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Published: January 28th 2011
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Sunday - Jan 16: With a lot of excitement, we start from home at 7:30 am. It is hard to leave the boys behind for a week. We eat a light breakfast at the Einstein Bros Bagels and start for Houston. We reach the outskirts of Houston around 11:30 am, and despite Amy's skills (or lack thereof) with the iphone, we get lost. We finally find the way and eat a buffet lunch at Amy's favorite Indian restaurant. We then drive to the cruise parking and take the shuttle to the cruise ship. There is a Carnival ship next to our ship and both of them look huge! We go thru the check-in process and finally are on-board by 2:30 pm. We walk around the ship after putting our things in the small stateroom (with an even smaller bathroom). We book all the shore excursions thru the cruise at the explorations booth. At 4 pm, we gather for the security drill. Our muster leader, we learn later, is a dancer in the entertainment shows. After the drill, we watch the ship pull slowly away from the pier. The winds are cold but we have much to see around the ship.
We watch the welcome show and then go to the sit down dining and are very impressed by our waiter and the food. The day had been very hectic and so we retire to our stateroom early and are rocked to sleep by the ship's movement.
Monday - Jan 17: We wake up late and go to breakfast buffet at the Windjammer Cafe. Since, this is a sea day, we end up spending time exploring the ship further and hanging out by the pool reading our books. We see the ice carving demonstration from afar and play a game of miniature golf and table tennis on the 14th floor. After the formal dinner, we go to the production showtime starring singers and dancers, which was pretty good. We go to bed late.
Tuesday - Jan 18: This is the second sea day for us. We wake up earlier than yesterday and go to the gym. After a workout and shower, we go to the Windjammer Cafe for a buffet breakfast. We again spend time by the pool and the jacuzzi. The day is pretty relaxing and we take it easy.
Wednesday - Jan 19: We dock in Montego Bay, Jamaica at 8 am. We walk to the pier and finally find our tour group. We leave the pier in a van and take a 45 minute ride to a small fishing village called Lethe. The roads are really narrow and bumpy. At the fishing village, we take a bamboo canoe tour. Our canoe operator gives Amy a free pedicure with limestone and takes us on a leisurely cruise of the river. After 45 minutes, we end up at the destination. After a demonstration of how to make pina colada and how to climb a palm tree, we depart for the port. On the way, we stop at the shops at the port and do some souvenir shopping. We get back on the ship and see it sail away from Jamaica. We see the nicely performed ice skating show (wonder who came up with the idea of constructing an ice rink on a cruise ship). It is a casual dinner night and after dinner. We go to the Love and Marriage game show that night. It was really funny.
Thursday - Jan 20: We tender (as opposed to dock) at Grand Cayman Islands
and get a boat to the port. We go with the rest of our excursion group to a bus and are driven to a small port from where we take a boat to the Stingray City sandbar. After a 30 minute ride, we see several boats around beautiful looking waters. This is the famed Stingray City. The water is not too deep here and we all get down into the beautiful and rather cool waters. The stingrays are there instantly, hoping to get a snack. Our guide grabs one and lets us hold her and kiss her. They are such gentle creatures and do not deserve the bad press they get. After around 20 minutes in the water, we end up getting back into the boat and returning to shore. We wait for more than 30 minutes for the tour bus to take us back to the cruise terminal. Near the cruise terminal we stop at Margaritaville for some giant nachos and then walk around the beautiful island shopping for souvenirs. Amy looks at some jewelry (thank god she didnt buy any!). We head back to the ship and go to the Rules game show after dinner.
Friday - Jan 21:
We wake up, have an early breakfast and head to the La Scala theater to join our tour group to go to the Mayan ruins of Tulum. This is going to be one long day since the tour is supposed to take 8 hrs and our ship docking in Cozumel for 8 and half hours. On getting down from the ship, we see the newest Royal Carribean ship docked next to us. It was so huge and is the biggest cruise ship in the world at the moment! We take a 30 minute fast boat ride from the island of Cozumel to mainlad Yucatan. From there we take a tour bus to Tulum. The Mayan ruins are better preserved than most other Mayan ruins and we see the various temples and palaces. The ruins are on a cliff overlooking the beautiful waters of the Carribean sea. After the tour, we take the bus back to a beach restaurant. After a buffet Mexican meal, we end up at the beautiful beach. We walk around in the water and relax on the lounge chair. We take the bus and the fast boat back to the cruise ship and arrive
with just 5 minutes remaining before the cruise ship departs. We are very tired and go to bed immediately after dinner.
Saturday - Jan 22: We are well on our way to Galveston. The air becomes very cold and the seas are very choppy. Most of the decks are closed because of safety concerns. Amy rests while Anand goes to the library for a couple of hours. We watch the parade and the farewell show. We say our byes to our dinner table friends, pay the gratuities to the staff, pack all our bags and leave them outside our room for transportation.
Sunday - Jan 23: Our day of departure. It is hard to believe that the vacation is over and one week passed away so fast. We have breakfast at the Carmen dining room and exit the ship at around 9 am. We get the EZ Parking shuttle around 9:30 am and drive home. It takes us a couple of stops and 5 hrs and we get home around 2 pm to be greeted by two needy cats.
We loved our cruise and enjoyed every minute of it.
Here are more photos from
the cruise:
More Cruise Photos To read Anand's critical cruise ship review please go to the following link:
Voyager Of the Seas Review
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