it was nice to have some practice time to get the hang of it again, but it was kind of hard to see the fish in the cloudy water. Oh well, it was still fun!

We stayed there for about 20 minutes, then the guide signaled for us to swim back to the boat. Next, we went over to an area where there were already a bunch of boats anchored. The water was very crowded, but our guide said this was where we could snorkel with the sea turtles so we jumped in the water and made our own space. Notice all the heads bobbing in the water…

Sure enough, there were 5 beautiful sea turtles swimming amongst all the tourists. It was definitely very crowded with 40-50 people trying to get close to the turtles, and everyone was getting kicked and hit by neighboring swimmers, but it was all part of the excitement. I was very surprised to see so many swimmers out there since the last time I did this on my cruise in 2012, there were just the 4 people on my boat, but we also went on a lot earlier in the morning so I guess there is a big difference between going at 9am and 10am!!

If you look closely, you can see 4 turtles in this photo:

Snorkel Selfie!

It was crowded!

We spent about 15 minutes snorkeling with the sea turtles, then got back on the boat. The guide gave us a cup of very strong rum punch to enjoy as he brought us back to the Boatyard. Overall, it was $20 well spent and I think everyone on our boat had fun, but I do think it was a bit too crowded to fully enjoy the experience. One thing to keep in mind is that many of the other boats near us were half- or full-day catamaran excursions that run up to $100 per person, yet we were all snorkeling at the same time, in the same water, with the same turtles! I am sure they had a great rest of their day on the boat whereas we only had 1 hour on the boat and spent the rest of our day on the beach, but I don’t think it is worth the difference in price if you are only going for the snorkel experience and don’t care about spending all day on their boat.

We spent the next few hours relaxing on our lounge chairs, drinking our free cup of rum punch, and chatting with the people on our neighboring lounge chairs. Everyone was so friendly and it is always fun to meet new people. J even met some people from his home town and their son went to J’s high school! What are the chances?! Less shocking was when I met a couple who live in the same apartment building where my brother used to live in NYC (it’s kind of an infamous building and once they mentioned the intersection, I knew the exact building they were talking about… they found it funny that they met someone in Barbados who could identify their apartment building by it’s nickname lol)

At some point, we heard a siren go off to signal that they were pouring free shots at the bar. Tons of people ran up to have the bartender pour liquor from the bottle right into their mouths! It felt like we were on spring break! Haha

Later in the afternoon, we decided to try out the water toys. J loved the rope swing and went on it a few times. Sadly, I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would, and it took me a while to recover from all that water that got in my ears upon landing haha oops! We also spent some time relaxing on the giant trampoline (btw, it is much harder to climb that ladder than it looks!! Haha), and J was able to climb to the top of the inflatable iceberg on his first attempt!

At 3pm, we packed up our belongings and caught a taxi back to the cruise ship. As I already mentioned, there was no wait for a taxi and they run continuously from noon until 5pm (but don’t wait until that last taxi or you will miss the 4:30 all aboard time!!)

Being silly tourists back at the port…

Once back on board, we spent a few hours relaxing in the cabin and getting ready for dinner. Luckily there was only a 5 minute wait for dinner tonight when we arrived at 7pm. I ordered the prosciutto with melon, the French onion soup, and the penne mariscos. I had the fig cinnamon cake for dessert.

I promise this tasted better than it looks in this photo!

After dinner, I suddenly became extremely tired. Tonight was the night of the Mexican buffet and the big deck party, but I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open so we just went back to the cabin. I was in bed and asleep by 9pm and J read his book out on the balcony for a while. I guess the sun got the better of me today (and it left me with the lovely souvenir of a terrible sunburn on my back!). I am disappointed in myself for not staying awake to go to the deck party, but I guess this falls under the category of “you can’t do EVERYTHING on a cruise” and “now I have an excuse to take another cruise!”

Good night Barbados!

Up next: zip lining in St. Lucia

Dana's Destination Diary

Tag Archives: snorkeling

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