This year my in-laws, Pete and Judy Chaney, are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. In case you missed it, that was 5-0. That's no small feat, especially in this day and age. We celebrated with a family cruise.
We were on a Royal Caribbean cruise leaving out of Galveston. Our stops? Cozumel, Belize and Honduras. We left Dallas at the crack of 8am and headed off to Galveston. No trip to Galveston is complete without the traditional stop at Buc'ees.
Sitting in the bed of John's truck (aka Kingslayer) outside Buc'ees in Madisonville.
John and I have been on three cruises and every time, we up the ante. Last time it was a balcony. This time? A suite and it was nice. The room was cool. We had a full-sized bathtub, double sinks in the bathroom, and the sleep cave. There was a blackout curtain on the window leading out to the balcony AND a blackout curtain separating the bed and the living area. Awesome!
Full-sized bathroom.
Lovely sitting area.
The sleep cave. Note the blackout curtain to the left and the one on the window.
Leaving Galveston.
Along with the super nice room, there are privileges. Starting with the check in. Wait in this huge chaotic line? No sir, we have a suite. Right this way please. We went straight to the front of the line.
When having breakfast or lunch in the Windjammer cafe, did we sit with the masses? Hell no! We got to take our food into a dining room that was away from the pushing and shoving of the buffet.
One of the coolest benefits was the concierge lounge. Ricardo, our concierge, was instrumental in helping us get our luggage. (We are cursed when it comes to getting our luggage on a cruise ship. Granted the last two times it was because we tried to bring hooch on board. This time, we were clean. No contraband and yet, we were still one of the last ones to get our luggage. If not for Ricardo, it would probably have taken a lot longer.) Ngamilla was our resident bartender. Loved her! She introduced to me my new addition...Chocolate Martinis.
A chocolate martini courtesy of my favorite bartender, Ngamilla.
The cruises out of Galveston depart on Sunday. The excitement is at it's peak right before we set sail. There were fourteen of us: Mom and Dad; Me and John; Dave and Tanya with Dylan and Mia; and Mark and Michele with Paul, Brendan, John and James.
This is how you seat fourteen people at dinner.
Starting the vacation off with a little nap out on the balcony.
All around the table the first night...Brendan, Mark and Michele.
Michele, John, Paul and Mia.
Me and John.
Having adult beverages in the Two Poet's bar.
Monday was the first formal night. John and I were perfectly prepared to put on our Sunday best but then a funny thing happened on the way to the concierge lounge...or maybe it was in the concierge lounge. Mom and Dad were taking all the kids to Chops, the steak house. Dave and Tanya were trying another specialty restaurant and Mark and Michele were going to Sabor, the Mexican restaurant. So it was just John and I for dinner. We would have felt pretty silly sitting at that ginormous table all dressed up.
Instead, we chose to have cocktails in the concierge lounge and the slum it by going to the Windjammer for dinner. We had the whole buffet practically to ourselves! No pushing, no shoving, it was awesome.
Dinner at the Windjammer. We'd never had dinner there before.
A beautiful sunset.
The first stop was Cozumel. We've been to Cozumel several times and we chose to stay on the ship. That was a little slice of heaven. We had the gym to ourselves. No lines at the Windjammer and the adult pool? Empty except for us. It was the only time we went swimming.
It was a little chilly so we had to ease our way in.
Once in, it was nice. Practicing my backstroke.
I ran four out of seven days and this was my view. No offense to my fellow LA Fitness friends but this view is WAY better...
Cozumel behind me.
In Cozumel.
While we were hanging around the ship, Mom, Dad, Dave, Tanya, Mia and Dylan were swimming with the dolphins.
I'm not sure who had more fun: them or the dolphins...
Walking around the ship, you run into the most amazing people. We met up with Captain America outside our stateroom.
The cool thing about the cruise is that everyone goes their own way during the day but we all meet back up for dinner. Everyone wanted to sit next to Grandpa.
Our first towel animal. This was was my favorite.
John and Mom planning for the next day.
The next port was Belize. We've never been to Belize and we were looking forward to it. Dad planned for all of us to take this cool tour to see some Mayan ruins. All the best laid plans...
Look how happy they are...it was before the rains came...
Let me just preface this part of the story by saying that I
might have been a
teeny bit hungover to begin the day. Just a little bit. We were all supposed to meet on Deck 1 at 7:45am to take the tender to Belize. John and I got down there right at 7:45 and the person directing traffic rushed us on to the tender. We didn't see any of the family but we hoped they were already on board. The thirty minute tender ride in choppy water did not help my stomach. We got off the tender and on to the pier in Belize to pick up the bus. The sky was black and it was starting to drizzle. We looked around and still no Chaneys.
We were herded onto the bus where I was hoping that I could sleep since we had an hour bus ride. No such luck. It was freezing on the bus. When we got to the next stop, we were herded off the bus and into the bathroom. We passed a woman selling panchos and bug repellent but in my nauseous state it didn't sink in. The tour guide called everyone to board the boat. John and I were the last ones on the boat so we sat in the front row. We had a one hour boat ride on the Belize river to the ruins. The driver would stop every so often so the guide could point out cool things.
Iguana in the tree. You can see it's overcast here.
We'd been on the river about ten minutes when the driver stops the boat and instructs everyone to hold their life jacket up to their face because the rain will hurt when it pelts you. John and I looked at each other like what? We didn't have life jackets in the front row nor did we have any protection.
Look how dark it got in about two minutes!
I felt it start to drizzle and thought this won't be so bad. Then the temperature dropped about ten degrees in a matter of seconds. When the driver put the boat in gear and goosed it I thought uh-oh. The sky opened up and the rains came. I was huddled against John trying to keep my face from getting pelted while he held on to his hat and tried to help block my face. We needn't have bothered. We were drenched to the bone in two minutes. I kept thinking of a line from "Bullet the Blue Sky" by U2. Something about "pelting the women and children." With the temperature drop, the boat speeding along at forty or fifty miles an hour and being totally soaked, I began to shiver so hard my muscles were cramping. Always looking at the humorous side of things, John asked me how much I would have paid at that moment to be back on the ship. We rode like that for an hour.
When we got to the island where the ruins were, we were herded once again to the bathroom. Then our guide led us to the first structure and began to tell us about it as the rain continued to fall. Most of the people in our group had panchos or umbrellas. I think we were the only idiots that weren't prepared. I couldn't stop shivering so we went back to the dock where there was a covered picnic area so we could sit out of the rain and wait for the group. As we sat there, we started to laugh and I wished I'd had pictures of us huddled together on the boat. We decided to take a selfie, which didn't reflect our true situation so we had to take another.
This was not an accurate representation of how the day went.
This was more like it. You can't tell here but we are soaking wet still.
We'd been sitting there for about ten minutes when I saw a family of four coming from the pier. The parents were wearing garbage sacks and the kid had panchos. It took me a few minutes to realize it was David, Tanya and the kids. Not more than fifteen minutes after that, another boatload of people came up the walk all wearing panchos. By then it had stopped raining. I poked John in the ribs and pointed out his family trudging up the path. They must have been on the tender behind us. I wish I'd thought to pull out my camera and take their pictures coming off the boat.
When it was time to get back on the boat, John and I were the first ones on and we picked seats in the middle of the boat so we had some protection in case the skies opened up again. The ride back was great. The river was completely still and you could see all the plants and trees reflected on the surface of the river.
I thought this bridge look cool plus you can see the reflection of the tree in the river.
The scenes along the river were great...when it wasn't raining.
The Belize River.
Back on the pier to take the tender back to the boat, I saw the sign that said Belize. I wanted proof I was there. My shirt is heavy with all the water still.
Back on the boat, we got warm in our cozy robes and watched the rest of the tenders bring people back to the ship. I think the trip to Belize was the best story from our trip. Once back on the boat, we laughed. It took three days for our clothes to dry.
What are you lookin' at?
Dave and Tanya were on one side of us and Mom and Dad were on the other. This is how we communicated to one another...peeking around the balcony wall over into the next suite.
Next port? Roatan, Honduras. We'd been here before and we liked it a lot.
For this port, Dad rented a bus and hired a tour guide to take us around. Ivy was our guide and Irving was our driver. Once again, it was raining. However, this time, we were sitting in a bus...dry. Ivy took us around the island pointing out interesting things.
This was a skeleton of a ship that wrecked here back in the 1800's. The government left it there because it attracts a lot of divers (aka tourists).
Wouldn't you like to live in this house with this amazing view?
John sat behind me and gave me a rash of crap, teasing me about my book and my love of lazy cows. It was too funny.
Bathroom stop at this really cool resort where you could buy a fancy condo. Look who's all hip and cool...Jimmy W.
Mom and our guide, Ivy.
What an amazing view!
The next stop was the monkey farm. We could go in the cages with the monkeys and they would sit on your shoulder or in this case, pick your pocket.
The monkey hanging out with John.
Even Mom has a monkey on her back.
Photo op with my John. He's the one on the right...
I think the monkeys are plotting their revenge.
Back on the pier before re-boarding the ship.
Relaxing on the balcony until it's time for our next feeding.
The crazy woman hanging out of her balcony is Michele.
That's Roatan like a ghost in the clouds as we leave it behind. It was a pretty cool day. We got to see a good portion of the island. The only American chain restaurants there are Pizza Inn and Bojangles. No Mickey D's, no KFC...Interesting choice of restaurants.
A great picture of Mom and Dad at dinner.
The next two days were sea days. Those were the most relaxing. Just hanging out in the Cosmopolitan Bar up on the 14th deck of the ship.
The last formal night on the ship. Above is the requisite family photo...the entire Chaney clan
.
This one turned out great. Mom and Dad with their kids.
Mom and Dad with the grandkids: James, John, Dad, Paul (in the back), Mia, Dylan, Mom and Brendan.
This was a really nice one of Mom and Dad.
We clean up nice.
The Windsors: John, Paul, Michele, Mark, James and Brendan.
Random pics at dinner...
Good one of John...me? Not so much.
The final towel animal. How come all the animals always wear my sunglasses?
View of the ship at night from the Cosmopolitan Bar.
All in all, it was a fun trip. I enjoyed the interaction with all the kids. We didn't see as much of Mia and Dylan as we would have liked but they were busy with all the kid-friendly activities. I think they had a good time too.
Thanks to Mom & Dad for a wonderful time!!!
The staff on the ship is always amazing. Here, they bring a dessert to Mom and Dad and sing Happy Anniversary to them. Very nice.
