Sunday, we went to Roatan, Honduras. We really wanted to snorkel, but Luke wasn’t old enough for the ship’s excursions. So, we booked a private tour with “Cleve’s Tours and Adventures”. He was recommended by people on the Royal Caribbean Facebook page and has over 1200 five-star reviews on Trip Advisor, so I felt good about the day.
We got off the ship as soon as it was docked at 830 and Cleve’s son, Jeremiah, was waiting for us. We found Cleve, who took us on a tour of the island and told us about its culture and the five groups of people who live there. Then, we went out on his boat. He showed us more of the island from the water and let Thomas drive. All of us enjoyed going fast.
We visited two snorkeling sites, I think he called one the Aquarium and one the wall. Both were amazing! Roatan has part of the Mesoamerican Reef, which is the second largest reef in the world (next to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia). We saw lots of tropical fish and amazing coral. The water was crystal clear and we could see all around us without any murkiness. Luke got sick of it pretty quick and stayed on the boat with Jeremiah. Anna doesn’t really like knowing what is in the ocean underneath her, but she swam with us. Cleve guided us around the sites. Both areas had deep trenches bordered by walls of coral. In the second area, there were huge drop offs, I think in some areas Cleve said it was 80 feet (and gets deeper further from shore). It was like seeing cliffs underwater. We spent a couple of hours snorkeling. Then, we went back to the van and saw more of the island before heading back to the ship. I think the whole experience lasted about 5 hours. Our port visit was only 7 hours, so that was really all we had time for (we like a big buffer to ensure we are back to the ship on time). Cleve and Jeremiah were great tour guides and we learned a lot. Everyone enjoyed the experience.
We had a late lunch on the ship and then Luke went to the kid’s club. We had dinner at our regular time of 5:30 (we have the early seating) and went to the evening show: The Tap Factory. It had drumming, tap dancing and a contortionist. It was good and the cast is very talented, but I did not like it nearly as much as I liked Voices.
On Monday, we were in Cozumel. Because we had just visited there in November, I did not plan an excursion. We went into the port area and did a little shopping and spent the rest of the day hanging around the ship. The ship is always fun on a port day, because it is so much less crowded. Luke and Thomas played ping pong and then Luke and Jack played basketball. Luke also spent some time in the kid’s club. Kara, Jack and I did trivia (we did not come close to winning) and Kara got a Johnny Rocket’s milkshake. Anna and I also did ice skating.
Tuesday, we went to Costa Maya and did an excursion to see the Chacchoben Mayan ruins. The ruins were really cool, but the tour was not great. The guide was a little disjointed and rushed us through. I would have liked to learn a little bit more, but it was still a good experience and I am glad we did it. Marta and Frank joined us and it was nice to have some extra time with them.
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| Jack wanted a picture with himself in front of one of the pyramids to show scale. Can you find him? |
It was more of the same back on the ship. Except, after dinner they had a “name that country song” trivia and I knew that with Thomas on our team, we could not lose! And, I was right! He knew almost every song and every artist. Kara and I were happy to finally be on a winning team. After the big victory, we saw the evening show which was a magician, Jamie Alan. He is apparently very famous in England. We all liked the show, but felt there was too much technology involved. His last trick was the best, it was pure sleight of hand with cards and it was very, very cool. He was making cards appear and disappear like nobody’s business.
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