Our Carnival Legend Pictorial Review--August 12-19, 2012

[dz63]

The murals located on the midship landings were different than the murals on the forward landings. Instead of embossed artwork, these murals were landscapes likely depicting legendary times and places.

 

 

 

Tonight we found this little dog wearing my sunglasses in our cabin.

 

 

...and that concludes Day 4 of our cruise vacation.

 

 

 

Coming up in Roatan--zipline monkeys and beach, oh my!

[vegadog2]

We will be on the Legend sept 30th for the second time. I still enjoy reading the reviews of other folks vacations. Thanks again for taking the time to write this wonderful adventure.

[wrigley80]

Wonderful review.....I was on the Legend in December and we had a blast. I believe that the Legend was a very easy ship to navigate. I loved the Serenity Deck on the Legend. One night I fell asleep in the clamshell in the Serenity area and woke up around 6:00 am when the sun started to come up

[Rainbowfalls]

I love your review everything is done so well from descriptions to pictures. :) I hope to go on the Legend at some point and will use this review as a guide.

[Andoria]

Your review is a treat!

[whendoweleave?]

:D Lovin' it!

[travellover39]

Enjoying your review. Loving the pictures and descriptions of them. Excellent:)

 

Your tubing adventure,did your boys enjoy the excursion? I know they were hungry from their faces in Tourist Village.lol.

 

Thanks for sharing:D

[roswellmom]

Thanks for the great review. We'll be sailing in January, 2013 and you're making me very impatient. Love the food photos too.:)

[ddbaab53]

Waiting for more please!!!!!;)

[dz63]

Enjoying your review. Loving the pictures and descriptions of them. Excellent:) Thank you!

 

Your tubing adventure,did your boys enjoy the excursion? I know they were hungry from their faces in Tourist Village.lol.

 

Thanks for sharing:D

 

Overall my boys did enjoy the excursion. However, they thought the actual tubing part through the caves was short and the 10 minutes allowed for swimming was also too short. They also thought the tubes moved too slow. They would have preferred faster moving water.

 

when we went cave tubing 2 yrs ago we had a private excursion that was great and we cose them because they left from a closer area with shorter walk. That was great plus they helped carry my tube at times, but the worst part was the feet/armpit hooking up because they put me as head person and my husband behind me and a whole bunch ofother people. He was fussing at me because i couldn't keep his foot from slipping but dang, i probably had 500lbs of people behind me. Also it was difficult in the cave to look straight with the helmet slippi g etc. We free floated afterwards which was great. The buffet lunch was awesome. I did get jealous when I saw the people with the headrest tubes! And i didn't know they hooked together! Definately worth extra money! Next time in Belize we will use them.

 

Sorry to hear about your experience with the feet/armpit hookup. We chose Cave Tubing R Us to avoid this type of set up--plus they offered the nicer and newer tubes with the headrests and a closed bottom. It was great having our hands free to take pics! I am curious though. When you went cave tubing, do you remember if you went right up into the waterfall in the cave, and if you went out of the tubes to go swimming? I have read many, many reviews where people mentioned the other tubing companies do not do this--only Cave Tubing R Us does this. This was another drawing card for us to choose this company. So I am curious to see how true these reports are. Thanks.

[dz63]

Day 5--Roatan

 

 

 

On Thursday, we arrived with sunny skies on the island of Roatan, some 35 miles off the coast of Honduras.

Upon exiting the ship, we were greeted by the tropical island sound of a xylophone serenade.

 

Today we had a freestyle tour booked with Rony’s Tours. Our plan for today was to go ziplining on the Pirates of Caribbean Extreme, Extreme Zipline, visit the monkeys at the monkey stop, stop for lunch at Rony’s mothers restaurant and then head to the Mayan Princess for some beach time. We knew we had a full day of activity ahead of us, so we quickly made our way through the Carnival village.

 

 

Upon exiting the Carnival Village, we made the trek up the large hill...

 

...and then went down the other side.

[dz63]

It took us between 10-15 minutes to get from the ship to the bottom of the hill. All independent tour operators congregate at the bottom of this hill. We made it here around 8:30 and found Rony’s Tours very easily.

 

 

We met our tour guide Tia (Rony's mother) and our driver for the day was Pedro. Although Tia could speak English very well, Pedro could only speak Spanish. (You can see Tia and Pedro in the photo above). Once in the van, Tia informed us that we would not be able to have lunch at her restaurant because she closes it down during low season (summer months). Although we understand the expense of keeping her restaurant opened during this time, we would have appreciated Rony informing us about this when we made our booking. This was one of our three disappointments with Rony’s Tours.

Enroute to the zipline, we stopped at French Harbor. We had to be careful where we stepped, as there were dog droppings absolutely everywhere! (So, be careful where you step!) I do not really know what the significance of this harbor was, but overall we did not think there was much to see here. (In retrospect, this is a stop that could have easily been missed and we would have been ok with it).

 

French Harbor.

 

A home in French Harbor.

[dz63]

Our next stop was the Pirates of the Caribbean Extreme, Extreme zipline. This zipline zips the rider from mountain top to mountain top. Although the Pirates Extreme, Extreme zipline only has 8 zips, it is known as having the highest (328) and longest lines (1,980 feet) in all the Americans!

 

 

 

Besides seeing a few monkeys, we did not see any other visitors here. We paid for the excursion and were quickly harnessed up.

 

[dz63]

Next we climbed aboard an open-air safari type truck with our guides Dwayne and Iron. We drove a short distance up to a mountain top.

 

It appeared as if we were on the highest point in the middle of the island, as from this vantage point, we could see the ocean on both sides of us.

 

 

The open-air safari truck leaves the mountain top.

 

This way to the first line!

 

Ready to zip!

[dz63]

The boys enjoyed hanging upside down while zipping and it was almost like a roller coaster ride when the guides would pull up and down on the lines creating a nice bouncy ride for us! Lots of fun!

 

 

Click on the photo to see my youngest DS bounce his way to the end!

 

Oops. . .DS didn’t quite make it to the end so Dwayne reals him in.

 

As we zipped from line to line we slowly made our descent down. The whole time we were here, we did not see anyone else. It appeared as if we had the whole zipline to ourselves!

 

The last line.

 

We completed all 8 lines in under one hour. We had a great time and although this zipline did not fly as fast as the zipline we flew on in St. Kitts, we still had a lot of fun.

[dz63]

Our next stop was an overlook which offered us a scenic view of Coxen Hole and surrounding area. We could also see Honduras, 35 miles away. We spent 10-15 minutes here.

 

The view from the overlook.

 

There were local venders selling their crafts and wares. We were able to pick up a few unique souvenirs.

Edited September 15, 2012 by dz63

[dz63]

From the overlook Pedro drove us over to the Monkey Stop, which was also like a miniature zoo.

 

Monkey Stop Entrance.

 

Admission into the Monkey Stop was $8/person and included the services of a local guide who took us through this zoo. On the way to the monkey cage, we passed cages which housed spider monkeys, a Tamandua, some “squirrel”-like animal and toucans.

 

Spider Monkey.

 

Tamandua (cross between a raccoon and an anteater).

 

These two little critters really wanted to get out!

 

Toucan.

[dz63]

The most exciting part was going into a cage with two cute, little Capuchin monkeys. Anyone who watched “The Night of the Museum” or is familiar with the antics of Jack the monkey from “Pirates of the Caribbean”, will understand what these inquisitive little critters with their agile fingers are capable of doing. We were instructed to leave our bags outside the caged area—unless we were ok with these monkeys opening everything up and getting into our things!

 

This curious little guy really wanted to help me take photos!

 

We enjoyed having those curious little critters jump and crawl around on us.

 

 

 

Nice hairdo!

 

[dz63]

Up close and personal

 

 

After the monkey cage, we went into a cage with parrots and were able to hold one.

[dz63]

After our monkey and bird encounter, we saw…

 

…a Lemur. This animal made unusual whistling/squeaking noises.

 

Click on the picture below to hear and see the Lemur.

 

This Lemur had such a cute little face, but boy where we surprised by the size of its fangs!

 

Island Rabbits.

 

Deer.

 

 

After this stop we were supposed to have at least 2 hours to enjoy West Bay Beach at the Mayan Princess. By the time Pedro got us there, we realized we would only be able to spend 45 minutes here before it would be time to head back. Since the resort charges a $10 fee per person, we decided it wasn't worth the money for our family to spend such a short time at this beach. We asked Tia to take us back to the port so we could at least enjoy some time on Carnival's private beach in Mahogany Bay (which is right next to where the cruise ship docks). Not being able to experience West Bay Beach at the Mayan Princess, was our second disappointment with Rony’ Tours. Before I booked with Rony, I specifically told him that we wanted to be back at the port by 1:30 (because I wanted to have some time to check out Mahogany Bay). Realizing we have a limited time in port, I asked if we would have enough time to do the zipline, monkey stop, lunch and beach. He responded back saying, “yes we would.” When I asked him how much time we would get at the beach if we do all those stops, he informed me “2 hours.” Considering we skipped the lunch stop, spent a little under 1 hour ziplining and the monkey stop was no more than 20 minutes, how come we did not have enough time to spend 2 hours at the Mayan Princess as Rony assured us we would? We guess our driver Pedro may have had something to do with this. You see, Pedro drove the van as slow as a turtle. I am sure we could have walked faster than he drove. DH sat in the front seat and noticed Pedro drove only 20 miles per hour the entire day. No wonder cars were continually honking and passing us by! It is one thing to be cautious, but this was a little extreme. Our ride in the open-air safari truck at the Pirates zipline went faster than that! We believe Pedro's extra slow driving made the travel time from getting from one spot to the next much longer than it should have taken. As a result, this ended up cutting out our beach time at the Mayan Princess. This was our third disappointment with Rony’s Tours.

 

Since we did not have enough time to spend at the Mayan Princess, Tia did offer to take us to a local restaurant for lunch instead. She said we could have 30 minutes there. Since we were already short on time, we decided that it would be too rushed to stop for lunch. We rather spend what time we had left enjoying the beach in Mahogany Bay.

 

We have read many glowing reviews about Rony’s Tours. So many people have expressed how their day with Rony was the highlight of their entire cruise. Although Tia was very sweet, pleasant and informative, I cannot say that our experience with this tour company was the highlight of our cruise. Again, I am sure that if we had Rony himself, our experience would have been completely different (now where did I say that before?)

 

Lesson learned: if you hear great reviews about a tour operator, specifically request that person.

[dz63]

We arrived at Mahogany Bay shortly after 1:00. This allowed us to spend almost 1 1/4 hours on Mahogany Beach--a beautiful, man-made, tropical, palm lined, white sand beach--before boarding the ship at 2:30 for the Legend’s early 3:00 departure time.

 

From the pier, you can ride the chairlifts (Magical Flying Chairs) to the beach for $12/person, or walk it in about 10 minutes. We were dropped off near the beach, so it was a short 5 minute walk for us.

 

 

Welcome to Mahogany Bay Beach. Doesn’t the Carnival Legend look Grande?

 

The beach is stunning—truly a tropical paradise!

 

There are clam shells which can be rented for a fee...

 

or simply enjoy the tropical surroundings under the shade of a palm or almond tree.

 

Edited September 15, 2012 by dz63

[dz63]

Enjoying the water at Mahogany Beach. Can you see the shipwreck in the background?

 

DH and I and the Carnival Legend.

 

All too soon, it was time to head back to the Legend.

(FYI it was on the other side of this sign where we were dropped off by Rony’s Tours—no need to walk back up and down the hill again! It was about another 5-6 minute walk from this point back to the ship.)

 

Some funny shots.

 

Edited September 15, 2012 by dz63

[dz63]

At 2:30 the ship blew its horn—time for everyone to come onboard!

 

 

The long line to get back on.

 

There is a second shipwreck located on the starboard side of the Legend. According to Tia, fire broke out onboard this ship from Cuba. Fortunately, many of those onboard where able to make it safely ashore by holding on to floating pieces of the ship’s cargo—lumber!

 

 

Some views of Mahogany Bay from sail away.

 

Carnival Village.

 

Mahogany Bay Beach.

Edited September 15, 2012 by dz63

[dz63]

Upon our departure, it was interesting to watch people on shore bustling about and cleaning up the beach and terminal area. It was somewhat sad to see this entire beach and village area completely close down, not to reopen until the next ship comes in the following week.

 

After eating too much for lunch again (that is easy to do on a cruise ship), we hung out by the pool.

 

Guarding the pools on the Legend are large bronze statues.

Here you can see the armored knight who resides over the Avalon Pool.

 

The Camelot Pool facing forward is also guarded by a bronze knight.

Edited September 15, 2012 by dz63

[dz63]

On most nights there was a piano sing-along in Billie’s Piano Bar with Jordan. We noticed that every time we walked by, this Piano Bar seemed fairly empty.

 

Billie's Piano Bar.

 

Billie’s Piano Bar plays tribute to Billie Holiday and is located between the Fun Shops and the Chapel on the Atlantic Deck (deck 3).

 

At the entrance to Billie’s Piano Bar is a double neo-classical staircase (complete with urns and all). This staircase descends down to deck 2.

 

 

Beneath this grand staircase is a pool area—pretty neat!

 

Across this staircase on deck 2 is another lounge area. Coming from down the hall, we could hear the sound of beautiful piano music floating through the air. But when we got there, we were very surprised to see, there was no one playing on this piano. This piano played music all by itself!

 

Believe it or not!

 

The magical playing piano.

Edited September 15, 2012 by dz63