Carribean 2019
I don't know what it is about me
going on a Caribbean cruise that causes massive snowstorms, but it happened
again. Two of the best snowstorms in Western Washington have happened the night
before I went on a Caribbean cruise. I should apologize to the city of Seattle.
I took an extra day off work to
get down to the airport on time. It turns out the snowplows were ahead of me
the whole way, so we arrived earlier than I had planned. We had time to go to
Ikea, like Deb has been wanting to do for years. We just never get down there.
$935 later we got out of there. Hope the house sitter doesn't mind heavy boxes
on the doorstep. We had a nice Ikea lunch. I love their Swedish Meatballs. I
even bought some Paskmusk. It’s a Swedish drink that they serve
only at Christmas and Easter. It brought back pleasant memories of when I lived
in Sweden.
I gave some to Deb and she
sniffed it. "It smells like copier toner." Then she tasted it.
"Nope, copier toner tastes better."
I don't know why she knows that.
Sometimes it's just better not to ask. She decided it tasted like burnt tires
instead. She's had a lot more culinary experiences than I have, apparently.
The main roads are clear but all
the side streets are clogged with snow. The GPS had us going up one ice
bound road, but
that wasn't happening, so it had to recalculate. We arrived at the hotel to
check in. We have to leave at 2am to get to the airport on time.
We watched an English movie. All the
actors, but a couple, had heavy British accents. Neither one of us could make
out what one of the main characters was saying. It was frustrating to only get
half the story. We had to turn it off.
We wanted an early dinner so we
drove down the street looking for a place to eat. Then we drove the other
direction looking for a place to eat. There are a lot of Mexican Restaurants on
this road. At one intersection there was one on each corner, one in a close by
strip mall and another at the top of the hill. Deb doesn't like Mexican, so we keep
driving. We find a Denny's around the corner. I know, not elegant cuisine, but
we are going on a cruise in a few days, so it's okay.
The restaurant shares a parking
lot with a liquor store. A man stood outside of the restaurant
asking for money. I gave him $3. I thought that I had just funded a cheap
bottle of wine.
I should not have judged. A few
minutes later he walks in and buys a side order of pancakes. He was so happy to
have them.
The waitress came up and asked
for our order.
"What's good?" I asked.
"Um." She's tongue
tied.
"Okay then, what do you eat
here?"
"Um." Slight giggle.
"Oh, so you don’t eat
here?"
Large giggle.
"Stop picking on her,"
Deb says.
I get the nachos. They are fairly
safe, I figure.
After dinner I dropped Deb off at
the motel, then go park the car. I’m hoping I didn’t take up three parking
spots. I can’t see the lines on the ground. It’s so nice having the park and
ride and the motel back to back. I can walk back to the motel. It also uses the
park and rides shuttle as the hotel shuttle, so that makes life easier too.
We wanted a motel near the
airport and boy did we get one. The first thing we notice was that every plane
that took off flew right over the motel.
"How can they be that close
together?" Deb complained.
"Two runways."
We had a 2am shuttle, so we were
anxious to get to sleep. 8 o'clock turned into 9 then 10. Somewhere around 11
we finally drifted off.
The alarm on Deb's phone went off
at 1:35. "Why is it going off so early?" I complain.
"We have a shuttle."
she snapped back.
"Oh, yeah."
Usually we wait in the rain for
the shuttle. This time we have a nice warm hotel lobby to wait in, so much
nicer.
They say you have to arrive at
the airport two hours early but come to find out the ticket counter doesn’t
open until one hour before boarding. The good news is TSA is open and there's
nobody in line.
We're both so tired so there is no
reading or writing. Try as I may, there was no sleeping either.
I spent most of the 1st flight
dozing. it made for a short trip.
We arrived in Phoenix and
realized the plane we just disembarked, would be the one going to Tampa. I
wondered if they would have let me stay on the plane. Probably not. At least I
know my luggage won’t get lost in the transfer.
The guy in front of us is arguing
with the stewards about his father. He's being over protective and she's trying
to load the plane. I'm thinking that if they kick him off then the guy who's
going to sit between Deb and me, will move up to be closer to his wife and Deb
and I will have the whole row to ourselves. Sigh, things calmed down and nobody
got the boot.
We arrived safely and grabbed our luggage. I had rented a
mid-size SUV from Thrifty. (Nissan Rogue size) We arrived at the counter; the
lady says she can get me a regular SUV for only $10 more a day. I negotiate
down to $8 a day and am feeling pretty good about myself.
We get down to the parking lot
and they show me the regular SUVs. There is a Nissan Rogue. I ask what the
difference between a regular SUV and a mid-size SUV.
"We don't have mid-size SUVs
here, they are all the regular."
"So the regular is the
mid-size?"
"Yes."
I complain. Now all the people
working for Thrifty hate me, except for one woman who gets it. She's able to reduce the up-charges
off my bill and I drive off in the Nissan Rogue. Snarl, anyway. This
isn't good customer service. I'm feeling very ripped off, and then they treat me
like crap for complaining about getting ripped off.
Deb's mom is so happy to see us.
She has dinner in the oven, a bowl of chocolates on the night stand in our
room, cookies and apple pie in the kitchen, and a smile on her face. Let's see
if she's still smiling after spending a couple of weeks with us.
Valentine’s Day. Swam in the
pool. Had an interesting exchange with a co-worker back in Washington State.
I sent a picture of me standing
by a palm tree and asked, “How’s the weather.” I knew it was mid-thirties back
home with snow still on the ground. He harassed me for wearing Levi’s. I told
him I don’t wear shorts. After a few more comments I said, “You asked for it,
the next thing you’ll see me in is a swimsuit, and it’s a Speedo.”
My co-worker commented, “If you
take a picture of yourself in a Speedo, I’ll buy you dinner.”
Since it was a group text, a
couple more of my co-workers egged me on. I do have a Speedo brand swim suit,
but its regular swim trunks. So, I took the picture and say, “I like
Mexican Food.”
He thought I had burned him, but
his assumptions burned him.
My mother in law asked, “Why did
he want to see you in a Speedo and then invite you to dinner?” She put her
finger in the air. “You need to watch out for this guy.”
All I know is that I’m getting a
free dinner.
That night we had a romantic
dinner at Steak and Shake. It sounds so elegant unless you know what it is. Okay,
it’s a burger joint. We brought Deb’s mom with us. It was good.
The next morning there was a
slight waffle mishap. It was a brand-new Belgain waffle maker and the mix was
put in without greasing the thing first. I didn’t do it, but it took me thirty
minutes to scrape the stuck-on waffle off. After that, the rest worked fine,
with a little butter on the thing between waffles.
Beach day! We tried to go to
Clearwater Beach, but it was packed. No parking for miles around. We gave up
and went further down the highway and went to Sand Key. It wasn’t as nice as
Clearwater Beach, but it wasn’t crowded either. The women sat in lawn chairs on
the beach while I splashed in the water. It was cold, but I didn’t let that
stop me.
That night's dinner was at Molly’s. It's
a locally famous restaurant with
very good food. You can tell that from the twenty-minute wait to get a table.
We all had a different seafood platter. It was really good.
1st Cruise Day
We started out on our adventure,
mother-in-law in tow, right at six-thirty-two. Our goal was to allow
time enough to get there at around eleven. That’s when we normally arrive, even
though we’d gotten text messages and phone calls saying don’t arrive until
noon.
We made several unscheduled
stops, because one of us was having tummy troubles. That being over, we were
making good time, but then we stopped for breakfast and later on for gas. We
were an hour and a half late arriving at the parking garage. That’s when
everything came to a grinding halt.
They didn’t have our reservation,
so we had to pay $80 in cash right at that second. Not feeling like we had a
choice, we coughed over the funds. They parked us on the seventh floor of the
parking garage. We rolled our suitcases down to the pick-up point and waited
and waited. It was about an hour later that I walked down and asked how much
longer it would be. The guy said another 25 minutes.
Two of us had to go
to the
bathroom really bad, so we headed to the bottom of the garage and called an
Uber. Never ridden in an Uber before, and it took me a few minutes to download
the app. We had one guy on the way, but he cancelled for some reason. It took 5
minutes for the next one to show up. A nice BMW, with a really friendly guy,
drove up.
He’s following his GPS, but is on
the wrong side of the road, so I yell across the street for him. He drives back
around and picks us up. We circle downtown three times. The roads his google
maps has us going down are closed, so he has to backtrack to get where he’s
going. Finally, he finds the open road, and drives us to the cruise port. He
almost misses our ship though. I get him to pull over at the last second.
We are three hours behind our
original plan at this point.
“We need to go
to the forward
end of the ship," Deb says and starts heading off in the aft direction.
“Is that way forward?” I ask.
She points to the luggage tag.
“See it says forward.”
“So, if I turn around, the
luggage tag still says forward.”
She grabs the tag. “Forward.”
She’s not understanding me.
“Is that the direction we’re
walking?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Finally, we figure out where were
going. The three of us barely got something to eat before they closed the
buffet for the life boat drill. It went really smooth. Normally its torture. I
like the way NCL does it. You sit in a lounge instead of standing out on deck.
There isn’t enough time between
lunch and dinner, in my opinion. We had a late lunch and an early dinner. But,
still, we had time to unpack. We are ready for this cruise.
We watched the ships leave, one
by one, out of Miami. Allure of the Seas, the huge ship that RCCL built, is ahead of us in line. I was
hoping we’d leave before her so I could get a closer look, but she’s two ships
ahead of us as we head down the channel. Smaller boats zig in and out of
the line of slow-moving cruise ships. A few minutes later we pass a crowded
South Beach and head out into the Atlantic Ocean.
It’s a variety show this night
with a sample of the upcoming entertainment. I’m impressed with all the talent
they have on the ship. The cruse director asked the audience who’s been married
the longest. He finds a couple who’ve been married sixty-one years. The secret
to a long marriage, she says, “Don’t die.”
After the show, we ran up and
played Majority Rules. Our team gets every question right and we win a deck of
cards each and a coozie.
Day Two (Sea Day)
Got an extra hour of sleep today.
We set our clocks back before we went to bed. Morning came early with the alarm
going off at seven am. The women had arranged the morning. I guess they didn’t
want to miss anything. The main dining room wasn’t open yet, so we headed up to
the buffet. They had 5 different omelet stations, so I was able to get one
relatively quickly.
Deb says, “We will be outside,”
so I went out back. She should have said by the pool. I ate alone because I
couldn’t find them.
After breakfast I went to the
meet and mingle. It wasn’t an official one, just one the Cruise Critic roll
call had organized. It was small, but friendly.
I then went to map trivia. It was
silhouettes of countries, and you had to guess the country. I was sitting
alone. A man sat down next to me after asking if the seat was taken. I said no.
Deb and her mom weren’t planning on joining me. Another man sat down next to me.
I was thinking to myself, I’m glad he’s not on my team. The first guy’s two
friends join us. They suck both and the other guy into their team. Never judge a
book by its cover. The guy I was not wanting on my team was an encyclopedia. We
only missed one out of twenty. Another team got all of them though.
I asked a couple if they were
there to play the next round of trivia. “No,” she said. “The dance class is
supposed to start at ten.” They were all confused why no one was there for it.
I looked at my watch. It was eight fifty. “Yes, its nine fifty now."
“Oh, you forgot to set your
clocks back last night.” Embarrassed, they didn’t stick around for trivia.
There was another trivia after
that and I was assigned by Deb to get a team for when she and mom arrived. I
grabbed a young couple. I figured they could answer the questions only the
young know and the rest of us could answer the rest. They were glad to join our
team. The only problem was, they were from Brazil and she didn’t speak English.
After our loss Deb told me I was fired.
“Fine, you can grab the teams
from now on.”
She didn’t like that idea either,
so I was rehired on a probationary period.
I tried to make restaurant
reservations, but everything was booked up for the week. Word to the wise, make
them ahead of time. Don’t wait until you’re on the ship.
We did get a La Bistro booked.
For lunch today, we went to
O’Sheehan’s. I only had forty-five minutes, so we didn’t think we’d make the
main dining room. Our appetizers came out slowly. The main entrees didn’t show
up. I had to go since the latitudes party was starting. I guess the women gave
up after another fifteen minutes of sitting there. After the party I went back
down. I still wanted my chili-cheese dog. I tried to go incognito, but I was
spotted. The manager apologized. My chili dog took literally forty-five seconds
to arrive. He asked if I had gotten his call. I hadn’t.
The food is good on this ship.
I’m very pleased. We have time to go to afternoon trivia and still make it to
dinner before it gets booked up.
It was a production show tonight.
All of the dances seemed to be having a hard time of it. The ship was rocking
and rolling big time. I saw one of the women twist her ankle and leave the
stage. The evening show was canceled, and they brought in the comedian to fill
the spot.
“I was asleep thirty minutes ago.
They don’t want the dancers here because it’s dangerous, what about me? Am I
expendable?” He was funny though.
Day Three Harvest Caye.
I tried writing last night but
couldn’t. The ship was really rocking. Up down, then side to side. The spray
was coming up to our balcony on deck eight. I was telling Deb and her mom as
they leaned against the railing, that I was having to step back once in a while
as to not get hit with the spray.
“Like this one,” I said while
moving back. Those two didn’t. Sploosh, they both got a face full. There was a
lot of crashing all through the ship around three am. People say the deck
chairs were being blown around. Luckily, I slept through that. I heard we were
having around fifteen-foot seas. Things calmed down as we steered closer to the
coast.
Not having to get off the ship
until ten, we had a lazy breakfast in the main dining room. We’re doing really
good at the games on this ship. We’ve won trivia three times and also won Majority
Rules.
I tried to book restaurant
reservations again, but they were still booked up. Deb sent me down to
see the lady on deck seven. She’s in charge of the returning cruisers. She was
able to get it done. So tomorrow we have specialty dining.
We disembarked the ship around
eleven. Deb and her mom took the little shuttle, but I walked the whole way.
It’s a long walk. Belize is a heat factory today, but at least it has high
humidity. Deb’s mom went back to the ship so Deb and I jumped in the pool. It felt so good. I went and jumped
into the ocean too. One guy stopped to talk to me in the waist deep area. I was
wearing a 747 t-shirt. He asked about it so I told him I used to build them. Okay,
I didn’t actually build them, but I helped the build process and I put in a bolt or two, just to help
out. I inspected the planes for 22 years. Rather than go into a
lengthy explanation, I just said I built them.
We then jumped back in the pool.
Afterwards, we got back on the ship.
In a weak moment, right after I
saw there was nothing I liked on the menu of the main dining room, I agreed to
have dinner at the Asian restaurant. The women were delighted. It was not
without its issues. Deb’s order would have come with sesame seed oil. She’s
allergic. She had to reorder. I didn’t get my pork fried rice. That was quickly
remedied when the maître de asked if I wasn’t having rice tonight. It came out
quickly.
I skipped the show but caught the
tail end of it as I waited for the steward to turn down the stateroom.
Deb and her mom loved the
aerialists.
Day Four, Costa Maya
Buffet breakfast again and its
crowded. We went into the Italian restaurant to eat our food. It’s the overflow
for the buffet.
My hope for today was to see the
Mayan ruins, but at ninety-nine dollars, it was a lot. Sadly, all there was to
do in port was shopping.
I asked about a belt at one
store, but they wanted too much for it and I didn’t like the belt. I walked
into another store. The guy says, “Oh, you’re the one that wanted the belt,
size forty-six, right?”
What? Do they all talk to each
other. He didn’t have a nice belt either, so I left. It happened a third time
all the way across the complex. They must send messages to each other. I
finally found a belt I liked.
I sat on a bench as the women
shopped. I was tired of the endless badgering. A vendor sat down beside me and
tried to sell me a hand carved Mayan mask for a hundred and twenty. Did I want
a hand carved mask? No, I didn’t. We went back and forth for a few minutes.
He’s giving me a selection of masks. He has one in each hand. He’s telling me
the history and traditions of the masks. We’re down to half price by this
point. I say it’s still too much. He put out his boo-lip.
“Okay, since we’re such good
friends, how much money do you have on you,” he asked.
Did he really just ask that? I only have forty. Suddenly that
was enough. I’m so impressed with his sales skills, I bought it. If anyone paid
less than that, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.
Seeing that sitting on the bench
isn’t helping, I try to find Deb. The vendors keep calling me in. I tell them my
wife has all the money, so now they are helping me find Deb. How do they even
know what she looks like? They found her, one of them even brought me over to
her. Nice guys, but now my excuse is gone.
We watched four guys climb up a
spindly pole called the Punta Flyers. The wind is blowing and the pole is
dancing around. I’m worried about the blood splattering me if one of these guys
falls down. They wind ropes around the pole and the tie it to themselves. They
then drop off the top and the ropes unwind as they turn around and round
getting nearer and nearer to the ground. One guys plays to flute on the way
down. No one dies, much to my relief.
We pass one necklace place. The
guy beckons us in. I say, "No, thanks," and walk on. When I turn to
look, there is no one following me. They had both gone in to look at the necklaces.
“Look what you are doing to me,”
I say to the guy. He laughs.
On our way back, he beckons us in
again. “We did that already.” He laughs again, but that time I win. They didn’t
go in.
I finally announce I am done
shopping. My legs are tired. Me, my new belt, and unwanted mask are going back
to the ship. Deb agrees, and after two more photo ops, we make our way back.
We ate at Cagney’s tonight. I do
have to say, that’s good food. I do miss the side order of chili though. I hate
this new ala carte program they have. $4 for a baked potato. I can get a burger
and fries for $4 and have a complete meal.
The show was Blazing Boots. I
highly recommend it. High energy dancing and great singing. The talent on this
ship is top notch.
Day Five (Sea Day)
I slept through bad seas
apparently. A lot of people were talking about it
this morning. Deb and I were fast
asleep. They were comparing notes in the elevator trying to come up
with examples of worse seas. They can only come up with a couple. There was that time in April
coming out of New York… I guess that one won. A lady started to say something
was worse than that, but we had arrived at our floor so she didn’t get a
chance. I didn’t tell them about that one coastal cruise where 75% of the ship
stopped eating for a whole day. We all have stories.
We gave O’Sheehan’s a try for
breakfast. It wasn’t busy. The waiter was one of the slowest people I’ve seen.
I don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect my food. He sped up considerably when
the matre de showed up. Still my breakfast was a little cold when it arrived.
We chocked up another win in
trivia and met a nice couple from Michigan.
The room steward has my schedule
down perfectly. He knows exactly when I want to be in the stateroom and chooses
that time to clean it.
Had an interesting question and
answer session with the Captain and two senior officers. What we found out was
that there was supposed to be three ships at Costa Maya, but the one Aida ship
didn’t want to chance the wind. We were bow to the wind. The Celebrity ship had
a hard time parking, was against the wind and the Aida ship would have had the
wind pushing them into the shore. “They are not as powerful as us,” the captain
said.
Note the bow thrusters pushing away from the pier while coming in to dock
The dancer I saw get hurt, was
okay. She was even able to dance a little two nights later.
Someone asked the captain
about the high waves. "I'm from Norway." He bellowed. "These
aren't high waves."
There was a cake making contest,
that I thought was fun. You could sample the cakes afterwards. A guy from
Virginia obviously won. He looked like he knew what he was doing though. Deb’s
mom thinks he was a baker by trade.
Day Six (Great Stirrup Cay)
I went to bed early last night;
Deb and her mom went to the show. It was a magician / escape artist. She said
it was good.
When I got up at around 7:30 the ship
was already parked. We weren’t supposed to arrive until around 9.
After a quick breakfast we took a tender
to Great Stirrup Cay. It didn’t take long to discover that the main thing to do
at the Cay was play in the water. It looked like they were building zip lines,
but those weren’t ready yet. They had a small shopping area with large prices,
but other than that. Not much.
Deb and I didn’t have our swim
suits, so I took the tender back, grabbed them, and some sunscreen. Otherwise I
would have been roasted. When I came back the two of us played in the water
while Deb’s mom guarded our stuff. Then we had a barbeque lunch. There are
tacos on the island too, but I didn’t get to have those. The sun was an on
again off again thing. After lunch, I didn’t want to go back swimming as I was
mostly dry by that point, so I headed back to the boat. Deb and her mom
followed about a half an hour later.
Looks like we’ll have another
storm tomorrow according to the captain.
We ate at the Brazilian
Steakhouse tonight. It was good. Last time they had to roll me out because I
had eaten too much, but I paced myself this time.
The show was, well, different.
Not that the singers and dancers aren’t wonderful, because they are, but this
show makes no sense to me. The dances danced around to the singers going “Beep
Bop Boop Dop,” or something like that. Then the magician came out and did a
trick. Then they danced around again, then the aerialist came out and did a
trick. Etc. etc. Etc.
They had wind fire and snow and
something else I didn’t understand. Sorry, I just don’t get it.
Some things I overheard around
the ship:
“I couldn’t see the little fishes
so I got turned around.” A man explaining to his wife why he was going the
wrong way. NCL ships have fish pictures in the carpet that are swimming forward
so people don’t get lost.
“I may have had enough.” A man
coming out of the bar so drunk he has a buddy on each arm helping him walk.
Day Seven (Key West)
Last full day of the cruise, sigh.
As we are approaching the port, I take my usual pictures. An hour later they
announced you cannot take pictures off the side of the ship because it’s an active
military base. The Disney Magic has arrived here before us and they have parked
in the ‘civilian’ pier. Does that make me a spy? I don’t know. I didn’t take
any more pictures off that side of the ship though.
It took forever to go through
immigration. They’ve set up in the Spinnaker Lounge and they are taking
everyone through. The line is the length of the ship and the sun is beating
down. At first, they announce you only need a driver’s license but they amend
that to passports. I have to run back to the cabin to grab the passports. When
I get back, they are pulling my mother-in-law out of the line because she’s
old. We are moved up to the front. They check the passports and send us on our
way. To prove we’ve been through the process, they punch our keycard. I collect
my keycards. I don’t want a hole through it. Oh, well, nobody asks me.
The stuff us in a train pulled by
a jeep and tell us there will be no stopping until we are off Navy property. If
your hat blows off, too bad. I took mine off and held it tight. There is a
street fair that prevents us from going directly to the transfer station, but
we make it. Deb has purchased some trolley tickets, so we found our way to
their 1st stop and boarded. The trolley is a good way to
go. The Conch Train only goes around downtown, the trolley goes further afield,
but do you really need to go to the new part of town. None of the history is
there. I guess it’s a personal choice.
We got off and explored Hemingway’s
house. I love his set up. He wrote a lot of powerful books. They had posters on
the wall from the movies that were made out of his books. Saw the famous cats
too, still walking around the house. He wrote five hundred words a day I’m
told.
We made our way to the
southernmost point of the continental United States. I had two choices in
getting a picture of it. One way was to wait in a long line, the next was not
having me in the picture and just snapping a shot between picture taking
groups. I opted for the latter. While I waited for a group to vacate the
picture, their smiling faces turned to gasps as a wave came up and over the
point and drenched them. I wasn’t going anywhere near there after that.
A group got on the trolley all
set for an awesome beach day. One look at the beach however, and they changed their minds. It
was no bigger than a parking lot and were not talking Walmart. As side note, we
were closer to Cuba than we were to the nearest Walmart.
We headed back to the trolley
stop, had a piece of Kermit’s Key Lime pie when we arrived back at the end of
the line, and made our way back to the ship.
Dinner was at La Bistro and I was
frankly not impressed. I think I can skip this one from now on. Watched the
comedian Sam Fedele. Deb was busting a gut next to me. It was pretty much the
same show as I had seen before but enjoyed watching her.
One poor kid was there by
himself. Sam had just gone through a few minute spill of overindulging at the
buffet. Sam asked the kid where his parents were.
“At the buffet.”
“Is your dad fat like me?”
“Yep.”
The audience roared.
We packed up and got ready to go.
Last Day
We had breakfast in the main
dining room. It was relaxing. We walked through the buffet, it was a mob scene.
Everyone stuffing that last morsel of cruise food in before going home to their
mundane lives of cooking and cleaning.
After getting our luggage we
grabbed a cab. We didn’t want to wait hours for the parking garages shuttle. It
was a long drive home. Even though google said it was four hours that didn’t
account for a tired driver and stopping for lunch. It took six hours.
Did a little grocery shopping
then headed to Deb’s mom’s house for dinner and a short sleep.
Getting up at 2:30, we were
heading to the airport by 3. It’s good we took extra time because getting
through TSA wasn’t easy. They flagged Deb’s bag. She had put some gingerbread
cake mix in it. To TSA it looked like anthrax combined with cocaine and some
type of explosive powder.
Her belongings were strewn from
one end of the table to the other. She was patted down and scolded. Then they
took our cake mix. They say
TSA makes us safer. I don’t know how humiliating a grandmother of eight over
some gingerbread cake mix makes us any safer.
Things I would do differently…
I would make all my specialty
restaurants well in advance.
I would take my swimsuit to Great
Stirrup Cay.
I would plan a shore excursion to
the Mayan ruins prior to boarding the ship.
I probably wouldn’t book this
ship as the state rooms are smaller than other ships in the fleet.
I would make sure no one packs
cake mix into a carry on.
I would skip the shopping in
Costa Maya, even though it’s a very nice mask.
I wouldn't skip the shows.
Cruise Books by Deb Graham
