Monday 13th was a full sea day. We didn’t have any set plans, just wander the ship and see what we can.



At 10am though there was the meet and greet in Henrys’ Pub. This was the Cruise Critic get together where we met all the people that had signed up for the roll call. All the heads of “departments” were there to introduce themselves which was pretty cool. We were sitting with Ginny and Bill so after the official stuff we had a nice long chat with them, they are a lovely couple from New Orleans, Ginny was always available on CC to offer advice to us clueless tourists about the best way of doing things in NO! Once again, as with the others, they were so easy to talk to and without CC we would never have met them. After the meet and greet we went down to the casino for a Slot Pull... about 35 of us all put in $16. $1 went into a kitty for the highest spin and then we all got 3 $5 spins on a wheel of fortune machine. Ideally we would have won some huge jackpot to divide between us but as it was we got about an hours entertainment and got $8 back from our $16... not a bad outcome really!!



I’m not going to give a blow by blow account of every single thing we did on the cruise, that would be boring. One thing though was how careful they are to make sure no illness is spread amongst the passengers and crew. All over the ship there’s hand disinfectant and at every restaurant there is a crew member with a spray bottle… we loved the tall dark man from St Lucia who was at Raffles every morning. He’d call out in his loud deep voice…. “morrrrrr ning… washee washee” as he’d spray our hands!



Tuesday 14th…. Cozumel, Mexico



We docked at 8am and Rodd and I were off the ship by about 9 I think. We had reservations at a beach resort today but first wanted to go and check out the shops. OMG, talk about pushy…. I hate being harassed by sales people and this place was over the top in your face. Even just walking down the street they’re all yelling at you to come into their shop, if you look for 2 seconds at anything as you walk past they start yelling “which one, what you like”? and if you enter their shop they’re on you like bees on honey… they shadow you around the shop, if you touch anything they grab it off the shelf and proceed to tell you how wonderful it is and what other colours they have….. Arghhhhh! We finally found a shop where we wanted to buy a few things and then had to start bartering…. I hate that too! But anyway we managed to get them down to a reasonable price. Someone told me after that you just walk out of the shop and if they let you go you know they’ve reached their rock bottom price….. Cos they WILL NOT let you out of that shop once you start bartering until they get the sale done.



Only other thing we bought was a bottle of Kahlua for $16... So cheap. We decided to head back to the ship to drop all the shopping off before heading out to Nachi Cocum. Luckily we managed to get through security with our Kahlua… they confiscate all alcohol and return it the last cruise day…. Can’t be drinking your own when they sell it on the ship!



Nachi Cocum was great, you pay $50 per person and have food and drinks all day on a beach or in the spa…. Just about all “the gang” were there and we also met the 2 Swedish girls that had been on CC. We spent quite a bit of time with them, nice girls! Now there’s a rule on CC that we aren’t allowed to post pics of the women in their cozzies so I’ll have to get permission to post some!!



We shared taxis with everyone going back, $17 on the way out with just Rodd and I, and $8 a couple going back in a van… much better way to do it. Rodd and I went straight back to the ship while some of the others did some shopping. We had a nanny nap…. Got up for some dinner, an hour in the casino and were in bed by 10ish….. It’s exhausting been on a cruise!

Wednesday 15th…  Belize       

Once again the ship was in port at 8am… well not at the docks here, we were anchored some way out and had to tender to shore. It was about a 15 min boat ride in and the whole tender process was a bit confusing. First we had to go up to Champagne Charlies and get in line for a tender ticket… so if you get there early you get #1 tickets which obviously means you’re on the first boat. However before #1 goes all the people that booked shore excursions through the ship… we managed to get on a boat and off the ship fairly early we thought but as it turned out we were the last in the group with cavetubing.bz to arrive. Their instructions were so easy to follow once we got off the ship, I had been a bit worried about finding them. This is yet another thing I had heard about through TripAdvisor and decided to book after reading all the reviews.



We got into the van, our driver was Roberto and the guide Axel. As we drove the 35 mins out to where we were going cave tubing Axel told us about Belize. I’m not going to bore you with all the countries history etc but my impression just from what we saw is that it’s an incredibly poor country, lots of ruined buildings, old shacks, dirty streets etc.



At the end of the drive we got our tubes, life jackets and helmets and then trekked for maybe half and hour up through the bush… it’s beautiful country up there. Roberto told us a bit about the Mayan customs and beliefs, caves were strictly for the gods.. They held sacrifices in the caves and human remains have been found in many of the caves. As we went he showed us some of the plants they used for medicines etc… like the quinine plant, he gave us some to chew… yuk so bitter but they used it to stop malaria. Also he dug some termites out, I wouldn’t eat those but just about all the others did and they all said they tasted just like mint. Roberto then found a plant whose sap is a dye, he “tattooed” us all so we would be worthy to enter the sacred caves!! At one stage he found a hole and started poking a piece of grass inside it to coax the occupant out... after 5 mins he tells us the huge tarantula inside didn't want to play today... hmmm ok, yep I'm definitely ok with that!!!



The cave tubing itself was fun, those caves are absolutely enormous with arms reaching off into the dark… I wouldn’t like to go through without a guide, I’d be lost in there forever!



On the way back to the ship we stopped at a little place, just on the side of the road out there all by itself, for lunch. They fed us some chicken with rice and beans and also a rum punch… yummy… then Axel asked us if we’d like a punch for the road…ummm, yes please!!! We also tasted Cashew wine here, it was good, really smooth and sweet, almost like a really good sherry… we bought a bottle for $10... Yes it was confiscated.



Back to port, we looked at some of the shops inside the port terminal. Bought some “drugs”…. z pack ( I guess an antibiotic ) for Rodds ongoing cough. You can walk into a pharmacy in Belize and buy anything… amoxicillin, penicillin, Viagra, almost any of the other antibiotics just all over the counter!!! Unreal…. Should have stocked up!



I think we probably found a bar here and had a few drinks before getting back on the tender boat. That night as was the recurring theme we had dinner and crashed… around 9pm!!



This is pretty rough and not a lot of detail... sorry but I really need to catch up with these and it's taken me about 4 hours to get this done!!