This is our Christmas Cruise blog post. We spent the days leading up to Christmas and Christmas on the Carnival Magic traveling to Costa Maya Mexico, Belize City, Roatan Honduras, and Cozumel. A very warm and unwintery Christmas.
We boarded the Carnival Magic on December 18. The ship departed Galveston at 1600 for two days of sailing to Costa Maya Mexico. We ate our first meal in the dining room that night and met table mates and new friends Karen, Keaton and Kaitlyn. We hit it off wonderfully with Sidney and Kaitlyn becoming fast friends and our family’s enjoying every meal together and planning for future meetings.
We spent two days at sea during which Sidney attended Camp Carnival for some time and swam and played for the rest of the time. She loved Camp Carnival with all of their great activities. The camp leaders are all trained or certified in childhood education and it is a very well run program for kids of all ages. Sidney had a blast. It was a bit cool for swimming during the first two days as we had significant winds. They were unable to open the ropes course on the ship for most of the two days due to the wind. Night one of the cruise is also when the nightly “animals” started showing up in our room. The pictures show the dog and elephant. Others not pictured were a frog, swan, bear, bull, and monkey (who was hanging off the ceiling). Sidney thought these were the greatest things ever and proceeded to collect their eyes (yes, totally Sidney).
We arrived in Costa Maya on day three. Now we have to tell you, there isn’t much there. We would not return given the option. We had not pre-booked an excursion here so we just wandered off the ship and picked up a taxi to a local beach. It was an all inclusive deal where you get a lounge chair each, free beverages, access to the beach and all the facilities and equipment there. Sidney and Kirk swam and snorkeled and Sidney built sand castles. Mom watched the world go by and unwound. Kimber just isn’t so beachy. We stayed for about three hours and were done. We ate dinner alone that night at the Italian restaurant on the ship. It is a little extra money but a nice change with excellent food. While we were eating, a colleague from when Kimber worked at the Texas City Refinery walked in. It was a pleasure to see Darrell again and meet his wife.
Day four brought us to Belize City. Now this we really enjoyed. We had an excursion that took us to Mayan pyramid ruins followed by lunch and a trip down the River Wallace. We had a great time. The guides were extremely informative and made the tour very pleasant. We learned a lot about Belizian culture and Belize City as well as about the ruins and the river. Sidney loved climbing a pyramid and of course scrambled to the top with ease. After the ruins we had a traditional lunch of chicken, rice, beans and plantains. Kirk had a local beer and I tried some blackberry wine which was quite good. Lunch was followed by a trip down the River Wallace where we saw crocodiles, iguanas of all shapes and sizes, Howler Monkeys, insect eating bats, and at the river mouth, manatees. It was a great trip. The wind blowing through your hair and making it nice and cool and seeing all sorts of wildlife. We really enjoyed Belize and look forward to a return there to possibly spend more time.
Day five took us to Roatan Honduras. This was another stop we found rich in culture and activities. Our excursion here was a catamaran sail and snorkeling. We sailed for about an hour to our snorkeling location, then snorkeled for an hour. Sidney did great. She is such a trooper to try new things. She got cold toward the end so she rode one of the kayaks back to the catamaran while mom tried to swim as fast as the kayak. Fortunately some nice folks on the catamaran helped get her wrapped up and comfortable because mom couldn’t keep up and arrived several minutes later. We didn't take the good camera snorkeling but we did take a waterproof camera and Kirk was able to get this picture of Kimber and Sidney.
We enjoyed a fantastic meal of chicken, rice, pasta salad and rum punch after finishing snorkeling. We rode a bus back to the ship but actually enjoyed seeing more of the city and local spots. Again, we would love to return here to spend more time exploring. That night we ate dinner without Sidney in the steakhouse. Kimber had lobster and Kirk had New York Strip. It was a fine dinner and Sidney enjoyed going to camp carnival again. The pirate look is how Sidney came home from dinner. We also went to a magic show that night. We didn't have the best seats and could actually see a lot of the "magic." For the engineer that was still very interesting and quite impressive.
Day six took us to Cozumel. This was also Christmas Eve. We didn’t have plans in Cozumel and just spent some time walking around. Kimber had been there some years before for a friend's wedding (Jinni of previous posts) and wanted to see how the city had changed. It has grown significantly with many new tourist attractions, hotels, shops, etc. There were seven cruise ships there and the Cozumel Kimber remembered would not have handled that. We walked around town and then did some tide pooling on the way back to the ship. We found many of the usual tide pool finds including many crabs, snails and urchins. But we also found one small sergeant major fish and a tiny octopus. These made Sidney’s day. She loved them. We brought home a few shells for Sidney’s collection.
Christmas was spent at sea and brought a few gifts from Santa. He left a note that because mom and dad had to carry everything off the ship and that we would be home tomorrow, he left everything else at the house. We spent a relaxing morning eating and swimming. Sidney then went to Camp Carnival for the last time. The afternoon brought a huge surprise. The kids at camp had been practicing to perform in a musical with the performers on the ship. Sidney came home and said she had a solo in the show. There were actually two shows so that was our entire afternoon. Well the kids got up to sing about two thirds of the way through the show. Two of the performers held microphones on front of the kids two at a time while they sang a song. We thought this was the solo. But at the very end of the show, Sidney and Kaitlyn had a duet of several lines entirely by themselves. It was amazing. Of 1300 kids on the ship that the two girls who had never met before and ate dinner together every night would end up doing a duet together. Mom melted of course. It was originally supposed to be that each of the girls would solo in one performance. But Kaitlyn was very nervous and Sidney worried about Kaitlyn. So Sidney suggested a duet by both girls in both performances. Sidney was worried that Kaitlyn wouldn't get to sing if she was too nervous. What incredible girls. And we loved listening to them both times and then celebrating with them at dinner. The lead performer also commented between the shows on how good of a singer Sidney was and how enjoyable. We are so proud.
December 26 brought us home. Disembarkation was not so much fun. We did eat a relaxing breakfast but the line through passport control was outrageously slow. We finally made and got home to reality. Santa had left the remaining presents at the house so we did that and spent a relaxing day at home before Kirk went back to work.
Now we are all back at work and school. It has been a long week and we are ready for a weekend. Here is one last picture of Sidney at the beach. What a beach bum.
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