Day 05 - Thursday 03/07/24 - Roatán

 After a pleasant overnight sail, we arrived at Roatân just after 9am and the ship was backed into our Berth in front of the Carnival Spirit at Mahogany Bay.  Mahogany Bay is a cruise terminal owned and operated by Carnival Cruise Lines.  It was opened in 2011 and includes a very large plaza with lots of shops of not only the high end Diamond International and Pirhannia Pete, but local artisans as well.  Additionally there are food venues.  Adjoining the plaza area is a very nice beach area which can be reached by walking down a paved pathway or using the overhead ski lift type chairs ($15/day).  The beach area has a huge swimming area and snorkeling could be done there.  The whole complex is sort of like a private island and is principally only used by ships under the Carnival brand umbrella.


The beach area


Not sailing any more




As for us, we had booked a shore excursion that would take us snorkeling off of a catamaran and included transportation, food, beverages, & gear. We met our guide at the meeting point in the plaza and after a brief wait, we were escorted to the bus transportation area where we boarded our bus.  We were then driven about 1/2 hour to the dock that the Jolly Roger catamaran sails out of. There were 49 of us out of a total capacity of 60 so we had lots of room on the boat.  We sailed to our snorkeling destination at West Bay and along the way were given the safety briefing and instructions on how to use the gear.  We had our own masks (mine has corrective lenses built in) but we used their fins.  There was no diet soda available but we had brought our own with us.  

Our Captain




At the snorkeling site, I was the 3rd one in the water and immediately I can tell that we scored.  Not only was the water warm, it was clear and the coral was quite colorful.  And I hadn't yet seen any fish!  Angela joined me and we were supposed to follow a guide, but we never saw him, so we just started snorkeling.  Soon there were fish.  Lots of fish of various sizes and colors.  We were in the water about 45-60 minutes and totally enjoyed ourselves.  There were several large schools of blue fish, angel fish, and lots of the black and yellow striped fish.  I even saw what looked like a very large grouper.  The coral was gorgeous and full of color and life around it.  But all too soon the snorkeling part of the trip was over and we reboarded the catamaran.




With snorkeling over, It was now time to enjoy their hospitality.  Rum was the alchohol that they served plus Pepsi products.  They also served a very nice lunch of rice, beans, coleslaw, a noodle salad and chicken.  We chatted with fellow passengers which was a bit difficult as they played very loud music over the speakers.  Back at the dock we disembarked and reboarded our buses for the trip back to Mahogany Bay. If you are looking for a good snorkeling trip, we highly recommend the excursion with Jolly Roger.


Back at the port we walked around and shopped many of the stores but did not purchase anything.  We also walked out to the beach area to scope it out.  If one didn't want to take a shore excursion, in our opinion this would be an excellent place to spend a relaxing day at a beach.  On the way back to the ship, we chatted with the Asst. Manager of Shore Excursions and complimented to him the excellent snorkeling that we had experienced compared to the first two excursions in the previous ports.  We were back on the ship just after 4pm (5pm was the deadline).  We then watched the sailaway from our balcony before eating dinner in the Horizon Court (Lido).



Big Shoes to fill



After dinner we attended the illusionist, Ottavio Beli who was quite good.  We may have seen him on the Regal last year.  I was feeling quite tired so I elected to return to the stateroom and was asleep at 8pm, but ship's time was being advanced by one hour tonight in anticipation of daylight savings time which will occur on our last night of the cruise.  Angela stayed up and attended the World Orchestra performance in the Piazza and karaoke.  I was totally asleep and have no recollection of her returning to the room. It ended up being a good and needed long sleep.


And so ended the last of our 3 port stops.  We now have two days to reach Galveston.  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 07 - Saturday 03/09/24 - At Sea to Galveston - Day 2

Image
Today is the last day of the cruise and we slept in late as the programming was very light.  Micca did a great presentation about crew life on a ship. Fred the Astronomer did an excellent presentation about the moon.  They held the Voice of the Ocean competition and a young girl Grace won it.   And the rest of the day we spent lounging around the ship. The evening entertainment was the cast show "Born to Dance".  It was so good we attended both performances.  The first presentation had a technical glitch that marred the set just before the finale.  The second site had the entire show. We also packed and had our luggage out by 8:30pm. It's been a great little cruise with the exception of the mid cruise ban on door decorations and two really bad snorkeling excursions. We liked the general vibe of the ship, and the entertainment was quite good.  We're looking forward to joining the Majestic Princess in Sydney in April.
Read more

Day 04 - Wednesday 03/06/24 - Belize

Image
 Today was our second port stop and it found us anchored off Belize City in the country of Belize.  While we had an 8am arrival, our planned snorkeling trip did not start until 10am, so we didn't set an alarm.  We were able to enjoy a leisurely breakfast before gathering our gear for the day's snorkeling trip.  When we got to the meeting point at the Princess Theater at 9:25am, they told us there was no room and we were asked to return at 9:55am.  So we sat in the Piazza and checked our emails, etc.  I observed during the 1/2 hour sitting there that there was only one tender ticket called and I spoke with a fellow who had an Octopus tender ticket and he was advised that it was at least an hour wait.  The whole Piazza area was packed with people and my observation was that Belize is a poor destination if tender tickets are so hard to get.  Most of one's time is spent waiting for a tender plus the ride to shore is 45 minutes.   We joined our sh...
Read more

Day -01 - Saturday 03/02/24

Image
 Departure day finally arrived.  We were up by 6am and our son picked us up at 7am for the short drive to SeaTac airport.  Upon arrival at the United  Airlines area, we had to manually check in as our travel agent booked us as a part of a group and wouldn't provide the booking code.  It was a real pain to do that compared to the 'old' days when one could just approach the ticket counter, state one's name and destination and a clerk would handle the rest of the booking process. Armed with a boarding pass and less our checked luggage, we made our way to the boarding gate where we learned that our flight was delayed about 15 minutes because the crew 'timed out' last night after a late arrival into Seattle.  It was a full flight and we left our parking position about 10 minutes late from the original time.  With our weight, our takeoff roll was a tad longer than normal.  It was a nice 3.5 hour flight to Houston with an on time arrival. Our luggage was...
Read more