Western Caribbean Cruise
Last week (~09 to 19 Sept), I've been on vacation. Angie and I took a cruise to the Western Caribbean (Cayman Islands, Honduras, Belize, Mexico) which was seven days.
This was actually a fairly last minute decision since we wanted to take a vacation in the fall. And since we were both tired and stressed, a "relaxing" vacation was the choice. The cruise left out of Miami so it was a short flight, although very early. But we arrived in Miami with issue, and transferred to the port/ship/etc. For this cruise, we tried Norwegian, which had a promotion of "free" drinks (alcohol!). By "free", you had to pay an estimated amount for tips and such (ugh) so we had to drink a minimum of 2-3 drinks per day to get our value. It didn't turn out to be difficult.
Anyway, for the first day, we arrived somewhat early (maybe noon to 1ish) and basically got food and relaxed. One thing that I did like about this cruise was that I felt there were many different types of activities so there was variety on the ship. Miami was also terribly hot and humid, probably the worst of the whole cruise.
The second day was a day at sea since we were traveling towards our destinations. I think this day, Angie basically had a glass of red wine in her hand perpetually during the day, which was mainly filled with stuff like trivia, puzzles, food, reading, and other such activities. We swam in the pool after dinner (when most the people have left the pool). They actually ushered me out of the pool since they were closing it for the night!
But to talk about a few things that I did appreciate is that there were daily crossword, trivia, and sudoku that you could pick up in the library each morning. We'd typically work on them every day. Also, there were many different trivia contests per day, which Angie and I somehow did very well on. Throughout the cruise, there was visual trivia of superheroes/villains, famous locations, mythological creatures, general trivia, and even very nerdy trivia like Star Wars and Game of Thrones. We did very well on most of them and won the creatures and Star Wars. For the Star Wars trivia, I even had to explain an answer to another nerd who was questioning it. And afterwards, we must have been known as quite nerdy because someone approached us while we were watching football and asked how we knew so much about Star Wars! And the person who ran the trivia even was like "oh, it's Game of Thrones tonight, you're our champs and have to be there". Too bad we had a dinner planned that night (read about later) or else, I'm pretty confident we would have won, or at least done very well.
Anyway, the third day was our first day at somewhere! We arrived at Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. While researching, we saw there were bike tours, so we decided to just rent bikes and do our own tour. So we walked to the rental place and started biking around the island. Our goal was "Hell" (read about later) and then random beaches. But biking was fun and there were chicken everywhere!
We must have arrived pretty early because I remember lots of rooster crowing. (Grand Cayman)
Eventually, we arrived in "Hell", which is a rock formation. It was actually pretty small, but a tourist spot with a couple of shops. It was good that most tours just zip through it (10 minutes or something) so it didn't get too crowded.
It was especially nice that plants were growing out of the rocks and pools. (Hell, Grand Cayman)
After doing some minor shopping, we started to head back. We'd stop at random beaches along the way because beach vacation. The first one was West End Beach. It was really empty (except some locals, maybe some homeless). Angie and I swam around and did "beach stuff" for maybe an hour before heading back. We decided to stop by another beach (why not). I think it was Governor's Beach and there was more people, but I wouldn't say it was crowded. Unlike West End Beach, which had public changing booths, at Governor's Beach, I had to change my shorts with Angie holding a towel =P
Chickens on the beach. I asked if it could guard our stuff. (Grand Cayman)
We swam and did "beach stuff" for a bit. Then we saw a water cyclone/water sprout/tornado over the water! And it was pretty close! Angie and I, being bro's, were pretty excited about it.
See how close it is to the cruise ship? (Grand Cayman)
Shortly after that photo, the storm came to where we were. And it poured! Like very heavy. And since it was so heavy, I thought it would end fast... not really. I felt like we stood around for maybe a half hour in the heavy rain (luckily, we were already wet and in our swimming attire). At one point, we got so cold that we went into the water, which actually felt warm! But since it didn't seem like the rain was ending soon, we decided we might as well bike back to the rental place.
Once you accepted that you were soaked AND dirty, it was actually pretty fun to bike in the downpour. At some points (like around the beach), we biked through water that was a foot or two high, and it was pretty fun and adventurous to go through it. The biggest negative though was that I was in my swim shorts, which were very thin so my ass got really sore! But we returned the bikes and walked back to the ship (the rain pretty much stopped by then). Showering and cleaning up felt really nice, but overall, I'd say it was quite enjoyable, both biking, seeing the sites, and the rain adventure.
The next day (4), we went to Roatan, Honduras. Our plan for this day was to go to the beach and snorkel. So getting off the ship and out of the port, there was lots of people harassing you about getting taxi's, tours, and whatnot. Our plan was to take a bus from a local city, but I walked the wrong direction. But we were able to see less tourist areas (although people didn't stop asking if we wanted to go to the beach). Eventually, we took a cab (local) to the beach that we wanted. And of course, the price he asked was MUCH cheaper than our return trip (which constantly harassed).
I'd say this beach (West Bay Beach) was fairly touristy. It wasn't crowded, or we walked enough to get to a less crowded area. We brought our snorkeling equipment and even though it was just around the beach area, there were pretty interesting things (colorful tropical fish, coral, weird "brain" plants, etc) to see. After some swimming and snorkeling, we walked around. There were lots of bars/restaurants on the beach and to get change, we enjoyed a local beer (Salva Vida). Secretly, it was also so we could use their bathroom before heading back to the ship =P
This day was also our anniversary (14 years)! There were several promotions including two free "specialty" dining meals. So we planned one for this night, which was at the ship's steak house. I'd say the food and service at the specialty dining restaurants were quite good. We even splurged and paid for a bottle of wine (versus all our free alcohol). 14 years! It feels like it's was just 10 years, but the good years fly?!?
Huge wine glass = class, right? (Anniversary dinner)
Day 5 was Belize, which is pretty much a private island for Norwegian. We arrived very early, and Angie and I were off the ship like 8 or 9 AM. (Also, we've been gaining hours since we were traveling west so I felt we woke up pretty early by this point.) But it was really nice to wander around early since a) the sun wasn't too strong and b) it was pretty empty. There was a huge pool, beach access, and water sports among other things. We did beach stuff and while walking on the beach, we saw a small stingray in the water. At first, I didn't know if it was a crab, then if it was alive. But it was a stingray and swam around. So that was cool!
Beach picture (Belize)
After walking around the beach, we looked at their kayak rentals. But it appeared that you could only go in a limited area that didn't seem too interesting. So we decided that it wasn't necessary. We went back and forth between the ocean and the pool (Angie likes to swim laps in a pool versus ocean).
Reading while drying off. (Belize)
After a while, we headed back to the ship. We stopped in various shops and unsurprisingly, the items were very expensive compared to when we previously were in Belize (so I'm glad we did our roadtrip a few years back). I'd also say, I was surprised that for a private island, they were charging you if you wanted food or alcohol. In other private islands (mainly in the Bahamas), you'd be able to walk around and get the same stuff as if you were on the ship since it was just the ship's passengers. But whatever, we just returned to the ship to eat and drink.
Day 6 was Cozumel, Mexico. This stop was our only paid excursion (we had credits with various promotions). It was a Ruins and Tequila Tour. We took a bus ride to San Gervasio site which was a site with various structures. It was somewhat small, but the guide was interesting. I shouldn't rank Mayan sites, but I'd say Tikal (Guatemala) was my favorite as there's lots of structures that are very high and I'm a Star Wars nerd. Coba (Mexico) was also very fun, mainly because it's in a jungle with biking.
There were interesting ruins including a gate entrance and various small (flat) structures. (Cozumel)
Afterwards, we went to a local Tequila shop which gave presentations about tequila with samples. They emphasized 100% blue agave tequila and their process. I'd say the samples were pretty good, although it wasn't amazing enough to justify having to check bags.
Three samples - I liked the white and Angie liked the coffee liquor. (Cozumel)
The last day was a day at sea (getting back to Miami). We actually slept pretty well (time was back to normal time). We had our other specialty dining, which was a French restaurant, which was good. But otherwise, it was a day at sea. Oh, it was a Saturday, so we went to the sports bar and watched some EPL (Totten/Leicester).
The next day, we arrived back in Miami and transferred to the airport. Angie was super cool and we got on an earlier flight home (stand-by), which was really good since we saved like 3 or 4 hours. And that was the trip!
Vacation Playlist (a song for each day): Miami (Will Smith), Red Red Wine (UB40), Hell (Squirrel Nut Zippers), 14 Years (Guns N' Roses), Island in the Sun (Weezer), not sure for the last two days =P