WOW! we finally did it.....Bill and I went on a cruise we went to the Western Caribbean. We left the house on Saturday night at 10:30pm...Our plane is leaving at 12:55am Sunday 9/23/12. We will arrive in Tampa Florida at 9:00am. Our flight was long and uncomfortable, we was hoping to sleep, definitely not the case. Our first plane was very tight quarters even for me. I didn't know that was possible....even though I am a full grown adult my legs are short! anyways my seat hardly laid back. I finally laid on Bills lap like a little kid lays on his parents lap during church, soon my whole body is going numb but slumber finally comes to some extent when I awake my neck is kinked and every limb is still asleep...We are in Atlanta time for a 2 hour lay over it is close to 7:00am we grab a breakfast sandwich and a hot chai. I finally fall asleep for a bit then it's time to climb onto the next airplane for our next journey to Tampa thank heavens this plane is soooo comfy and sleep finds me and deeply so deep that I do not hear the drink cart come by, I do not hear Bill eat his cookies...I feel refreshed by the time we get to our destination. Now I am running on adrenaline! I am so excited! it is right around 9:30 in the morning we gather our luggage and head to catch a cab to the port even though our ship does'nt leave until 4:00. We have heard many stories about how long it takes to go through the boarding process. We get on the ship right around 11:00 they are serving lunch at the buffet. We do not have access to our room until after we leave port, we finally go and check and our room door opens we are able to get rid of our carry on luggage. Our check in bags will not get there until after 6. Now we are free to go look around. There are 9 floors with a tenth floor deck. We have watched the ship leave port and we waved to a few people as we pass by. It was a surreal moment, I am in AWE....butterflies are in my stomach.
That night as we are walking to the dinning room we are excited to see who we will share a table with, where will they be from? what will they be like? We picked anytime dinning which means we will meet someone new every night. We are the first to be seated, we wait for a few minutes and soon a couple is seated with us. We start the conversation by asking what city they are from. Their answer surprises us....They stated that we probably have never heard the name of their city....they state they are from "Tooele" we laugh out loud and say we are from Sandy. What a small world we live in, however they spend half the year in Mexico. We all make small talk and enjoy a nice dinner....I fall in love with my dessert, it is called Warm melting chocolate cake served with vanilla ice cream. it was a taste of heaven.
For not getting much sleep we are all hyped up. we go to a late night comedy show....cannot remember who it was but we laughed and had the best time!
It is midnight and we finally head off to get some well deserved shut eye.
Monday: day at sea. We sleep in till 8 We eat breakfast at the buffet, then head to the pool! we are basically there all day...We join a Bing bag toss game...at home we call it corn hole. you toss a bean bag to a wood ramp hoping to make it on the ramp or in the hole. 1 point for making it on the ramp 2 for making it in the hole. the team with the most points win and move on.....We do not move on, we got 2 points.... thanks to Bill....and I was the one saying "Oh I am good" at this game! oh well it was fun.
Tonight's dinner is our first "formal" night. We are being seated at a table that already has 2 other couples sitting as we approach the table they are all talking but when we sit down they stop talking....Awkward! so I start talking (yeah I know that's a shock) and ask everyone where they are from? couple number 1 answers "West Jordan, UT" the other couple is from a city in New Hampshire. We laugh again and say that we too are from Utah! The other couple from Utah ask our names we tell them and they ask if we are related to John Huntsman? Really, why would you ask that? they seem to think Bill looks like he could be his brother....WOW!!!! never been told that one! we assure them that DARN we are not. that in fact our last name is HART. from then on out I call Bill Mr. Huntsman. We had a good laugh about that.
Day 2: Cozumel
We are up early, we have made it to our first port. we eat breakfast and head to shore. We do not have anything planned for today It has rained but has stopped. We decide to walk to the city it is about 3 miles. Along our way we are bombarded with taxi drivers wanting to give us a ride. when we make it to the shopping district we are harassed by all the shop keepers. most of them are selling jewelry they physically pull me into their shops, they tell me I don't have to buy just come in and look. We do this for hours. I found me a cute swimsuit cover up or sun dress. I try my best to bargin with them, it doesn't work...I feel bad for these people their city is dirty, they seem poor. I even have to pay a young boy .50 to use the public bathroom, after i give him the money he handed me a few sheet of toilet paper and a paper towel, well that's new..........then we head off and Bill buys a watch at Diamond International it is beautiful. looks very rich. As they are finishing up I am getting nervous it is getting close to 5 time to get back to the ship. The lady seems to be moving in slow motion even though she knows we have to go. Really I think it was just me, I don't like the thought of being left in Cozumel. We make it back in ample of time....3 others were not as lucky they were left behind and had to stay the night in Cozumel, catch a plane to Belize our next port..
Day 3: Belize
We are up really early today. Today we are going to go Cave tubing through a river in the rain forrest. in order for us to get to Belize we are going to be tendered to shore....which means our ship is not able to go to shore as it's to shallow so they dock the ship out in the ocean and some smaller boats from Belize comes and picks us up. We have to meet our tour group at a certain time. We make it on one of the first boats to shore but we have to wait nearly an hour the other couple that is in our group to get there. After they make it we all climb in a van and head on way to our adventure. Our guides name is Kieth he is a native to Belize as we driving the hour to our destination he fills us all in on the history, sights we are seeing along the way. he takes us past the cemetery where they only bury their dead 3 feet down and put a 3 foot cement tomb like thing on top, they believe if you bury them 6 ft in the ground you are killing them twice...he also told us that no one takes out loans for anything, that they save their money then buy as they can afford, they do this with their houses so with what money they have saved they will build what they can then start saving again to add on, they use anything they can find like a billboard, you can tell the house are built in stages, the stages don't always match. We finally make it to the river we have to hike about 30 mins to our starting point we are all in our swim suits and just wearing water shoes, the path is muddy and very rocky it hurts my feet. the guide is carrying my tube i am so grateful I know I could have done it but it would have been much harder. Kieth shows us a pineapple plant and tells us that each plant only grows on pineapple per season. We get to the starting point our guide ties all our tubes together and we are all helped into the tube and off we go. It is believed that the caves we are going through are degrees of heaven and hell, the first cave name means Hell, so our guide said we can tell everyone that we have been to Hell and back. Haha! it wasn't to bad either. it is also believed that the water dripping from the ceiling of the cave is from the angels and if you so happened to get dripped on you will be blessed! well I got dripped on, along with all the others so we all were blessed during our trip. Our guide told us all about the plants in the rain forrest, what they could be used for such as one tree leaf if chewed would take arthritis pain away. there was many other remedies in the rain forrest, it was very interesting. our tubing adventure last about 45 mins. when we are done we go back to the van to dry off and we buy some lunch from a local vendor. We have rice and beans, chicken, potato salad, plantain's. it all taste very good. we eat on way back to port on our way back Kieth takes us by a Latter Day Saint Church and right across the street is a Harley Davidson store kinda interesting such a big contrast. We make it back to port and head back to the boat...You know me....scaredy cat! I am so afraid of being left.
Day 4: Roatan
Today the ship is able to pull into port. Carnival Cruise line has built a 6 million dollar port it is beautiful! they have shops to shop at. Since we have booked our excursions on line and not through the ship we have to meet our guides outside the port. We make it to our group and wait for awhile then we head to the jungle today we are zip lining through the jungle. Roatan is a beautiful country so green but unfortunately not taken care of there is garbage on the side of the road. the people there are very poor. the guides we have a very fortunate to have these jobs, tourism is the main money making business. they to tell us a lot of information about their country. We get to the jungle and they get us all geared up to start zip lining. We will ride 16 zip lines total. at the first line I am at the front of the line, I lean over and tell Bill I don't want to go first, next thing I know one of the guides is pulling me towards the zip line and I am being hooked up and pushed down the line! I end up being the first one....It was a BLAST. on one of the lines I go superman style, with the help of one of the guides. it takes us a few hours to get everyone through all the lines but everyone feels it is over with way to fast. We are then taken to a private beach where we grab a plate of nauchos. those who know me know how happy I am about this!!! they do not disappoint. There are children trying to sell jewlery on the beach, they are not permitted to approach us but if we happen to want to go down to the water they can, I am swarmed when I walk down they all tell me how pretty I would look if I bought there merchendise. one little girl took a bracelet off her case so I could look at it, the patrolman was at my side immediately, I think he was there to protect both of us. I am sure he was making sure I didn't try to steal it. and protecting me from her grabbing my camera or such. I didn't stay long by the water. We are then taken back to port where we have some time to look around and shop.....I found a shop that was selling wooden items. I bought a wooden salad bowl. it is beautiful I am so happy with my purchase I only wish that I would have bought a dip tray too. we make it back to the ship in plenty of time, I am starting to be at ease about this part of the day. Tonight is formal night at dinner. afterwards we have our pictures taken they turn out good and we buy a couple. We have a good time at dinner then we go to a few shows, and dancing! we have a great time. Midnight seems to be our bedtime.
Day 5: Caymen Islands
we have a short tender ride to shore today. and it's raining, we do not have an excursion planned for today, we are just going to look around. We are dissappointed there are just high end store here. there is a jewlerey store on every corner. a perfume counter and high end clothes at every turn. We find a little coffee shop and sit down and have a drink, I get a yummy fruit smoothie, should have got something hot. I get the chills it has rained all day. we look around some more. then head back to port they have some vendor shops there we look around and buy a few T-shirts for Landon and Tanner, a neckless for Sacia, Landon's girlfriend and head back to the ship. We feel we should have went and swam with the dolphins or stingrays or went and seen the turtles. Oh well we get changed at head to the pool it finally stopped raining and it is now hot again. once the ship is sailing again it starts to down pouring rain again we all run for cover. we go and grab a bit to eat at the buffet and bring it outside and sit under covering and watch it rain. the DJ is still blaring the music and we all sing and dance in our chairs, we laugh and have a good time. In no time at all the sun is back out and they start a game of limbo we join in Bill is out his first try I go up and make it a couple of rounds all with a swirl cone in my hand. More laughing, we talk with people around us it's a great day. That night a join in on a hula hoop contest....I loose the boy who wins is about 14 he was amazing he could start the hoop from the ground with his foot then move it up, they handed him more hoops and he was able to hula hoop with about 5 at a time, he won a gold ship on stick for every hoop. we had a lot of fun!
Day 6: at Sea
We are headed back to Tampa our vacation is nearly over....BOOOO! there is not much happening on the ship today, we hang at the pool and have a great time, we pack our bags and eat dinner in the dinning room for the last time. We have met so many nice and fun people. I have eaten that yummy warm melting chocolate cake every night. and every night our bed has been turned down with a piece of chocolate waiting for us and a cute little towel creation creature. I am wondering how I will ever function again back home cooking our own meals, making my own bed, having something fun to do everyday, being able to take a nap if i want to. It will be hard!
Day 7: back in Florida
We have to be out of our rooms by 8:30am we head to the buffet for some breakfast, there we wait for our number to be read over the loud speaker this is when we are to exit the ship collect our bags and be on our way back home. our number is called around 10:20 and we head to customs where we wait in a huge line to get outside. everything goes smoothly, we are the very last people to leave and now we about 4 hours to waste before we need to leave for the airport. we check our bags in at hertz rental car and pay for our ride back to the airport. we go and walk around we find a little market that is selling hand made items, we walk past the big boats that are at the docks that are right in front of homes. it was fun to see. We then head back to hertz and catch our ride to the airport, there we go grab a Starbucks frap then we head off to wait for our plane. We have another lay over in Atlanta it is 3 hours so we get a bite to eat at Chilli's then we go wait again for our next plane home. We finally get home at 11:30 and Tanner picks us up. It was good to see him! we head home and I am worried about what my house will look like, Landon and Tanner have been there by themselves, I am pleasantly surprised it is pretty clean and Landon had a Halloween candle going it was so nice! We all head to bed!
The only bad thing that happened while we were gone was a rock hit the windshield on the highlander and broke it pretty good..... It will have to be replaced. : /
We will for sure be cruising again!
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