Are we having fun yet?

December 18, 2006

Well, we’ve been away for a while now, and let me tell you it’s not a picnic!

First of all our flight was delayed by two hours due to “mechanical difficulties” and made us miss our connection in Dallas. Fortunately we were able to get another flight out of Dallas, albeit several hours later than anticipated. We landed in Orlando after 10:30 pm (originally to arrive at 5 pm), picked up our rental van, got a wee bit lost (heading north) and when we finally got to Tampa and to our hotel, it was like 3 am (EST).

Our travels were a darn sight better than the Jefferys. They, flying out of Seattle at the same time as us, were hit by the worst wind storm ever which knocked out power at their hotel as well as SeaTac. After many frustrating hours and tears, they ended up back at YVR flying to Dallas, spending a night, then flying out early to Tampa, the day of our cruise.

We all met up at the Port of Tampa, quite excited to finally be starting our Caribbean vacation. Our suite, while nice, seemed so much larger in the photos! It’s actually a pretty good size for us all, just hard to hide the many (and I mean many) suitcases.

Had a great first day exploring the ship, eating, drinking, finally unpacking when our suitcases showed up. We even had some fun gambling, losing our money actually. We watched Lee do some karaoke and had just a lot of fun.

Our first full day at sea and Gary was feeling off. After suffering all morning he went to the medical facility where they promptly quarantined him! Found him a new cabin on Deck 3 where he’s been since yesterday. He’s been so sick, I believe they think it’s Norwalk but it’s an extremely bad flu, he’s never been this bad before. Nothing functioning as it should and he’s barfed non-stop for a day and a half. It’s finally slowed down but he’s got a slight fever and the shivers tonight. We were hoping that he would come back “home” tomorrow but we’ll have to see if the medical staff allows him. It’s made for a rather disappointing couple of days, although it’s been nice to have family to hang out with.

Last night we watched Lee do Rock-a-Rokie. It was a lot of fun, he sang with the band. Poor Brynna has had laryngitis for the past few days so can’t do karaoke.

Today we were in Grand Cayman where we did the Pirate encounter. It was a ton of fun but poor Brynna was chosen to swab the deck with all other kiddies on board. So here she is with a toothbrush, on her knees, when they douse the lot of them with buckets of seawater. She was soaked! After that, Hannah and Sarah gave up their mother as the evil wench who made them do chores so she was keelhauled, tied up to the mast and buckets of seawater with ice cubes in them were dumped on her! She was brave, yet cold. After all the merriment we then swam around the ship for a while then they took us back to shore where we did some shopping before heading back to the ship.


Tuesday, December 20

Another day ashore. We docked in Costa Maya around 10 and headed out to pick up our tour to the Chacchoben Ruins. The weather was very warm and humid but so much nicer than wind and rain! The drive to the ruins took about 50 minutes then we spent at least a couple of hours at the site. It was so cool to hear about all the Mayan history and see these recently discovered ruins. They’ve only been open to the public for 4 years and are still in the process of being excavated.

After our bus ride back we roamed around the shopping plaza at the dock, being plagued by vendors so quickly made it back to the ship where we found Gary in our cabin! Yeah! He’s feeling so much better although a bit weak and tired. He even came out to dinner with us but left as we ate dessert. He did want to go to the casino though, he must be getting better. We lost all our money there, as usual, then watched a singer for awhile. My mom enjoyed him but Teresa and I were wondering if they ever got entertainers that appealed to anyone under 60! We then went to see Quest, quite a funny game that they put on for the passengers and watched a bit of the Rock and Roll Party. No one in our group danced, and Gary had long since gone to bed. It’s now after midnight and time for me to put out the lights. Tomorrow we’re hanging in Belize and not doing much of anything.