Saturday 1 October, day one
We got a taxi from the RV park, which took us right to the cruise drop off zone. Our embarkation time was from 12.30 to 1 pm,
it all went rather smoothly but it did take some time. We checked our luggage, lots of punters didn’t,
but if your cabin wasn’t ready would mean you had to look after your bags
elsewhere until the cabin became available. Our cabin
(8217 starboard front) was ready, water delivered so we are all good to
go.
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| Galveston from our cabin |
Lunch is being served in the Lido Deck Restaurant. We should have investigated further rather
than accept the first food option we saw - there was a huge slab of roast beef
on the next buffet! The boys managed to
fit in some of that too.
Before the ship left port we had to assemble at our allocated Muster
Stations for the safety drill, which didn’t seem overly well managed and took more time than necessary I thought.
We explore the ship and agree to meet for happy hour at the ‘adults only’
Serenity Bar up on deck 12. It was a
perfect setting near the top of the boat which had great views and some
protection from the wind. It is expensive
though, a round of drinks was $32, including gratuities and tax. Must admit us girls were celebrating with
bubbles though, and it was nice. I’m
glad we pre-bought some liquid refreshment for our room, it will be delivered
tomorrow.
We leave port at 4 pm and soon we are treated to a beautiful
sunset over Galveston as we leave the island. We count 42 ships lining up in
the Galveston channel to come into port!
We have dinner at The Chic
Restaurant, we chose ‘your time dining’ so we can go any time between 5.30 and 9.30
pm. The food was superior and service was great. Back to room around 9.30, everyone was pretty
tuckered out. I sat outside on our deck
watching lightning for a while, the lightning lasted all night. No rain though.
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| Leaving Galveston |
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| Celebrating our first night in the Serenity Bar - our fave! |
Sunday 2 October – day 2 at sea
We all meet for brekkie at 9.30 am but the Lido Buffet is
very busy with rather long queues. There
are lots of greedy, obese passengers and the food wastage is disgraceful. We might try the restaurant for breakfast tomorrow.
When we eventually get food though it was pretty good, yummy melons, pineapple and red grapefruit etc. and
cooked options - bacon and eggs any way, build your own omelettes.
Carrol and I shop at the pop-up shops on board then go to
the shopping show – but we decide we are not really in the market for more diamonds
so bail half way through. The sun is out
so we spend a relaxing couple of hours on a comfy deck chair on the Serenity
Deck. It’s hot!
Time for happy hour, our vodka has been delivered and we
bought souvenir Carnival Line plastic cups with lids so make a nice tall cold
drink with lots of ice and sit up on deck to enjoy. It’s dress up night tonight and Chris can’t
find his long pants which are required to dine in the restaurant tonight so we
eat at the buffet and then watch the show which was 80’s music and dancing. Great backdrops and lighting. Explore a bit more, watch some more live
music and our day is done by around 10pm, we can’t stay up late like we used
to! Localised lightning behind clouds
tonight, very pretty. Another ship passes
very close by, hope the radar is working.
In our room, Ruby, our steward has written a happy birthday message for
Kim on our mirror and left some discount cards for him – a nice surprise! Also a special towel animal.
Monday 3 October – day 3, Cozumel and Kim’s birthday
Woke to sunshine and a stunning view of the Mexican
coastline, a lot of buildings/hotels glowing white in the sun, line the water
edges. We are on the starboard side so
no morning sun but today we have awesome views of the land. After a leisurely breakfast in the Posh
Restaurant - the buffet had too many queues which was surprising, I thought lot
of passengers would have already made their way ashore for their
excursions. Around 10.30 am we make our
way ashore, the ship is tied up to the deep water wharf so it’s an easy walk
off.
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| Beautifully presented healthy breakfast at the Posh Restaurant |
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| Cozumel Island, Mexico |
Cozumel (Island of the Swallows) is
Mexico’s largest Caribbean Island, measuring 48 miles long and 16 miles wide
and the highest point is only 15 metres above sea level. Income is derived mainly from tourism, diving
and charter fishing and of course the Mayan ruins. The water is an unbelievable shade of azure
blue and the reefs here are very healthy although damage was caused in the 1990’s
when they built the deep water pier for the cruise ships. We haven’t booked any excursions so we can
only go as far as the gated shopping/restaurant area, the rest of the island is
off limits unless you are on an excursion with a tour guide. We look through the duty free shops, selling
Cuban cigars, tequila, jewellery (didn’t buy any diamonds), t- shirts and
souvenirs! But by noon we have done
enough and it is very, very hot so back to the boat for a swim. It’s pleasantly quiet on board. There are three other Carnival boats on our
wharf area plus two other cruise liners on separate wharves. No wonder it is busy on shore.
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| Convenient new wharf for the Carnival ships to tie up to |
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| Typical Mexican themes everywhere you look |
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| Many ships docked at Cozumel |
Kim gets a super decadent chocolate birthday cake delivered
to the cabin and our room has been decorated with birthday stuff. Happy Birthday Kim!!
One of my favourite things on this ship is the self serve soft serve icecream/frozen yoghurt which is available 24/7, strawberry is my favourite but they don’t have it every day, chocolate is obviously everyone else’s favourite : (
Looks like another thunderstorm brewing although it’s still
sunny for now. Time for Happy Hour. Dinner in the Chic Restaurant again, with our
favourite waitress Octorani, She surprises Kim with a little birthday cake! Then we check out the comedy shows.
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| Kim singing happy birthday along with everyone else! |
Tuesday 4 October - day 4, Belize City
Woke to sunshine again this morning, as we’ve come to expect. The entrance to Belize was tricky, a narrow channel
with lots of markers and we seemed to zigzag our way through. We anchored quite a ways out so there are
tenders to take us to shore today. It must
be shallow as we kicked up a lot of muddy water. Immediately the Diamond International tender
came alongside to collect their staff off the ship to man the diamond shops,
there are 5 or 6 other tenders waiting their turn.
Belize City is just a strip of white on the distant
shore. The sea is calm, and the land
looks to be long, and flat. The city was
founded by British lumber harvesters and became the home for thousands of
African slaves brought in by the British for the forestry. The city is the country’s principal port and
financial and industrial hub and has a bad reputation for poverty and crime.
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| Belize City, Belize |
Once we are ashore we find a shopping compound just like
Cozumel, even the same knock off wallets, handbags and of course the obligatory
T shirts. Carrol got her hair braided
which turned into a bit of a scene. When
we first walked past they quoted $5 for a coloured plait braided into her own
hair. When we got back there for the do,
the style of braid had mysteriously become more complicated and the price was now over $30! We made
some rather dissatisfied noises and eventually they backed down and Carrol
walked away with her saucy pink braid with purple beads.
Back to the tender and 30 minutes later we
are back at the ship for a nice cooling swim, yep it's hot again today, did I
mention that? We are late for Happy
Hour, but when we get there we have a nice cooling breeze up in our favourite
Serenity Bar. Dinner at The Chic
Restaurant again (yum) then we take in the Love and Marriage show which was
pretty funny. Kim bailed after dinner,
all that fresh air I guess. The day has
been hot and sunny and there is no lightning tonight for a change.
Wednesday 5 October – Mahogany Bay, Roatan Island, Honduras
Sunrise was 6.30 am and I was up to see us come into dock at
8 am. We reversed for what seemed like
miles between various lights and markers to get beside the wharf. The geography is mountainous, fertile
plateaus and narrow coastal plains.
Kinda of looks like green jungle from the ship. Visible quite close in to the land are
remnants of foundered ships, all rusty and well broken up. The sea is flat calm today and the wind farm
blades are not moving at all.
Brekkie is not such a bun fight this morning, maybe they
have all gone ashore. We head to land
around 10.30 am, no queues or waiting.
Honduras is referred to as Spanish Honduras to differentiate
between British Honduras which became modern day Belize, our previous port of
call.
The country is rich in natural resources – minerals, coffee,
fruit (bananas) and sugar cane but is one of the poorest countries in the
Western Hemisphere. It has one of the
highest murder rates in the world and highway assaults, kidnappings and car-jackings
occur frequently. Drug trafficking is
rampant. However I am pleased to say
that Roatan has much lower crime rates than the mainland thanks to tightening
up on security for the tourists, so we feel quite safe in Mahogany Bay which is
the cruise ship port owned by Carnival Corporation. Roatan was previously a hidden gem but
‘discovered’ in 2005 by the cruise ships and hotel developers.
The 70 mile long living reef near here is second in size
only to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef .
There is diving and snorkelling and you can hire all sorts of floaty and
beachy stuff, go on the zipline, the gondola and there is the beach, although
man made it was pretty and offered complimentary loungers etc. As we left port they had a digger grooming
the sand on the beach for tomorrow’ influx of tourists off the cruise ships.
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| Roatan Island, Honduras |
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| Mahogany Bay Beach, Honduras |
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| Zipline to Mahogany Beach, our ship the Freedom in background |
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| I'm not really a bad girl! |
Didn’t rate the shopping much, less shops here but more of the same as the other two ports! Can’t convince anyone to swim/snorkel so we check out the shops then head back to the ship for a nice relax in the very hot sun and a swim.
From the ship we can see a shark and turtles swimming in the
crystal clear water.
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| A turtle comes up for air in the amazingly blue water |
Snick a banana for lunch and follow up with a strawberry frozen yoghurt
for afternoon tea. HH is at 4.25 pm today
but first we go down to the help desk and check our account, all fine. After dinner we stooge back to our cabin and tonight we have a towel scorpion on our bed. We
have had a different animal each night : )
Thursday 6 October, at sea.
The pool this morning is completely surrounded by towel art,
a huge yellow octopus takes centre stage.
Brekkie today is a Brunch at the Posh Restaurant, I order the Rancheros
Quesadilla, been wanting to try these all week.
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| Towel animal art |
Then we do some on board shopping, we both like the new Black
Opium perfume and there is a big range of designer handbags, jewellery, watches
etc.
Sit in sun for the afternoon with a break for my daily
icecream/yoghurt. HH in Serenity Bar
again followed by the Taste Bar which offers little taste sensations, just to
get your appetite stirred up before dinner.
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| Happy Hour Serenity Bar again |
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| Seared Tuna, delicious! |
We have some photos taken and they made us look pretty dang good too
even if I do say so myself! We didn't buy them though, they were expensive and it was hard too choose. Dinner at
Chic, followed by an adult comedy show.
Back to the room, do a bit of hand washing, it dries overnight. Watch the TV to get a handle on Hurricane
Mathew, not affecting us here in the west at all.
Friday 7 October, last day at sea : (
Sunny again, luvin' it!
Brekkie in the “trough” as we have affectionately called the Lido
buffet. French Toast with blueberries
for me this am and fruit - yum! Again, to fill in the day we go to a seminar, this time on acupuncture and another on achieving a flat belly – incongruous on a cruise
which for most people seems to be a 24/7 binge fest. Saw a bit of the ice sculpting (out in the
sun) and although we missed the ‘learn to make towel animals’ lesson I buy the
book anyway so I can learn at my leisure.
Today there is a ‘Chocolate Extravaganza’ lunch. We haven’t had room for lunch very often so
far on the cruise but this is worthy of a special effort. After our fix we need a nice quiet relax and
read outside in the fresh air. The sea
is just a little rougher and we even get a few spits of rain.
At 3.30 pm Kim has an appointment to have Acupuncture which
is promised to relieve shoulder and neck pain and even fix his blocked
ear. He has needles high on outer calf
and inside calf low by the ankles and also on the top of his head to realign his
meridian, then needles around the back of his neck for the shoulder and neck pain. I also had a consultation (but no
acupuncture) I was told I just need to drink more hot drinks, lemon, herbal teas etc. and
need to eat regularly but not at midnight – as if I do! The Chinese
doctor also recommends a smoothie made with black beans, sesame seeds and honey,
for us both to have each morning. Might
research that further once we are home! Doesn’t sound very appetising.
The food was great throughout the cruise. Service was good. Weather was awesome! Our cabin was excellent and we used the balcony every day so I’m glad we chose that option and even though we were very close to the
front of the ship we felt very little rolling movement and it was very quiet as
we were surrounded top and bottom by cabins rather than dance floors etc.
Would I do another cruise on Carnival – yes! Would I do other islands in the Caribbean –
yes! Thanks Carnival, I might be back some day!
