Homeward Bound (January 16th, 2016)

Yesterday was our last day at sea, so we slept in, with no intention of setting an alarm. When we finally woke up, the seas were calm. It was definitely getting cooler, as we headed back north, and back into winter. So we enjoyed our final day at sea, and our final cruising companion.

Today we will end of our Caribbean Cruise with our daughter in the port of Galveston, where we started. We woke up this morning to foggy skies again as we made our way back into the port. The temperatures are probably in the 50's and it's cloudy.

Last night they gave us two options for disembarking. The first is called self assist, which is definitely the easiest option if you drove to the cruise terminal and aren't waiting on any particular transportation. It requires you to carry all of your bags off the ship yourself. The only problem with this option is that the elevators are usually pretty busy on the last day of the cruise and it's hard to handle luggage on the stairs. Self assist passengers are usually the first to leave the ship. 

The other option is to leave your bags outside your door the night before, and they will move them to the cruise terminal for you. With this option, they prioritize passengers by when their flights leave, to ensure that everyone gets to the airport in plenty of time. They give you a group number, and when your group is called, you can disembark. Since we were using Carnivals transportation to get to and from the airport, we chose to leave our bags out the night before, and have them transported to the terminal for us.

We got up at about 7:30, in order to be out of our room by 8:30, which is what they require in order to get the rooms ready for the next guests that will be coming in later in the day. We left our carry-on bags in our room and headed to breakfast. They had all of the usual breakfast options available, so we sat out on the back pool deck and enjoyed a nice quiet breakfast. 

The dining room on the Lido deck was really busy, but the back pool deck was nice and quiet. When we finished breakfast, we went back to the room and gathered up our carry-on bags, then returned to our table to wait for our group to be called. They called most of the self assist groups, and then our group was one of the first "assisted" groups to be called to disembark, so we made our way to the front of the ship. We scanned our Sail-n-Sign cards for the final time and headed off the ship and into the cruise terminal. Once in the terminal, we located our bags, which are sorted by debarkation group number, and got into the long line to go through customs.

They were forming two customs lines, so as we got in line, I looked at the other line to see who we were next to, and when we got to the front of the line, we were still next to the same people. The lines moved very evenly. 

We got through customs very quickly, but some of the people had to do finger prints, thumb prints and a lot of other stuff that we didn't have to do. The only thing I could think of is that they weren't U.S. citizens. I don't really know fully! It took about an hour to get through customs, then we were free to head out of the cruise terminal to our transportation. We were using the Carnival provided buses, so we picked up our bus tickets and crawled on our bus. We had to wait for about half an hour for the bus to fill up before we headed to the airport. 

We had a nice long wait at the airport since our flight didn't leave until 2:55, but everything went as planned, and before we knew it, we were on our way home. As we descended into Denver, there was still a lot of snow on the ground. Apparently it has been cold while we were away.

I want to take a minute to recap the gluten free dining on the ship, because it was such a positive experience.  Our daughter was never limited on her selections.  She was offered the same menu each night as we were, the only difference was that she reviewed the menu the night before so they would have time to specially prepare her appetizers, entrees and desserts. 

Houston always handed her the menu with a smile on his face, and never made her feel uncomfortable for needing special food.  And, I have to say, it was fun to see what the chef would do to make her request gluten free.  She said that it wasn't always what she expected, but it was always very tasty, and very much appreciated by all of us.

Mahogany Bay, Roatan, Honduras (Tuesday, January 12, 2016)

We pulled into our first port at about 7:30 this morning. As we looked out the window of our room, all we could see was green. Lots and lots of green. Roatan is an island off the northern coast of Honduras and is the southern most stop of our cruise.  It is very tropical and beautiful. 

The view to the North West, an interesting ship wreck in Mahogany Bay

View to the North East, the private Carnival Port that we fondly refer to as Carnival Disney

View to the South East, Mahogany Beach, also privately owned by Carnival

We quickly grabbed some breakfast and headed out for our day. Our daughter is finally feeling better, and exited to enjoy the day on the island of Roatan in Honduras.  The weather is perfect, probably about 80 degrees and partly cloudy. 

One of the hardest things for us about cruising, is the uncertainty of what you will find in each port.  Some ports are in an ideal location, where you can get off the ship and have everything right at your fingertips.  Other ports are very isolated, so if you don't book an excursion, your left without much to do for the day. 

Our oldest daughter and her husband did this same cruise last June and told us that Carnival owns a private beach in Mahogany Bay that is beautiful, so we decided not to book an excursion at this port, and just visit the beach for the day.  

Our oldest daughter and her husband did the Jolly Roger Excursion, so we put this picture in for them

 When we got off the boat, as we left the pier, there was a sidewalk that lead up the hill to a bunch of shops. It is almost like a little town, I believe that our daughter called it Carnival Disney, since it reminded her of the main street in Disney World. They have several bars and lots of shops. Also in the town, there is a chair lift that will take you to the beach. For an all day pass on the chairlift it is $14.00 per person. 

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There is also a very nice sidewalk that leads to the beach if you want to just walk. The entire walk is beautifully landscaped and very enjoyable. 

We found our chairs and relaxed for a few minutes, before deciding to go out for a snorkel. 

I'm so happy she's feeling better!

My hot husband!  Muy Caliente!

We really didn't know if there would be any snorkeling from this beach, but thought it was definitely worth our time to bring our stuff, just in case.  We only had two full sets of equipment, so the first time our daughter swam along with just a mask. 

The snorkeling dork is ready to go!

We finally realized that the long pier at the end of the beach lead out to a pretty nice reef.  Too bad we wasted time trying to figure that out, but at least we finally found it and enjoyed some really good free snorkeling. Next time we'll just walk down the beach to the pier and save ourselves lots of time.

We did a lot of snorkeling just off to the left of the pier.  Below is a link to the YouTube video we made of the highlights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbGj5FWyj7Q

Our daughter finally got tired, so she and I stopped to rest, but as we bobbed in the warm tropical water, I kicked a coral, and road- rashed my leg. We all came back in for a rest, so I decided to walk back to the ship and check in with the medical staff to make sure I didn’t need to do anything special with my coral cut. All was good so I headed back to the beach. They said as long as I am in good health, just wash it vigorously with soap and water and add antibiotic cream if we have some, which we did.

While I was gone, a reggae band came along the beach to entertain the crowd.

We relaxed for a while on the beach, and then ordered some nachos and grilled jerk chicken for lunch.  There were beach waiters, but they were very busy, and we weren't sure we would ever see our lunch, so Steve and I chose to walk up to the restaurants and get our lunch.

Bar Menu

Food Menu

Nacho Restaurant

Jerk Chicken Sign

Jerk Chicken Chef and Grills

After lunch, we took turns snorkeling again. The snorkeling was incredible. 

The view from the pier, looking back toward the ship

About 15 feet off the end of the pier, is a beautiful reef, just full of fish. If you go out even further, the reef drops off into the vast blue ocean. Some people were snorkeling outside the reef, but we were afraid of currents, so we stayed over the reef.  The rest of the afternoon was full of R&R as we enjoyed a beautiful day in Mahogany Beach, Roatan.

Local Honduras beers.  Both were light and tasty on the beautiful beach of Mahogany Bay

We took a little time on the way back to the ship to enjoy the sights along the way.

We got back on the boat at about 4:00, and stayed outside for the sail away. There was a beautiful sunset over the island of Roatan as we sailed away into the darkness. 

A little tired after a huge day!

Cruise Ship ropes are HUGE!

A boat speeding by in the darkness

As we do every night, we got ready for dinner and then headed down to the rear bar to give our daughter the room to herself while she got ready. Tonight they were doing inventory at the bar, so we asked them how often they do inventory, and they said once a week. For inventory they have to remove everything from every refrigerator and shelf and clean them. Wow, that’s a big job!

When our daughter was ready, she met us down at the bar, and together we all went to deck five to watch some Reggae musicians. It was two men, one played keyboard and one played the steel drum. They were really good and fun to watch.

When it was time for dinner we headed to our table, Steve and Ryan (one of our table mates) keep encouraging each other to try the “rare bites”, which are things that you might never try anywhere else, but here you can try just a small appetizer sized serving, which is pretty safe. They both had braised ox tongue for their appetizer. We all tried it too, and it wasn’t bad. We thought it would be a little bit tough, but it was very tender and tasted like strong pot roast. Tomorrow they think they are going to have escargot!

Tonight's towel creature