Caribbean Cruise

Our First Cruise Together!

For this vacation, we decided to go on a Norwegian Cruise to the Caribbean. We left from Galveston, Texas which is about 2 hours from our place in San Antonio. We were nervous, especially at first since we didn’t know what to expect and we also had no idea if either of us would get seasick. The good news is that we found it easy to find our way around the ship and neither of us got seasick!

Onboard

Around The Ship

The ship was massive and even after a week, we had not seen all of the places within it. We could see shows, go to the casino, play mini golf, play Deal or No Deal, and so many other things. We had the Starbucks drink package instead of an alcohol based one, which worked well for the most part. We were very tired of Chai Teas by the end of the trip though.

Choir of Men

Our first day at sea, we booked a musical called “Choir of Men” which is a musical about a group of men in a pub. A main guy introduces them, and each gets a song that aligns with their part of the story. It was a ton of fun!

Costa Maya

Our first port was Costa Maya, Mexico. We didn’t do an excursion at that one, but we did walk around the port and go to a bird sanctaury. There were a bunch of little shops we could go in, but they mostly had the same overpriced souvenirs.

Dolphins!

The best part of the bird sanctuary is that it also took us over the top of the dolphin’s area. We stayed around there for awhile just to watch them play with their basketballs. They would grab the ball and take it underwater then let it go so it would shoot up into the air. Seemed like they were having a lot of fun with them because they were playing with them the whole time we were in the port.

Harvest Caye, Belize

Our next stop took us to Belize where we had our first excursion. We booked a fairly short activity to try them out and see what we thought of them. We picked the one that said we would be going on a wave runner to tour a small cove and learn about the plants and animals that lived there. This was the first case of the description not matching up with the activity as it turned out to be about an hour to drive the wave runner in the ocean behind a guide.

Unlike most of the other people going, we picked to ride on the same wave runner. If we had known it would make it a lot harder to drive, we wouldn’t have picked that option though. We ended up being left behind the main group and the extra guide had to stay behind with us stragglers. To be fair, they also didn’t give us any instructions on how to actually drive the thing so we had no clue what we were doing. Eventually we figured it out and we did make it to the cove, but only in time to turn back around.

The experience ended up being a blast by the end of it, but we were a little disappointed by the approach of “here it is, good luck”. Being able to drive it out in the open ocean was a really cool experience though so we still enjoyed it.

Roatan Bay Islands, Honduras

Our next port was Roatan Bay, which was the one we were looking forward to the most. For this port, we booked a mostly all day excursion that involved going to an animal sanctuary, getting to drive a dune buggy, and then going to a private beach. This whole excursion was a bit of a mess, but it was also a once in a lifetime experience so we still had a lot of fun.

The Animal Sanctuary

The animal sancturay was built into a rain forest and we basically just had to hike between each exhibit to see each of the animals. For almost all of the animals, we got a chance to climb in with them and hold them. The paths between each exhibit was brutal, but it was totally worth it when the animals would come jump on you. We had a guide with us that would help call them over and give them treats so they would hang out with you. The animals were all really used to the process and would come right away to get their treats. If one got too full then another was eager to take their place.

Buggies

The animal sanctuary was rough because of all the hiking and I forgot to mention that it was also very wet because it had been raining all day off and on. The rain really played into the next activity because we were soaked and their was mud everywhere. When we booked it, we were told we would be driving on Beach Buggies and taking a tour with a guide to learn about the area. It was very obvious right away when we pulled up in the bus that it wasn’t true at all. The buggies were little more than a wire frame with an engine attached. They broke down every 5 minutes or so and the guides were only there to run up and fix or replace your buggy when it broke. They also had to push us up the hills because the motor was not powerful enough to make it.

Before we set off in the buggy, they gave us even less instructions than we got with the waverunner. They had them all lined up and there was a guide in front that would lead us throught the course which was a lot of circling and figure eights. We were both completely covered in mud by the end, but we did somehow avoid having our buggy die like almost everyone else who was in our group. And we made it away with no injuries which was better than some of the others. Worst one we saw was when one of the buggy’s steering went out and they drove into a tree. The guy driving got cut pretty bad on the leg. We found out afterwards that the only hospital on this island had been destroyed in a recent hurricane so if anyone needed medical attention, they would have had to been air lifted out. We were very unhappy with how dangerous the whole thing was, but at the same time, getting to drive around in mud in the middle of a jungle is a pretty wild experience.

Selfies!

We took so many selfies during this trip so here are a bunch of random ones in no particular order.