Back After Quite The Voyage

Took the kids on a cruise last week.

It began well enough with a nice flight to New Orleans that was on time, easy transfer to the ship from the New Orleans airport, with the only downside that the fellow in front of me was coughing quite a bit -- more on this later. 

We then had a pretty quick embarkation onto the ship and settled in.

The first day at sea was great, a nice time wandering the ship, relaxing and having some nice meals, including a specialty meal at the steakhouse that was magnificent.

The second day we got to Cozumel and had decided to go to the Kuza beach and adventure park. 

We got there from the port and had a nice time on the beach and had a nice lunch, and more time on the beach, but then it started raining heavily. The rain would not stop and it was really coming down

So we got out of there a bit early and got back to the ship rather thoroughly soaked. 

Apparently, late December in the Western Caribbean is the rainy season. 

The next day we landed at Roatan.  It was raining a bit which meant the visibility for the planned dive would be less than great.

And it was rather choppy and wavy too. 

This meant the Leah got to experience being seasick for her first certified ocean dive.

She along with another diver were rather green.  She did the first dive anyways.

Luckily the surface interval was done back at the dock rather than on the boat.

Both she and the other diver decided that since the dock was still moving (it wasn't)  they were going to skip the second dive.

We then headed back to the ship.

The next day it was raining again as we docked in Belize.  The rain also came this time with a healthy dose of thunder and lightning.

Not good when you're signed up to do zip-lining.  High above the trees on a steel cable in a lightning storm- what could possibly go wrong?

Yep, that got cancelled.

We went ashore anyways in rain ponchos and wandered around a bit and went back to the ship. 

At this point I was coming down with a heavy cough and feeling rather lousy. 

I was feeling really out of it the rest of the day and the next morning, having coughed through the night and not gotten much sleep, and basically stayed in the room sleeping for most of it, coming out for dinner. 

The next day it was rough and rainy again so Costa Maya was skipped as a port and we had a day at sea. 

Still feeling lousy, I discovered that eating a honey packet actually stops a cough.  The ship had pretty much no cold or flu meds to buy and we had neglected to pack any.  But, the honey really helped.  Good to know.

We then had our scheduled day at sea.   Honey was consumed by me in mass quantities.

I was feeling a bit better.

The next day, Sunday,  we disembarked early and got to the airport early.  Had I known that early arrival and debarkation would happen, I would have booked the earlier flight out and the next bit of fun would not have happened.

The flight home was delayed, and then delayed some more, being stuck in Detroit for maintenance. So we were stuck in the airport for hours.

After a three-hour delay, the plane it arrived and the gate attendant said she had good news and bad news.

The good news - the plane was here.

The bad news - the flight attendants had timed out due to the delay and there was no replacement crew so the flight wasn't going anywhere. 

 That the airline hadn't anticipated this was a bit of a problem and was rather dumb. 

There were no scheduled flights to Detroit for the next day so they booked us on another airline through Chicago leaving at 6 am. At least they put us up in a hotel.

We finally got to the hotel after 9pm and went to sleep and then got up at 4 am and headed back to the airport.

At least we had some beignets and coffee for breakfast there.

The flight to Chicago was no problem.   Easy boarding and a smooth fliught with just a little turbulence

We then had to dash to the gate for the flight to Detroit, only to be told we were on standby as we were the last to check in and the flight was oversold.

We were the last to check in as we had just been delivered there.

 We did manage to get seats and were soon on the aircraft waiting to depart.

And waiting.

And waiting.

We got deiced and waited some more,

And more. Apparently waiting for the deicing paperwork.

We finally departed over an hour and a half later.

Quite a bit of turbulence. Funnily enough it didn't bother me at all but it really bothered the kids.

Finally got to the airport and then home and that was that. 

I promptly took some NyQuil and went to sleep. 

Not quite the vacation I wanted, but it was the one we got so we made the best of it.