When you can leave on a cruise ship!!
Cruising is the way to vacation. It's the best of so many worlds, great food already paid for, beautiful ports of call to spend some time on land, cruise ship fun like comedians, ropes' courses and variety shows.
Maybe some have guessed by now, but just in case it needs to be said, we went on a cruise! It was our late honeymoon/Juan's birthday/Kourtney's birthday/Christmas/5 year anniversary celebration. You name a holiday, that was how we celebrated it in 2012 . I never said they were cheap, mind you, but awesome is VERY descriptive.
Ports of call were: Mahoghany Bay (Roatan) Honduras, Belize City and Cozumel Mexico. All beautiful places and we could not have more fun than we did.
Some things to remember for next cruise (this list is for myself mostly, but if I've somehow convinced you to cruise, feel free to take notes):
-Passports- they tell you as long as you have your "cruise card" you're okay. However, if you are going off the beaten path, for heaven's sake, bring your passport. Stranded in Honduras withnothing but a "cruise card"? Something tells me the $50 bucks you brought with you is going to get you nothing but robbed and stranded in Honduras. And while beautiful, working for $1.80 an hour doesn't sound quite so, oh I don't know, fun?
-Bring $1 bills- lots of them. I'm talking enough to make a "self clothing removal specialist" blush. Tipping is something you don't really think about on an all inclusive vacation. How would you like to help someone have the time of their life (making $1.80 an hour) and just get a thank you? Yeah, so tip 'em! They are very good at what they do, really, it's worth it.
-Don't be timid- We sat around on the ship when we first boarded waiting for our room to be available. We were hungry, really hungry (we left super early in the morning- long story). For some odd reason, we didn't think to go get food. We sat in the lobby for a while, walked out to the back of the ship, sat around and then went to our room when they told us it would be ready. The food is there....eat it!! We realized as we went to dinner how very cruise-virgin our mistake was. If you are hungry, go find food, it's EVERYWHERE on the ship, and most of it is free.
- CHECK IN, CHECK IN, CHECK IN- online and way ahead of time. Don't put it off. You wait til 24 hours before your cruise and you're not checking in online. They'll tell you it's now necessary to get to the ship 90 minutes PRIOR to normal check in time. While I'm not certain this is actually necessary, we did. And we didn't have luggage tags and the guy taking our luggage said, "what room?"
I said, "11203"
He said, "Eleven-twenty-oh three"
I say, "No, Eleven-two-oh three. 1, 1, 2, 0, 3" (really didn't want our bags to end up
missing!!)
He said "Yeah, that's what I said, Eleven-twenty-oh three"
I have quite the look on my face by now, "No, what you are saying is 11-20-03 and
it's 11-2-03."
He says, "I don't understand, will you write it down?"
I say, "Oh yes, GLADLY!!"
Online check-in, above conversation obliterated.
- Get a waterproof camera
Cave tubing in Belize=AWESOME. Paying $20 for 2 pictures because you are too afraid to
get your nice camera wet or submerged= sad day. Said 2 pictures less than desirable= lesson
learned. You NEED a waterproof camera. We'll be investing in the Hero next time a cruise
opportunity rolls around.
-TAN before hand- even if it's tan in a can
And here's some pics:
It was sprinkling and cloudy as we left Galveston
A little ways out, the weather cleared right up!
Our room and view
Honduras Party Time:
I don't think our captain was more than 22, what a life!
Then we went snorkeling! It was really fun once you got the hang of the ocean and fighting the choppy water. Too bad we didn't get a waterproof camera, we saw a few really cool fish in the sea.
Okay, that's all for now. These pics are taking FOR-EV-ER to load. More to come!
