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.

Cruise Day 7 - At Sea

The last day of the cruise was at sea, heading back to New Orleans.

Quite a perfect day it was, too.  Taking it easy, going to the hot tub, imbibing adult beverages, and watching a show.

Sadly, we then had to pack up and be ready to go.

This was tempered by having an excellent diner at the French Bistro on board as our final dinner on the ship.

To say it was fantastic is an understatement. Service was the best we had experienced on board and the food was beyond amazing.

I had escargot for the appetizer, and the sole grenobloise for the main course. Quite superb.

 Dessert was the marquise au chocolat. Which was the best dessert I've had in a long time.  A chocolate aficionado's dream.

 Really fantastic food. Norwegian certainly has some of the best food at sea, or anywhere, really.

After that, we took a walk around the ship and we had left the Gulf of America and were on the Mississippi River.

It was a bit foggy out and the tightness of the channel led to ships appearing seemingly out of nowhere to be right close by.

 

Neat to see and it was a very pleasant night to be walking laps of the deck.

Heading back inside, the lights were low in the main areas, and decoratively lit up for the evening.

 

Headed back to the stateroom, and the luggage was already picked up.

In the morning we were back in port in New Orleans.  So we got up, had breakfast, disembarked, and headed to the airport back home.  That had been a great vacation.

Cruise Day 6 - Costa Maya

We pulled into Costa Maya in the morning and hit the pier after 9am.

 No excursions booked so we just wandered around the port area.

The port area is rather lively.

There's flamingos:

 

There's Mayans hanging from ropes on high doing a traditional acrobatic act:

 

Neat to see.

So we wandered around the numerous stores in the port, lots of touristy stuff, sat down at the bar and have some ice cold beverages, and then went back to the ship.

Back at the ship we had lunch at the diner above the pool with some excellent burgers and fries. 

After that we sat in at an art auction.

 Lots of art for any budget from mas low as $300 up to and including an original Romero Britto for $20k. There were quite a few works by Thomas Kincaid, Peter Max, and others.  Fun to watch and learn a bit about art as the auctioneer gave plenty of info about the artists and the works.  

Then it was time to chill at the Skyy Vodka Ice Bar.

 

As the name goes, it's a bar, made out of ice. 

The Skyy Bar is an extra and requires a reservation. The reservation includes 2 drinks. You check in and get a smock and hood to wear to keep warm whie you're in the ice bar.

 

 The bar had a neat seating area:

The ice bar was a fun and cool experience.

Cruise Day 5 - Belize

On Day 5 we arrived at Harvest Caye in Belize.  

 

After another time change and breakfast we headed to the excursion.

Snorkeling the reef.  Checked in did the waiver and got in a boat to take us 

We passed by the Norwegian Gateway on the way to the reef.

 Got out to the reef, geared up with mask, fins, snorkel, and a snorkel vest and jumped in the water. I had brough my own fins, s and snorkel as, after all, I had schlepped them along for the dive so used them on this swim, and they were better than the ones provided from the tour in any case.

Nice bath water temperature water, pleasant sunny day, calm waters, and barely any current at all. A very easy snorkel experience.

The reef was pretty shallow with quite a lot of healthy coral on it.

 Shallow, so not a ton of fish, but the guide would duck underwater to point them out.

Lots of fire coral that needed to be avoided.

 Touching fire coral would suck, and everyone successfully avoided it.

Compared to the dives the amount of ocean life was underwhelming but it was still a fun experience and the corals were rather nice to look at.

 

The tour lasted an hour and the boat came to pick us up and we headed back to the pier. 

On the way we saw some people doing boat parachuting.

 Probably had the best view around.

 Then we went to a Belize chocolate shop and sampled and bought some excellent locally made chocolates.

The sea salt and lime was excellent.

After that we headed back to the ship, got some food, and went to watch a comedy show.  After that we again headed to the Howlin' At The Moon show and belted out some tunes.

Quite a good day.

Cruise Day 4 - Great Dinner and Great Craps.

For Day 4 after a great dive we had a specialty dinner to celebrate.

We went to the Moderno Churrascaria on board and were served meats on skewers until we could eat no more.  This was a fantastic Brazillian-style Steakhouse and to say it was awesome would be an understatement.

Feeling lucky I then headed to the casino.  I had lost $300 the night before so it was time to try and make it all back.

It began badly, with the table going cold and players leaving until it was just me, the dice and the crew.

A few rolls I crapped out on and it looked like this was going to end in disaster.

Then, I propitiated the dice by making a field bet for myself and for the crew - it hit.

Did it again and the 12 rolled and we made a double payout.

I was happy, the crew was happy, the dice were happy.

Then I began a great roll. Made point after point and nailed  a darkside shooter on a series of come out rolls by rolling three sevens in a row and then making the point.  Soon had a crowd back at the table and I was making money for everyone.

Walked away from the table very happy.

 

 

Bought in at $400, walked away with $1147, so after losing $300 the night before, I had netted $447.00 which was darn nice. Kept the two single chips as souvenirs of some great rolls.

Heckuva way to end a great day. 

Cruise Day 4 - Roatan - Dive 311

Dive 311 would take place at Overheat Reef.

I got a close encounter with quite the sea creature of song and legend.

As the song goes: 

"When you swim in the sea and an eel bites your knee...

That's a Moray!"

 That was a rather active moray eel,  he didn't remain hidden for long.

He came out to say hello. 

 

He wasn't hiding at all but was swimming right up to people.  Got a little disconcerting, especially when it swam between people's legs.

No one's knees were bitten in the process.

In addition to the Eel, there were some very large groupers that liked to hang out with the divers.

 

 Both liked to swim right alongside the divers, and would stand their water and you'd have to go around them if they decided to hold their position at times.

And there was another Turtle!

 It was a great dive.

Max depth 50 feet, average depth 25 feet, 52 minute run time. 

Cruise Day 4 - Roatan - Dive 310

My 310th dive would take place at Gibson's Bite.

We geared up and we got in the water. The water was a lovely 83 degrees.

Following the divemaster we headed along to see the sites.

 The reef looked nice and healthy.

We went through a swim through which is always fun.

Turtle!  One of my favorite creatures to see underwater.

Quite a large number of fish were seen.

 It was a great and easy first dive. We then went back to shore for a surface interval and got some refreshments and soon headed out for dive 311.

 Max depth 58 feet, average depth 36 feet, runtime was 35 minutes

Cruise Day 4 - Roatan, Honduras

Got up early on Day 4 and had a good breakfast.

Then I packed up my gear, got off the ship, and headed out on the pier to get to my pickup point. 

A beautiful sunny day it was.

My first time diving in Roatan. 

NCL had selected Anthony's Key Resort to be the operator for this dive and they certainly had chosen well.  Very professionally run operation and they really know what they are doing.

We first did the standard paperwork and one diver couldn't go as they didn't have their C-Card and PADI had no record it had actually been issued. Allegedly she had gotten trained at a resort and it may have been a paperwork issue - or she might not have actually been certified - so she couldn't go. Her boyfriend stayed behind as well (its possible they went off with the Discover Scuba group), bringing the number of divers down to 8.

Met a nice guy there diving who was with his kids, Colby from Louisiana.   I teamed up with the three of them so I technically had a buddy.

I had brought my own gear along, while most of the other divers had not.

We got on board the boat, and I setup my gear on my tank and everyone got ready for the first dive of the day.

These would be cruise ship type dives - guided by a divemaster and well within Open water limits. We got our safety brief, which was well and properly done, and headed off to the first dive site.

 

Cruise Day 3 Cozumel - The ABCs

On the third day, we arrived in Cozumel.

 And had another time change.   An hour change going forward, back and forward again occurred almost every day on the cruise. 

We disembarked in Cozumel and walked down the pier.

 We had some extra time before the excursion began so we checked out some shops around the port.

The farmacia was doing some brisk business and had some pretty decent prices inside.

 Then we met up with the excursion and boarded a comfy tour bus.

We were headed for a tour of the ABCs - on this case Alcohol (Tequila), Bees and Chocolate.

Our first stop:

 

The Mayan Bee sanctuary, home of the Melipona Bee.  The melipona are small, native to South America, don't sting, shy, and produce less honey than your typical honeybee.

They live in hives inside tree trunks.  

We got to sample the honey and compare it to the standard honeybee honey.  Allegedly in addition to being delicious, Melipona honey has therapeutic effects including bee-ing good for wounds and being applied to your eyes.

That was a neat stop.

Then we stopped for lunch. 

Had some great fish tacos on the beach along with a margarita.

 Absolutely delicious.

We then headed onward to discover Mexican chocolate.

 We saw a presentation on the history of chocolate and got to try some that was made in the traditional manner, with the beans grinded on a stone platter. 

Different from the chocloate you have today for sure, not sweet but very good. We then got to sample and buy some premium chocolates made in the modern and very tasty fashion.

Then on to the A in the ABCs of the day.

Tequila.  As it turns out ,Tequila can only legally come from the Blue Agave plant. If its not the blue agave its not tequila.  If its made with less than 51% agave, it also can't be called Tequlia.  Most types of Jose Cuervo is often referred to in Mexico as 51/49 or mixto as it just makes the cut. Mescal also comes from agave but not blue agave. The more you know I guess.

We got to sample some nice tequilas including 100% agave ones, as well as some flavored liqueurs made from tequila.

 The caramel one was rather exceptional.

 

 

That was the end of the excursion, and we headed back to the ship and soon were underway heading to our next stop.

After dinner, we went to the dueling piano bar.

 Helluva good time. All three of the singers were personable, funny, and really talented. All three could play piano, drums, guitar and sing which is pretty damn impressive. They could work a crowd and everyone was singing along to the many rocking tunes they played.

That was a great day and a great night.