I have had a few requests to write about my cruise, so here
you go! :)
In May, I went on a cruise with one of my best friends,
Clarissa! You may remember Clarissa from
her
30th birthday party in November. We travelled to the Caribbean on the Royal
Caribbean cruise line for 7 days, stopping in Cozumel, Belize, and Roatan.
For more pictures, go here!
I was worried that I would get bored on a ship for 7 days,
but by the end of it I was ready to make it my full time residence. We set sail from Galveston, which is only a
30 minute ride from where I live.
Clarissa had driven down the night before and stayed the night. My aunt
was in town for Mother’s Day and offered to take us to the cruise
terminal. We were standing in line and
all we saw were couples! Clarissa said she hoped that all the cute guys were
running late or already on the ship. Haha.
As the week went by, we learned that there were no cute guys. Whomp Whomp
Whomp. Apparently Carnival is the party
cruise line but when we were booking it, we didn’t know this. Not that we wanted to party, but it would
have been fun to at least have someone to hang out with.
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| Sunrise! |
We checked in to our room and explored the ship. We went to a few seminars to try and win free
stuff (spa and fitness centers have tours to get you to buy their products
throughout the week), but we didn’t win.
Our Room
Our room was an inside cabin on the 7th
deck. We could have paid extra for an
outside cabin with a balcony, but it was honestly a good room. It was snug, but it was just the two of us
and the room had lots of space for storage.
When we got there the bed was a queen size but we could have pushed them
apart to make two twin size beds. When
we left housekeeping was preparing for the room to be a four person room…that
is crazy! I would say that unless the
other two people were kids, four to a room is too much.
I liked that our room was inside with no windows because you
could sleep in without the sunlight filling up the room. No matter what time we went to sleep/woke up,
it was always dark. Our dinner mates had
a cabin with a balcony and they said it was noisy and the sliding door didn’t always
shut properly.
Dining
Dinner: We lucked out and got wonderful table mates
at dinner! You are free to eat on your
own for breakfast and lunch, but dinner is always with the same people. We were all about the same age and the table
each night was filled with laughter. We
only skipped dinner once (too tired) because we liked everyone so much. There were two couples and a mother/daughter
pair, plus us. We had heard that you can
eat as much as you want at dinner (at all times actually) so several people
ordered more than one of each item (so nights, not all). You can’t decide which entrée to get? Why not both?! Or 4 different ones? Seriously, you gain weight like crazy. Lol.
Breakfast/Lunch: We usually ate breakfast and lunch at the
Windjammer Café. It is a buffet with
lots of choices for even the pickiest of eaters. One morning we went to the dining room for
breakfast and were led to a big table.
You don’t sit with your table mates during breakfast or lunch so they
sat us with random people. There was an
older female friend set and 3 other older couples (We were the youngest by 30+
years). At first they wouldn’t talk to
us and were so snobby, but the closest couple made small talk with us at one
point and we mentioned that we were on the lookout for cute/single guys. All of the sudden everyone was talking to us
like we were normal. I think they
thought we were lesbians or something (we are friends people! Jeez) because we got
the cold shoulder literally up until we mentioned guys. Seriously?
You may not agree with someone’s lifestyle, but you can at least treat
them like people! I can only imagine
what gay people get treated on a daily basis.
It’s sad! As we were walking out
of there, Clarissa said “If I ever become like one of those ladies, shoot me.”
LOL. Needless to say we never went back
there for breakfast.
Snacks: I didn’t really eat snacks that much but
there was a section in the Promenade area (where Starbucks is) that has pizza,
sandwiches, and desserts 24/7.
Ports
We had three ports during our 7 days. I was excited because I got to go to
Roatan
for the day to spend time with my Aunt Tracy.
They live in New Jersey but have a vacation house in Roatan that they go
to all the time. I have been meaning to
take a group of friends there but I haven’t actually booked anything. Maybe soon!
Cozumel-Cozumel was
our port of shopping! Clarissa ended up buying a watch at one of the DI
locations and I just browsed all the pretty jewelry. We went to Senor Frogs for lunch and had
drinks and even got a fun balloon hat! (I
gave mine to a kid on the ship when we got back-he kept looking at it all sad)
Belize-Oh Belize. We
chose Belize to do our one excursion of the trip. Excursions started at $75 for each port and
we didn’t want to pay a ton of $$ at each one.
Clarissa had always wanted to go zipling (I had been before in
Costa Rica) and I had wanted to see something from the Mayan Ruins plus tubing and lucky
for us there was one excursion where we could do both!! We went ziplining through the jungle and
afterwards we went cave tubing in an ancient Mayan ceremonial cave.
Zipling: We got on the bus and our tour guide showed
us all around as we made our way to the site, which took about an hour to get
there. We went ziplining first (thank goodness-I
wouldn’t have wanted to zipline in wet clothes) but were able to put our stuff
in a locker. They fitted us for a
harness and we went up the stairs to start our zipline. We did about 8 (??) ziplines and finished
where we started.
Funny story: As
Clarissa was getting into her harness her helper was flirting with her, so she
(thought) she was harmlessly flirting back.
When we got back to the platform, he pulled her aside. Their conversation went like this:
Helper: So did you
think you would meet a hot Belizian while on your cruise?
Clarissa: Umm, no?
Helper: Well, did you
think you would hook up with one?
Clarissa: What? No!
Helper: Do you want
to?
Clarissa: No thanks.
(and proceeded to run away to the safety of our group. LOL). Later, she said “We were we supposed to go do
it if that awful line would have worked?
A bush?”
The REALLY funny part was when we got back to the port we
saw a t-shirt that said “I did it in a bush in Belize” No lie!
We were kidding with her when we said that she would have had the best souvenir
if she would have gotten that shirt.
Cave Tubing: We changed into our swimsuits and picked up
our tubs. The cave was a short walk down
a path and then in a hole with steps. We
all got in and made sure to hold on each other.
They took us to one end of the cave and showed us where they used to do
several rituals. There were some remnants
of pots and other clay items that were still there but they said that a lot
were either washed away in floods or thieves took them. On the way back there is a place where you
can either stay on your tube or get off and swim. I thought it would be cool to swim so I did, completely
forgetting that I usually FREAK OUT in open water. I did start to freak out (quietly) and swam
as fast as I could. In my haste, I swallowed
water and immediately thought, “I am going to pay for that later”. (I did-I got really sick when I got
home). I also got an awful ear infection
that is not 100% healed. I am not 100%
sure if it was from the water (or snorkeling in Roatan) but something got to
me. Just beware!
They fed us lunch and we got back on the bus to go home. It was a fun excursion!
Roatan-I have been to Roatan before since my aunt has a house
there. Since we had done a lot in the
other two ports our plan was to just relax in Roatan and do a little
shopping. We got off the boat and were
looking for a taxi. They were trying to
get us to pay $25 each for the ride to my aunt’s house but I refused. The taxi guy just kept saying (while showing
us a map) how “far” it was. The entire
island is only 30 miles long! Once he
figured that I wasn’t buying it, we negotiated down to $10 total. When we got there, Clarissa said “that wasn’t
a far drive, it was like 5 minutes”. I
understand that they make money off tourists, but come on!
We got to my aunt’s house and took a tour of the new house
they built. There are two houses on the
property but I had only seen one. The
new house is so pretty and full of handcrafted wood from the island. I can’t wait to stay in that house the next
time I go.
While my aunt went diving that morning, Clarissa and I went
shopping and had breakfast. We each got
some souvenirs to take back with us and then went back to the dive shop to find
my aunt. She was about to go back out
but I think she felt bad because I wanted to spend time with her. So we compromised and we went with her on the
boat to snorkel while she dove (dived? #grammar). After we went snorkeling we went to lunch and
they dropped us off at the ship. I was
sad that I didn’t get to see her more, but I will just have to go visit her!
The one thing I didn’t like about the ports was that we only
got to go for a few hours. You docked
between 6-8 am (depending on which port) and had to be back around 4 pm. You can’t really see the city/town/country
that way, but I understand there is a schedule to keep. Do those countries count as countries I have
visited?
Port Charm Bracelet-Each port that Diamond’s International was
at you can stop by and get a free charm for your charm bracelet. The first stop we were able to get the
bracelet and one charm. In Cozumel you
can get 5 charms total because there are 5 stores you can stop at. Of course they use this as an incentive to
get you to buy something, but really you don’t have to. It is super cheap and made from gold tone
paint, but it is a fun memento of your trip.
Be sure to bring it with you on your next cruise. I heard they even have them in Alaska and
Vegas to add to your collection.
Note: Take your passport with you! I didn’t know until it was too late but you
can get your passport stamped at each location!
Say what?!!!
Drink Packages
I thought we both had to get the same package, but we were
able to get individual drink packages. I
got the one that was $19/day and Clarissa got the $45 a day package. I liked the one I got because it included
Starbucks which is the only place to get iced coffee. Clarissa’s package was more than double mine
but hers didn’t include coffee. So she
would buy me a drink at dinner (wine) or by the pool (cocktail) and I would buy
her iced coffee whenever she wanted it. It
worked out. I am not a big drinker to
begin with, so the extra $ would have been wasted. I put club soda, grenadine, and jalapeno (it’s
good, try it) in my soda cup each time. That’s
pretty much what I drank every day. In
hindsight, I would have bought the soda package for half the price and just had
that plus pay for my iced coffee separately.
Oh well, next time!
Some couples were sharing a drink package to save on the costs. Only one person can get the drinks though, so
that might get annoying.
Spa
Packages
The first day we took a tour of the spa area so we could be
added to a drawing for free stuff but we never won. I got a massage mid-week and Clarissa got her
hair highlighted. The spa packages got
cheaper and cheaper as the week went by.
My spa package was $50 more at the beginning of the week than what I paid
for it and $25 less at the end of the week than what I paid for it. Moral of the story: get spa treatments towards the end of the week
with whatever deal is in the Compass.
That was my (super fun) cruise experience. I really want to go back (different ports)
and cruise again. They say that you either love it or hate cruising, but I loved
it. If you have any more questions, let
me know!
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| Souvenirs! |
