Ports of Call, et al...

Christmas is over and we're back in Chicago so I am finishing up the cruise pictures in one post so I can move on and post about Christmas and the 3rd Annual Ho, Ho, Ho Party. That will probably be tomorrow or the next day, though, since I am summing up 5+ days all in one. And I don't want to leave out the important details.

Tuesday morning, we arrived to Grand Cayman. We had to tender to shore since the water is shallow and/or they don't have a dock for an obnoxiously large ship. Kieran and I picked an excursion where we would swim with the stingrays, see a turtle farm, and visit Hell (an actual town on the island).

The somewhat blurry picture below is Grand Cayman zoomed in from where the ship was parked.
Pictures of our ship from the tender boat...there were so many other ships in the port, too.

Approaching our ship from the tender boat. See the life boats? Right above those was our room.

Below is the stingray sandbar. Unfortuately, we didn't get a waterproof cover for our camera and everyone who reads this blog knows my luck with cameras, so I took a picture from the boat before I jumped in and fed them. The stingrays are the black round things underwater. This picture does not do them justice. They would swim right up to you and stick their heads up out of water if they thought you had food for them. They ate these tiny squid-like things. Yuck. One stingray swam right up against my breasts. I don't know if he was looking to nurse or if he was complimenting my rack in his own way. Either way, it was weird....but kinda sweet. ha!

The guy in the black t-shirt was one of the boat guys. He was holding the stingrays and letting people kiss them. You can't see it well, but he's holding a stingray for one of the people in the yellow life jacket. I didn't wear a life jacket. It was like 3 feet deep there. I also didn't kiss a stingray, because they were too busy coming on to me.

Our other little adventure on Grand Cayman that day was visiting Hell. Think of the smallest, crappiest town you've ever encountered and that would still be a large metropolis compared to Hell. There was a post office, 3 little shops selling "I've been to Hell and lived to talk about it" or something dumb like that T-shirts, the rock formation that lends it its name, and a guy selling coconuts and giving the remains to the chickens that are chilling next to his coconut cart. That's it. I thought, "When in Hell...." so I bought a coconut to drink. Tom Hanks made it look easy in "Castaway" and Pina Coladas deceived me, because coconut "water" straight from the coconut is HORRIBLE. But the guy said it was good for the kidneys and I didn't want to take any chances that my kidneys would fail in the middle of the ocean.

The rock formation that supposedly looks like how Hell would look....but since anyone who's ever been there hasn't made it back with any polaroids, I am sure they are just making a guess.

Nothing says "Tourist Trap" like a devil with his face cut out that looks like it was drawn by one of the kids from Helltown...notice the *4* devil horns....That's Kieran....he's greeting you all from Hell.

Touristy Picture #2 from Hell: It's pretty self-explanatory

This is not a turtle on a weird shaped rock. It's a bunch of huge turtles fighting for the attention of us gawkers. Seriously, they would fight and water would splash everywhere and they have scars and other battle wounds on their shells. The guide said they are males, they are still young and they are separated from the females until they are old enough to mate so they have some "frustrations"....seriously, he said that.

Baby turtles. Or, hatchlings for your technical types. :) We couldn't touch them because if we did, their mothers would have nothing to do with them and/or kill them.

Adolescent male turtle. I think he liked me too.

Kieran holding a turtle. Older than a hachling, but younger than one of the massive turtles

Me holding the turtle. He's flapping his flippers because I turned towards the water and he got all excited and wanted to be put back in the water. So instead of doing what the turtle wanted, I turned toward the camera and my grimace is because the turtle flippers hurt when they hit your hand. But I didn't want to drop him on the cement and break his shell. Because I am sure that would have gotten me kicked out of the Turtle Farm.

The only residence that survived Hurricane Ivan, per Andrew our tour guide.

After our excursion, we met Dad and Bonnie and John and Vickie for lunch. No, it wasn't a rustic Grand Cayman original...it was Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville and it was as though Spring Break '08 was making another round in December there. There will be no pictures of the balloon popping game Kieran and I got roped into....sorry!

Our next stop on Wednesday morning was Cozumel, Mexico. Not as many pictures because we spent some time in an internet cafe and then we walked over 3 miles to the downtown area for lunch. We took a cab to a beach located a few miles past the ship and decided to lay out for awhile.

Hola Amigos....

Our little private area of beach....and a sombrero-sporting horse!

It was in Cozumel where we decided to smuggle booze onto the ship. Unfortunately (or, fortunately for Carnival cruise lines, I suppose), alcohol isn't included in the price of the cruise. We were not sure what we could get away with in terms of BYOB, since the "rules" we read beforehand made it sound like we'd be chucked overboard if we decided to risk it. By Wednesday, we just decided to try it....duty free booze was too cheap not to! If we got caught, the worse that would happen would be they'd confiscate our treasures and probably drink it themselves after they got off work. Maybe we'd be black listed, but whatever. So we bought a couple bottles of Absolut and a couple liters of water. Not being wasteful of perfectly good bottled water (I mean, we were in Mexico!), we chugged our water down. It almost made me puke because it was a lot of water in about a 5-10 min. time period. I am drinking and waiting outside the men's room (keeping watch), where Kieran is located, pouring his vodka in his water bottle. When it was my turn, I went into the women's room and by the grace of God did not vomit all over myself. See, in Cozumel, they don't flush their toilet paper. So imagine what I see when I walk into a stall (water logged and nauseous from chugging water)....foul. I immediately abort mission. We walked a little further down along the dock and despite security guards keeping a keen eye, I poured it into my water bottle right there in plain sight. I had some bribery money ready. And I was ready to run for it, too. They let us back on the ship, so now we know for the next time (and so do you all).....

Our little towel buddy that night. I think it was a dinosaur (brontosaurus - sp? - the ones that just ate plants) but I am not sure. That night, I heard round 2 of Bulimia Lady in the bathroom by the restaurant. At that point, I had consumed so much food, I almost gave it a go. But I didn't. Instead, I chose to embrace my "see food and eat it, but let it stay in my stomach so that it can be dispatched to other key areas of my body, such as hips and rear" disorder....

When we got home that day, the cruise line had delivered us some chocolate covered strawberries and champagne. That's what you get when there is an odor of old garbage wafting into your room for a couple days. I think they moved the trash soon thereafter because the garbage smell went away after that day.

Thursday brings us to Belize. There were so many excursions I wanted to do, but I happen to be interested in the 7 hour excursions but we were only there for, like, 8 hours and I wanted to tour Belize City, too. So we just decided to tour on our own and possibly do some kind of excursion when we got done sightseeing on our own.

Downtown Belize was very busy and crowded. And we didn't really see any place where we wanted to eat lunch....there were a couple of stands serving interesting looking dishes (Kieran said one looked like it was fingers in some sauce with rice).

There was a street market after you left the port area. It was pretty cool. There was a really nice lady, Vanessa, who made me a necklace while I waited and watched her.

It's hard to see, but I am standing under the red awning waiting for Vanessa to finish my necklace.

My girl, Vanessa...and me sporting my new necklace. I bought another necklace there, too. She was awesome. Everything was "Sweetie" this and "Sweetie" that.

The rated "G" photo of Coco Loco and elephant towel....we also caught them in a compromising position....shame shame!

Thursday night, the cruise ship hosted a party in your bath robe party on the top deck from 11:00 pm - 1:30 am. We opted to go in clothes instead of our robes, but it was still fun. I think it was also fun because we were drinking mojitos and smuggled Absolut.

There is absolutely no trace of it left, but yes, that is a bit of a sun burn I am sporting.....and below is a picture of the dessert buffet table that night. Yes, there's healthy fruit, but what you can't see as well is the cakes and pies......

Kieran and towel dog trying to decide what to do the next day in Isla Roatan, Honduras......

I love you, towel dog.

This is what you do when the only friends/family you have on the cruise ship have already gone to bed......

We chose a beach excursion in Honduras, but the forecast was rain, so we just decided to walk around. Once we got off the ship, we started walking through the street markets. After we started walking in another direction, we were met by a little boy who was 11 years old. I didn't catch his name very well because he was soft spoken, but he spoke English very well and he was walking without shoes. He was so sweet. He offered to guide us through the streets and told us where the cheaper store was located. I am sure someone in his family worked at that store and his job was to lure tourists to the store, but I am a sucker. We went. He waited for us to finish shopping and walked us back close to the ship. I wanted to sneak him on Absolut vodka-style and adopt him but Kieran said it probably wouldn't be wise.

My little man. I hugged him goodbye, gave him $10 and cried all the way back to the ship. Honduras seemed like a very poor country. It was sad. (Don't be amazed....I do have a teeny tiny heart, people!)

View of Isla Roatan from our room.

The ship left Honduras and started making its way back to Tampa. Saturday was a "Fun Day at Sea" but it was kind of chilly and cloudy so it was Sarah and Kieran's Fun Day at the Cruise Ship Casino. That night, it was elegant night again, as well as Bouts of Bulimia part 3....not me, the bathroom lady (same lady, I could tell by her puke noises at this point). We arrived back in Tampa around 5 am Sunday morning. Nothing says "it's going to be a Fun Day" like the 5:45 am wake up call so that Kieran can go through immigration (at the "debarkation meeting" they said non-US citizens and family.....but I guess that means non-US citizen family only since I was there, dressed, no-coffee-pumping-through-my-bloodstream-yet perky only to be told I don't have to be there). And nothing says "Wait, the Fun Day isn't quite over yet!" like 7 hours at the Tampa airport. But we made it home just in time to enjoy the sub-zero Chicago temps....