M
masq
Guest
Here is a rather lengthy review. Sorry most of it is the lessons vs. actual ship or port reviews.
Biggest lessons:
Always travel the day before
Always have toiletries & clothes with you
Always travel with a passport (you never know where you could end up)
Always buy travel insurance
Always read the fine print of your documents
(Carnival is conveniently not responsible for anything)
Document everything and get names of people you talk to
So go potty, grab a tall drink and read on...
Our trip started out the usual way. We got up at 4AM to catch our 6:10AM flight on Northwest (1942) Sunday November 16th. We were flying through Memphis Tennessee so we were not worried about getting to Miami, until we arrived and the pilot said we would have to circle for a few minutes for the thick fog to clear off. After circling for 15 or 20 minutes, the pilot came on the intercom and said the fog was not cleared off enough and that we needed to fly up to St Louis for more fuel. When we landed in St. Louis, I called Northwest airlines to see if I could get connecting flight information. They said that since there was a group of at least 9 people trying to catch a cruise ship, there was a special department at the airport working on other arrangements.
We got back in the air after refueling on the tarmac, and headed back for Memphis. When we arrived it was still really foggy. I think our pilot was determined to get us on the ground. We made a first attempt to land and all of the sudden we began to climb again. We never saw the ground and we could barely see the wing of the airplane and my seat was right on the wing. The pilot informed us that the deck of clouds was still too low and that we would have to try again. We circled around for a second attempt. Again we were watching the wing disappear in an out of the clouds. Then all of the sudden the ground appeared, the pilot made a swift adjustment and we landed without incident. By this time we were about an hour late for our connecting flight (0940) to Miami.
When we got off of the plane, there was a lady from Northwest that informed us that our flight had left and to go down to the gate that it left from. When we got to the gate there were two ladies working the desk and we got in line behind another couple. Each couple went to the bathroom in shifts- while one person watched the bags, the other one went. Everyone used the bathroom and came back and the ladies behind the desk were still helping the same people from when we first got there. We stood there for what seemed like forever and I was watching the line at one of the other desks with just one guy. I finally wandered over to his line since it was down to one person. We found out that the couple in front of us was going on the Paradise as well, so there was a total of 11 people who missed the flight to Miami and were suppose to be getting on the Paradise. There were at least 11 people that were suppose to be on that flight and the flight took off without us, nine from our plane alone. I have seen a plane wait over ½ hour for 2 people, they couldn’t have waited an hour for 11 people? All 11 of us headed over to the other desk to see if Michael could help us. He checked all of the flights to Miami and Fort Lauderdale that had openings and there were not enough openings for all 11 of us on the same flights. Even with the openings that were available, most of them did not arrive in Miami until well after 5PM. Carnival changed the port that the Paradise was leaving from to Fort Lauderdale due to a Free Trade convention that was taking place in Miami and the protesters that were going to be there. So even if we arrived in Miami at 5PM, there was still a 45-minute bus ride to Fort Lauderdale to follow. Once we found out that there were not enough openings on the flights and that we wouldn’t arrive until well after the 4PM-ship departure time, we called Carnival. The first person I talked to told me that we would have to fly to the ships first port of call, which was Belize City and that the airline was responsible. She could not be of anymore help than that. I told her that the group would discuss it and call them back.
We found out who in the group of 11 had passports and who were traveling with photo ID and birth certificates. One couple only had photo ID’s, they didn’t have any other identification. We found out later that they would not have been able to get on the ship at all since they only had photo ID’s. We started jockeying for spots on the flights going to Miami that would not arrive in time. Then the couple without proper ID got on the phone to Carnival and JT got on the phone to Carnival. I don’t think the couple was getting very far with Carnival as I could tell she was getting more upset by the minute. JT finally found someone at Carnival (Suzanne Perata) that was willing to help and we ended up being on the phone with her for several hours. Now another person showed up at the desk with Michael and we were asking her how much it would cost to get from Memphis to Belize City. Anntoinette said a one way ticket would cost $530 since there wasn’t 7 days notice. You still have to have 7 days notice when you are left behind by the flight you were suppose to be on???
Out of 11 people, only 4 had the trip insurance to cover the extra cost to get to Belize City and even with the insurance it was going to be $60 in out of pocket cost. A little while later, Anntoinette with Northwest came up with a suggestion to fly to Cancun Mexico and drive down to Belize City from there. She said she had been down there recently and that it was about an 80 mile bus ride from Cancun, Mexico to Belize City and the bus ride costs about $45 per person. She could put us on the flight today to Cancun for no extra charge. This made our cost $90, but we would get that all back with the trip insurance. We had no reason not to believe her information and had no idea how far away Belize City really was from Cancun.
So we made the arrangements for nine of us to fly from Memphis directly to Cancun. The other couple from Nebraska decided to go home because they did not have the proper identification to get on the ship anyway. Suzanne at Carnival recorded our intentions to catch the ship in Belize City because otherwise they would have sold our rooms.
We left Memphis on our flight (1968) to Cancun around 1:38PM and were set to arrive in Cancun around 4PM. While waiting to board, we met a guy at the airport who was a very seasoned traveler and had been to Cancun numerous times. He gave us some advice on the people at the Cancun airport and a company to use to take us to Belize City. He said, “Everyone will want to be your friend at the airport to get your business.â€Â
We arrived in Cancun, went through customs and proceeded over to the turnstile to pick up our luggage. Out of nine people, not one piece of luggage arrived with us on the flight. All of our stomachs sank. Most of us did not prepare for lost luggage. We did not bring any clothes or toiletries with us. We found some people that were checking luggage tags and told them that our luggage did not arrive. They called someone on the radio to check the plane and they did not find it. So we started filling out lost luggage forms. We had to give them descriptions of the luggage, it’s approximate contents, combinations to any locks and since JT had a padlock on one of ours, he had to give them the key. The people at the Cancun airport were very nice & helpful. We told them of our plan to drive to Belize City the next day and that we had no where to stay for the night. They walked us though the areas of gooneys trying to get our business and they arranged hotel accommodations and transportation to the hotel for us. They told us that the rate per night was going to be $69 and that the van would be $25. Some of the guys were complaining about the cost of the hotel as we all piled into a van to head to our hotel.
We arrived at the Omni and I could tell immediately that it was a fine resort. When we were checking in, they offered us beer and pop, free of charge. We each got our room assignments and the hotel employees directed us to our room. The room was absolutely incredible. Marble floors and bathroom, king size bed, wet bar, huge closet, and the toilet paper was even folded to resemble a peacock. We decided to put what little stuff we had in our rooms and meet the group out in the lobby lounge area. This would become our regular meeting place and it happened to be across from the concierge desk.
It was at this point that we really started to get to know each other. It was happy hour at the bar so the drinks were two for the price of one. Some of us ordered drinks and some didn’t. Brian and Rhonda are an African American couple that we got in line behind at the Memphis ticket counter. Brian is a postal worker and Rhonda works for a CD copyright place that destroys pirated CD’s. She also enters sweepstakes as a hobby and has won lots of stuff. Richard is an older gentleman and a farmer from Spencer IA. He was sitting directly across from us on the airplane and is going on his first cruise solo. Brian and Sally are computer programmers from Winterset, IA and this is their first cruise. Kurt and Denise are from Seward NE, Kurt is a truck driver and Denise is a number cruncher like me.
JT had asked the driver of the van (Dita) that brought us to the Omni for rates to take the nine of us to Belize City. The driver did not know but he would call us that night with the information. JT also checked with the concierge Miguel to see if the hotel had any recommendations for us. Miguel informed JT that it was much further than 80 miles. JT’s asked, “how much further?†650km or about 400 miles he says.
We are now talking about an 8 hour drive vs. what we thought would be about 2 hours. I had a book with a map in the luggage that I ‘checked’. Miguel also informed us that the buses that run are ‘second class’ and not to travel at night. So when JT came back over to where the group was sitting, he did not have good news to relay. The van company that the hotel recommended would drive us for $850 US dollars. Split nine ways was about $94 each. I was willing to spend a few extra bucks to make sure we got there rather than taking a ‘second class’ bus, where who knows where you could end up or how long an 8 hour trip would take. Thoughts of the grey dog crossed my mind.
After the news, Brian, Rhonda & Richard headed to their rooms for some shut eye and the other three couples checked out one of the hotels eating establishments. We agreed to meet again around 8 AM at our usual spot the next day.
After splitting some appetizer type foods, the rest of us headed for a shower and sleep. Around 11PM, we received a call from the other van company about the rate to take us to Belize. Dita wanted $550, but they would not give us their phone # to call them back. JT said “fine, just call us tomorrow so I can discuss it with our groupâ€Â. It kind of sent up red flags in our mind when they wouldn’t give their phone #.
So the next morning we gathered with the group, and found out that the other van company had come down in price. They now wanted $650. We still felt funny about Dita and told the group about the late night phone call. They agreed that it sound like the $650 driver would be the way to go. So now the discussion was about the luggage. How awful it is when your underwear dictates your travel plans. I really didn’t want to wash them in the sink again and blow dry with the hair dryer. The question was, do we leave right now (Monday) without our luggage, or wait to see if it arrived on a flight today and leave early Tuesday. We knew that the ship would be in Belize City from 8AM to 5PM Belize time and that since the ship tenders in, the last tender would be around 3:45 or 4PM. We decided to wait to see if the luggage arrived and then started discussing what time to hit the road for Belize City. We knew we wanted some cushion time in case something went wrong as we did not want to miss the ship again. We suggested 6AM, but Brian and Rhonda were thinking more like 1AM. We all compromised and agreed on 3AM. We had the concierge call the van company and tell him to be there at 3AM. So since we were going to spend the day in Cancun, we decided to head down to the beach. JT & I had traveled in shorts & t-shirts but Brian & Rhonda were in nicer clothes. So they were out on the beach in their good clothes. Some of us got our feet wet and we took some pictures. Brian, Rhonda, Kurt, Denise, & Richard decided to get some breakfast at the beach side restaurant. They were serving a breakfast buffet for $10. Brian and Sally had actually packed some other clothes and toiletries so they wanted to get their suits on and go swimming. I wanted to go swimming in a bad way because the ocean was rough but really beautiful and the pools at the Omni were awesome. So I checked the beach front store to look for a swimsuit. I am some what of a plus size girl, and there were no swimming suits there that were even going to come close to fitting. Next option, buy men’s shorts and a t-shirt to swim in. The did not have any men’s shorts that would fit either. There was another shop inside the hotel that had swim stuff so we checked there. After at least 20 minutes of looking thru the shorts, I finally found a pair to fit and so did JT. We grabbed a couple of t-shirts and headed for the register. 980 pesos she says. I did some quick math and said ‘wait a minute, how much is that in US’. She confirmed $94 US. I looked at my husband and said, no pool is worth $94. Especially if we get our luggage back today. It just wasn’t worth it. Each pair of shorts was $38 and it wasn’t like they were name brand or anything. So dejected, we headed back down to where Brian and Sally were laying by the pool and told them of the outrageous prices. We also found Denise and told her the bad news as she wanted to buy some swim clothes as well. After that we all pretty much went our separate ways and decided to meet back up at three which was when the people from Northwest were suppose to get to work so we could check on the luggage.
So about 3PM, we headed back to the lobby bar area and JT asked Miguel, the concierge call the airline. The woman at the airline confirmed that there were 9 pieces of luggage on the same flight that we had been on the day before and that they would deliver it around 6PM. When the group all gathered, we figured we were looking for 12 pieces of luggage to arrive, not 9. At this point we were cool with that, 9 out of 12 was better than none. Also, while we were waiting for the luggage, the van driver from Dita showed up. Now we hadn’t been in the room much, but each time we were, JT checked to see if there were messages. So we thought the guy from Dita didn’t call us back. So, when he showed up, we told him since he didn’t call, we were using someone else for our trip. He did not look happy and tried to get us to tell him who we were using (we said 'none of your business' of course), and he just kept hanging around looking like he wasn’t sure how he was going to tell his boss they had lost the sale. Come to find out later, he did call and that the phone in our room was not working properly. JT had to have the front desk access our messages. We felt bad about that, but we would find out the next day that we made the right choice. Melu (May-Loo) from Northwest had left a message too. She called to say that our luggage did not arrive on the 4PM flight we had been on the day before, but she was hoping it would be on another flight coming in. The last flight arriving that night was coming in around 7PM. Good thing it was happy hour again…. 7PM came and still NO luggage. Melu was very apologetic and did not know why they (Northwest in the States) was giving her the wrong information. At this point she did not know where it was or when it would be there. We told her that if it did come in, try to get it to Cozumel by Friday. We didn’t want them to try Belize City because it was the next day and we didn’t think they could get it there in time. At least with Cozumel, they had a few days and Cozumel is only 50 miles away. So here it was almost 8PM now and most of us did not have any clothes or toiletries and may not have them until Friday. Obviously buying things at the resort stores was out due to the prices. We kindly asked Miguel if there was a Wal-mart or department store in Cancun. He said sure we have a Wal-mart in downtown Cancun. So Miguel gave us a map and detailed instructions of how to get there. We could take the public bus for 6 pesos (about .60) per person each way. What a bargain. So 8 of us walked down to the street to catch the bus. Brian (of Brian & Sally) wasn’t feeling up to it and stayed back at the hotel. We headed down the Cancun ‘strip’ and there were so many cool restaurants and places to go. We started talking about doing a 5 year reunion trip to Cancun to do it right! We got off at the stop Miguel told us about and sure enough right across from the Porsche dealership was the Wal-mart. We each headed off in our own directions after agreeing to meet back up in about an hour. Power shopping began. Luckily, we had composed a list so we wouldn’t forget anything. At this point though, I was buying as if I had left the luggage at home. I was going to be prepared if it never showed up and tried to keep in mind that the ship does have a laundry room.
The only thing was the tags on the clothes were all in Spanish and their number sizes are different than ours. I couldn’t just eyeball something and tell if it would fit or not. Summer clothes were pretty picked over and they were selling sweaters & long sleeved stuff. Then they closed the fitting rooms and I couldn’t try anything else on. Luckily at that point I had a better idea on the sizes.
So we had a basket full of clothes for both of us, the toiletry items, and some shoes. How were we going to carry it all to the ship? JT asked (as best he could) where to find a big bag. He ended up back in sporting goods where he picked up two duffel bags. Sally had mentioned getting an extra bag too so the second one was for her. We started checking out. I saw that we forgot something, so I ran to the back of the store to get it. JT was neatly packing everything in the duffel bag as she rang it up. We ended up needing the second bag, which was OK because Sally had already checked out. Our total 4,193 Pesos. Ouch, that was going to be nearly $400. JT gave her our credit card, and it was denied. She tried again, denied again. The only other card we had was our bank check card that comes right out of our checking account. It worked. Whew.
Then Sally came over to us in a panic, we needed to get out of there soon because Richard found out that the last bus runs at midnight and it was about 11:45 now. JT & I and Brian and Rhonda were the only ones left, we were almost done, but Brian and Rhonda had picked out a small suitcase to carry thier stuff in and the zipper was broken so they were getting a replacement. We got out of there on time and caught the bus with no problem.
By the time we got back to the hotel it was 12:30AM and our van driver was coming at 3AM. We checked out of our room, and headed for bed. I know I heard my watch beep 1AM and we were getting up at 2:30AM so I got a whole hour ½ worth of sleep if that much.
Carlos Fernando showed up promptly at 2:55 AM and we all piled what little stuff we had in the back of the van and headed down the road. JT sat up front with Carlos and talked to him to make sure he stayed awake. Carlos was teaching him Spanish and JT was teaching him some English. Most of us tried to catch some more zzz’s on the way. We stopped at a gas station after about 4 hours on the road to get gas. The other ladies were in for a surprise in the bathrooms. I used to work for a meat packing plant and we often hired temporary workers that were usually Mexican. In Mexico, they do not flush the used toilet paper. There is usually a trash can next to the toilet to dispose of the used paper, & if there is no trash can it just gets thrown on the floor. I’m not exactly sure why they do this (may be lack of sewer systems) but I expected it when I went to the bathroom there. Our cleaning staff would refuse to clean the bathrooms until we figured what to do and put trashcans in there. There was also no ‘seats’ on the toilets. So, some of us went and some decided to ‘hold it’.
We finally hit the border of Mexico and Belize around 8AM near the town of Chetumal. Carlos pulled into the parking lot and told us we needed to take all of our stuff with us inside. There was one lady working the counter. She handed us the forms to fill out and did not have any pens. JT had a couple in his backpack, so we filled out ours first and handed the pens around. She stamped our passports and we headed for another counter where they could check bags if they wanted to. They didn’t check any of our bags and said we could wait outside. We went out of the back of the building and went around to the front where we came in at. Then there was a problem.
Out of the 9 of us 5 had passports and the other 4 only had their birth certificates and photo ID’s. The lady behind the counter said “No, you can not enter†(her English was limited). So the 5 of us with passports hung out outside and waited for our friends. ***Right now I’m going to paste in an excerpt from Brian’s (Sally’s husband) story of what happened as they were the ones in ‘the hallway of doom’ with Brian and Rhonda.
“We arrived at the Belizian border at about 8:00am. With little sleep, in poorly fitting clothing and few possessions we entered the customs line with our paperwork in hand. Remember that my wife and I, plus another couple, had only certified birth certificates and a photo ID. We'd been told this wouldn't be enough to enter the country but that we could purchase temporary visas for another $25 per day per person. I was holding my breath, however, because nothing for the last two days had gone right and if we were stuck at the Belizian border, without our companions or even our van driver and ride, we were in very bad shape indeed.
As we approached the customs counter, the Belizian woman on the other side saw our paperwork and said, "No". She wouldn't even listen to our story. She did speak some English but was adamant that we couldn't get in and there was nothing we could do. When we mentioned the temporary visas she shook her head but with the help of Carlos (our van driver), we were able to convince her to at least let us speak to the "Director" in charge. Reluctantly, she directed us to her shift supervisor who was working on the other side of the building. So my wife and I, plus the other couple, Brian and Rhonda, began our wait in the "Hallway of Doom" for an audience with this border official. We probably waited 45 minutes or so before the man we'd been waiting to see arrived. Rather than speak with us however, we were ignored for another ten minutes as he entered an office with what appeared to be other co-workers. Carlos, our van driver, tried multiple times to let him know that we needed to speak with him but he wasn't interested. Finally, one of the said "co-workers" came out of his office and began to leave. Before doing so however, almost on a whim she turned to us and in pretty decent English said something to the effect of, "You might as well turn around your bus now and leave. The director isn't here and our supervisor already called him and his answer was 'NO'. You must have a passport to enter our country, you should just go back to America now."
We were devastated. Our worst fears realized and a feeling of helplessness and sorrow surrounded us. Rhonda burst into tears as Brian and myself stared at the floor knowing we could do nothing. Carlos, however, came alive. He was mad now and although he was nothing but smiles and apologetic to us, had a look of determination in his eyes. He opened and went into the "supervisors" office uninvited and shut the door. Through the smoky glass windows we could see him begin to argue with the "supervisor". Animatedly his arms swung as his body language suggested he fought for us although it was in Spanish and we couldn't understand the conversation. After five minutes, Carlos came back out to us and said that the man would hear us now.
Shocked and emotionally drained we entered the small dark office timid and afraid to speak. The "supervisor" on the other side of the desk glowered at us and said nothing as we slowly tried to tell him what happened. We showed him our birth certificates and photo IDs. After looking at them closely for what seemed hours (but was probably more like 3 minutes), he called the "director" and spoke with him briefly in Spanish before hanging up the phone and saying, "No". We tried again as Carlos explained that he'd take full responsibility. We explained over and over that we were going to catch a Carnival cruise ship and we wouldn't be in the country but for a few short hours. Finally he asked us for more identification such as a social security card, which my wife and I happened to have. Brian and Rhonda however, could only produce their United States Postal Worker identification cards. With this new information, the "supervisor" called the "director" back and again the answer was still a "No". He explained, with Carlos' help, that normally Carnival calls ahead to clear nationality problems and confirm our passenger status in a case like this but that no call had ever been made by Carnival in this particular situation (very important!). Because of that we could not enter without passports. This is my MAJOR complaint with Carnival.
We begged and showed him our boat tickets and Carnival booklets. He suggested that perhaps if we were to call Carnival and get them to confirm our status as passengers that he could again call the "director" so we all tried our cell phones but there was, of course, no service. And because it was a long distance call, the "supervisor" was reluctant to let us use his office phone. Carlos began to argue with the man in Spanish again and was able to convince him that we'd "compensate" him for the phone call with perhaps a little more. This changed the man's mind and we attempted to call Carnival. Our first few attempts were met with failure as 1-800 numbers did not work from there. Carnival had provided us with another number (non 1-800) that I found in our travel packet. Unfortunately, my first 3 attempts to call the US were denied for lack of line outside of the country. Finally, when my call did go through, I was able to speak with a Carnival representative.
I explained our situation as calmly as I could but when I told her (the Carnival rep) that Carnival knew we were meeting the boat in Belize and normally they called ahead to clear this sort of problem, she got very defensive. I immediately diffused the situation by telling her that I wasn't intending to cast blame at this point. I explained that I was currently in a very difficult situation and that I needed it resolved as quickly and smoothly as possible. After taking our booking numbers, she was able to tell the Belizian "supervisor" that I and my wife were indeed US citizens and booked on the cruise. For Brian and Rhonda, however, she couldn't resolve the problem so quickly. Apparently, since they were booked as part of a group, Carnival had to get US Immigration on the line to confirm their nationality to this Belizian border official. Once this was done, the "supervisor" called the "director" and explained the situation at which point the "director" said it was at the discretion of the "supervisor" to grant us our visas. The "supervisor" rubbed his chin and looked at our documents before telling us in broken English that he would in fact grant us our temporary visas at $25 per person and that he wouldn't charge us for the phone call BUT anything extra we felt was appropriate compensation we should pay him. Each couple gave this man $20 as a BRIBE to allow the visas.
Twenty minutes later, we had been cleared through the boarder. Unfortunately, Carlos' van failed apparently failed customs and he was being temporarily detained. While we waited for him outside, we discussed what happened inside with our fellow travelers when quickly Carlos, in his van, pulled up to us. He jumped out and threw open the back doors and quickly exclaimed that we were to immediately put our bags in the van and that we had to leave right then! Nervous, tired, hot, sticky, broke, drained and now scared to death we jumped in this van as he went through the boarder. We thought we were going to be shot at right then by the multiple men with machine guns around the border checkpoint. I don't know what happened really, and we didn't ask. Carlos got us through and became a hero in this story.â€Â
So while all of this was happening inside, the 5 of us outside were discussing what to do if our friends could not get across the border. At that point the goal would just to get home without forking out a fortune to do it. Even though the cruise would be virtually over, the plan would have been to drive back north and catch the ship in Cozumel on Friday for a ‘free ride’ home to Miami. The other two couple actually thought we would leave them behind. Never, we were family by now! This little ordeal took us two hours so it was a good thing we left early.
We went through the border gates and Carlos said he had to stop at an insurance hut. We found out that Carlos had to bribe the border people too for some reason, he paid $50 to get his van through. After ten minutes at the insurance hut, we got on the road and not ½ mile down the road was the first Police checkpoint. Carlos got out of the van and showed the heavily armed Policeman the paperwork on his clipboard. At first he was shaking his head ‘no’ but then Carlos got to the last piece of paper and pointed to it and with a few nods, he finally let us pass. Now the roads between Cancun and about Tulum were similar to our Interstates, after that it was like highways but each town had speed bumps to slow down traffic. In Belize the road was worse than state highways with no shoulders. The road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other but we were still doing at least 60MPH most of the time. Belize had lots of speed bumps too. There was a second Police check point about an hour or so later. The two Policemen were standing in the middle of the road. Carlos stopped behind a car, the car was waved through. Carlos pulled up, did a coasting stop and kept going because the Policemen were working with the traffic going the opposite direction. We all thought we were going to prison after that one, but they didn’t come after us. We stopped for gas again. The pump read 7.00 per gallon. I wasn’t sure if Belize had their own money or if that was still in Pesos. Carlos tried to pay the pump operator, but he was shaking his head that what he was trying to pay was not enough. So the two of them when inside the gas station, we opened the door of the van to get some air and we could hear them shouting at each other. Carlos finally came out and asked us if we had $5 US dollars. I just happened to have a $5 bill handy and gladly gave it to him to get us out of there. About 45 minutes after the gas station, there was another Police checkpoint. I’m not sure Carlos saw it or cared because he didn’t even stop. We really thought we were done for this time, but nobody chased us down.
Finally we made it to Belize City!! I knew that the ship had to tender people in to Belize due to the reefs, and all I knew was that the name of the place was the ‘Tourism Village’ (thanks to the cruise boards). I didn’t have a clue how to get there. Carlos made a left turn off of the main road and it dead ended at the sea. We could see a large ship in the distance and it looked like a Carnival ship! We went back to the main road and then it branched off. Left or Right? I said right because it looked busier. Carlos had already stopped one person on a bike that didn’t know where we needed to go. It must have been around noon as there were school children in their school uniforms everywhere and it was too early to be out for the day. Then he stopped at a little food stand like you see at state fairs. He started talking to a couple of ladies and they acted like they knew where we needed to go. She was having a tough time explaining it to Carlos, so she decided to come with us! We were lucky to find someone so nice, as it would have been impossible to explain how to get there. After weaving through town we arrived at the village. I jumped out of the van and told the group that I was going to make sure the ‘ship’ was there. I was looking for the security booth that Carnival usually sets up in ports that you tender to. I found it and briefly told the security guard the situation and that we would be right back. When I got back to the group, they had the van unloaded and were getting ready for Mrs Rodriguez (our Angel) to take our picture with Carlos (our hero). Mrs Rodriguez even helped Carlos get back out of town to the main road!
We headed back to the area the Paradise tenders were coming to. We gave security all of our packets of information and tickets, along with our ID’s. He radioed to the ship and they cleared us to get on the next tender. While we were waiting, I noticed a sign for the time of the last tender. It said 7PM and I thought it was strange that it was later than our documents stated. Sally was having her last cigarette, as the Paradise was her excuse to quit anyway. While we tendered over to the ship, which was way out there, another couple on the tender was telling us that the ship was late getting to Belize that day. Monday night they had to make a quick stop in Cozumel to drop off a sick passenger. There was an announcement made around noon on Monday that they would be making the stop. Why didn’t they let us know they were stopping in Cozumel? Carnival knew where we were, and we could have been in Cozumel Monday night with no border problems and not $650 lighter! This is also why they were staying later in port.
So my review for Belize…. OK if you don’t have to cross a border. We didn’t spend any ‘quality’ time there unfortunately.
Sally had talked about going back in to do some shopping, but the rest of the group, including her husband decided that once we got to that ship we were not getting off! (until the next port anyway)
We finally made it to the ship!!! We showed security our documents and ID’s and they told us to head up to the information desk for our room assignments. We had our room already since I booked a specific room. The rest of our group had opted for ‘guarantee’ rooms. We got ours first and the Purser helping us was not sympathetic to our story at all. The other two Pursers at the desk seemed more sympathetic, but they were also ‘in training’ under the one helping us. One of them asked if they could get someone to help us with our bags, and JT told her, ‘sorry but I’m not letting these bags out of my sight since our luggage was lost by the airline’. She said ‘Oh no sir, your luggage arrived this morning and is in your cabins’. WHAT!! How did OUR luggage beat us to the ship! Melu took a chance and put it on a plane to Belize City with EXPEDITE tags. Anyway, we were all so happy we had a drink at the Plaza bar before we headed to our cabins. Our luggage was indeed there, but it was in the hallway outside our room, who knows for how long? We were in R76, forward on the port side and Brian and Sally were in R20, way forward on the port side. Richard was in M50 a forward inside cabin on the Main deck. Brian and Rhonda were in E128 mid ship on the Empress deck port side. Kurt and Denise were UPGRADED to a Veranda deck room with a balcony! V27 on the Starboard side. Granted, there were lifeboats in front of their balcony, but they still had a balcony!
We pulled our bags in and started unpacking. We decided not to use any of the stuff we purchased at Wal-mart the night before. Maybe we could return the items to the Wal-mart back home or donate them. JT did notice while unpacking that the 2 diving knives he packed were missing. At that point while unpacking, I finally cried. I had held it together though everything we had been through and I just finally had to cry. I was so happy & thankful that we made it to the ship in one piece.
Before we headed to our rooms, we all checked our room cards to see what table we were assigned to for dinner. Everyone but Richard was assigned to the Elation dining room late seating, just at different tables. Richard was in the other dining room with early seating. We went up to the Elation dining room to see if the Maitre d’ was there. He was not going to be there until 5:30. We wanted to talk to him about seating all nine of us at the same table. We had been through a lot together and wanted to be at the same table. Not that we didn’t want to meet new people, we just didn’t want to rehash this story with everyone we met while trying to enjoy the rest of our cruise. We agreed to meet back at the dining room at 5:30 to see if we could talk to him and make the arrangements. We came back at 5:30 and talked to the Maitre d’ and he didn’t see a problem with getting us a table together, he had a table for 8 that only two couples were coming to. He said to come to dinner at 8:45PM, and he would have it arranged. Richard went ahead and had dinner in the other dining room that night , but true to his word the 8 of us did get seated together that night and Richard joined us Wednesday. I guess the other two couples were not happy about getting moved. Sorry about that….
At this point we also found out that Denise and Kurt had a lot of stuff stolen out of their luggage. Their digital camera was missing, $400 in cash, and I think something else too. Granted they learned the hard way that you never pack cash in your luggage, but had also heard that you don’t want to carry all of your money with you in case you are robbed. TRAVELER’S CHECKS!! They are worth the $2 per hundred if you have to pay for them. You get the money back if they are stolen. Their cash was just gone, period. Has anyone actually had traveler’s checks stolen and replaced? Just wondering if it is a hassle?
We realized that not only were our dive knives missing, but our matching dress watches were gone too. Brian & Sally’s had stuff stolen too.
I opted for a 6PM massage before dinner and JT did not bat an eye at the $100 price because I was so tense and sore. If I hadn’t, I would have been miserable the entire time and he didn’t want that. The massage was good, I’ve had better ones but it did the trick. I had dueling knots on each shoulder blade. Then after the massage was the sales pitch. It really seemed like they were much pushier about selling stuff on board this time than the previous two times we were there.
We had a great dinner, we were disappointed to find out that we had missed the first formal night and really disappointed to find out we had missed the lobster!! The food the rest of the week was fairly good except for the Prime Rib on the second formal night. It was so dry, I had a couple of bites and that was it. JT didn’t like it either. Sorry, from Nebraska, know what good beef is supposed to taste like. Luckily we had ordered a second entrée as we pretty much did every night we were there.
Had to make up for two days worth of food we didn't eat.
Before we even left for the cruise, we had been talking with two other couples that we meet over cruise boards. One from this board and one from another. Paula and Mike were the first couple to contact us about a month before the cruise. They were from Indianapolis and were traveling without their three kids. We had planned an excursion for Roatan at resort that I found on this cruise board. We also planned to meet each other on Sunday upon arriving. We planned to meet up on the jogging track by the forward windows at 2PM. Well obviously we didn’t make that appointment. So while we were unpacking, I called the information desk and asked to be transferred to their room. I knew their last name but they had opted for a guarantee room so they did not know their room number when we were emailing each other. I knew my room, but just never gave it to them. It was imperative that I talk to them that day because the ship was stopping in Roatan the next day. After a few tries, I finally got a hold of Paula. She could not believe that we had just arrived on board that day and what we had been through. They actually thought we had snubbed them and had been trying to get a hold of us for two days. Carnival needs a message system of some kind. I see why people put notepads and post-it notes on their doors for people to leave messages. Since they had early dinner and were going to the show, we just agreed to meet each other the next day in Roatan. We decided to meet at the gangway because we did not need to tender in Roatan, we would be at a pier.
I think we went to bed right after dinner the first night since we were so exhausted and we were arriving in Roatan at 6AM ship time. Yikes!
The ship arrived in Roatan right on time. We had talked about ordering room service, but JT decided we should just go up and get something on the Lido deck. I called Paula & Mike to let them know we were running a few minutes behind and that we’d be down after we woofed down some food. They did room service so they said they would meet us out on the pier. I told Paula what I was wearing so she could pick me out when we got off. She recognized me immediately when we got off and we proceeded out to the outside of the gated area. All of Carnival’s tour buses were allowed to wait inside the gate so people were not hassled by the local people wanting to sell their tours. We had instructions from Paya Bay that the van would pick us up at the arrival of our ship and to look for someone holding a Paya Bay sign. So we stood outside next to a light post and waited. The locals and taxi drivers kept asking if we needed a ride or a tour and we just kept telling them ‘no’. I think JT went back to the ship to get something and came back. Paula went back to the ship to get something and came back. Still no Paya Bay. Paula and I checked the vans inside the fence again and did not see a Paya Bay van, all of them were for ‘ship sponsored’ tours. We waited two hours and still no Paya Bay van. I think at one point we mentioned to one of the taxi drivers who we were waiting for and of course they said they hadn’t seen them. We knew that Paya Bay was at least an hour drive from the pier and an hour back, and the ship was only in Roatan for 8 hours which, now that they were two hours late, was only going to leave us 4 hours at the resort instead of 6. We decided they weren't coming and went back to the ship, changed clothes, and were going to check out the shops we could see not far from the pier. Since I was the one that initiated contacting Paya Bay and recommending it to Paula and Mike, I would have normally been totally mortified that this happened. I would have felt completely responsible for ruining someone else’s time in port as well as our own. However, after the three-day adventure we had just endured, I was like ‘whatever’, chalk it up to something else going wrong on this trip. I wasn’t even worried about the $112 I had already paid for the excursion. I figured I’d just sort it out with the rest of the mess we would have to sort out when we got home. I’m sure Mike and Paula were wondering if our bad luck had rubbed off on them. They were very easy going and went with the flow too. They never once seemed mad at me or blamed me for Paya Bay not showing up. What I didn’t realize at that moment is that ‘everything happens for a reason’…..
We ventured out with Paula & Mike and ran into Brian & Sally right outside the fence. We introduced the two couples and told Paula & Mike that these were part of our “Survivor†group. We shopped for awhile and then Brian & Sally weren’t behind us anymore. I wasn’t too concerned, I’m sure they didn’t want to be joined at the hip with us for the rest of the trip. They went off and did their own thing. We pretty much just went around the open air shops since most of the shops were just little buildings with awnings. We went down until the road turned to dirt and then crossed the street and headed back. We stopped for a really nice photo shoot with some palm trees and the Paradise as the background. We took a picture of Paula & Mike and they took one of us.
Then we went by this shop that, for some reason, I went inside. There was the usual stuff to buy, but what caught my attention was an elderly lady sitting on a chair and another lady fanning her with a piece of cardboard. The lady in the chair did not look like she was feeling too well. She kept leaning forward, putting her head in her hands and leaning back. I asked the lady doing the fanning ‘is she all right?’ She gave me the standard ‘blow off’ and said ‘we have it handled’. As I walked by though, I could tell she needed help. I said to the lady, ‘no really, my husband’s a nurse’. Her eyes lit up and she said ‘really?’. I said ‘yes, let him have a look at her’. She agreed, and I called him over to have a look at her. Now, my husband is not officially a nurse yet. He is an EMT that has been on a volunteer Fire Department for 10 years, works in a Adult Intensive Care Unit, is a Hospital Corpsmen in the US Navy, and is currently attending nursing school. He was definitely qualified to help her and figure out what to do. I just knew by her response that doctor or nurse, would be the only things she would have accepted at that point. JT started assessing her, taking her pulse, asking her questions about her medical history, and making sure she wasn’t disoriented. Her pulse was extremely low for her age and the medication she was on was not helping that either. Dorothy and her daughter were on the Paradise too, so we asked Mike & Paula if they would run back to the ship and get a wheelchair and asked her daughter to get another bottle of water. We needed to get her back to the ship and carrying her was not an option. We didn’t call for a taxi, because most of them were down in the roundabout waiting for people to get off the ship. And it really wasn’t that far back to the ship, like less than 1/4 of a mile. I went out onto the outside deck of the shop. There was really no shade to speak of but there was a really good breeze on the backside of the shop. I went in to tell JT that there was a good breeze back there and that maybe we should try to move her outside. He wasn’t sure since there wasn’t much shade. Another couple showed up and since her daughter had never returned with any water, JT asked this couple if they would try to find some. JT went out back to check on the breeze, and agreed that it was way too hot inside the shop and they should move her. JT and this other guy, picked her and the chair up and scooted her back on to the back deck of the shop. There was something back there that was providing a little bit of shade and I stood between her and the sun too. The young lady from the other couple did find one bottle of water and even the shop owner was trying to help by providing a fan. JT found an old knife and started ripping his shirt off. He poured the cold water on the pieces of shirt and used them as a ‘cold compress’. Dorothy was finally starting to look better and getting some color back in her skin. Paula and Mike and Dorothy’s daughter showed back up around the same time. Dorothy’s daughter could not find any water and had gone back to the ship to get some. Paula and Mike described some difficulty in getting the ship to let them take the wheelchair and the ship’s medical staff can not leave the ship to help anyone. Dorothy had a few more sips of water and we loaded her into the wheelchair. We made haste back to the ship, I’m sure it was not a great ride for Dorothy. We got to the ship and JT wheeled her up the ramp and back to the infirmary. JT told the guards as he wheeled Dorothy right through the check, that I had his ID and so the daughter and I were fumbling for the ID cards of the two people that just went through plus our own.
When JT got to the infirmary with Dorothy, he started ‘giving report’ to who he thought was the nurse. She was standing behind the counter and JT couldn’t tell if the insignia on her collar signified if she was the nurse or not. Then this guy came over and said snottily ‘excuse me, but I am the nurse here’. JT’s not one to accept much attitude and said ‘well if you’re the nurse, then shut up and take report’. He wanted to get Dorothy laid down as soon as possible and this nurse was just being a total pain. JT finally said, ‘fine, what room do you want her in’, the nurse just pointed and JT wheeled her past him into the room. JT got her out of the wheelchair and laid down and the nurse decided to finally take her blood pressure. Then her daughter and I showed up. Dorothy wanted to give JT a hug and kiss before he left and kept apologizing for his shirt. Dorothy ended up being fine, she just had a case of heat exhaustion. (If you look at my pictures, #41 shows the shop, it’s the orange one with the white thing on the back corner of the wrap around deck. Pic #38 you can see that it really wasn’t that far.)
JT realized how funny he looked in his t-shirt, ripped off above his nipple line and wanted to go get a new shirt on. Luckily, it was one of his Fire Department shirts that he gets for free anyway. It went to a good cause. He changed his shirt, and we headed up to the Lido deck with Mike & Paula to get some lunch. While we were having lunch on the aft area of the Lido deck, the NCL Dream pulled up and anchored. We finished up and JT & I headed back out to finish shopping and Mike & Paula were just going to stay on the ship and relax. I went back to the store where we found Dorothy and bought a Roatan magnet. Also, with the confusion getting back on board with Dorothy, we had passed through with a small bottle of rum without having to check it in at the table. We figured we’d give it another try and bought another small bottle. JT bought some Honduras coffee and hot sauce. I think we spent all of $25. There were some really nice wood items to buy in Roatan. I just wasn’t in a ‘buying’ mood after the last couple of days.
We ran into Sally & Brian again and they had hired a taxi driver to drive them around the island and take them to some photo op spots. They had a great time and bought some great souvenirs. We told them about Dorothy and they were just shocked.
We all headed back to the ship since she sailed at like 3PM. Again, got our rum and Brian & Sally’s rum on board in my backpack without checking it in at the table. JT bought a soft drink card when we got back so he could have unlimited rum & cokes.
We had made plans to meet the second couple we had been in contact with at about 4PM in the area with the yellow couches by the Plaza bar.
Steve & Robin were from North Carolina, she is a CPA and he does lighting for movies and ads. They had been trying to contact us too and finally got a hold of us Tuesday when we first got on board. Again, they could not believe our misfortune. We talked with them for at least 2 hours because the photographers asked us to move so they could set up a photo shoot area there before dinner. In Cozumel, I arranged a private snorkel tour to Palancar and Columbia reefs with Steve & Robin and we were all hoping it would go smoothly.
We went up to the top deck aft, to watch the sunset and joked about the ‘green flash’ you are suppose to see when the sunsets. Has anyone actually seen this or is it a total myth? Never mind there’s probably another cruise board thread all about it. We took some great shots of the sunset and Steve & Robin but we had to go get ready for the ‘past guest’ party before dinner. Kurt & Denise were past guests too but since we arrived on ship in Belize, we didn’t actually get our invitation from our room steward (they missed it in the paperwork). Luckily, Mike & Paula were past guests too and told us about it, so we had to go to the information desk to get our invitations.
When we (JT & I, Denise & Kurt) arrived at the past guest party, Brett, our cruise director was greeting people as they came in. We said ‘Oh you’re the cruise director, we really need to talk to you’. JT had tried to set up a meeting with Brett through the information desk, but again the 3rd Purser (same one that checked us in) was a complete witch. (OK you know what I want to say). She said ‘anything you need from him would come through us anyway’. She had no idea…. Brett was cool and said ‘anytime’ just find me and sit me down. We figured we’d catch him on Saturday when we had a full day at sea.
We had a hard time finding a seat, but then there was a booth with three couples and they practically flagged us down and said ‘sit here’. They had heard bits & pieces of our adventure and wanted to know more! I think we had meet one of the ladies somewhere but didn’t tell the whole story. They were fun couples to talk to and were totally enthralled with the story. Drinks and appetizers were few and far between. We left when it was over and headed for dinner.
I think we had dinner with our group that night and went to bed early again. We did not have any interest to see any of the shows because this was our third time on the Paradise and all of the shows were the same as the first time we went in 2000. The only thing different were the comedians. We were a little disappointed when we went in 2001 because the shows were the same as in 2000, but we did not expect the shows would be the same 2 ½ years later but they were. Same shows, just with different people.
Thursday we were due into Grand Cayman around 9:30 according to the Capers. We set our alarm for I think about 9. However JT continued to hit the snooze button after it first went off. I remember thinking ‘we are still moving awfully fast for pulling into port soon’. About 10 minutes later Brett the cruise director announced over all intercoms (usually announcements are not ‘in cabin’) that the crew saw an emergency flare overnight and that we spent some time looking around before the Coast Guard cleared us to stop looking and move on. We would now be arriving late and due to the rough seas, several of the ship’s snorkel tours (and believe scuba too) were canceled. Since this was our third time to Grand Cayman, our plan was to head up Seven Mile Beach to snorkel the wrecks of the Cali and Gamma on our own. Then we were going to do a little shopping for rum cakes and color changing sunglasses. Also, due to the rough waters, we were going to be anchored at a different spot off the island. We were not coming in at Georgetown like we normally would. So snorkeling was probably out for us too, since Seven Mile Beach and Georgetown are on the same side. We had heard Brian and Sally and Brian and Rhonda talking about going on the Atlantis submarine and thought that would be kind of cool. So we headed up to the tours desk to see if there was any openings left.
We had breakfast and headed down to the Queen Mary Lounge where we were supposed to wait for our tour to be called and catch the tender. We waited what seemed like forever. We waited with Richard, Denise & Kurt and Brian & Rhonda. Brian and Sally had booked their tour with an independent company so they were on like the first or second tender. I don’t think they got to do the Atlantis part of their tour since we arrived late. Richard, Denise & Kurt were going on one of the city tours and we were going on the Atlantis sub with Brian & Rhonda. We found out soon enough why the waiting for the tenders was taking so dang long. There were four large cruise ships trying to tender all of their passengers on to a single concrete pier that was maybe 15 feet wide by 60 feet long. Once you got on the tender, and got to the pier, it was total chaos where the tender boats were jockeying for positions to get in and out. On our way over, a helicopter flew really close by over our tender boat and someone said it came off of the yacht parked on the other side of the Seven Seas Navigator. I thought ‘no way that boat was big enough to carry a helicopter’, boy was I wrong because on our way back to the ship we watched (and photographed) that helicopter landing on the yacht. Cool! Anyway, right as our tender was pulling up to the pier to let us off, the boat from the Atlantis pulled up to pick us up. We boarded the Atlantis double decked boat and headed over to where the sub was. We watched her come up with some people from a previous tour and then we were allowed to board once they got off. We saw at least 3 turtles and lots of very pretty coral & fish.
It is really expensive and by far my first choice would be to snorkel or dive, but it was a really cool experience and well worth the money.
When we arrived back at the tiny pier, the Atlantis boat was equipped to let people off the front so he just pulled right in a really shallow spot that the other tender boats couldn’t use and let us off. There was a gargantuan line, no kidding the line was longer than the pier they were using. The Carnival Conquest was supposed to leave at 3 according to their sign, and it was 2 right now. We went potty and looked for a place in line. We kept asking people if that was the line for the Conquest or the Paradise and almost everyone was waiting for the Conquest so we headed down toward the pier. When we got closer and were still asking people which boat they were waiting for one guy said ‘it’s the same line for both Carnival ships’. JT knew right away that couldn’t be right because one tender does not go to two ships. So he told us to wait and he’d ask one of the Paradise guards. Just as he got down to the pier, the guards were coming up the hill looking for Paradise passengers. JT signaled for us to come on, and the other people were trying to get in our way and acted like we were cutting in line or something even though we were saying ‘excuse me’. Sorry our tender was there and yours wasn’t, deal with it.
So we decided we were not going to try to do any shopping or anything else in Grand Cayman due to the tender situation and by golly we were not going to take a chance on missing that ship again for any reason. The ship was staying later because we were late getting there, but we weren’t chancing it.
I think that night we hit the hot tub before dinner and tested our new camera case in the swimming pool. We bought a waterproof case to put our digital camera inside to take snorkeling. Well since Cozumel the next day was going to be our first opportunity to use it, we figured we’d test it out first without the camera inside. The people in the hot tub got to hear our story and one of the girls was thinking that her lost luggage wasn’t so bad after all. Amazing how perspectives change on problems when you hear about someone else’s. That night was formal night so we got cleaned up and headed up for dinner.
Friday morning we arrived in Cozumel. We slept as late as we could since this trip was so draining mentally and physically. Kurt and Denise asked if they could join Steve & Robin and JT & I on the private snorkeling trip we had booked. Before we left home, all we wanted to do at every port was snorkel. Cozumel was going to be our last opportunity to snorkel on this trip. We aren’t dive qualified yet, so we just love to get into the water and snorkel to see all the fish and coral. I found Dive with Alison on a website and contacted her about a snorkel trip. She said that she had a dive that morning, but her boat would be available at 1:30PM for a snorkeling trip, and the price of $150 would be the same for one person as it would for 6 people. We knew that Steve and Robin were going to go with us which made the cost per person $37.50, but now that Kurt and Denise wanted to go, it brought the price down to $25 per person. When we arrived in Cozumel, it was rough again and all of the ship tours for snorkeling and diving were canceled. Sally and Brian were excited because they booked the beginning scuba excursion on the ship and now it was canceled. I thought ‘oh no, not again’ and wondered if our private tour would still be on. I had no way to contact Alison, so when we got off the boat the six of us flagged down a taxi van and told him of the marina we had to go to. For about $17 we arrived at the marina just after 1PM Cozumel time, and Alison was waiting for us. She was very nice and said that she had to cancel her morning dive due to the rough waters. I asked how things were now and she asked if any of us got seasick. We all said no and she said we’d be fine. She told us to check and make sure we had all of our gear in case we needed anything else. We were off. The waves were not that high and we had a great ride out to the reefs. We chose to go to Palancar and Columbia reefs because we had tried to go there in 2001, but due to the strong currents that day, they took us to other reefs. We had one guy driving the boat and one guy as our snorkel guide. We stopped at our first reef. We all got our gear on and jumped off the side of the boat. Our guide was tossing out little pieces of food and the big sea chubs were coming right up to us to eat. Then right away we saw a turtle! It was great. About 15 minutes after we got into the water, JT was complaining that his mask broke. I thought it was just the strap or something, so I just kept snorkeling and the boat driver came over to help him out. When he dove down to take a picture of the turtle, his mask really broke. It was un-fixable. JT wears prescription glasses and his mask actually has his prescription as the lenses of the mask so he doesn’t have to wear glasses or contacts. I wear my contacts when I snorkel. The piece that holds the lens in, completely came off and water was rushing into his mask. Luckily he reached up and grabbed the lens so it didn’t end up at the bottom with the plastic piece that came off. JT was done snorkeling after only 15 minutes in the water. Even with a new mask, he couldn’t see. His vision is horrible without correction. The rest of us continued to snorkel, some were unaware that JT had a problem and was done. At one point the boat driver borrowed a mask from another boat and JT decided that even thought he couldn’t see anything, he wanted to be in the water with us. I was his guide and even though we saw a pair of spotted rays, all JT saw was two big blobs.
So for the snorkel trip the only one with bad luck was JT and the rest of us had an incredible time. It was getting close to time to leave and another boat came by and dropped off about 10 divers that scared everything off anyway, so we packed it up and headed back. Alison met us when we got back and already had a van taxi waiting for us. When we got to the main road, there were two guys standing at the side of the road in full scuba gear, tanks and all, trying to hail a cab. Our van was full so they had to wait for another one.
We headed back to the ship to get cleaned up. We all planned to meet at Carlos’n Charlie’s for drinks that night. We ate some dinner, since we paid for food on the ship, might as well not pay for food off the ship. We were a little late in getting there, so we just missed Brian and Rhonda. They were having dinner in the dining room so they didn’t come back out. So it was Brian, Sally, Kurt, Denise, Mike, Paula, JT, & I and Carlos’n Charlie’s was going to seat us up front near the door. But then when we told them we didn’t need menus, just drinks, they tried to move us to a different area. They wanted to seat us right on the dance floor where it was so loud you couldn’t even read lips. We tried to get them to put us where they originally were going to seat us, but they wouldn’t. We left and decided to try Senor Frogs right upstairs. Senor Frogs had separate areas for people eating and people just drinking too, but we didn’t have to sit right on the dance floor and it wasn’t nearly as loud as Carlos’n Charlie’s. Most of us ordered the yard glass of Margaritas (peach, strawberry, & mango), JT ordered Sol beer, and Sally had a half yard. Then the parting started and there were conga lines with shot stops, a girl was going around doing ‘shaker shots’ and we proceeded to getting hammered. OK, JT does NOT dance and even he was dancing. I hit the gift shop after visiting the ladies room and soon JT came out and picked out a t-shirt and do-rag while I got my magnet and keychain. While I was in the gift shop, Mike and Paula left but Steve and Robin showed up and they each had a yard margarita. We had a total blast, dancing and drinking the night away. The ship was leaving at 11PM, so we headed back at 10PM even though the ship was right across the street, we still weren’t taking any chances it would leave without us. The
Biggest lessons:
Always travel the day before
Always have toiletries & clothes with you
Always travel with a passport (you never know where you could end up)
Always buy travel insurance
Always read the fine print of your documents
(Carnival is conveniently not responsible for anything)
Document everything and get names of people you talk to
So go potty, grab a tall drink and read on...
Our trip started out the usual way. We got up at 4AM to catch our 6:10AM flight on Northwest (1942) Sunday November 16th. We were flying through Memphis Tennessee so we were not worried about getting to Miami, until we arrived and the pilot said we would have to circle for a few minutes for the thick fog to clear off. After circling for 15 or 20 minutes, the pilot came on the intercom and said the fog was not cleared off enough and that we needed to fly up to St Louis for more fuel. When we landed in St. Louis, I called Northwest airlines to see if I could get connecting flight information. They said that since there was a group of at least 9 people trying to catch a cruise ship, there was a special department at the airport working on other arrangements.
We got back in the air after refueling on the tarmac, and headed back for Memphis. When we arrived it was still really foggy. I think our pilot was determined to get us on the ground. We made a first attempt to land and all of the sudden we began to climb again. We never saw the ground and we could barely see the wing of the airplane and my seat was right on the wing. The pilot informed us that the deck of clouds was still too low and that we would have to try again. We circled around for a second attempt. Again we were watching the wing disappear in an out of the clouds. Then all of the sudden the ground appeared, the pilot made a swift adjustment and we landed without incident. By this time we were about an hour late for our connecting flight (0940) to Miami.
When we got off of the plane, there was a lady from Northwest that informed us that our flight had left and to go down to the gate that it left from. When we got to the gate there were two ladies working the desk and we got in line behind another couple. Each couple went to the bathroom in shifts- while one person watched the bags, the other one went. Everyone used the bathroom and came back and the ladies behind the desk were still helping the same people from when we first got there. We stood there for what seemed like forever and I was watching the line at one of the other desks with just one guy. I finally wandered over to his line since it was down to one person. We found out that the couple in front of us was going on the Paradise as well, so there was a total of 11 people who missed the flight to Miami and were suppose to be getting on the Paradise. There were at least 11 people that were suppose to be on that flight and the flight took off without us, nine from our plane alone. I have seen a plane wait over ½ hour for 2 people, they couldn’t have waited an hour for 11 people? All 11 of us headed over to the other desk to see if Michael could help us. He checked all of the flights to Miami and Fort Lauderdale that had openings and there were not enough openings for all 11 of us on the same flights. Even with the openings that were available, most of them did not arrive in Miami until well after 5PM. Carnival changed the port that the Paradise was leaving from to Fort Lauderdale due to a Free Trade convention that was taking place in Miami and the protesters that were going to be there. So even if we arrived in Miami at 5PM, there was still a 45-minute bus ride to Fort Lauderdale to follow. Once we found out that there were not enough openings on the flights and that we wouldn’t arrive until well after the 4PM-ship departure time, we called Carnival. The first person I talked to told me that we would have to fly to the ships first port of call, which was Belize City and that the airline was responsible. She could not be of anymore help than that. I told her that the group would discuss it and call them back.
We found out who in the group of 11 had passports and who were traveling with photo ID and birth certificates. One couple only had photo ID’s, they didn’t have any other identification. We found out later that they would not have been able to get on the ship at all since they only had photo ID’s. We started jockeying for spots on the flights going to Miami that would not arrive in time. Then the couple without proper ID got on the phone to Carnival and JT got on the phone to Carnival. I don’t think the couple was getting very far with Carnival as I could tell she was getting more upset by the minute. JT finally found someone at Carnival (Suzanne Perata) that was willing to help and we ended up being on the phone with her for several hours. Now another person showed up at the desk with Michael and we were asking her how much it would cost to get from Memphis to Belize City. Anntoinette said a one way ticket would cost $530 since there wasn’t 7 days notice. You still have to have 7 days notice when you are left behind by the flight you were suppose to be on???
Out of 11 people, only 4 had the trip insurance to cover the extra cost to get to Belize City and even with the insurance it was going to be $60 in out of pocket cost. A little while later, Anntoinette with Northwest came up with a suggestion to fly to Cancun Mexico and drive down to Belize City from there. She said she had been down there recently and that it was about an 80 mile bus ride from Cancun, Mexico to Belize City and the bus ride costs about $45 per person. She could put us on the flight today to Cancun for no extra charge. This made our cost $90, but we would get that all back with the trip insurance. We had no reason not to believe her information and had no idea how far away Belize City really was from Cancun.
So we made the arrangements for nine of us to fly from Memphis directly to Cancun. The other couple from Nebraska decided to go home because they did not have the proper identification to get on the ship anyway. Suzanne at Carnival recorded our intentions to catch the ship in Belize City because otherwise they would have sold our rooms.
We left Memphis on our flight (1968) to Cancun around 1:38PM and were set to arrive in Cancun around 4PM. While waiting to board, we met a guy at the airport who was a very seasoned traveler and had been to Cancun numerous times. He gave us some advice on the people at the Cancun airport and a company to use to take us to Belize City. He said, “Everyone will want to be your friend at the airport to get your business.â€Â
We arrived in Cancun, went through customs and proceeded over to the turnstile to pick up our luggage. Out of nine people, not one piece of luggage arrived with us on the flight. All of our stomachs sank. Most of us did not prepare for lost luggage. We did not bring any clothes or toiletries with us. We found some people that were checking luggage tags and told them that our luggage did not arrive. They called someone on the radio to check the plane and they did not find it. So we started filling out lost luggage forms. We had to give them descriptions of the luggage, it’s approximate contents, combinations to any locks and since JT had a padlock on one of ours, he had to give them the key. The people at the Cancun airport were very nice & helpful. We told them of our plan to drive to Belize City the next day and that we had no where to stay for the night. They walked us though the areas of gooneys trying to get our business and they arranged hotel accommodations and transportation to the hotel for us. They told us that the rate per night was going to be $69 and that the van would be $25. Some of the guys were complaining about the cost of the hotel as we all piled into a van to head to our hotel.
We arrived at the Omni and I could tell immediately that it was a fine resort. When we were checking in, they offered us beer and pop, free of charge. We each got our room assignments and the hotel employees directed us to our room. The room was absolutely incredible. Marble floors and bathroom, king size bed, wet bar, huge closet, and the toilet paper was even folded to resemble a peacock. We decided to put what little stuff we had in our rooms and meet the group out in the lobby lounge area. This would become our regular meeting place and it happened to be across from the concierge desk.
It was at this point that we really started to get to know each other. It was happy hour at the bar so the drinks were two for the price of one. Some of us ordered drinks and some didn’t. Brian and Rhonda are an African American couple that we got in line behind at the Memphis ticket counter. Brian is a postal worker and Rhonda works for a CD copyright place that destroys pirated CD’s. She also enters sweepstakes as a hobby and has won lots of stuff. Richard is an older gentleman and a farmer from Spencer IA. He was sitting directly across from us on the airplane and is going on his first cruise solo. Brian and Sally are computer programmers from Winterset, IA and this is their first cruise. Kurt and Denise are from Seward NE, Kurt is a truck driver and Denise is a number cruncher like me.
JT had asked the driver of the van (Dita) that brought us to the Omni for rates to take the nine of us to Belize City. The driver did not know but he would call us that night with the information. JT also checked with the concierge Miguel to see if the hotel had any recommendations for us. Miguel informed JT that it was much further than 80 miles. JT’s asked, “how much further?†650km or about 400 miles he says.
We are now talking about an 8 hour drive vs. what we thought would be about 2 hours. I had a book with a map in the luggage that I ‘checked’. Miguel also informed us that the buses that run are ‘second class’ and not to travel at night. So when JT came back over to where the group was sitting, he did not have good news to relay. The van company that the hotel recommended would drive us for $850 US dollars. Split nine ways was about $94 each. I was willing to spend a few extra bucks to make sure we got there rather than taking a ‘second class’ bus, where who knows where you could end up or how long an 8 hour trip would take. Thoughts of the grey dog crossed my mind.
After the news, Brian, Rhonda & Richard headed to their rooms for some shut eye and the other three couples checked out one of the hotels eating establishments. We agreed to meet again around 8 AM at our usual spot the next day.
After splitting some appetizer type foods, the rest of us headed for a shower and sleep. Around 11PM, we received a call from the other van company about the rate to take us to Belize. Dita wanted $550, but they would not give us their phone # to call them back. JT said “fine, just call us tomorrow so I can discuss it with our groupâ€Â. It kind of sent up red flags in our mind when they wouldn’t give their phone #.
So the next morning we gathered with the group, and found out that the other van company had come down in price. They now wanted $650. We still felt funny about Dita and told the group about the late night phone call. They agreed that it sound like the $650 driver would be the way to go. So now the discussion was about the luggage. How awful it is when your underwear dictates your travel plans. I really didn’t want to wash them in the sink again and blow dry with the hair dryer. The question was, do we leave right now (Monday) without our luggage, or wait to see if it arrived on a flight today and leave early Tuesday. We knew that the ship would be in Belize City from 8AM to 5PM Belize time and that since the ship tenders in, the last tender would be around 3:45 or 4PM. We decided to wait to see if the luggage arrived and then started discussing what time to hit the road for Belize City. We knew we wanted some cushion time in case something went wrong as we did not want to miss the ship again. We suggested 6AM, but Brian and Rhonda were thinking more like 1AM. We all compromised and agreed on 3AM. We had the concierge call the van company and tell him to be there at 3AM. So since we were going to spend the day in Cancun, we decided to head down to the beach. JT & I had traveled in shorts & t-shirts but Brian & Rhonda were in nicer clothes. So they were out on the beach in their good clothes. Some of us got our feet wet and we took some pictures. Brian, Rhonda, Kurt, Denise, & Richard decided to get some breakfast at the beach side restaurant. They were serving a breakfast buffet for $10. Brian and Sally had actually packed some other clothes and toiletries so they wanted to get their suits on and go swimming. I wanted to go swimming in a bad way because the ocean was rough but really beautiful and the pools at the Omni were awesome. So I checked the beach front store to look for a swimsuit. I am some what of a plus size girl, and there were no swimming suits there that were even going to come close to fitting. Next option, buy men’s shorts and a t-shirt to swim in. The did not have any men’s shorts that would fit either. There was another shop inside the hotel that had swim stuff so we checked there. After at least 20 minutes of looking thru the shorts, I finally found a pair to fit and so did JT. We grabbed a couple of t-shirts and headed for the register. 980 pesos she says. I did some quick math and said ‘wait a minute, how much is that in US’. She confirmed $94 US. I looked at my husband and said, no pool is worth $94. Especially if we get our luggage back today. It just wasn’t worth it. Each pair of shorts was $38 and it wasn’t like they were name brand or anything. So dejected, we headed back down to where Brian and Sally were laying by the pool and told them of the outrageous prices. We also found Denise and told her the bad news as she wanted to buy some swim clothes as well. After that we all pretty much went our separate ways and decided to meet back up at three which was when the people from Northwest were suppose to get to work so we could check on the luggage.
So about 3PM, we headed back to the lobby bar area and JT asked Miguel, the concierge call the airline. The woman at the airline confirmed that there were 9 pieces of luggage on the same flight that we had been on the day before and that they would deliver it around 6PM. When the group all gathered, we figured we were looking for 12 pieces of luggage to arrive, not 9. At this point we were cool with that, 9 out of 12 was better than none. Also, while we were waiting for the luggage, the van driver from Dita showed up. Now we hadn’t been in the room much, but each time we were, JT checked to see if there were messages. So we thought the guy from Dita didn’t call us back. So, when he showed up, we told him since he didn’t call, we were using someone else for our trip. He did not look happy and tried to get us to tell him who we were using (we said 'none of your business' of course), and he just kept hanging around looking like he wasn’t sure how he was going to tell his boss they had lost the sale. Come to find out later, he did call and that the phone in our room was not working properly. JT had to have the front desk access our messages. We felt bad about that, but we would find out the next day that we made the right choice. Melu (May-Loo) from Northwest had left a message too. She called to say that our luggage did not arrive on the 4PM flight we had been on the day before, but she was hoping it would be on another flight coming in. The last flight arriving that night was coming in around 7PM. Good thing it was happy hour again…. 7PM came and still NO luggage. Melu was very apologetic and did not know why they (Northwest in the States) was giving her the wrong information. At this point she did not know where it was or when it would be there. We told her that if it did come in, try to get it to Cozumel by Friday. We didn’t want them to try Belize City because it was the next day and we didn’t think they could get it there in time. At least with Cozumel, they had a few days and Cozumel is only 50 miles away. So here it was almost 8PM now and most of us did not have any clothes or toiletries and may not have them until Friday. Obviously buying things at the resort stores was out due to the prices. We kindly asked Miguel if there was a Wal-mart or department store in Cancun. He said sure we have a Wal-mart in downtown Cancun. So Miguel gave us a map and detailed instructions of how to get there. We could take the public bus for 6 pesos (about .60) per person each way. What a bargain. So 8 of us walked down to the street to catch the bus. Brian (of Brian & Sally) wasn’t feeling up to it and stayed back at the hotel. We headed down the Cancun ‘strip’ and there were so many cool restaurants and places to go. We started talking about doing a 5 year reunion trip to Cancun to do it right! We got off at the stop Miguel told us about and sure enough right across from the Porsche dealership was the Wal-mart. We each headed off in our own directions after agreeing to meet back up in about an hour. Power shopping began. Luckily, we had composed a list so we wouldn’t forget anything. At this point though, I was buying as if I had left the luggage at home. I was going to be prepared if it never showed up and tried to keep in mind that the ship does have a laundry room.
The only thing was the tags on the clothes were all in Spanish and their number sizes are different than ours. I couldn’t just eyeball something and tell if it would fit or not. Summer clothes were pretty picked over and they were selling sweaters & long sleeved stuff. Then they closed the fitting rooms and I couldn’t try anything else on. Luckily at that point I had a better idea on the sizes.
So we had a basket full of clothes for both of us, the toiletry items, and some shoes. How were we going to carry it all to the ship? JT asked (as best he could) where to find a big bag. He ended up back in sporting goods where he picked up two duffel bags. Sally had mentioned getting an extra bag too so the second one was for her. We started checking out. I saw that we forgot something, so I ran to the back of the store to get it. JT was neatly packing everything in the duffel bag as she rang it up. We ended up needing the second bag, which was OK because Sally had already checked out. Our total 4,193 Pesos. Ouch, that was going to be nearly $400. JT gave her our credit card, and it was denied. She tried again, denied again. The only other card we had was our bank check card that comes right out of our checking account. It worked. Whew.
Then Sally came over to us in a panic, we needed to get out of there soon because Richard found out that the last bus runs at midnight and it was about 11:45 now. JT & I and Brian and Rhonda were the only ones left, we were almost done, but Brian and Rhonda had picked out a small suitcase to carry thier stuff in and the zipper was broken so they were getting a replacement. We got out of there on time and caught the bus with no problem.
By the time we got back to the hotel it was 12:30AM and our van driver was coming at 3AM. We checked out of our room, and headed for bed. I know I heard my watch beep 1AM and we were getting up at 2:30AM so I got a whole hour ½ worth of sleep if that much.
Carlos Fernando showed up promptly at 2:55 AM and we all piled what little stuff we had in the back of the van and headed down the road. JT sat up front with Carlos and talked to him to make sure he stayed awake. Carlos was teaching him Spanish and JT was teaching him some English. Most of us tried to catch some more zzz’s on the way. We stopped at a gas station after about 4 hours on the road to get gas. The other ladies were in for a surprise in the bathrooms. I used to work for a meat packing plant and we often hired temporary workers that were usually Mexican. In Mexico, they do not flush the used toilet paper. There is usually a trash can next to the toilet to dispose of the used paper, & if there is no trash can it just gets thrown on the floor. I’m not exactly sure why they do this (may be lack of sewer systems) but I expected it when I went to the bathroom there. Our cleaning staff would refuse to clean the bathrooms until we figured what to do and put trashcans in there. There was also no ‘seats’ on the toilets. So, some of us went and some decided to ‘hold it’.
We finally hit the border of Mexico and Belize around 8AM near the town of Chetumal. Carlos pulled into the parking lot and told us we needed to take all of our stuff with us inside. There was one lady working the counter. She handed us the forms to fill out and did not have any pens. JT had a couple in his backpack, so we filled out ours first and handed the pens around. She stamped our passports and we headed for another counter where they could check bags if they wanted to. They didn’t check any of our bags and said we could wait outside. We went out of the back of the building and went around to the front where we came in at. Then there was a problem.
Out of the 9 of us 5 had passports and the other 4 only had their birth certificates and photo ID’s. The lady behind the counter said “No, you can not enter†(her English was limited). So the 5 of us with passports hung out outside and waited for our friends. ***Right now I’m going to paste in an excerpt from Brian’s (Sally’s husband) story of what happened as they were the ones in ‘the hallway of doom’ with Brian and Rhonda.
“We arrived at the Belizian border at about 8:00am. With little sleep, in poorly fitting clothing and few possessions we entered the customs line with our paperwork in hand. Remember that my wife and I, plus another couple, had only certified birth certificates and a photo ID. We'd been told this wouldn't be enough to enter the country but that we could purchase temporary visas for another $25 per day per person. I was holding my breath, however, because nothing for the last two days had gone right and if we were stuck at the Belizian border, without our companions or even our van driver and ride, we were in very bad shape indeed.
As we approached the customs counter, the Belizian woman on the other side saw our paperwork and said, "No". She wouldn't even listen to our story. She did speak some English but was adamant that we couldn't get in and there was nothing we could do. When we mentioned the temporary visas she shook her head but with the help of Carlos (our van driver), we were able to convince her to at least let us speak to the "Director" in charge. Reluctantly, she directed us to her shift supervisor who was working on the other side of the building. So my wife and I, plus the other couple, Brian and Rhonda, began our wait in the "Hallway of Doom" for an audience with this border official. We probably waited 45 minutes or so before the man we'd been waiting to see arrived. Rather than speak with us however, we were ignored for another ten minutes as he entered an office with what appeared to be other co-workers. Carlos, our van driver, tried multiple times to let him know that we needed to speak with him but he wasn't interested. Finally, one of the said "co-workers" came out of his office and began to leave. Before doing so however, almost on a whim she turned to us and in pretty decent English said something to the effect of, "You might as well turn around your bus now and leave. The director isn't here and our supervisor already called him and his answer was 'NO'. You must have a passport to enter our country, you should just go back to America now."
We were devastated. Our worst fears realized and a feeling of helplessness and sorrow surrounded us. Rhonda burst into tears as Brian and myself stared at the floor knowing we could do nothing. Carlos, however, came alive. He was mad now and although he was nothing but smiles and apologetic to us, had a look of determination in his eyes. He opened and went into the "supervisors" office uninvited and shut the door. Through the smoky glass windows we could see him begin to argue with the "supervisor". Animatedly his arms swung as his body language suggested he fought for us although it was in Spanish and we couldn't understand the conversation. After five minutes, Carlos came back out to us and said that the man would hear us now.
Shocked and emotionally drained we entered the small dark office timid and afraid to speak. The "supervisor" on the other side of the desk glowered at us and said nothing as we slowly tried to tell him what happened. We showed him our birth certificates and photo IDs. After looking at them closely for what seemed hours (but was probably more like 3 minutes), he called the "director" and spoke with him briefly in Spanish before hanging up the phone and saying, "No". We tried again as Carlos explained that he'd take full responsibility. We explained over and over that we were going to catch a Carnival cruise ship and we wouldn't be in the country but for a few short hours. Finally he asked us for more identification such as a social security card, which my wife and I happened to have. Brian and Rhonda however, could only produce their United States Postal Worker identification cards. With this new information, the "supervisor" called the "director" back and again the answer was still a "No". He explained, with Carlos' help, that normally Carnival calls ahead to clear nationality problems and confirm our passenger status in a case like this but that no call had ever been made by Carnival in this particular situation (very important!). Because of that we could not enter without passports. This is my MAJOR complaint with Carnival.
We begged and showed him our boat tickets and Carnival booklets. He suggested that perhaps if we were to call Carnival and get them to confirm our status as passengers that he could again call the "director" so we all tried our cell phones but there was, of course, no service. And because it was a long distance call, the "supervisor" was reluctant to let us use his office phone. Carlos began to argue with the man in Spanish again and was able to convince him that we'd "compensate" him for the phone call with perhaps a little more. This changed the man's mind and we attempted to call Carnival. Our first few attempts were met with failure as 1-800 numbers did not work from there. Carnival had provided us with another number (non 1-800) that I found in our travel packet. Unfortunately, my first 3 attempts to call the US were denied for lack of line outside of the country. Finally, when my call did go through, I was able to speak with a Carnival representative.
I explained our situation as calmly as I could but when I told her (the Carnival rep) that Carnival knew we were meeting the boat in Belize and normally they called ahead to clear this sort of problem, she got very defensive. I immediately diffused the situation by telling her that I wasn't intending to cast blame at this point. I explained that I was currently in a very difficult situation and that I needed it resolved as quickly and smoothly as possible. After taking our booking numbers, she was able to tell the Belizian "supervisor" that I and my wife were indeed US citizens and booked on the cruise. For Brian and Rhonda, however, she couldn't resolve the problem so quickly. Apparently, since they were booked as part of a group, Carnival had to get US Immigration on the line to confirm their nationality to this Belizian border official. Once this was done, the "supervisor" called the "director" and explained the situation at which point the "director" said it was at the discretion of the "supervisor" to grant us our visas. The "supervisor" rubbed his chin and looked at our documents before telling us in broken English that he would in fact grant us our temporary visas at $25 per person and that he wouldn't charge us for the phone call BUT anything extra we felt was appropriate compensation we should pay him. Each couple gave this man $20 as a BRIBE to allow the visas.
Twenty minutes later, we had been cleared through the boarder. Unfortunately, Carlos' van failed apparently failed customs and he was being temporarily detained. While we waited for him outside, we discussed what happened inside with our fellow travelers when quickly Carlos, in his van, pulled up to us. He jumped out and threw open the back doors and quickly exclaimed that we were to immediately put our bags in the van and that we had to leave right then! Nervous, tired, hot, sticky, broke, drained and now scared to death we jumped in this van as he went through the boarder. We thought we were going to be shot at right then by the multiple men with machine guns around the border checkpoint. I don't know what happened really, and we didn't ask. Carlos got us through and became a hero in this story.â€Â
So while all of this was happening inside, the 5 of us outside were discussing what to do if our friends could not get across the border. At that point the goal would just to get home without forking out a fortune to do it. Even though the cruise would be virtually over, the plan would have been to drive back north and catch the ship in Cozumel on Friday for a ‘free ride’ home to Miami. The other two couple actually thought we would leave them behind. Never, we were family by now! This little ordeal took us two hours so it was a good thing we left early.
We went through the border gates and Carlos said he had to stop at an insurance hut. We found out that Carlos had to bribe the border people too for some reason, he paid $50 to get his van through. After ten minutes at the insurance hut, we got on the road and not ½ mile down the road was the first Police checkpoint. Carlos got out of the van and showed the heavily armed Policeman the paperwork on his clipboard. At first he was shaking his head ‘no’ but then Carlos got to the last piece of paper and pointed to it and with a few nods, he finally let us pass. Now the roads between Cancun and about Tulum were similar to our Interstates, after that it was like highways but each town had speed bumps to slow down traffic. In Belize the road was worse than state highways with no shoulders. The road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other but we were still doing at least 60MPH most of the time. Belize had lots of speed bumps too. There was a second Police check point about an hour or so later. The two Policemen were standing in the middle of the road. Carlos stopped behind a car, the car was waved through. Carlos pulled up, did a coasting stop and kept going because the Policemen were working with the traffic going the opposite direction. We all thought we were going to prison after that one, but they didn’t come after us. We stopped for gas again. The pump read 7.00 per gallon. I wasn’t sure if Belize had their own money or if that was still in Pesos. Carlos tried to pay the pump operator, but he was shaking his head that what he was trying to pay was not enough. So the two of them when inside the gas station, we opened the door of the van to get some air and we could hear them shouting at each other. Carlos finally came out and asked us if we had $5 US dollars. I just happened to have a $5 bill handy and gladly gave it to him to get us out of there. About 45 minutes after the gas station, there was another Police checkpoint. I’m not sure Carlos saw it or cared because he didn’t even stop. We really thought we were done for this time, but nobody chased us down.
Finally we made it to Belize City!! I knew that the ship had to tender people in to Belize due to the reefs, and all I knew was that the name of the place was the ‘Tourism Village’ (thanks to the cruise boards). I didn’t have a clue how to get there. Carlos made a left turn off of the main road and it dead ended at the sea. We could see a large ship in the distance and it looked like a Carnival ship! We went back to the main road and then it branched off. Left or Right? I said right because it looked busier. Carlos had already stopped one person on a bike that didn’t know where we needed to go. It must have been around noon as there were school children in their school uniforms everywhere and it was too early to be out for the day. Then he stopped at a little food stand like you see at state fairs. He started talking to a couple of ladies and they acted like they knew where we needed to go. She was having a tough time explaining it to Carlos, so she decided to come with us! We were lucky to find someone so nice, as it would have been impossible to explain how to get there. After weaving through town we arrived at the village. I jumped out of the van and told the group that I was going to make sure the ‘ship’ was there. I was looking for the security booth that Carnival usually sets up in ports that you tender to. I found it and briefly told the security guard the situation and that we would be right back. When I got back to the group, they had the van unloaded and were getting ready for Mrs Rodriguez (our Angel) to take our picture with Carlos (our hero). Mrs Rodriguez even helped Carlos get back out of town to the main road!
We headed back to the area the Paradise tenders were coming to. We gave security all of our packets of information and tickets, along with our ID’s. He radioed to the ship and they cleared us to get on the next tender. While we were waiting, I noticed a sign for the time of the last tender. It said 7PM and I thought it was strange that it was later than our documents stated. Sally was having her last cigarette, as the Paradise was her excuse to quit anyway. While we tendered over to the ship, which was way out there, another couple on the tender was telling us that the ship was late getting to Belize that day. Monday night they had to make a quick stop in Cozumel to drop off a sick passenger. There was an announcement made around noon on Monday that they would be making the stop. Why didn’t they let us know they were stopping in Cozumel? Carnival knew where we were, and we could have been in Cozumel Monday night with no border problems and not $650 lighter! This is also why they were staying later in port.
So my review for Belize…. OK if you don’t have to cross a border. We didn’t spend any ‘quality’ time there unfortunately.
Sally had talked about going back in to do some shopping, but the rest of the group, including her husband decided that once we got to that ship we were not getting off! (until the next port anyway)
We finally made it to the ship!!! We showed security our documents and ID’s and they told us to head up to the information desk for our room assignments. We had our room already since I booked a specific room. The rest of our group had opted for ‘guarantee’ rooms. We got ours first and the Purser helping us was not sympathetic to our story at all. The other two Pursers at the desk seemed more sympathetic, but they were also ‘in training’ under the one helping us. One of them asked if they could get someone to help us with our bags, and JT told her, ‘sorry but I’m not letting these bags out of my sight since our luggage was lost by the airline’. She said ‘Oh no sir, your luggage arrived this morning and is in your cabins’. WHAT!! How did OUR luggage beat us to the ship! Melu took a chance and put it on a plane to Belize City with EXPEDITE tags. Anyway, we were all so happy we had a drink at the Plaza bar before we headed to our cabins. Our luggage was indeed there, but it was in the hallway outside our room, who knows for how long? We were in R76, forward on the port side and Brian and Sally were in R20, way forward on the port side. Richard was in M50 a forward inside cabin on the Main deck. Brian and Rhonda were in E128 mid ship on the Empress deck port side. Kurt and Denise were UPGRADED to a Veranda deck room with a balcony! V27 on the Starboard side. Granted, there were lifeboats in front of their balcony, but they still had a balcony!
We pulled our bags in and started unpacking. We decided not to use any of the stuff we purchased at Wal-mart the night before. Maybe we could return the items to the Wal-mart back home or donate them. JT did notice while unpacking that the 2 diving knives he packed were missing. At that point while unpacking, I finally cried. I had held it together though everything we had been through and I just finally had to cry. I was so happy & thankful that we made it to the ship in one piece.
Before we headed to our rooms, we all checked our room cards to see what table we were assigned to for dinner. Everyone but Richard was assigned to the Elation dining room late seating, just at different tables. Richard was in the other dining room with early seating. We went up to the Elation dining room to see if the Maitre d’ was there. He was not going to be there until 5:30. We wanted to talk to him about seating all nine of us at the same table. We had been through a lot together and wanted to be at the same table. Not that we didn’t want to meet new people, we just didn’t want to rehash this story with everyone we met while trying to enjoy the rest of our cruise. We agreed to meet back at the dining room at 5:30 to see if we could talk to him and make the arrangements. We came back at 5:30 and talked to the Maitre d’ and he didn’t see a problem with getting us a table together, he had a table for 8 that only two couples were coming to. He said to come to dinner at 8:45PM, and he would have it arranged. Richard went ahead and had dinner in the other dining room that night , but true to his word the 8 of us did get seated together that night and Richard joined us Wednesday. I guess the other two couples were not happy about getting moved. Sorry about that….
At this point we also found out that Denise and Kurt had a lot of stuff stolen out of their luggage. Their digital camera was missing, $400 in cash, and I think something else too. Granted they learned the hard way that you never pack cash in your luggage, but had also heard that you don’t want to carry all of your money with you in case you are robbed. TRAVELER’S CHECKS!! They are worth the $2 per hundred if you have to pay for them. You get the money back if they are stolen. Their cash was just gone, period. Has anyone actually had traveler’s checks stolen and replaced? Just wondering if it is a hassle?
We realized that not only were our dive knives missing, but our matching dress watches were gone too. Brian & Sally’s had stuff stolen too.
I opted for a 6PM massage before dinner and JT did not bat an eye at the $100 price because I was so tense and sore. If I hadn’t, I would have been miserable the entire time and he didn’t want that. The massage was good, I’ve had better ones but it did the trick. I had dueling knots on each shoulder blade. Then after the massage was the sales pitch. It really seemed like they were much pushier about selling stuff on board this time than the previous two times we were there.
We had a great dinner, we were disappointed to find out that we had missed the first formal night and really disappointed to find out we had missed the lobster!! The food the rest of the week was fairly good except for the Prime Rib on the second formal night. It was so dry, I had a couple of bites and that was it. JT didn’t like it either. Sorry, from Nebraska, know what good beef is supposed to taste like. Luckily we had ordered a second entrée as we pretty much did every night we were there.
Had to make up for two days worth of food we didn't eat.
Before we even left for the cruise, we had been talking with two other couples that we meet over cruise boards. One from this board and one from another. Paula and Mike were the first couple to contact us about a month before the cruise. They were from Indianapolis and were traveling without their three kids. We had planned an excursion for Roatan at resort that I found on this cruise board. We also planned to meet each other on Sunday upon arriving. We planned to meet up on the jogging track by the forward windows at 2PM. Well obviously we didn’t make that appointment. So while we were unpacking, I called the information desk and asked to be transferred to their room. I knew their last name but they had opted for a guarantee room so they did not know their room number when we were emailing each other. I knew my room, but just never gave it to them. It was imperative that I talk to them that day because the ship was stopping in Roatan the next day. After a few tries, I finally got a hold of Paula. She could not believe that we had just arrived on board that day and what we had been through. They actually thought we had snubbed them and had been trying to get a hold of us for two days. Carnival needs a message system of some kind. I see why people put notepads and post-it notes on their doors for people to leave messages. Since they had early dinner and were going to the show, we just agreed to meet each other the next day in Roatan. We decided to meet at the gangway because we did not need to tender in Roatan, we would be at a pier.
I think we went to bed right after dinner the first night since we were so exhausted and we were arriving in Roatan at 6AM ship time. Yikes!
The ship arrived in Roatan right on time. We had talked about ordering room service, but JT decided we should just go up and get something on the Lido deck. I called Paula & Mike to let them know we were running a few minutes behind and that we’d be down after we woofed down some food. They did room service so they said they would meet us out on the pier. I told Paula what I was wearing so she could pick me out when we got off. She recognized me immediately when we got off and we proceeded out to the outside of the gated area. All of Carnival’s tour buses were allowed to wait inside the gate so people were not hassled by the local people wanting to sell their tours. We had instructions from Paya Bay that the van would pick us up at the arrival of our ship and to look for someone holding a Paya Bay sign. So we stood outside next to a light post and waited. The locals and taxi drivers kept asking if we needed a ride or a tour and we just kept telling them ‘no’. I think JT went back to the ship to get something and came back. Paula went back to the ship to get something and came back. Still no Paya Bay. Paula and I checked the vans inside the fence again and did not see a Paya Bay van, all of them were for ‘ship sponsored’ tours. We waited two hours and still no Paya Bay van. I think at one point we mentioned to one of the taxi drivers who we were waiting for and of course they said they hadn’t seen them. We knew that Paya Bay was at least an hour drive from the pier and an hour back, and the ship was only in Roatan for 8 hours which, now that they were two hours late, was only going to leave us 4 hours at the resort instead of 6. We decided they weren't coming and went back to the ship, changed clothes, and were going to check out the shops we could see not far from the pier. Since I was the one that initiated contacting Paya Bay and recommending it to Paula and Mike, I would have normally been totally mortified that this happened. I would have felt completely responsible for ruining someone else’s time in port as well as our own. However, after the three-day adventure we had just endured, I was like ‘whatever’, chalk it up to something else going wrong on this trip. I wasn’t even worried about the $112 I had already paid for the excursion. I figured I’d just sort it out with the rest of the mess we would have to sort out when we got home. I’m sure Mike and Paula were wondering if our bad luck had rubbed off on them. They were very easy going and went with the flow too. They never once seemed mad at me or blamed me for Paya Bay not showing up. What I didn’t realize at that moment is that ‘everything happens for a reason’…..
We ventured out with Paula & Mike and ran into Brian & Sally right outside the fence. We introduced the two couples and told Paula & Mike that these were part of our “Survivor†group. We shopped for awhile and then Brian & Sally weren’t behind us anymore. I wasn’t too concerned, I’m sure they didn’t want to be joined at the hip with us for the rest of the trip. They went off and did their own thing. We pretty much just went around the open air shops since most of the shops were just little buildings with awnings. We went down until the road turned to dirt and then crossed the street and headed back. We stopped for a really nice photo shoot with some palm trees and the Paradise as the background. We took a picture of Paula & Mike and they took one of us.
Then we went by this shop that, for some reason, I went inside. There was the usual stuff to buy, but what caught my attention was an elderly lady sitting on a chair and another lady fanning her with a piece of cardboard. The lady in the chair did not look like she was feeling too well. She kept leaning forward, putting her head in her hands and leaning back. I asked the lady doing the fanning ‘is she all right?’ She gave me the standard ‘blow off’ and said ‘we have it handled’. As I walked by though, I could tell she needed help. I said to the lady, ‘no really, my husband’s a nurse’. Her eyes lit up and she said ‘really?’. I said ‘yes, let him have a look at her’. She agreed, and I called him over to have a look at her. Now, my husband is not officially a nurse yet. He is an EMT that has been on a volunteer Fire Department for 10 years, works in a Adult Intensive Care Unit, is a Hospital Corpsmen in the US Navy, and is currently attending nursing school. He was definitely qualified to help her and figure out what to do. I just knew by her response that doctor or nurse, would be the only things she would have accepted at that point. JT started assessing her, taking her pulse, asking her questions about her medical history, and making sure she wasn’t disoriented. Her pulse was extremely low for her age and the medication she was on was not helping that either. Dorothy and her daughter were on the Paradise too, so we asked Mike & Paula if they would run back to the ship and get a wheelchair and asked her daughter to get another bottle of water. We needed to get her back to the ship and carrying her was not an option. We didn’t call for a taxi, because most of them were down in the roundabout waiting for people to get off the ship. And it really wasn’t that far back to the ship, like less than 1/4 of a mile. I went out onto the outside deck of the shop. There was really no shade to speak of but there was a really good breeze on the backside of the shop. I went in to tell JT that there was a good breeze back there and that maybe we should try to move her outside. He wasn’t sure since there wasn’t much shade. Another couple showed up and since her daughter had never returned with any water, JT asked this couple if they would try to find some. JT went out back to check on the breeze, and agreed that it was way too hot inside the shop and they should move her. JT and this other guy, picked her and the chair up and scooted her back on to the back deck of the shop. There was something back there that was providing a little bit of shade and I stood between her and the sun too. The young lady from the other couple did find one bottle of water and even the shop owner was trying to help by providing a fan. JT found an old knife and started ripping his shirt off. He poured the cold water on the pieces of shirt and used them as a ‘cold compress’. Dorothy was finally starting to look better and getting some color back in her skin. Paula and Mike and Dorothy’s daughter showed back up around the same time. Dorothy’s daughter could not find any water and had gone back to the ship to get some. Paula and Mike described some difficulty in getting the ship to let them take the wheelchair and the ship’s medical staff can not leave the ship to help anyone. Dorothy had a few more sips of water and we loaded her into the wheelchair. We made haste back to the ship, I’m sure it was not a great ride for Dorothy. We got to the ship and JT wheeled her up the ramp and back to the infirmary. JT told the guards as he wheeled Dorothy right through the check, that I had his ID and so the daughter and I were fumbling for the ID cards of the two people that just went through plus our own.
When JT got to the infirmary with Dorothy, he started ‘giving report’ to who he thought was the nurse. She was standing behind the counter and JT couldn’t tell if the insignia on her collar signified if she was the nurse or not. Then this guy came over and said snottily ‘excuse me, but I am the nurse here’. JT’s not one to accept much attitude and said ‘well if you’re the nurse, then shut up and take report’. He wanted to get Dorothy laid down as soon as possible and this nurse was just being a total pain. JT finally said, ‘fine, what room do you want her in’, the nurse just pointed and JT wheeled her past him into the room. JT got her out of the wheelchair and laid down and the nurse decided to finally take her blood pressure. Then her daughter and I showed up. Dorothy wanted to give JT a hug and kiss before he left and kept apologizing for his shirt. Dorothy ended up being fine, she just had a case of heat exhaustion. (If you look at my pictures, #41 shows the shop, it’s the orange one with the white thing on the back corner of the wrap around deck. Pic #38 you can see that it really wasn’t that far.)
JT realized how funny he looked in his t-shirt, ripped off above his nipple line and wanted to go get a new shirt on. Luckily, it was one of his Fire Department shirts that he gets for free anyway. It went to a good cause. He changed his shirt, and we headed up to the Lido deck with Mike & Paula to get some lunch. While we were having lunch on the aft area of the Lido deck, the NCL Dream pulled up and anchored. We finished up and JT & I headed back out to finish shopping and Mike & Paula were just going to stay on the ship and relax. I went back to the store where we found Dorothy and bought a Roatan magnet. Also, with the confusion getting back on board with Dorothy, we had passed through with a small bottle of rum without having to check it in at the table. We figured we’d give it another try and bought another small bottle. JT bought some Honduras coffee and hot sauce. I think we spent all of $25. There were some really nice wood items to buy in Roatan. I just wasn’t in a ‘buying’ mood after the last couple of days.
We ran into Sally & Brian again and they had hired a taxi driver to drive them around the island and take them to some photo op spots. They had a great time and bought some great souvenirs. We told them about Dorothy and they were just shocked.
We all headed back to the ship since she sailed at like 3PM. Again, got our rum and Brian & Sally’s rum on board in my backpack without checking it in at the table. JT bought a soft drink card when we got back so he could have unlimited rum & cokes.
We had made plans to meet the second couple we had been in contact with at about 4PM in the area with the yellow couches by the Plaza bar.
Steve & Robin were from North Carolina, she is a CPA and he does lighting for movies and ads. They had been trying to contact us too and finally got a hold of us Tuesday when we first got on board. Again, they could not believe our misfortune. We talked with them for at least 2 hours because the photographers asked us to move so they could set up a photo shoot area there before dinner. In Cozumel, I arranged a private snorkel tour to Palancar and Columbia reefs with Steve & Robin and we were all hoping it would go smoothly.
We went up to the top deck aft, to watch the sunset and joked about the ‘green flash’ you are suppose to see when the sunsets. Has anyone actually seen this or is it a total myth? Never mind there’s probably another cruise board thread all about it. We took some great shots of the sunset and Steve & Robin but we had to go get ready for the ‘past guest’ party before dinner. Kurt & Denise were past guests too but since we arrived on ship in Belize, we didn’t actually get our invitation from our room steward (they missed it in the paperwork). Luckily, Mike & Paula were past guests too and told us about it, so we had to go to the information desk to get our invitations.
When we (JT & I, Denise & Kurt) arrived at the past guest party, Brett, our cruise director was greeting people as they came in. We said ‘Oh you’re the cruise director, we really need to talk to you’. JT had tried to set up a meeting with Brett through the information desk, but again the 3rd Purser (same one that checked us in) was a complete witch. (OK you know what I want to say). She said ‘anything you need from him would come through us anyway’. She had no idea…. Brett was cool and said ‘anytime’ just find me and sit me down. We figured we’d catch him on Saturday when we had a full day at sea.
We had a hard time finding a seat, but then there was a booth with three couples and they practically flagged us down and said ‘sit here’. They had heard bits & pieces of our adventure and wanted to know more! I think we had meet one of the ladies somewhere but didn’t tell the whole story. They were fun couples to talk to and were totally enthralled with the story. Drinks and appetizers were few and far between. We left when it was over and headed for dinner.
I think we had dinner with our group that night and went to bed early again. We did not have any interest to see any of the shows because this was our third time on the Paradise and all of the shows were the same as the first time we went in 2000. The only thing different were the comedians. We were a little disappointed when we went in 2001 because the shows were the same as in 2000, but we did not expect the shows would be the same 2 ½ years later but they were. Same shows, just with different people.
Thursday we were due into Grand Cayman around 9:30 according to the Capers. We set our alarm for I think about 9. However JT continued to hit the snooze button after it first went off. I remember thinking ‘we are still moving awfully fast for pulling into port soon’. About 10 minutes later Brett the cruise director announced over all intercoms (usually announcements are not ‘in cabin’) that the crew saw an emergency flare overnight and that we spent some time looking around before the Coast Guard cleared us to stop looking and move on. We would now be arriving late and due to the rough seas, several of the ship’s snorkel tours (and believe scuba too) were canceled. Since this was our third time to Grand Cayman, our plan was to head up Seven Mile Beach to snorkel the wrecks of the Cali and Gamma on our own. Then we were going to do a little shopping for rum cakes and color changing sunglasses. Also, due to the rough waters, we were going to be anchored at a different spot off the island. We were not coming in at Georgetown like we normally would. So snorkeling was probably out for us too, since Seven Mile Beach and Georgetown are on the same side. We had heard Brian and Sally and Brian and Rhonda talking about going on the Atlantis submarine and thought that would be kind of cool. So we headed up to the tours desk to see if there was any openings left.
We had breakfast and headed down to the Queen Mary Lounge where we were supposed to wait for our tour to be called and catch the tender. We waited what seemed like forever. We waited with Richard, Denise & Kurt and Brian & Rhonda. Brian and Sally had booked their tour with an independent company so they were on like the first or second tender. I don’t think they got to do the Atlantis part of their tour since we arrived late. Richard, Denise & Kurt were going on one of the city tours and we were going on the Atlantis sub with Brian & Rhonda. We found out soon enough why the waiting for the tenders was taking so dang long. There were four large cruise ships trying to tender all of their passengers on to a single concrete pier that was maybe 15 feet wide by 60 feet long. Once you got on the tender, and got to the pier, it was total chaos where the tender boats were jockeying for positions to get in and out. On our way over, a helicopter flew really close by over our tender boat and someone said it came off of the yacht parked on the other side of the Seven Seas Navigator. I thought ‘no way that boat was big enough to carry a helicopter’, boy was I wrong because on our way back to the ship we watched (and photographed) that helicopter landing on the yacht. Cool! Anyway, right as our tender was pulling up to the pier to let us off, the boat from the Atlantis pulled up to pick us up. We boarded the Atlantis double decked boat and headed over to where the sub was. We watched her come up with some people from a previous tour and then we were allowed to board once they got off. We saw at least 3 turtles and lots of very pretty coral & fish.
It is really expensive and by far my first choice would be to snorkel or dive, but it was a really cool experience and well worth the money.
When we arrived back at the tiny pier, the Atlantis boat was equipped to let people off the front so he just pulled right in a really shallow spot that the other tender boats couldn’t use and let us off. There was a gargantuan line, no kidding the line was longer than the pier they were using. The Carnival Conquest was supposed to leave at 3 according to their sign, and it was 2 right now. We went potty and looked for a place in line. We kept asking people if that was the line for the Conquest or the Paradise and almost everyone was waiting for the Conquest so we headed down toward the pier. When we got closer and were still asking people which boat they were waiting for one guy said ‘it’s the same line for both Carnival ships’. JT knew right away that couldn’t be right because one tender does not go to two ships. So he told us to wait and he’d ask one of the Paradise guards. Just as he got down to the pier, the guards were coming up the hill looking for Paradise passengers. JT signaled for us to come on, and the other people were trying to get in our way and acted like we were cutting in line or something even though we were saying ‘excuse me’. Sorry our tender was there and yours wasn’t, deal with it.
So we decided we were not going to try to do any shopping or anything else in Grand Cayman due to the tender situation and by golly we were not going to take a chance on missing that ship again for any reason. The ship was staying later because we were late getting there, but we weren’t chancing it.
I think that night we hit the hot tub before dinner and tested our new camera case in the swimming pool. We bought a waterproof case to put our digital camera inside to take snorkeling. Well since Cozumel the next day was going to be our first opportunity to use it, we figured we’d test it out first without the camera inside. The people in the hot tub got to hear our story and one of the girls was thinking that her lost luggage wasn’t so bad after all. Amazing how perspectives change on problems when you hear about someone else’s. That night was formal night so we got cleaned up and headed up for dinner.
Friday morning we arrived in Cozumel. We slept as late as we could since this trip was so draining mentally and physically. Kurt and Denise asked if they could join Steve & Robin and JT & I on the private snorkeling trip we had booked. Before we left home, all we wanted to do at every port was snorkel. Cozumel was going to be our last opportunity to snorkel on this trip. We aren’t dive qualified yet, so we just love to get into the water and snorkel to see all the fish and coral. I found Dive with Alison on a website and contacted her about a snorkel trip. She said that she had a dive that morning, but her boat would be available at 1:30PM for a snorkeling trip, and the price of $150 would be the same for one person as it would for 6 people. We knew that Steve and Robin were going to go with us which made the cost per person $37.50, but now that Kurt and Denise wanted to go, it brought the price down to $25 per person. When we arrived in Cozumel, it was rough again and all of the ship tours for snorkeling and diving were canceled. Sally and Brian were excited because they booked the beginning scuba excursion on the ship and now it was canceled. I thought ‘oh no, not again’ and wondered if our private tour would still be on. I had no way to contact Alison, so when we got off the boat the six of us flagged down a taxi van and told him of the marina we had to go to. For about $17 we arrived at the marina just after 1PM Cozumel time, and Alison was waiting for us. She was very nice and said that she had to cancel her morning dive due to the rough waters. I asked how things were now and she asked if any of us got seasick. We all said no and she said we’d be fine. She told us to check and make sure we had all of our gear in case we needed anything else. We were off. The waves were not that high and we had a great ride out to the reefs. We chose to go to Palancar and Columbia reefs because we had tried to go there in 2001, but due to the strong currents that day, they took us to other reefs. We had one guy driving the boat and one guy as our snorkel guide. We stopped at our first reef. We all got our gear on and jumped off the side of the boat. Our guide was tossing out little pieces of food and the big sea chubs were coming right up to us to eat. Then right away we saw a turtle! It was great. About 15 minutes after we got into the water, JT was complaining that his mask broke. I thought it was just the strap or something, so I just kept snorkeling and the boat driver came over to help him out. When he dove down to take a picture of the turtle, his mask really broke. It was un-fixable. JT wears prescription glasses and his mask actually has his prescription as the lenses of the mask so he doesn’t have to wear glasses or contacts. I wear my contacts when I snorkel. The piece that holds the lens in, completely came off and water was rushing into his mask. Luckily he reached up and grabbed the lens so it didn’t end up at the bottom with the plastic piece that came off. JT was done snorkeling after only 15 minutes in the water. Even with a new mask, he couldn’t see. His vision is horrible without correction. The rest of us continued to snorkel, some were unaware that JT had a problem and was done. At one point the boat driver borrowed a mask from another boat and JT decided that even thought he couldn’t see anything, he wanted to be in the water with us. I was his guide and even though we saw a pair of spotted rays, all JT saw was two big blobs.
So for the snorkel trip the only one with bad luck was JT and the rest of us had an incredible time. It was getting close to time to leave and another boat came by and dropped off about 10 divers that scared everything off anyway, so we packed it up and headed back. Alison met us when we got back and already had a van taxi waiting for us. When we got to the main road, there were two guys standing at the side of the road in full scuba gear, tanks and all, trying to hail a cab. Our van was full so they had to wait for another one.
We headed back to the ship to get cleaned up. We all planned to meet at Carlos’n Charlie’s for drinks that night. We ate some dinner, since we paid for food on the ship, might as well not pay for food off the ship. We were a little late in getting there, so we just missed Brian and Rhonda. They were having dinner in the dining room so they didn’t come back out. So it was Brian, Sally, Kurt, Denise, Mike, Paula, JT, & I and Carlos’n Charlie’s was going to seat us up front near the door. But then when we told them we didn’t need menus, just drinks, they tried to move us to a different area. They wanted to seat us right on the dance floor where it was so loud you couldn’t even read lips. We tried to get them to put us where they originally were going to seat us, but they wouldn’t. We left and decided to try Senor Frogs right upstairs. Senor Frogs had separate areas for people eating and people just drinking too, but we didn’t have to sit right on the dance floor and it wasn’t nearly as loud as Carlos’n Charlie’s. Most of us ordered the yard glass of Margaritas (peach, strawberry, & mango), JT ordered Sol beer, and Sally had a half yard. Then the parting started and there were conga lines with shot stops, a girl was going around doing ‘shaker shots’ and we proceeded to getting hammered. OK, JT does NOT dance and even he was dancing. I hit the gift shop after visiting the ladies room and soon JT came out and picked out a t-shirt and do-rag while I got my magnet and keychain. While I was in the gift shop, Mike and Paula left but Steve and Robin showed up and they each had a yard margarita. We had a total blast, dancing and drinking the night away. The ship was leaving at 11PM, so we headed back at 10PM even though the ship was right across the street, we still weren’t taking any chances it would leave without us. The
