In 2013 we took
the second of our two Caribbean cruises with the kids. We love Carnival cruises and while the original time we were a
little skeptical as their reputation as a party boat, we actually found them no
different and even better in some ways for our kids. We chose to cruise out of the Port of New
Orleans on a five day cruise that would hit Honduras (the island of Roatán), Belize, and back to Cozumel. This time, we went with our friends Mark
and Joey and their two kids Ali and Audrey.
We chose the last week of summer break in Texas and missed all the
Louisiana kids who went back to school that week. We went on the Carnival Conquest - a medium to large sized ship. (Ship Map)
We stayed the night before at the New
Orleans Marriott Metairie at Lakeway which is just off the south end of the
Lake Pontchartrain bridge. It had a nice
indoor pool, a running track, and a workout room. The price was very good too. Since we drove from Austin to New Orleans, we
didn’t really need to stay near the port.
We went to dinner at the Acme Oyster House, We like the one in the French Quarter, but this one was less crowded and near the hotel.
The next day we drove to the port early to get on the boat
early. We like to take advantage of the
less crowded ship and take care of lunch (included) and the kids’ club
sign-ups, etc. We parked at the covered
Fulton garage and pre-bought our tickets online. We waited for the shuttle to take us to the
port, but it was really slow, so we just walked around the north end of the
terminal (about two blocks) and then found the place to enter the
terminal. Boarding was smooth and we
made it through in about 20 minutes.
Leaving Louisiana
I was shocked at how long it took us to get from New Orleans
to the Gulf of Mexico. I had always
pictured New Orleans as being on the coast, even though in the five or so times
I’ve been there, I’ve never tried to find a beach…. Red flag… So I tracked our movement on my cell which
got pretty decent reception until late the first night. There are hundreds of islands surrounding the
delta of the Mississippi River and we passed through these largely unsettled
areas for a long time.
Day at Sea
We spent the next day at sea – kids did kids’ club
activities and we chilled by the pool and in the casino. We got the drink ticket and pushed the limit
on that too. Carnival had very good
shows at sea – they hire talented people instead of making the crew do all the
skits themselves. We saw a really great magic show with a helicopter that appeared on stage at the end. The had musicals and other shows too. The Comedy club had some good acts – we usually skip the kiddie show and go straight to the adult stuff.On the first night we had a dance contest at the teen club and both families won over the other families.
This ship had an Apothecary Bar where they had an old timey Pharmacy and made unique drinks that were super strong. Mark and I didn’t discover the Apothecary until the second to last day which is probably for the better.
On the first day at sea we did the family scavenger hunt where we had to do about 10 different things around the ship. Mark, Joey, Shellie, and I went to the National Finals for the Great Urban Race, so we love to get our scavenger hunt on. But it was no contest. The Bradley's finished in 1st in just over 20 min. The next team was more than 10 min behind and most teams were over 40 min.
Honduras / Roatán
I love to wake up as we’re pulling in to a new
port. It’s only one of two things that I
like better than sleeping-in (the other is getting ready to go to work, of
course).
As we docked in Roatán, you
could see the lush green tropical hillsides and you knew you were on vacation. Our shore excursion for the day was to go to
monkey town at Gumbalimba
Park!
The park is a good 30 minutes
from the dock so we got to see a lot of small villages and the Honduran way of
life which is very different from our own. At the park, it was like a multi-part tour,
with a botanical gardens tour, a pirate cave, huge lizards and brightly colored
macaws. But he highlight was MonkeyTown where
we got to feed and touch monkeys. One
stole Mark’s water bottle, took it way up in a tree, opened it up, chugged all
the water, and then spiked it down to the ground. We got several pictures of monkeys on our
shoulders and heads.
Belize
The next day we worked our way up the coastline to
Belize. We had always wanted to go to
Belize, partly because of how beautiful it looked, partly because our sister in
law lived there for a while and attested to it, and partly because they speak
English. The boat doesn’t dockin Belize
and you have to take a tender to get to the mainland or any other place. We opted for an excursion to one of the
1000’s of private islands just off the coast, for a picnic and snorkeling
adventure. When I say islands, many of
them, including this one, are basically sand bars with a house and a dock. When we got to our postage-stamp island we
split into groups by snorkeling ability.
Bix and I went with the intermediate group – he was already adept at
snorkeling underwater – and Mom and Brooke went to the beginner group. The visibility was pretty good and we got to
go pretty deep – which for us is like 30
feet. Brooke and Mom said the instructors for the beginners were
very kind and helped a lot. Even after
the snorkeling was over and we had free time, an instructor volunteered to take
Brooke out again and work with her. The
meal was pretty basic and then we headed back to the boat.
Joey and
Mark took another tender into Belize City to go shopping and they got back just
in time for dinner.
Cozumel
 |
| Joey wins the balloon toss game |