ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

I would typically break our trip reports out by day and have multiple posts for the trip report. This time I'm going to summarize in just one post because I don't have the pictures I usually do and the days kind of ran together.

Getting There
We flew into Tampa the day before the cruise was scheduled to depart. We were picked up by our hotel and ate dinner at the hotel that night. We headed to bed and woke the next morning to be taken to the port by our hotel driver.

Getting on the Ship
We arrived at the port around noon to get onto the boat. People and taxis and vans EVERYwhere. Luggage was handled by our driver and we got in line to check-in. Multiple steps, lots of security and long lines. This was a frustrating and long process as thousands of us all were waiting to load the ship. I heard somebody say later on that it seems to work best to arrive very early (10 a.m.-ish?) or very late (3:00-ish) because most people seem to arrive right in the middle.

We are told we can go on the ship but our room won't be ready until around 1:30. We head to an upper deck to eat some lunch and have a drink. So. many. people. We weren't off to a good start as thousands of us were waiting on our rooms to be ready.

Finally in Our Cabin
At 1:30, we head to our room, cabin 7271. We have a balcony room on an upper level deck near the center of the ship. We were very fortunate as this is a good location.

The steward pulled the bed down from the ceiling and Blake had this bed, Payton had the couch below as a bed and Andy and I had the full-sized bed for ourselves.


Blake had fears of falling out of the bed so he strapped himself down.


Dining
Every night, we had an assigned dinner time of 6 p.m. and were seated at the same table with the same two servers. This was a highlight of the trip as we loved the food and our servers, Heshbron and Juan. They were delightful and we were spoiled by such great service.

Lunch was open buffet in various eating areas available on Deck 9.

Breakfast EVERY day was room service (included, no extra cost). Andy and I would often sit on our balcony and eat breakfast and chat while letting the kids sleep.

View from our balcony


Kids Clubs
The kids were enrolled in Kids Clubs on our arrival day. Blake participated in the Kids Club everyday at least for a little while. He's a challenge to keep up with 24/7 for a week and it was a nice break for everyone for him to have kids activities to do. He often opted to eat dinner with the kids club which was a kids buffet they got to eat from while Andy and I enjoyed a nice, lingering dinner with a bottle of wine.

Payton participated in her club off and on and met a girl who happens to live in KC that she would often do things with outside of the club.

Ports of call
- Cayman. Our first port of call was Cayman where FOUR ships were there at the same time and it is a tendered port so we have to take small boats to and from the ship. We just had plans to catch a bus to a beach this day so we slept in and avoided the rush from the early crowd. We were able to get right on a boat and get to the port easily.

Blake on the tender boat (he's sensitive to light and his old sunglasses didn't fit anymore. The first thing we did at the port was get him some new ones so he didn't have this face all day.)


Other ships also at Cayman when we were.


We got on a bus and took it for a few minutes to Seven Mile Beach (which is really more like 4 miles). Our plan was just to hang out on the beach and shop a bit on this day.



We ate lunch on the beach and Blake fed bread to the birds.


We all took the bus back to the port. Andy and the kids got on a tender boat to head back to the ship while I took a few minutes to shop. I got some rum cakes and headed back.


- Belize. Ummmm....I have NO pictures of our day in Belize. This was ANOTHER port with four ships and also a tendered port except this time we had to get off the boat really early to be at an excursion that we booked. We were fortunate to be on the first tender boat and met our waiting van at the port. We got in the van and headed out to cavetube about an hour inland. It was fantastic and we had a great guide that took care of us considering our group had three kids under 10 years old. We floated on tubes on a river and went in and out of pitch black caves. Payton ate termites on our walk to the river (not kidding...she ATE TERMITES and they tasted like mint). Payton also swung from a rope into the river. No camera because I didn't want it to get wet in the river! I'm very frustrated to not have any pics. Anyway, great day and interesting experience. Highly recommend Major Tom's Cave Tubing.

- Isla Roatan, Honduras. Oh baby! This was our last port and the best by far. First of all, it wasn't a tendered port so getting on and off the ship was much easier. Secondly, the excursion I had booked was waiting for us and we headed out with Pirates of the Caribbean canopy tour to zip line through the jungles of Honduras. Andy was very irritated with me for booking this excursion because he said Blake would never do it. I had shown Blake the pictures and videos beforehand and he said he was ok with it. I wanted to try to push him to do something adventurous since he can be pretty timid.

So we get there and they talk us into trying the Extreme course rather than the traditional one.

The four of us, all suited up and ready to go.


We get to our first zip line and our guides give us some basic instructions and I go first. It was scary to jump off the platform but once I was going through the air, it was so beautiful and fun and not scary. Next up was Payton.



She said she expected to scream but was surprised how unscary it actually was.

Finally, the boys went together.


Blake wasn't scared at ALL. He loved it sooo much.

We repeated this process on 7 more zip lines of varying length and height. On two of them, Blake went alone because they were setup in a way that allowed him to make it all the way despite his small size.

Bare with me as I share several of these pics. We just loved this.




My baby boy, all by himself!


My two babies, going together.





At the end of the lines, there was this pet monkey that was kept there that, of course, was glued to Payton. It is a proven fact that all animals and children love Payton.


We wrapped up our time at the zip lines and I had arranged for our driver to take us to a beach for the remainder of our time in Honduras. This is where we were.

My baby girl. What a gorgeous place.




Kids kayaking


Ok, so this place was amazing. We sat in hammocks and Adirondack chairs, we had drinks, we walked the beach. It was amazing. The kids didn't want to go but the driver arrived and it was time to go.

Days at Sea
We had 3 days at sea where we didn't stop at a port at all. The first part of the week, we had a hard time getting into the groove of the ship. So many things scheduled and we weren't sure how to navigate it all. By mid-week, we had gotten into a groove and split our time between time together, time apart, attending shows, going to the casino, napping, etc.

Returning Home
Got off the ship at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday and then took a taxi to the airport where we had about 4 hours until our flight. Flew to KC, picked up our dog and got home around 10:30 that night.

Our thoughts on cruising
After all the fun we had, it may be surprising that we don't think we'll probably cruise again. It's just not really our way to travel. We'd much prefer to go to a foreign country away from Americans and learn to speak the local language a bit, eat local food and have a bit more cultural experience. I am thankful for this cruise though because it was a lot of fun and introduced us to Honduras which I am planning on making our next international trip. Can't wait.