A GLORY-OUS week 03/01/20 - 03/08/20

[byrdbrain55]

I am a planner.  I love researching ports and excursions and things to see and do.  I had been to Roatan in 2014 and took a tour with Rony's Tours and had a great time.  I arranged a private tour with Rony's Tour and let them know what we wanted to see.  I let them know that we wanted to stop where we could buy locally made items, the Roatan sign and then we wanted to go to Paradise Beach club with a day pass.  Our private tour cost was $45 per person and it included the day pass to Paradise Beach.  

 

Brian and Carol decided to just spend the day on the beach at the port so it was just the 6 of us remaining.  We ate breakfast on the Lido and waited somewhat impatiently to dock.  There was some difficulty with docking since the Sky Princess had not pulled back far enough.  Eventually we were allowed to disembark.  Private tour operators are not allowed to come into the port to pick up passengers although they can drop them off at the port at the end of the day.  Once you walk through the port shopping area, you have to walk up the hill, through the gate and down the hill until you find all of the private tour operators waiting.  We sent Jay and Diane ahead of us in a taxi ($2 per person) to meet up with our tour guides while Larry, Jack, Shayla and I walked.  We met up with our tour guide, Theadora and our driver in a minivan and we were off!

[byrdbrain55]

The drivers are crazy in Roatan and there were a few times that our lives flashed before our eyes but our driver was great.  We had a few close calls but he kept us safe.  We had a brief tour of the little town where Thea lives and then we went up to the top of a large hill overlooking the airport and Coxen Hole.  There were several locals that had booths set up selling local goods.  Jay and Larry raise honeybees as a hobby and Larry really wanted to find some local honey in each port.  We asked everyone and no one had any.  Thea said that we could stop at a local grocery store if we didn't find any.  I ended up buying some handpainted magnets and a mahogany bowl.  We probably spent 15-20 minutes taking photos and shopping before heading to the beach.

 

The island is very pretty and the views are spectacular as you drive to the West End.  After getting to Paradise Beach, Thea paid for our day passes and we all got bracelets showing that we had day passes.  The beach was beautiful and the water felt amazing.  

[byrdbrain55]

[byrdbrain55]

[byrdbrain55]

As much as I loved the water, I knew I was getting a little pink so I ended up sitting under the palapa on the beach and talking to Jay and Diane.  After a while I got bored and decided to wander around a little.  I knew from my research that the Roatan Marine Park had a store somewhere nearby and they should have honey in the store.  The Roatan Marine Park started a beekeeping cooperative with people living in the Corozal area as an alternative to fishing, which is 70% of their economy.  It probably wasn't my smartest idea wandering off down an alley between Paradise Beach Club and Banarama but I found a small cluster of shops and restaurants, one of which was the Roatan Marine Park store and they had honey.  I walked back to the beach and found Larry and Jack and Shayla tagged along to see the stores.  We ended up buying some honey and taking pictures in the I heart Roatan sign.  The boys really do love each other, lol!

[byrdbrain55]

We shared a couple of thin crust pizzas from Il Pomodoro and gave our leftovers to Thea who said that she would share them with children in her neighborhood.  Thea had suggested leaving about 2 hours ahead of the all aboard time to make sure that we would make it back in time in case of bad traffic.  We drove through Coxen Hole and stopped at the Roatan sign for a photo op.  Then it was onward to Mahogany Bay.  We had enough time to browse the shops in the port area and I helped Jay and Diane with a Tanzanite purchase before heading back to the ship.  One of my favorite things about Roatan is the art they make out of recycled materials as seen in the seahorse sculpture.  

 

 

[byrdbrain55]

We all made it back on board on time and none of us were pier runners, lol!  The sunset was beautiful and I left my camera unattended again with this group.  After dinner, we watched the Meet the Suspects for CLUE: The Murder Mystery and I had it narrowed down to 1 or 2 at this point.  The Love and Marriage show was entertaining.  I have heard a lot about Quest, the adult, not for the faint of heart, scavenger hunt and really wanted to go but I was tired and burned and I ended up crashing early.

 

Good night all!

[DanvilleCruiser]

Thanks for doing this review.  It’s refreshing to read a new review.

[Amadawn1]

Thank you so much for the clarification on the folks traveling in your group.  I'm really enjoying your review!

[Saint Greg]

On 7/16/2020 at 12:14 AM, byrdbrain55 said:

my boyfriend, L, who was celebrating his 50th birthday on this cruise.  We were traveling with three other couples as well; B and C are experienced cruisers who are just shy of Diamond status, J and D, this was their 2nd cruise and J and S, who were cruise virgins.

 

I’d like to buy a vowel please

[Saint Greg]

On 7/16/2020 at 11:37 PM, byrdbrain55 said:

What they didn't realize is that the cars have to drive all the way around the Convention Center before coming back to the cruise port.

 

The better way is to cross the street by the river walk mall and take a right. Walking around the convention center would be a nightmare.

[Saint Greg]

13 hours ago, byrdbrain55 said:

We did not have the cheers package, lol!  I have been reading old reviews from other people and finally decided to bite the bullet and start this one.  If people like it, I may go back and review my Journeys cruise from 2 years ago.  On that cruise, I took notes and tons of photos and then life just got away and I never did a review or put it on my blog.  I'm trying to decide if I want to go through all the effort.

Definitely do it. We need stuff like this now.

[Saint Greg]

12 hours ago, Amadawn1 said:

I really appreciate your review.  But I am really getting confused with L&I, B&C, J&S, B&C and J&D. Sorry if it is just me, but I can't figure out who is who.  trying to follow along, though.

I‘ve got L&I...and that’s about it 😂
 

Edited July 19, 2020 by Saint Greg

[byrdbrain55]

5 hours ago, DanvilleCruiser said:

Thanks for doing this review.  It’s refreshing to read a new review.

Thanks for following along!

[byrdbrain55]

3 hours ago, Amadawn1 said:

Thank you so much for the clarification on the folks traveling in your group.  I'm really enjoying your review!

I understand that it was confusing and hopefully it is easier to understand now.

[byrdbrain55]

2 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

I’d like to buy a vowel please

It won't let me go back and edit the past posts but I have clarified everyone's names and will use them going forward.

[byrdbrain55]

2 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

The better way is to cross the street by the river walk mall and take a right. Walking around the convention center would be a nightmare.

I'm not sure where they ended up walking.  When we disembarked, we went up the stairs and walked on an elevated sidewalk to the Riverwalk to catch our Uber and it was super easy.  

[byrdbrain55]

1 hour ago, Saint Greg said:

Definitely do it. We need stuff like this now.

I will try to do the Journeys review when I finish this one.

[byrdbrain55]

1 hour ago, Saint Greg said:

I‘ve got L&I...and that’s about it 😂
 

As I have said, I'm sorry it was confusing and I will use names going forward.

[Joe817]

4 minutes ago, byrdbrain55 said:

As I have said, I'm sorry it was confusing and I will use names going forward.

No worries. I think you are doing a great job! 👍

[byrdbrain55]

Day 5 Belize City Fun Times

 

 

[byrdbrain55]

Last time I was in Belize, I went Cave Tube with CaveTubing.BZ and loved it.  I am an animal person and I think my favorite part of the tour was the walk through the jungle.  I saw leaf cutter ants in the wild and thought it was the coolest thing since I had only ever seen them on the Discovery Channel.  I think the other people on the tour thought I was crazy since I was so excited about ants, lol.  

 

This time, however, I was traveling with people who had no desire to be underground in the water so we needed a different plan.  Larry is normally a go with the flow.  I do all the planning and he just follows along.  When I threw out some options, he actually got excited about seeing the Mayan ruins.  King David with AlTourNative Belize Services got great reviews both on Cruise Critic and on Trip Advisor so I started looking at the options he offered.  When I saw the tour that combined Altun Ha with the Howler Monkey Sanctuary, I was sold!  Mayan Ruins for Larry and monkeys for me, it was a win win.  I emailed King David and he was very quick to respond to set up the tour.  Jay and Diane and Jack and Shayla chose to join us on the tour and Brian and Carol stayed onboard for a lazy day on an almost empty ship.  The tour was $90 per person and included lunch.  Once I had arranged for the tour, I received a VERY detailed 4-page email regarding where to meet King David and emphasizing that the faster we were off the ship, the faster we could be on our way for the tour to hopefully beat the large tour groups.  I desperately wanted to get photos of the ruins without a lot of people in them so this sounded great to me.  

 

Belize is a shallow water port, meaning that the ships have to anchor about a mile off shore and then use water shuttles/tenders to get passengers from the ship to shore.  We received information in our cabin explaining the process to get shuttle tickets.  People with Carnival shore excursions had specific meeting times for water shuttles and everyone else had to get a pass.  Larry is an early riser so he got up and got in line to get us tickets at around 6 (they start handing them out at 7).  They had two separate areas set up for disembarking, forward and mid ship.  We were on the first water shuttle off the ship and headed off for our day in Belize.  

[Saint Greg]

48 minutes ago, byrdbrain55 said:

I'm not sure where they ended up walking.  When we disembarked, we went up the stairs and walked on an elevated sidewalk to the Riverwalk to catch our Uber and it was super easy.  

 

Exactly. Reverse that to get to the port. The exit by the food court is basically across the street from your hotel. 

[Saint Greg]

48 minutes ago, byrdbrain55 said:

As I have said, I'm sorry it was confusing and I will use names going forward.

 

It's cool. I know the letters are people. It doesn't really matter who the people are.

[byrdbrain55]

2 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

 

Exactly. Reverse that to get to the port. The exit by the food court is basically across the street from your hotel. 

I had read all of your directions and had a fairly good idea of what to do.   I have no idea how Brian and Carol walked to the port but if I had done what I thought I could, we definitely could have walked and had no problem.