Vacation is a fabulous idea for anyone, even those of us who vacation for a living!  I spent 7 wonderful days aboard the Mariner of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean International Ship cruising the Gulf of Mexico and visiting 3 ports in the Caribbean Sea.  The weather wasn’t great – we had only 3 really nice days and two of them were in ports but the vacation was wonderful.  This was a girls cruise, just my mom, sister and I along with 3000 other guests!   Our dining companions were 2 couples that winter in Texas in RV’s so we had lots of stories to compare.  They also were traveling with Karen who is from Southern California.  We had great conversations over some very interesting dinners.  I especially enjoyed the onion bread that our head waiter got for us each evening even though it is only for Sunday evening of the cruise!  I am not sure we needed the additional calories but we definitely ate both loaves every evening!

There were several highlights on the ship that might be unique.  We had a Karaoke singer that was straight from the hot tub to the stage, wearing only his swimsuit!  He did Michael Jackson quite well, but his song choice was interesting – Beat It!  Way too funny.  We watched part of the Daytona 500 poolside wrapped in beach towels because it was so cold and windy!  Our first night at sea we had an incredible rainstorm complete with some amazing lightening.  One day the seas seemed pretty calm but the boat was rocking and rolling – or maybe we just had a lot of drunks on board?  I got to be among the 40 or so guests that were able to stand waiting for the final number to be called in Bingo to win a cruise!  One number away on two options and still came up empty!  The Mariner has an Ice Skating rink with a pretty good show.

I really enjoyed our ports on this cruise.  Honduras was our first stop.  The weather was very warm and humid.  We took an island tour which included a boat ride around the harbor.  The bus ride is where things got really interesting!  We were in a small bus/van vehicle that has seating for 25 small adults or 30 medium children!  Our tour had 30 adults, most were not small!!!  I had the pleasure of trying to board the bus last and taking a seat in the second to last row in the back of this bus!  Honduras also has some very rough roads and we were warned it could be a very rough ride.  They were not kidding.  The pot holes were small ditches which you could use for protection during a hurricane!!!  Our driver got stuck in one and I thought we might have to get out and push!  He barely made it out and had to thoroughly inspect the undercarriage of the bus before continuing.  They had guys on the side of the road with barrels of burning tar fixing the holes.

I got to go cave tubing in Belize in the Crystal Caves!  That was really cool and the best part was we got to ditch the tubes and swim in a very large, really clear blue lagoon at the entrance to the cave.  A bucket list item for sure.  Although I don’t think I will check it off cause I will definitely want to do this again!

Cozumel was our last stop and the weather was not cooperating so we spent our afternoon walking along to waterfront, doing a bit of shopping and haggling with the locals finishing with a nice lunch at local restaurant.  The waterfront is about a mile long and the ship will give you a coupon to take a taxi to the Pavilion shops at the other end which is valued at $8 for 4 persons.  The cab drivers however do not honor the second coupon we managed to get for the return trip!  Our lunch was very costly considering it was nachos, tacos and margaritas!  $70 for 3 persons!  The menu came only in Peso’s so we hoped they translated correctly!  The most interesting part of the restaurant was it was open air seating along the very busy street and then the same kitchen served the restaurant across the highway!

And of course the strange happenings in the rooms while we were out partying!

Can’t wait for our next trip!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 8th, 2013 at 11:53 am and is filed under Arizona, California, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.