Isla Roatan
is a small island --33 miles by 4 miles-- located about 30 miles off the coast of Honduras. It is absolutely stunning with the most beautiful clear blue water I've ever seen. Gorgeous soft white sand beach surrounds the jungle interior. It is truly an island paradise for visitors. Unfortunately, its also a very poor island (regularly beaten down by hurricanes) struggling in their attempts to build their economy with tourism being their number one source of income/employment at this time.

Carnival has built their own port/dock area called Mahogany Bay where they own all the stores, restaurants and have a private beach area. Its brand new and very pretty. A cruise ship visitor could easily spend the day there and have a great time! In fact, if we ever return to Roatan by cruise ship, I could imagine doing just that as it would be quite relaxing. But, this time, based on reviews I found on cruisecritic.com, I booked a private island tour which basically included an air conditioned van, driver and guide to take us wherever we wanted to go! I was happy that we did this to get a true sense of what the island offered.

Because Carnival owns the Mahogany Bay dock/port area visitors who wish to do something other than take a cruise excursion are required to walk off the port area to the main road. Its about a 10 minute walk that includes going over a small hill. If it weren't 95 degrees with what feels like 100% humidity it wouldn't have been that big a deal but wow!!! was it hot. When you reach the bottom of the hill there are large posts on the sides of the road which signify the end of Carnival's property. There we found a crowd of dozens of locals trying to sell their tour services to the day visitors. I was glad I'd pre-booked. We were all sweating profusely and at that point in time getting into the a/c van seemed like it would be the highlight of the day!

The national (I guess) food of Roatan is iguana so, of course, Brett wanted to make sure he ate some! I let our guide know this right away and she said they'd try to find him some. Try to picture us driving around the island seeing the sights and pulling over to a road side stand every once in a while so the driver could roll down his window and yell out to the establishment owner "Do you have any iguana?" Seriously cracked me up every single time he did it. This is just not something that would happen in Rancho Cucamonga!

We went to an iguana "farm" which started out more like a refuge and has become a zoo of sorts. We were told there are about 2700 iguana there. I believe it too as they were everywhere: in piles on the ground, in the trees, climbing the walls, etc. We were given large leaves to feed them. Georgie loved it and wasn't frightened at all which I think most would agree is surprising especially after you see the pix of them surrounding her. The fact that there were so many of them was on one hand neat and on the other kind of creepy but I think we all enjoyed the experience --except perhaps Casey who had just gotten some of his fingers smashed in the van door and was in a lot of pain at the time :-(

Next stop was to play with the spider monkeys. We all just loved the monkeys! They were so cute. I think we could have stayed there all day. Georgie did a really good job handling them gently. They also had macaws you could hold. Super fun!

Our next, and much to short stop, was Tabayana Beach. OMG. This place is beautiful. There was a resort there called Infinity Bay that Bobby and I agreed we would love to return to someday. Sadly, we didn't have time to snorkle there which is a shame as this area is home to a huge coral reef said to be second only to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Our final stop was at a store called the Cameo Factory where they carve and sell cameos. I'd read about it before hand and seen pix of the finished products online and really wanted to buy one. Before looking into it, I didn't even realize that cameos are made of carved shell and stone. Absolutely amazing. Using small power tools the shell is carved away to show the coloring under the surface and create beautiful designs. A small pendant (think 1" x 1-1/2") takes the artist (and these truly are artists) about 3-4 days to create. The very detailed ones can be quite expensive and even the smaller simpler ones can be spendy. Needless to say, I was the only member of my family excited to go here but, once we arrived, Brett also became a fan... after several hours of searching to no avail for his desired iguana dish... we came across a road side stand with a pot full of iguana right in front of the store!!!

Brett ate, I shopped, Georgie slept in the a/c van = 3 out of 5 happy tourists!

After doing a little damage at the cameo factory we were on our way back to the ship. I have to say that of the 4 ports we visited, Roatan is the one I would most want to return to. For such a small place there was so much to do and --I know I said it before but-- it was GORGEOUS!

View of Carnival's Mahogany Bay from our balcony. The first few shots didn't come out because my camera lens was fogged from the humidity!


Us overlooking the Roatan coastline

At the iguana farm. As you can see Georgie was not intimidated by the reptiles at all. A minute or so later Bobby had to pluck G out of circle of iguana as she had become completely surrounded!

Holding an iguana tail

I love this picture of Brett and G. This is at the iguana farm which, like just about everything in Roatan, is on the ocean.

This picture makes me laugh... just who is afraid of whom here??

The monkeys. Again, we all agreed that playing with the monkeys was a trip highlight. They were so sweet. G's holding 4 month old brothers. The guy who showed us around the monkey place was kind of a dud but whatever. I asked him the monkeys' names and after being told they had none I christened them as Fred and Henry.

They had birds there too including some huge parrots (macaws??) that B and C decided they're rather not hold. They were ok with these smaller ones.

G liked the birds but couldn't take her eyes off the monkeys

This one loved me. He grabbed onto my arm and wouldn't let go. Feeling was totally mutual.

At Tabayana Beach.... paradise found.

Brett with his iguana traditionally served with rice with beans and plantains. I tasted it too. It was shredded and seasoned in a way that made it taste like carnitas. It was actually quite tasty but was filled with small bones. Apparantly, that's the way its served there... iguana is not filleted (sp??) like I would have thought. Instead it is cooked --probably boiled-- then chopped, I'm imagining a machete being involved. I wish I would have taken a picture of the road side stand we purchased this from. Try to envision it: two stools (or perhaps crates) with a 3' x 4' piece of wood on top covered with a few mismatched pots filled with the island delicacies :-) Yes, my son and I ate this food although there was no hand sanitizer in sight... when in rome, er... roatan!

Next post: Belize

Cozumel
I originally wanted to go to the Mayan ruins at Tulum while visiting Cozumel but decided against it due to the length of the trip required to do so. My understanding is that its a good 2 hr drive to and from the port. Even though I'm dying to visit Tulum--the ruins are right on the ocean and its supposed to be just gorgeous--four hours in a van sounded pretty horrible to even a diehard history seeker like myself. So instead, I booked the whole family for a dolphin swim! Again, we did this independently as it was not only significantly cheaper than going through the cruise line but booking direct also allowed Georgie to participate (through the cruise line you had to be a minimum of 8 yrs old I believe).

As it turned out, it was a really lucky decision to do something less time consuming. Our ship was nearly an hour late in docking and there's no way we would have had time to complete the Tulum trip.

Anyway, once we got off the ship we grabbed a cab and headed to Chankanaab Park about 10 mins away. The park is beautiful and at least on that day EMPTY. The water is a brilliant dark blue in this area--clear and warm. Then we got ready for our dolphin swim. It was FANTASTIC!!! Brett, Casey, Bobby and I all agree that this was the highlight of our trip! We were able to touch the dolphins, give a hug and kisss and then the highlights a dorsal tow and foot push.

For the dorsal tow they had us swim out about 40 feet and you held the dorsal fin of two dolphins and they swam you in. The foot push made us feel like we were part of a Sea World show! Again, one at a time, we swam out about 40 feet and then you had to wait with your legs floating behind you and your arms out to the side. Two dolphins swam up behind, finding the soles of our feet with their noses then pushed! We were instructed to lock our knees and put our arms straight up and the dolphins did the rest popping us up out of the water to about waist or so!!! So, so exciting!!! Because Casey is thin he popped up even more quickly than the rest of us and was out of the water to about his shins/ankles! Truly amazing.

We then had about 10 mins with the manatees to feed them lettuce and pet them. When I booked the excursion, I was told that Georgie would not be able to participate in the manatee swim but I just took her along with me and no one seemed to care. They're very peaceful and gentle creatures... like a giant sea cow. It was explained to us that they are endangered as they have no natural predators but have been overhunted by humans :-(

Anyway, after our dolphin swim we had a little lunch, watched a sea lion show --all in spanish because we were in Mexico-- then took a tour of the archeological exhibits they had there. It was quite interesting (to me anyway). When the tour guide learned that Brett studied spanish with plans of going to Spain next year he decided he would give him some practice by conducting the balance of the tour in spanish and then having Brett translate to the group in english. He was pretty impressed (as was the small tour group) with Brett's ability to do this very, very well. These are not your typical words and Brett was able to explain everything to us clearly. Yeah! I have proof that my educational dollars have not been completely wasted :-)

Casey getting some air on his foot push
Georgie giving and receiving kisses from the dolphins
More kisses

Even more kisses

Yet another kiss

Feeding the manatee

This was in the back near the archeological stuff. The kids thought they were dumb but for some reason these cutouts just cracked me up

The park had all kinds of really cool statuary. We were told they're all reproductions from historical sites throughout mexico.

Coming up next: the beautiful Isla Roatan

Grand Cayman
First excursion day was Grand Cayman! We had an awesome tour guide with a very thick island accent and rasta dreds. We loaded onto a van then boarded a boat. After a 30 minute boat ride out into the ocean we stopped at a natural sandbar known as Stingray City. As the story goes, about 30 yrs ago, the fishing boats would congregate in this area to clean the fish from the day's catch. The stingrays would come around to eat the scraps and over time became friendly. They're now very friendly and come around when they hear the boats. They are fantastic creatures! Their hide (or whatever its called) is very smooth to the touch but their barbed tails are scratchy like sandpaper and pretty uncomfortable when they run across your legs.

G loved them! She petted them and kissed them. It was weird that they'd just kind of slide against your legs as they swam by waiting for food. Feeding them was also a bit of an experience. You had to carefully hold the fish with your thumb tucked into your fist. The ray would come up to you and then suck the fish into its mouth very quickly as if being picked up by a very strong vaccuum hose. It was startling to say the least and I screamed the first time which the guides all thought was hysterical.

We did a tour independent of the cruise line with only about 10 people on our trip. We were fortunate to spend the first few minutes by ourselves but then too quickly were joined by two double decker cruise ship excursion boats carrying literally hundreds of people which was kind of a bummer as the rays all got a little freaked out by the frenzy.

Brett and Casey on the boat ride out to the sandbar. I think they look so handsome here :-)
This was actually one of the smaller rays. The big ones were about 4 feet in diameter!
Georgie loved them! Doesn't the background in this photo look fake? The water is shallow here (only went to about our waists and so very clear. The dark water you see in the background meeting the sky is dark blue because its deeper. It was incredibly beautiful.

Just hanging out, holding a stingray.

Trying to hold a wild ocean animal is not that easy. The guides would catch them and try to hand them off to us. The rays didn't seem to mind.

The Crowells at Stingray City. You can see the cruise ship boat in the background with the people packed in like sardines and a ray coming up from the right to have a little visit.

I think this stingray is the one they've named Frisbee because he has no tail. The guide tried to tell me but I couldn't understand whether he was born without the tail or had somehow lost it. Anyway, I think its funny that the same rays often enough that they're able to give some of them names. In the background is a different tour group done on seadoos. I'd love to do that someday when G is older!

Next stop was a snorkling spot. It was a horrible day for snorkling due to the cloud cover and the rough seas. We only spent about 20 mins here before giving up. This is Brett being silly.

G on her snorkling raft. It was really cool because it had a clear plastic part she could look down through to see the fish. If the sun would have been out and the water more calm it would have been great. As it was she was able to see quite a bit anyway.Casey showing off under water

The second part of the morning was a trip to Hell which is a city?? or perhaps an area?? of the island so named for the odd cooled lava beds (I think) that make it look barren and creepy. Mostly its a gift shop/tourist place. You can see a bit of the lava in the very right of this photo above the devil statues head I think. They really play up the devil theme here. This is a cardboard cutout of the guy who I think owns the gift shop there as I saw him walking around inside. We mailed some postcards from here but as of this writing they have not arrived. I'm not sure how long it should take for a postcard to get to the US from the Caymans. I guess we'll see.

Next stop the Turtle Farm where green sea turtles are raised. As usual G was enthralled by the animals. There were some huge ones there --think 3 feet in diameter-- but they let you hold some of the smaller ones.

G giving one a kiss. She always wants to kiss the animals she just loves them so much.

Brett with a turtle. Most of them didn't mind being held but when they were done they'd let you know by slapping the heck out of your arms by flapping their front legs up and down very quickly. It definitely got their point across and they'd be put down almost immediately.

This is Casey getting slapped silly by the turtle!

G enjoyed holding the turtles. This one was quite happy in her lap for a minute or so.

Brett's favorite show is No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain. I think he wants to be Bourdain when he grows up! What this means is that Brett wants to try eating all kinds of weird stuff. The national food of the Caymans is turtle, apparantly, so Brett wanted to give that try. As is turns out, turtle is served there in the snack shop at the farm so Brett got some turtle soup. I tried it, it wasn't so bad I guess. They also had turtle burgers which I would have been up to trying out but we ran out of time.

This is Casey giving it a taste.

Brett continuing his gastronomical tour of the caribbean.

Next stop: Cozumel

Bon Voyage!!
After a fantastically fun but super hot, sweaty and exhausting week at WDW, we packed up and drove about an hour and a half to Tampa to board our ship!! Quick stop at the Tampa mall's Brighton store to pick up a new pair of sunglasses to replace the ones I dumped off my head at Epcot. As luck would have it, they had exactly one pair of that exact style left in stock!! Yeah!! Picked up a second pair cuz I couldn't pass them up :-)

Anyway, we got on the ship --the absolutely gorgeous Carnival Legend-- and went to our respective cabins. Ours was number 6244. I was super excited that we had a balcony! We explored the ship a bit. I wish I'd taken some more pix of the ship itself. All the decorations were really over the top and Vegas-ey.

Bobby and G on the balcony as we're pulling away from the port in Tampa

Mommy's turn!
This is in a corridor that runs down the sides of the forward part of the ship called the Enchanted Forest. G really liked it cuz it looked like trees. We ate dinner in the dining room each evening of the cruise. It was a great way to come together each night. The service and food were wonderful!!

The first full day of the cruise was a day at sea. We wandered around the ship, took part in a bean bag toss contest (I came in third) and just sort of relaxed. For dinner it was elegant night. Everyone knows that my family hates to dress up but we did a pretty good job of it. I'm not sure if we have any pix or not but I can tell you that the lobster was WONDERFUL!! After that, Bobby and I took G back to the room so she could get some sleep in preparation for our first port Grand Cayman.

WDW, part 2
After our first day of Epcot, we decided to pick up pizzas and come back to our condo complex to use the pool. The place we're staying in is really nice. Because its the off season we were able to get a 3 bdrm condo for super cheap. Its in a complex that's only about a 5 min drive to disney, the closest non disney property. In fact, we can see the evening fireworks from our living room! It has an enormous and gorgeous pool with a beach entry and a bit water slide. It also has one of those fountain areas which G loves! She made friends with another 2 yr old girl and they had a blast running from shoot to shoot for awhile.
The next day we went to Disney Hollywood Studios (DHS). G was originally supposed to wear a different oufit that day... her Toy Story one she'd worn before... but I must have forgotten it. Found the hairbow but no outfit. Don't worry (not that you would) but I brought an extra disney outfit along in case it was needed.

Anyway, before we left the house, I made up these quick little invites with stickers to show G what we'd be doing each day. Ex on the day we did Cinderella's Royal Table she had an invitation to the castle for breakfast with a Cindy sticker on it. For DHS day I made this little invite to the Disney Playhouse. G loved it! Each morning she'd run to the table to get her invite for the day.

With Handy Manny. G just loves Manny. I'm actually not much of a fan but oh well. G really loved the show. It was about 20 mins long. G danced around for about 19 mins of it!

With the Einsteins. I'm pretty sure she's never seen the show but that didn't stop her from enjoying the characters.

Waiting to go into the Toy Story Mania ride. Even though DHS was not at all crowded all fastpasses for the day were gone by 11:30 and the regular standby line was well over an hour by 10:30am. Luckily I'd done a bit of research on each of the parks and knew to head straight to the fastpass line at opening. Minimal wait for us.

Its a cute ride. You wear the 3d glasses and ride in little cars equipped with a gun type thing that you point at arcade targets and shoot by pulling a string.

More character sightings. This time with Jasmine and Alladin.

At the pick a pearl place in the Japan Pavillion. I'd planned for this by bringing along pearl cages shaped like Cinderella's coach and silver chains for both G and me. I was hoping to get an oyster with 2 pearls (twins) so we'd have a matching set but we ended up having to buy two separate oysters. G really liked it though and now we have our matching jewelry as a remembrance! Here's a pic of G's necklace.

The girls with our bling! You can tell how hot it is by how red my face is. It was a horribly humid day.

G was really looking forward to seeing the beast and we finally found him in the french pavillion.

With Mary Poppins

G had her first taste of soda. We ducked into the Coca Cola store where they have samples of unusual coke products from around the world. I gave G a little taste of the apple flavored one that they apparantly sell in Mexico. I was on the phone with disney lost and found at the time hoping maintenance had located my sunglasses that fell off my head and in between the cars while riding the Spaceship Earth ride 2 days before. They didn't find them. It was a long shot but I had my fingers crossed. I loved those sunglasses. G and Bobby had gotten them for me as a mother's day gift. Bummer.

My attempt at photographing Bobby to look like he's holding the big white ball. We tried it with 3 or 4 of the photopass photogs too so hopefully one of them will come out pretty good. Bobby really liked the idea of the shot.

And that ended the Disney portion of our vacation. It was really fun but incredibly exhausting. Five days straight in the parks is just a LOT of walking and its been super hot--in the low 90s and just as humid as can be although it only actually rained once. G has been an incredible little trooper. We've been hitting the parks at 9 0'clock rope drop and staying until about 4:30 or 5 each day. She's napped a bit in the stroller but more often than not she hasn't fallen alseep until we're in the car on the way to dinner (20-45 mins) and then that's it. She had one little fit today when she didn't get her way about something (lasted about 45 secs or so) and she has been getting a bit hyper at the end of the day but overall she's smiley and handling the heat better than us big kids. Casey has been able to maintain a calm demeanor better than the rest of us so kudos to him!

Tomorrow we drive to Tampa to catch the ship for the cruise! I probably won't be able to post at all due to high internet costs on the ship but I'll be taking lots of pix! I hope we get into all our ports ok because I'm excited about the excursions I have planned. We'll see :-)