It's Saturday, April 14th, and we're in Orlando, FL. We're off the ship and staying in a Crowne Plaza, courtesy of Carnival, because there were no flights out today to Richmond (they were all booked...which we knew weeks ago).
I went down the street to a Holiday Inn Select to do a load of laundry. I got soup & salad at Denny's while I was waiting for the wash cycle. Now I'm in the lobby, waiting for the dry cycle. The cool part, obviously, is that they have FREE internet access in the lobby, on which I'm writing this. I'm such a GEEK!
I'll run down each day as best I remember it.
Saturday, April 7 - Traveling
We got up at 4am to catch our 6am flight out of Richmond. It was SNOWING when we left the house! We didn't bring any coats, just sweatshirts. It was a wee bit chilly.
The flight went through Detroit to get to Orlando. Nice check-in though, through Northwest. Not much line and nice people. It was a bad day to be traveling with Delta, and, unfortunately, that's how we're going back. The line to check-in in Richmond was REALLY long. I expect the same when we leave Orlando.
Arrived in Orlando with no delays or problems. All our luggage arrived, too! We took the transport bus to Port Canaveral, which is about a 45min drive. Check in at the Carnival Glory was a bit long, but not too bad. Then we were on board! First we went to the buffet on the Lido deck...they were serving lunch until 3:30pm and we hadn't eaten a real meal all day! Then we went to our connecting rooms 1344 & 1348. The beds were already made up. Christopher, Ian & Spencer slept in one room, Conner, Scott & me in the other. We explored the ship a bit. We had the mandatory boat drill around 4:15pm (that's where EVERYONE on board is required to grab their life vests from their rooms and make their way to their meeting spot). Our dinner seating was at 8pm, which seems late, but there's so much to do that it actually makes sense on board.
Sunday, April 8 - Day At Sea
We had breakfast every day on the Lido deck at a breakfast buffet. It was full of fresh fruit, eggs, bacon, sausage, grits, sweet breads & muffins, and pancakes or french toast. The boys loved it!
Lunch every day was in the same place, and the buffet was great for that, too.
Sunday we did a lot of wandering around and looking at the various areas of the ship. The boys did some swimming and went down the huge water slide a bunch. We also saw the water color begin to change from green to blue during the day. It was cool.
The whole day was spent at sea. I don't really remember much about Sunday. But it was pretty relaxing. Dinner was a "formal" affair, so we took our time getting ready and all wore our church clothes. We had a couple of portraits taken by the photographers that night, but didn't like any of the results.
Surprisingly, the whole family stayed together most of the week. There were options for all the boys (Camp Carnival for the three youngest), and I found out later that Spencer had wanted to go out alone late, but Scott said, "go to bed" and Spencer didn't ask to go out, so he was understandably disappointed. Had I known, I would have let him. :(
Monday, April 9 - Cozumel, Mexico
Cozumel, Mexico was our first stop. We arrived at dock about 10am. We had pre-reserved a snorkeling trip here through cozumelinsiders.com. It seemed a little dicey when we first got started out, trying to find the excursion folks, but it ended up being really great.
The water was a little chilly, but the air was very warm and the day was beautiful. Our guide was a native Mexican with decent English, and we went to three different reefs to explore. He was very attentive to our little guys, especially Conner. Turns out Conner did better than some of the adults! Everyone had a great time on this excursion. We saw some wonderful fish, including parrot fish, angel fish, a bunch of different wrasses, some blue tangs, etc. I'm sure Scott's journal will have all of them listed!
The part I liked the best was the last reef we visited. The water there had "sweet water" mixing with the salt water, making the water hazy & shimmery. There were underground caves that began inland that brought the fresh water to the sea. And the water was amazingly clear & blue. Really awesome!
When we got back to port, we stopped for just a few minutes and found a souvenir refrigerator magnet (that's our family "thing" on vacation...a magnet from each place). We got back to the ship about 3pm and ate pizza for lunch (which was available 24/7 onboard). I ended up coming back out later to buy more sunscreen and a polo shirt for Scott. We were pleasantly exhausted, and took naps before dinner. Spencer and Ian ended up sleeping right through dinner and didn't wake up until Tuesday morning! We were able to drag Conner & Christopher to dinner, about 20 minutes late.
Tuesday, April 10 - Belize City, Belize
This was another pre-reserved excursion. I didn't use Carnival for any of our excursions. The non-ship excursions are less expensive and have less people in them. They are also much more personable.
After arriving around 8am, we had to be ferried from the boat to the shore in Belize, which is called "tendering", because the sand beaches are very shallow, even hundreds of yards out from shore. That was time consuming because we had to stand in line for a tender ticket since we didn't use the cruise for our excursion, then we had to wait for our tender ticket number to be called! Luckily, it was the only stop where we tendered.
Our guide for this trip was Mike, and he was VERY memorable! He took us "cave tubing" (cave-tubing.com), meaning we walked through the rain forest maybe a mile and then got into a river with inner tubes and traveled through two caves! We all had head lamps on so we could see the underground sights. Again, the water was a little chilly, but not bad, and the caves were amazing. The forest was also amazing! Our group had 17 people in it, and Mike took special care of Conner. Because this was not a cruise excursion, our floating time was about three times as long as most.
Mike was very funny and everyone had a great time. He also gave us lots of great info about Belize. He's a native and he loves his country! He told us that 44% of the country is protected environment and conservation. English is the first language, Spanish the second, but most natives speak a "creole" that is English based but quite unintelligible to an outsider! He also told us about cashews and offered everyone on the bus an opportunity to taste cashew wine, which is made from the cashew fruit, not the nut. We didn't taste any, but heard that it was liqueur-like in consistency and slightly plummy in flavor.
We got back to the pier about 15 minutes before the last tender, so we didn't look for any magnets. Before dinner we watched the 7pm Justin Illusion magician show. It was very Las Vegas in it's presentation, but the boys enjoyed it. Later, I ended up doing two loads of laundry. It was $2 to wash and $2 to dry each load. Ouch! While I was waiting for the wash to dry, I sat in on the 11pm "R" rated comedy show. The guy was very foul mouthed and not really that funny. I only stayed about 20 minutes. It was a very full day!
Wednesday, April 11 - Costa Maya (Mahahual), Mexico
This was a very new port, only 6-7 years old. There's lots of new construction near the pier where people who will work the pier and related tourism industry jobs will live. This tour was to some Mayan ruins in Chochoban (thenativechoice.com).
We arrived in port about 8am. After getting off the ship, the bus ride was about 45 minutes, but our guide was good about giving us info on the local land. His English was VERY accented, but he did very well and was quite personable. We passed through two Mayan villages, where they still build traditional Mayan houses which are open sided. Our guide also talked about how the Mayan are still a very separate people from Mexicans. They tend to keep to themselves and are very private. They continue to speak their own language and keep traditions.
The ruins were spectacular. This particular site had two temples excavated, but had several others still interred to show how they were discovered. Since the land is FLAT, it was pretty easy to find the temples since they were the only hills in the area! The rain forest took over very successfully after the area was abandoned by the Mayas.
We got back in plenty of time to do some shopping at the port. Picked up some t-shirts for everyone and a refrigerator magnet. Once we got back to the room, we changed clothes and I put on my new t-shirt. I realized it was one size too small! There was plenty of time, so I headed back down to the port and exchanged it for a larger one. The vendor was very nice about it.
I had to finish the laundry and lost my computer spot at this point. Once we got home Sunday, I've been editing the heck out of the entire entry and adding stuff below. I had to pull out the daily newsletters from the ship to remember the sequence of events properly!
Before dinner, we all went to a magic/comedy show. The magician, Tony Albano, was pretty good and quite funny. But the comedian after him was GREAT! His stage name is Phat Kat, but his given name is Christopher. He had a whole bit about how his childhood friends couldn't say it right because they all lived in Louisiana...it was "Chri-feh-feh". We've been calling OUR Christopher "Chri-feh-feh" ever since! He's been a good sport about it. Phat Kat's 7pm show was good clean fun, which we all appreciated.
Thursday, April 12 - Day At Sea
We were SO ready for today! We got to sleep late and do NOTHING all day. Very relaxing. The boys did a lot of swimming. All during the cruise, the big thing is to eat soft serve ice cream. It's available 24/7, and we all had much more than we should have! I think we'll take a break from ice cream for now, but it sure was good at the time!
Before dinner, the boys & I went to see "Rock Down Broadway", which was a dancing & singing show. It was basically a medley of lots of Broadway songs. I recognized most of them, but can't remember them all. There was "Little Shop of Horrors", "Hair", "Fame", and many others. Scott took the time to take photos of the sunset, which he hadn't been able to do at this point. Some of his shots are spectacular, and I'm sure they'll be posted later.
After dinner, we tucked the boys in and Scott & I took in the late night comedy show by Phat Cat. This was definitely an "R" rated show, but also very funny! He made references to the previous day's show, so it was fun to be "in" on those jokes.
Friday, April 13 - Freeport, Grand Bahama Island
This was our last stop. We arrived about 8am, but took our time getting off the boat. We had no plans and decided just to go to the beach for the day. Another relaxing day! There were plenty of taxi vans to get us there & back. We all got toasted today. We ate lunch here, the first money we've spent on food all week! We also did a bit of shopping. Conner, Christopher & Ian each got a necklace, Spencer got a hand-carved walking stick, I got a leather art-mask to replace one that Trigger chewed up, and Scott got a very nice polo shirt.
Scott, Conner & Christopher went back to the ship at about 2:30pm. Spencer, Ian & I went back to the beach for awhile. This was the point where Ian & I got cooked. The beach was beautiful, and the water was very nice. We even saw fish near the shore!
Spencer, Ian & I got back on board about 4:30pm. We cleaned up and started packing things up. We went to dinner and came back to the room and finished packing.
Saturday, April 14 - Orlando, FL
We arrived at Port Canaveral, FL at about 8am. We ate breakfast and had lots of wait time before they called our deck to debark. Going through Customs was a pain because there are six of us and when they checked us in, apparently that person put Spencer's year of birth as 1960! Plus, it was just a mass of people everywhere. I'm not impressed by Carnival's ability to manage crowds.
After we got through Customs, we went outside and tried to find the transport to our hotel. Turns out we had to take the bus to the airport and then call the hotel to get their transport to come pick us up.
While at the airport, Scott tried to put us on standby to get out of town Saturday instead of Sunday. No dice. Everything was overbooked. But since he was already in line, he tried to check us in for the next day's flight and get our boarding passes. No dice again, which was very frustrating. That meant standing in line again the next morning! Scott had been in line for at least 30 min. I wasn't looking forward to the next day.
We got to the hotel, a Crowne Plaza by Westin. We had two rooms, and we put all the boys in one room so Scott & I could have some peace & quiet!
The boys swam in the hotel swimming pool while I went to do laundry. And that pretty much brings us to the conclusion of our trip. Since everyone had eaten a late, large lunch, we ended up walking down the street to Coldstone for dessert/dinner!
Sunday, April 15 - Traveling
We got up at 4:45am and got downstairs in time for the 5:30am shuttle to the airport. Check-in was surprisingly smooth...hardly anyone in line. I thought for sure it was going to be another 30 minute wait, but it only took about 5-7 minutes. That gave us plenty of time to find our terminal. We even had breakfast!
Our flight from Orlando left on time. Our departure from Atlanta was not so timely. The plane we were riding on was late arriving from its previous flight, so we boarded about 10 minutes late. Then we waited on the tarmac for about 30-40 minutes! The airport was getting backed up because of the Nor'easter that hit the east coast. We arrived in Richmond about 11:30am, which was only 15 min. late. We got our backs and hightailed it home!
We had a great time. Everyone enjoyed himself. A very successful vacation!
