Because MBCB said I should

Well, a certain MBCB has requested several times that I post about my recentish cruise, so here goes. I went with FarmerBoy to the Western Caribbean. I'll try to get a slideshow up with a few of the very few pictures that we took.

Day 1
Our flight left at about midnight from the Las Vegas airport. After our extended five hour drive (we needed books and goodies to survive), we got to the airport four hours early and I actually slept on the flight for a couple of hours.

Day 2
We got into Ft. Lauderdale, waited in the airport for a couple of hours before taking a shuttle to Miami on Superbowl Sunday. Traffic actually wasn't too bad. We got on the ship about 12:30 and promptly went to the buffet because eating is very important on a cruise. We took our tour of the ship and wasted some time before dinner and then went to bed early because I was exhausted from being up most of the night.

Day 3
At Sea. We spent the day going to trivia competitions, reading, sleeping, exploring, and various other things around the ship. This might be the day that FarmerBoy went ice skating on the ship and I went to the shopping seminar to learn about all of the great shopping deals that mostly applied to diamonds and really expensive watches.

Day 4
Costa Maya, Mexico. We were supposed to go parasailing here, but this was canceled because the weather had been bad the day before and all of the parasailing ships went to cozumel. We did, however go snorkeling. The snorkeling was diffiicult here because there were some waves, so we would swim and swim and not move much of anywhere. Next, I proceeded to get most of my silver jewelry and quite the sunburn on my back. I'd been to Cozumel before and knew that they didn't deal much. We also purchased a hammock chair, pagan mask for my parents' bathroom collection, and a cute little dress for Nookoo. I felt pretty good about my bargaining skills. I'm only willing to pay so much for earrings that I'll lose half of

Day 5
Lamanai Ruins, Belize. We took a bus for an hour and a half to a boat. We then took a boat ride up the river for about an hour to get to the ruins. Farmerboy saw a crocodile in the river and I saw sticks. He is a lot more observant than I was. On to the ruins. I thought they were fabulous and very cool. And we saw and heard howler monkeys, which was lots of fun. FarmerBoy climbed to the top of the building and took a picture of me sitting at the bottom as seen in the slideshow.

We got back about 20 minutes before the last tender to the ship and that was our day.

Day 6
Cozumel, Mexico. Again, we went snorkeling. The snorkeling here was amazing. Beautifully clear water and calm as can be. We stopped at three different locations and saw starfish and a turtle and tons of fish and coral and all sorts of cool stuff. The tour operators gave us the most delicious melon to snack on. We spent several hours snorkeling here and the tour guide was great, pointing lots of things out to us. We continued on with my shopping, getting the pearls for $1.50 an inch (I knew that shopping seminar on day 1 had to be worth something), as well as numerous lucidore (sp?) masks, and some T-shirts.

Day 7
Grand Cayman, Virgin Islands. We actually got to sleep in this morning, since our excursion wasn't until 1:30 or so. We went to Stingray city and held and kissed stingrays. No, we did not get stung and die. We then did a little bit of snorkeling there, which was pretty lame after Cozumel. I finished out my shopping with seashell necklaces and then we headed back to the ship. Grand Cayman is not my favorite place. Mostly it has high-end jewelry stores, which I'm not going to buy things from.

Day 8
At Sea. More random activites, art auctions, eating, and packing to go.

Day 9
Disembark at about 10:00 and spend many more hours waiting in the airport until our flight at 8:30 p.m. I did not sleep on the crowded plane this time. No leg room, and annoying people who thought that they should stand and talk all the way through the flight! Get into Las Vegas, spend the night and lose my .mp3 player somewhere along the way. Boo! I just bought it from S.Q. last summer. It may yet show up somewhere.

Day 10
Drive back from Vegas. Car quits at St. George exit. Mechanics can't figure out why. Car stops at New Harmony. We add more gas (the tank was not empty) and made it home safely.

Randomness
FarmerBoy and I found an old couple from Florida to team up with for our many trivia games. We did pretty well together, winning all kinds of useless stuff as pictured in the slide show.

As mentioned above, I burned my back pretty badly the first day that we were out, even though I used sunscreen. I just failed to reapply it. I spent the next days snorkeling coming out of restrooms and asking little old ladies if they would please line my swimming suit straps up with the white lines on my back. They were very accommodating.

I did spend some time in the Diamonds International stores collecting my free bracelet and charms, which I refer to as my DI bracelet.

You could eat 24 hours a day on the ship because they had a sandwich shop and pizzeria open 24 hours a day. The teenage boys loved the pizza place. We always went to the buffet for breakfast, and varied lunch between the pizzeria and buffet. Dinner was the dining room or buffet. A couple of the nights we went to dinner it took us 2 hours to eat, when we could be done in 30 minutes at the buffet.

FarmerBoy and I did not try the wave rider, but we did watch other people wipe out on it. Whenever it was going, you could watch on the T.V. in your room. We also did not do the rock climbing wall, because I am a wuss.

The Las Vegas and Ft. Lauderdale airports have very few entertainment options for those spending many hours there. Well, Vegas has slot machines, but I don't gamble. I find Chicago and Denver to be much better for those reasons.

Well, there is a long and boring post for you. Let me know if you have any questions I can answer about the cruise world.

P.S. The photos of FarmerBoy in the slideshow are for NooKoo's enjoyment because she loves her Uncle FarmerBoy. The rest of you close your eyes!

P.P.S. We bought the pictures of us with the stingrays. We didn't take them.