     Cruise 2005: The Search for Sol Beer
     Western Caribbean
     January 8th - 15th, 2005

     Page: Main Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7

     Welcome to the Caribbean! This is the first time Alecia and I have been on a cruise. Before we left, she and I talked to people about what to expect and what to bring, so it was not a complete suprise to us, but we were still amazed at how much was on the ship. There is zero wasted space on a cruise ship. Everything has a purpose and everything is done up to look luxurious. We flew out of Raleigh, North Carolina on Saturday morning and arrived in New Orleans early in the afternoon. We grabbed our luggage, booked our transport to and from the boat and headed straight to the wharf.
     Day 1: The boarding process was pretty painless. They take your luggage away and make sure that you are not doing anything terrorist-like, such as bringing Schnapps or Rum on board. Then you give them your credit card and credit limit information so they know how much to charge you for drinks once you're on board. We got our stateroom key and flashed some ID to board the ship. We were on board only about 2 hours before departure. The stateroom we selected back in September was an interior room on deck 8 out of 10. We were as high as we could get without shelling out some serious money for a suite. We were told the interior rooms were just fine since you don't have to see outside when you're trying to sleep. The pools and hot tub were on deck 9, so if we wanted sunshine, we did not have far to go.
     Our first task was to grab a bite to eat at the buffet and then wander around the ship looking at everything it had to offer. We also took a spa tour so Alecia could look at which spa treatment she wanted. We learned where everything important was on the boat and then relaxed until dinner. We also did the fun muster drill to make sure we knew where to go in case we hit an iceburg. We had dinner (I'll talk about the dinner group in a minute) and then went around the ship a little more before retiring for the evening.
     Photo-quality links are on the individual day pages. (See top of page.)

Day 2: This was our first full day at sea. The night before, we left the Mississippi River delta and started through the gulf. The water was pretty calm, but you could still feel the boat. I guess some boats have better stabilizers than others. Some of my friends say they had no problems at all on a cruise. My stomach was a little queasy today. Some folks were ill. Some were doped pretty heavily on Dramamine. Good stuff from what I've heard.

Alecia hit a shopping seminar so that she was ready for Cozumel. We also played Bingo (which ended up being quite the rip-off) and did some other activities on the ship. We hit the pools for a bit and enjoyed some time in the hot tub. I played a little in the Casino and we had some drinks at different bars.

Our dinner group was two other couples: Jon and Emily and Stephen and Jenny. (They'll have to let me know if I spelled those wrong.) We got along pretty well and filled up dinner with good conversation. Jon works at a seasonal restaurant somewhere up North and Stephen works in the furniture business. Jenny works as a hair stylist and Emily works in human resources and recruiting. With only a couple exceptions we had dinner together every night. The food was most excellent. The wait staff we had was young and fairly fun as well. Paulo and Natasha. The drinks were pricey and not mixed the way you would expect, but I still had my share. I learned to really like Jack and Coke. It was the one drink that was consistently served well on the boat.

Day 3: We woke up to Cozumel, Mexico. It's a fairly clean place, I guess. We only got to see the parts that were heavily overrun by tourists. We went ashore fairly early in the morning. Our excursion at this stop was a snorkel cruise. We debated over several different choices for this stop. Many folks tell you that you do not have to book any excursions with the cruise line, you can just go ashore and find something you like and pay a little less for it. We saw many vendors there selling snorkel and other trips, but you just can't guarantee that you'll get back to the boat on-time with some of them. No biggie for us.

We boarded the excursion boat and drove up the shoreline a bit to a place less than a mile from the cruise ships. We grabbed snorkels and fins and jumped into the water. The water was very clear and almost perfect temperature for swimming. Our guide took us around the shoreline and pointed out lots of different plants and fish to us. He seemed to know his stuff... it's not like I knew any better. We probably saw 20 - 30 different types of fish, along with coral, urchins, sea cucumber, etc. We were in the water about an hour and a half. Once we got back on the boat, we took a glass-bottom boat tour of a little deeper water. The pictures from this are on the Day 3 page. It was quite fun.

Once we finished the snorkelling and the glass-bottom boat tour, we came back to find a lunch spread waiting for us. Tortilla chips with different toppings as well as all-you-can-drink beer and daiquiris. We took in the sun and warm breeze along with the food and drink. The boat then took us down shore several miles to downtown Cozumel. We were let off to fend for ourselves in the business district. There were lots of shops and things to see. I wanted to rent a scooter and go touring around Mexico, but I didn't have my drivers license with me. Turns out that this was probably a good thing. We saw someone on the cruise boat later that day who had been injured in a scooter wreck from getting hit or falling off or something.

Alecia and I did some shopping. I found a Del Sol store that had some shirts that I wanted... unfortunately I didn't buy it right then and never did find another store that had the same shirt. Ah well. We shopped for an hour or two and then headed back to the ship a little early. I was tired of shopping and getting harassed by all the vendors telling me to buy something for the pretty lady. All in all a fun little town. I would probably recommend trying to hit Playa del Carmen if you go here. The ferry ride can make you a little seasick, but the town is a bit more peaceful from what I've been told... not as big of a tourist trap.

Day 4: This has to have been the best part of the cruise. We got to play with Stingrays! The day actually started out really confusing. Since the boats cannot get close enough to shore, they use transfer boats to get everyone on and off the boat. It takes a while to get 2100 people to shore. If you don't have an excursion lined up, you have to get a number and wait in line. Some folks ended up waiting a couple hours to get to shore. Since you're only at the location for like 7 hours, it's not the best to have to wait 2 hours to get there (and 30-45 minutes to get back). Oh well. We were on the first transfer to shore since our excursion started early... or so we thought.

It turns out that many excursions had been cancelled due to weather reasons. Something (rain? wind?) caused the reefs to be cloudy... anyway, someone called from the shore to the boat to announce that at least 6 of the excursions had been cancelled. Mistakenly, they also said that ours was cancelled as well. We were already on shore and talking to our tour organizer by that point. So our excursion was still going, but the majority of the people did not show for it because they thought it was cancelled. It was a rather chaotic few hours while things were sorted out. We left for our excursion about 2 hours later than we had expected.

Fortunately, the wait was worth it! We were hauled over to a dock on the north side of the island. We loaded up on the boat (with 15 out of the normal 45 people) and headed out to Stingray City. It was awesome. We dropped anchor in like 3 feet of water. From there you just jumped off the boat and were swarmed by friendly stingrays. They'd come up and bat at you and check you out for food. Most of them would let you touch them. The only thing to watch for was the tail. They'd flip it at you from time to time, but since the stingers weren't really stingers... they didn't do any harm. We were given pieces of squid to give them. That was fun... they'd glide over your hand and suction it out of your grip.

We played with the rays for an hour, had some pictures taken and then headed back to the city. From there, we ate lunch then shopped and bought some alcohol at duty free prices (like 6 good sized bottles for $100 US) and then caught one of the last transfers from the shore back to the ship. It took a while for this process, but we'd had a good day (after such a rough start) so we were happy that we got to do everything we planned.

I would recommend the place for any cruise. Good fun. They are still recovering from Hurricane Ivan, but the place is still fully functional, I think. The prices are extremely high, so plan for that. Alecia and I had lunch for $30. Good place to visit. Probably not quite so fun to live there.

Day 5: We woke up in Costa Maya, Mexico. This has to have been the biggest tourist trap of them all. We come off the pier straight into the only shops for 100 miles. The shops themselves were nice and fairly clean. Reminds you of a strip mall in the U.S. The only difference is the hassle you get at these shops. The vendors are just as aggressive here as they are in Cozumel. They start off with a rather large price and then you attempt to bring them down to something you can stomach. I bought a $35 shirt for $20 (which was still a rip off, but oh well).

After about an hour of shopping and hanging around at the shore, we caught our excursion group. There were several different ruins to visit, our destination was Kohunlich. It was a 2 hour bus ride away from shore. We passed a lot of desolate places as well as some military checkpoints. The ruins themselves were not terribly remarkable. The buildings were pretty well worn down to rubble and the restoration lines were clearly seen. No one really has an idea as to what the place looked like originally, it's all just speculation. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the tour. I don't know what we would have done with all that time on the shore, other than shopping and eating.

We made it back to the boat just before it departed. From there we did dinner and hung out with some of our dinner companions. I think we all passed out early tonight.

Day 6 & 7: After doing all of our stops and excursions, the rest of our trip was spent heading back to New Orleans. We played cards, ate a lot, enjoyed some days in the sun and just relaxed as much as possible.

I will definitely be looking at taking a cruise again in the near future. It's nice to disconnect from everything sometimes and just relax a bit. Unfortunately my life is pretty stressful, so when I start relaxing, I start sleeping. I feel the need to catch up on all the sleep I've missed for the past few years. Oh well. Good trip, good fun. Not too bad on the cash flow, just have to figure out a way to get drinks for cheaper. :)