Welcome to our latest adventure. We started off in Galveston, Texas for our pre-cruise stay at the Holiday Inn & Suites West Seawall. This was a very nice hotel to stay at before your cruise because it's clean, the staff are very nice and because it's not near the port, it's less expensive and you get a free breakfast in the morning. I must warn you though, there isn't a lot to do at this end of the seawall. You need a car, taxi or public transit to get anywhere and you must be extremely careful crossing Seawall Blvd. because it's a really busy street.
We crossed the street and explored the beach, but because it was not that warm we didn't actually get into the water.
I love this picture that I took from under the pier. It's one of my favourites!
We found this gift shop and restaurant that's just across the street from the hotel. Jimmy's On The Pier is the name of the restaurant and the food is very good. I would highly recommend them. Once we ate dinner our waiter gave us a pass to walk along the fishing pier. Normally you would have to pay to walk out there. It was really nice. We watched whole families out there fishing and a few brave soles out surfing in the dark.
This photo was taken from our table in the restaurant just as the sun was going down.
The next morning after breakfast, our shuttle service came to pick us up. We used Island Breeze Shuttle Service and they were very good. The gentleman called to say that he was on his way and arrived right on time. On the way to the ship he gave us a short historical sightseeing tour of the area and even offered to wait if we needed to pop into the Walmart up the street. He got us to the cruise port quickly and we were on our way.
Since we are returning cruisers with Royal Caribbean, we are part of the Crown & Anchor Society so we had a much shorter line to check into the ship.....or so we thought. We checked in quickly, had our photo taken and then went upstairs to get onto the ship.....or so we thought. Instead of just walking onto the ship we were greeted with a few hundred other cruisers in a lounge all sitting and waiting with excited anticipation. Nobody knew what the hold up was. There were many stories and theories as to what the problem was but I don't think we'll ever really know what happened. Royal Caribbean didn't handle the problem well at all. In the 2 and a half hours we were left sitting there they handed out no food, no water and very little information. It was not the best way to start our vacation. Things started to get tense with the waiting passengers and police officers were brought in to calm everyone down and for crowd control. Finally we were allowed to board the ship. We found our stateroom quickly and our suitcases were already right outside the door. We dropped our carry-on luggage in the room and went to the Windjammer for lunch. We were all starving and tired from the long wait.
Here is a photo of the ship. It's part of the Freedom class, it's one of the medium size ships in the fleet. We had previously been on the Freedom Of The Seas for our honeymoon 11 years ago.
After a day at sea we arrived in Cozumel, Mexico. We were suppose to be going on a Mayan ruins and chocolate making tour, but that got cancelled. We had to pick another tour, so we chose downtown Cozumel and beach excursion. We had a nice time walking around in downtown Cozumel, but we didn't exactly feel all that safe. The shop owners were extremely in your face trying to get you into their store. While we were waiting as a group for our bus, armed police officers ran by us with their guns drawn. I couldn't wait to get back on the bus. Our next stop was to the beach in Punta Morena. It was in the middle of nowhere. There was a restaurant, a washroom/changing area and gift shop and the ocean with some hammocks. We spent a few hours there and then it was back to the ship.
Our next port was Grand Cayman. We've been there many times before, so we didn't bother doing a tour. We just took a walk around town. We found a cafe that had free Wifi and sent messages home. I got chased by a rooster and chicken as I was standing there. It was too funny.
The next day we were in the port of Falmouth. It's a relatively new port in Jamaica and we've been there a few times before as well. We basically found the Starbucks, had a drink and used their Wifi and then got back onto the ship. It rained off and on during our stay.
Our last two days were spent at sea. Sea days are great because it's the time where you can explore the ship to it's fullest and all of the programs are running and the shops and casino is open all day long. The shops and casino are closed when the ship is docked in a port.
From the day that Neal and I got onto the ship, Neal was eyeing this children's area with this big bucket that when full dumps the water down a chute and drenches the person below. I encouraged him to embrace his inner child and do it. So as you can see he did....twice. He also tried out both water slides as well.
What do two Canadians do while at sea? Figure skating of course. We were inspired after watching the amazing ice skating show the night before. We both had a blast skating and neither of us fell.
On our last day at sea we decided to play some mini-golf. This was the smallest golf course on any of the ships that we had been on but the most fun. We played golf just about 20 minutes before a nasty thunder storm pelted the ship so it was very windy.
All in all we had a great time on this trip. The entertainment on the ship was fantastic. The big production show was Saturday Night Fever. It was really well done. But my favourite show was the last night. Nathan Osmond (the nephew of Donny and Marie Osmond) gave us a wonderful country music concert. Wow he was amazing!
This photo was taken back at Houston airport where we had to wait for over 5 hours because Air Canada wanted to charge us $150 each to catch an earlier flight which left at half capacity. That's some great customer service Air Canada....NOT!
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