My Photo Trip Review of the 4-30-11 Sailing of the Dream and our Vacation

[EMc&DrS]

What a fantastic review! Thanks so much. I like how you are adding the review one day at a time--one week to the day from when you visited each port.

 

We'll be on Dream 3 weeks from now celebrating my wife's graduation with her doctorate degree. She has been so busy working full time and finishing her dissertation/defense that she hasn't had much time to even think about our cruise. To keep her going, I've been e-mailing her one cruise-related photo to work each day as "today's inspiration." I have to admit that I'm using some of your photos from the different ports--they are fantastic. Thanks so much for helping me to inspire her to hold on for 17 more days!

[AndrewD65]

Teknik, I really enjoyed your review today of Roatan.

 

I took a private tour there when I was there in January and I think I ended up at the same beach that you where at Take a look at some of the photos and let me know if its the same place.

 

 

 

[pomm1972]

Tek,

 

Excellent review and pictures.

 

Hopefully you've called Island Marketing about their mishaps and they do right by you. To be left that far from the ship, I know I would have been panicking.

[TeknikDC2]

First - CONGRATS on the baby to you and your wife :)

Second - Awesome pictures! You captured the lasers and everything else so well. You are creating a lasting memory that you can share with your baby boy. I must admit to being a bit remiss at keeping up with the photo albums once life got busy(kids came along):eek:

 

You are really getting us pumped for our cruise, thanks for taking the time to share with all us!!!!!!!

 

Theres noway I could try to put together a photo album with the mass amounts of photos I take. What I would love to do is compile all of my past trip reports (this is now my 6th one) and some how print them all (print and color pictures) and put them in a binder or something. Unfortunatly I can't think of any way of doing this without it costing a massive amount of time and/or money.

 

Teknik, I really enjoyed your review today of Roatan.

 

I took a private tour there when I was there in January and I think I ended up at the same beach that you where at Take a look at some of the photos and let me know if its the same place.

 

 

Yes that is the same beach we were at. Although we walked almost to the end of the beach to get to where that dock was at. Bananarama where our stuff was at was almost at the other end of the beach.

 

Tek,

 

Excellent review and pictures.

 

Hopefully you've called Island Marketing about their mishaps and they do right by you. To be left that far from the ship, I know I would have been panicking.

 

I'm not worried about it and i'm not gonna go out of my way to contact Island Marketing about it. I was never worried about missing the ship because as I said I would have caught a taxi if we didn't hear anything back from Island Marketing. I don't let things like this bother me after the fact because I don't know all the situations of what was going on. We got back to the ship on time and thats all that mattered to me. As I said I thought it was great that those we delt with from Island Marketing about the situation were excellent. They did all they could to help us out. Its just the issue should have never happened in the first place.

[boaterette]

I just read your california review and it was great also.

[cruisinJenF]

Just wanted to let you know how much I have LOVED your review! I have gone back and read all your reviews now over the past few days and LOVED them all!! They were like a novel I couldn't put down! Thanks for sharing!!:D

[sunseeker04259]

congrats on the new addition to the family! I am loving your review and find myself checking multiple times a day for updates. I know life is crazy and I will be patient...we are sailing the Dream in March and can hardly wait. This will be my boys (13 & 11) first cruise. They have loved looking at the pictures. Thanks again and keep up the good work!

[maryanne356]

Congrats on your baby! My son also went on his first cruise when I was 5 months pregnant with him. 16 years later he is going on his 19th cruise on the Dream in August. i have 3 children and they all love cruising!

[TeknikDC2]

I appologize for the delay in my review. As with most of the US right now Utah has been having some crazy weather patterns. We finally got a few nice days in a row so I used that to my advantage to try and get some projects around the house done. Which I was able to before the rain returned last night. I hope to type up my next segment today so it should be posted soon. Thanks everyone.

[JAXCRUISER]

Great review! Thanks

[TeknikDC2]

Day 8: Costa Maya

　

Today started early. Infact today turned out to be the earliest morning we would have the entire trip. We were awake at 6am. The sun was just barely coming up when we awoke for the day. But we had to be up early. Today we would be going to the Chacchoben Mayan Ruins thru the tour company Native Choice. And with the ruins being an hour drive away our tour would be starting early.

　

But something didn't seem right when we awoke this morning. Or should I say it didn't smell right. Our room smelt like smoke. Like something, somwhere on the ship was burning. I tried not to worry about it though as it could be a number of things. If there was something wrong with the ship i'm sure they would have announced something by now. It got even stranger when we left our room and the halls didn't smell like smoke at all.

　

We went upstairs to grab some breakfast to find a fairly empty Lido buffet area. I guess there weren't many people getting up early this day. we were able to quickly get our food and eat before it was time to leave the ship. While we were eating though our cruise director Butch finally came over the intercoms to talk about the fire smell we smelt in our cabins. He assured everyone that there was nothing wrong the ship. The fire we smelt was a wildfire that was happening on the mainland about 15 miles from Costa Maya. The wind had blown the smoke towards the ship and the ships ventilation system was sucking it in and blowing it into the cabins. Like i said it was nothing to worry about.

　

 

After breakfast we left the ship and started making the long walk down the pier to the terminal area of the port. The walk is pretty long down the pier but I was able to get one of my favorite photos of the Dream this morning (posted below this paragraph). Costa Maya really isn't a "town" like other ports are. Costa Maya was built by the cruise industry. In the shopping area you have your typical amount of shops that sell the same things. They also have another bar but this one has a swimming pool (that everyone can use) and a swim up bar. The email we got from Native Choice instructed us to leave the shopping area and at the transportation desk to present our email and we would get a free ride to the Native Choice office which was where our tour would begin. I was somewhat suprised when as we were walking to the transportation desk that people were wating and asking if we were with Native Choice in which they directed us to a waiting area for the bus to come pick us up.

 

 

We didn't wait long until our transportation came. We thought it would just be some taxis that would take us. So we were suprised when it was a huge bus that showed up. Pretty much everyone that was waiting was able to fit on the bus and we left the cruise area to make our way to the Native Choice office. It looked alot closer on paper. But the bus ride took around 5 minutes to get to the office. While driving there you see many buildings that look like they were torn down by the Hurricane they had a few years ago. Even the Native Choice building looked like it had an upstairs at one point.

 

[TeknikDC2]

At Native Choice we went inside to pay the remainder of our balance. Then they gave us wristbands to indicate what van we would be going in for our tour. We had enough time to go to the restrooms before it was time to load up and head out to the Mayan Ruins. Our tour group was soon loaded up and we were on our way. The drive out to the ruins would take nearly an hour to make. The drive itself isn't anything wonderful. The area around Costa Maya isn't very pretty. Its flat and looks the same wherever you go. You pass many random shacks as you drive which is a constant reminder of the poverty in Mexico. Eventually Kiera fell asleep as I constantly tried to stay away for the drive.

 

[TeknikDC2]

　

We soon arrived at the Ruins site and we were allowed another break where we could use the restrooms and look at the shops. But we weren't here to shop. We were all here to see the ruins. It was recommend by our guide to where some bug spray if you had it. We didn't have any on us though so we went without. I never got any bites but Kiera got a couple so you may want to bring some to be safe. So before long we started our trek into the Chacchoben Ruins.

 

[TeknikDC2]

Kiera and I were both suprised when the first structure we came to was actually one of the huge piramid temples. The structure was incredible to behold. It was unlike anything i've ever seen before. Our guide allow us sometime to take photos around the structure before he would tell us about the Mayan people. One thing kinda cool about the Chacchoben ruins is that you are allowed to climb some of the steps of the structures.

　

[TeknikDC2]

Our tour guide turned out to be very good. He was actually of Mayan discent so it was really cool learning about the Mayan people from him. He told us alot of interesting facts of the people explaining to us there numerical system and alphabet. He also told us some simularitys between them and the Egyptians. Of course he also put to rest the typical myths associated with the Myans such as the world ending in 2012 or if they could fly or were aliens and what not.

　

 

After looking at this first structure we walked around what seemed to be a hill and stopped again. Our guide told us about the history of the Chacchoben site and how many other myan sites our found. He said the Yucitan pennisala is pretty flat (as we observed while driving). So whenever they come across a hill of some sort then theres a good chance that its really a Mayan temple. This hill in front of us was just that. Underneath all the trees and dirt that built up over thousands of years is another structure that hadn't been excavated yet. Infact the sturcture we just saw before this hill was even more covered then this was when it was originally excavated.

 

[TeknikDC2]

　

We continued wrapping around the "hill" when we next came to the backside of the first structure we saw. Here they had a portion of it opened up in the back where you could see into the structure where an alter was located. Although they had been covered up to be preserved the alter had mayan hyrogliphics on it that our guide showed us photos of. We also saw the trees that are used to make the little chicklet gum that many mexican children try selling to tourests. We were suprised when he told us how long it takes to make this gum and that the trees are slowly becoming extinct.

 

[TeknikDC2]

　

The next area we went into had no structures but many steps. Our guide told us that his was the area where the Mayans that lived here built there houses atop the stone steps. However there houses were no longer here because they built there homes out of wood unlike the stone the temples were built out of. While here we sat down and rested while our guide told us more about the Mayan culture explaining there many different calenders and also the activitys the played for entertainment.

 

[TeknikDC2]

[TeknikDC2]

As we walked to our next locaton we came to another large hill with an ancient wall carved out of the dirt. We rounded the corner of this hill to fine a series of steps carved into this hill side and some ruins laying next to the walkway. Our guide showed us these ruins more closly to reveal they had some hyroglipics carved into them. He then told us we would be going to the top of the hill so we could ether climb the steps here or walk to some easier steps around the corner. We decided to climb the steps right here.

 

[TeknikDC2]

I was suprised at what we found atop the stairs. I thought it was another structure that just hadn't been fully excavated yet. Turned out the Mayans purposely built this hill. At the top there were 2 more temples. Another large one and a smaller one. Our guide told us the larger temple was to worship the Sun God and the smaller to worship the Moon God. He even showed us some photos how the Sun temple lined up perfectly with the sun rising each morning. These structures were just as magnificent was the one we saw earlier and we really enjoyed learning about them. The guide also showed us a some sort of fruit that was native to the area.

 

[TeknikDC2]

[TeknikDC2]

　

These two temples were the conslusion to the tour of the ruins. So after looking at these final ruins we climb back down the steps and made the walk back to where our tour began. Once again we had time to look at the shops or use the restroom before it was time to load back up the van and trek back to the Cruise Terminal. Our tour guide told us the shops at the ruins site would have the best prices on items. But we found better deals in the shops at the cruise terminal.

 

[TeknikDC2]

　

After the hour long drive back we arrived at the Costa Maya cruise terminal. The total tour took around 5 hours from when we left the cruise terminal until we returned. And it was well worth it. Native Choice was a very good company to use. We had no problems with them whatsover and would highly recommend them. The Mayan Ruins tour was incredible and I can say it was the best excursion we have done on any of our cruises. I loved it that much. If your into history then check it the ruins. I don't think it would matter what ruins in which stop you go to but at least give them a chance. As our cruise director Butch said "going to the Yucitan Pennisela and not seeing any Mayan Ruins would be like going to Egypt and not seeing the Pyramids".

 

[TeknikDC2]

Back at the shopping area the party was in full swing. Not only was this our last port of the cruise and the Dream was the only ship docked here today. But it was also Cinco De Mayo. A holiday that more Americans use for an excuse to party then the Mexicans celebrate. Since we had nothing else planned for the day we decided to look around all the different shops to see if there was anything we wanted to buy with this being our last port. We ended up finding the postcard we needed but then started looking for other random odds and ends that might spark out interest.

 

[TeknikDC2]

　

One thing I started to notice in many of the stores that I wanted was those little mayan temple statues. However it was kinda hard to find one I liked that wasn't broken in one way or another. We finally looked in one of the last shops we came to and I found one I loved. It seemed to be made out of a marble like material. However I realized I wouldn't be able to get that one with it costing $30 and I only had $14 left. Upon leaving the sales guy asked us to stop and and asked how much we would be willing to spend for it. With a shot in the dark I told him I could spend $10 for it. So I was very shocked when he said ok. I handed him the $10 and we were on our way. That ended up being cheaper then the broken ones I found before.

 

 

Before heading back to the ship we decided to check out the beach area

and where really suprised to find that the dolphin swim area was located right next to the beach. And if you wanted you could sit down and watch the dolphins. Something that we've never been able to do without first paying a fee. Unfortunatly we had just caught the end of a session but it was fun to watch while we could.