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Our Voyager Of The Seas trip (4/4/04) (VERY LONG)



 
 
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Old April 15th, 2004, 09:36 PM
Grey Wolf
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Default Our Voyager Of The Seas trip (4/4/04) (VERY LONG)

First off, I apologize for the length. I tried to cut out a lot of
stuff from my journal, and it still ended up being HUGE. So my
apologies again, hope this doesn't bore any of you. I had a great
time, would love to do it again in a few years!

David

=================================================
VOYAGER OF THE SEAS - WESTERN CARIBBEAN - 4/4/04
=================================================
4/3/04 - PRE CRUISE: GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE
Flight from Sacto to Denver uneventful.
Flight from Denver to Miami uneventful, had some nice turbulence on
our descent into Miami gave a nice little adrenaline rush to the start
of our vacation!
Stayed at Hilton Airport, never will go there again. Not only did we
have to wait for a shuttle for over an hour: first one we must have
missed, second one we saw was already full, third one we almost got on
but was kicked off because they took airline crew (pilot &
stewardress) first. So we finally made it on the 4th shuttle. Not
very happy customers by this time.
The free shuttle from Hilton to the Dolphin Mall was great and just
what the doctor ordered.

4/4/04 - DAY ONE: MIAMI
Overnight at Hilton Airport was fine. Gift shop lady complained about
breaking a $20 when I bought two rolls of Rolaids for $3 and some
change. Told me I should have went to front desk to break the $20.
Screw 'em, they work for the most frickin' expensive hotel I've ever
been in, they should be able to break a $20. This was the second
black mark on my Hilton Airport experience.
Cab to the pier cost us $23 bucks. Ouch. Knowing that we had to look
forward to a similar charge when we returned in a week did not make
things any better. Tipped a porter to take our luggage. There was
still a line at 11:20 when we got there, they hadn't started letting
people on yet. We had our documents already filled out on the
internet, so all we had to do was give them credit card info and our
signatures and we got our Sea Pass. I think we were aboard by 12:15.
Wow, what a ship. We found our room already cleaned, but no luggage
or tux yet. We dropped off our carry-ons, grabbed the cameras, and
explored the ship. Going out on deck 12 we met a bar staff guy who
sold us our first new drinks: Miami Vice as we were leaving the Port
of Miami. We waved at people, Trisha flirted with a "hottie" on the
coast guard ship that was just below our viewing spot.
First casual dinner (late seating) met Mike & Martha and their two
kids… nice folks from Long Island, NY. For dinner I had the cod filet
with mashed red potatoes and a banana cream rum-cake for desert.
Karen & Trisha had the Chicken Philadelphia (chicken breast stuffed
with cheese & broccoli) and for desert the white chocolate parfait.
Overall we quite liked our dinner. Rusen was our waiter and Lord our
assistant. Both guys were complete gentlemen and quite friendly.
We went to the Bon Voyage Parade on the Royal Promenade and had a good
viewing spot; Karen won a raffle for 2 tickets for the Tulum Express
in Cozumel. We never win anything, so even though we already had
plans for Coz, we were excited to win something.
Came back to cabin after the parade, our suff was now there. Trisha
conked out right away, Karen and I were still wide awake so we went up
to JR's at 12:15 a.m. and had runny milkshakes (tasty but would've
been better if they were thicker) with all of the teenagers that were
there. Came back to cabin and conked out.

4/5/05 - DAY TWO: AT SEA
Woke up at 8:30! Wow, that's sleeping in for us! It felt good! Sea
breeze was nice cool, not too balmy (yet!). We had breakfast at
Windjammer, a quick one due to finding out that a "Shopping Talk"
seminar was starting at 9:00. During the meeting, we managed to catch
a free Del Sol Frisbee that was tossed out into the audience. It
changes colors when put into sunlight (or UV). This was our second
win (we're NEVER this lucky!).
K&T went and gambled in the Casino. K lost but T won $45 in quarters.
I merely "observed" and meanwhile enjoyed my second new drink: a Coco
Loco.
We had lunch at Johnny Rockets (K & T had grilled cheeses & a
strawberry & chocolate shake respectively; I had a grilled ham &
cheese and a rootbeer float). The food was good. K (a second time)
and T were both unimpressed with the shakes, as they were still runny.
My rootbeer float came with real ice cream, to my happiness. Then K&T
went to bingo, while I decided to sit in the sun and read on our
balcony. About 15 minutes later, I decided to work on my tan instead
of read (mostly due to the fact that sitting in the sun was making me
too sleepy to read). K&T came back - didn't win bingo but did win
another raffle (win #3, what the heck is going on here?!?), the prize
being tickets for 2 for the cozumel submersible excursion. Again we
already had plans for Cozumel, so we didn't want the tickets. But it
was exciting to win. By the way, bingo cost $35 per "6-pack" of
cards; so it cost Karen $70 for her and Trisha. The cost was the
major reason I did not play. They came back with stories of a "really
funny guy" who did the bingo.
At 7 pm, K&T went to the spa to get their hair done for our first
formal night. I wore my slacks, a nice silk shirt and clip on tie,
and the tux jacket as my formal getup. K&T came back and looked
gorgeous. We stood in line for 20 mins at the Magic Flute, which was
slow to open due to formal pictures being taken. For dinner, I had
the shrimp cocktail appetizer, lobster bisque soup, and some pasta
dish with chicken and a creamy Cajun (to me, it was Cajun-light)
sauce. Both Karen and Trisha had the oxtail broth and Caesar salad,
and beef tenderlonin for dinner. Dessert consisted of strawberry
shortcake for Karen and I, while Trisha opted for the sugar-free
chocolate mouse cake, which she didn't like.
After pleasant dinner, we returned to cabin and played some cards. We
could tell we were in the Caribbean Sea, the weather outside was quite
warm and humid. I had a hard time getting to sleep due to the warm
temps. Karen set the wakeup call to 5:30 a.m. due to an early arrival
in Belize.

4/6/04 - DAY THREE: BELIZE
5:30 a.m. came way too early. K&T ordered breakfast from room
service, I was still 'tasting' the lobster bisque and pasta and
decided to skip breakfast. We sent some postcards off. While they
were eating, I went up to the jogging track (deck 12) and took some
pictures of the sunrise. We caught a tender to Belize City, our first
tender ever! Weather was very mild, so the sea was calm and the
tender trip was a breeze. The Voyager was about 4 nautical miles off
the coast, so the tender ride took about 15-20 minutes, but it felt
like only 10.
Went to meet Coral Breeze at flagpole to start our Cave Tubing tour,
they were nowhere to be found. A guy named "Marvin" came up and
offered to take all of us Coral Breeze people. Found out he was with
Wet-N-Wild Cavetubing, a tour through Eco Tours Belize. Marvin took
our names down and how much deposit we had paid and we gave him the
remainder of the money that we were going to pay Coral Breeze. He
said that CB was not going to make it and that they had authorized him
to take us. We were sweating it, because we were supposed to meet CB
at 6:30 to start at 7, and Marvin showed up at 6:50.
Marvin agreed to make our 12:30 departure time.
We boarded his bus along with 7 other passengers from Voyager of the
Seas, so our group consisted of only 10 people!!! The van itself was
not in the best of repair, Marvin had to bolt down one of the seats
and the A/C spewed out some sort of rubber foamy stuff on one poor
passenger. Marvin apologize profusely explaining the top had just
been re-furbished the day before. He drove us down the back-streets
of Belize City (poor living conditions) and stopped at a gas station
to fill up. Gas was $7 something in Belize dollars, or over $3.50 in
USD. Guess we can't complain about paying $1.95 a gallon back home.
We arrived at cave tubing site where we geared up with tubes and head
lamps. Walked at a good pace through the official rain forest (gets
over 140" of rain a year). Saw examples of several plants, including
a gum tree (once used to make chewing gum), pineapple, avocado, a
mimosa (carnivorous plant), strangler figs, and others. Also, Marvin
spied a basilisk lizard and was able to catch it. We were near the
river, so he carried it there and dropped it in the river. The lizard
swam "ran" back to the shore. Pretty neat. We crossed the river and
hiked a while more until we reached the beginning place. He led us to
the furthest cave, pointing to where the shorter route started. So
that was good: we got the longer trip! We hopped in the river and
away we went.
We floated down the river, paddling frequently as the river was quite
slow. I'd actually almost describe it as a creek. The water was
nice, most places it was nice and deep. Floating into the caves was
awesome. In some places the river got pretty low causing "ripples" in
which, in Marvin's words, it was time to "butts up, feet forward!" to
try and float over them. Alas, us heavy people sometimes had a hard
time going over these rapids as our tube or butt would get stuck on
the rocks. My headlamp was also kind of dim, so I didn't get to see a
lot of cave features. I was more worried about paddling and keeping
up with the group. Eventually we made it back to the point where we
had originally crossed the river and so our tour was nearly over. We
walked back to the starting point where we were served BBQ Chicken,
Rice & Beans, a tropical coleslaw (with pineapple and, I think, a
cooked banana) and lemonade. It was delicious.
On the way back to town (it was a good hour long drive to get to the
Cave Branch River from Belize City, so another hour going back) we saw
a big bus (Greyhound size) pulled over broken down. It was the
official Voyager of the Seas tour. As we zoomed by (another bus had
already stopped and was helping out), we knew then that we would make
it back to the ship in time before it leaved, because it would not go
anywhere until those people made it back. Being on an independent
tour, we did not have that guarantee, and had been worried about
missing our ship the whole day. Now we could relax.
The tender ride back to the ship took about 15-20 minutes but felt
like 30. Not sure why they went so slow on the way back. On the
ship, Karen and Trisha went to listen to a talk about shopping for
jewelry (Diamonds and Tanzanique), only because it was being held in
Cleopatra's Needle and Bingo was following it. They wanted to get
good bingo seats. I joined them about 10 minutes prior to bingo
starting, just to watch (I was not going to pay $35 to play bingo!).
I ordered a drink, a yummy Pina Colada. K&T did not win anything this
time, but we were all entertained by Hamish, the assistant cruise
director, who was the "funny guy" that they had told me about. He was
very funny.
After a quick trip back to our room, we headed to Studio B for "Ice
Jammin", the show on their ice rink. It was spectacular. With music
selections from world-music (Africa, Japan) to jazz, Latin, and
rock-n-roll, the skaters were simply awesome. While there, I had
another drink: a grasshopper on the rocks. I think I had the only
green drink on the ship! After the show, we went to dinner and opted
to try Island Grill instead of dressing up for "smart casual". We
arrived at the perfect time to watch the sunset. It was our second
time eating in full view of the Carib Sea (first time was at Johnny
Rockets, but this had a better view); it was enhanced by the movement
of the ship. After dinner we retired to the cabin so Karen could get
rid of her headache; unfortunately it never happened so we stayed
there and missed the "Dreamscape" show. Bummer.

4/7/04 - DAY FOUR: GRAND CAYMAN
Got up kind of late (8 a.m.) due to no early port time. We had
breakfast in the main dining room. Met some nice folks from Florida
and another couple from Europe (unfortunately didn't get to talk to
them much as they were at the other end of the table). The FL couple
had traveled more extensively than us, and had some good stories to
tell us. They said Rio was their favorite place of all to travel to,
but for our Western Carib. Cruise, they recommended Altun Ha and
Xcaret Ecological Park (in Cozumel). Of course we already had plans
for Coz, but I took a note to save it for next time.
After b-fast, we got dressed up to go ashore and spend time in the
water. However, there was a "win a cruise" bingo game happening
first, so we went to that. Again, I didn't play. I had the drink of
the day, "Rum Punch", and let me tell you: they make them strong in La
Scalla Theater! I'm still not sure if there was any punch in that
drink. :-) K&T didn't win. Hamish was the guy doing the bingo
again, he's a vibrant, funny, engaging person. I thought he'd make a
fine Cruise Director.
Directly after bingo, I stood in line to get tender tickets and met a
nice lady from Sacramento! Yay, finally someone from Calfifornia!
Got our tickets about 30 minutes later, I rushed back to cabin to
throw on some sun block, and get down to Deck 1 to catch the tender.
We managed to get on the first tender, although our tickets were for
tender #3. Yay! Tender ride was slow, but only took about 10-15 mins
as we were a lot closer to shore than we had been in Belize.
We could not find the Nativeway people, so we had to talk to the lady
in the info booth and she ended up calling them. We met Eldon at the
gazebo at the north pier. He took our names and told us to meet back
in about 30 minutes. We walked around for a bit and came back, Eldon
met us and led us to where the tour bus was. It was already full of
people! They had room for us and another party of 3, and we were off.
(Evidently, they had a group of about 15 people all together, some of
which had gone with Nativeway before.) We drove down to the Yacht
Club marina, past 7 Mile Beach. We saw a Pizza Hut, KFC and Wendy's
fast food stores, and a "Papa Johns Pizza" too. Cayman was really
built up, nothing at all like Belize City. On our way into the
marina, we got to see a good-sized iguana at the side of the road.
Cool!
Met our guides at the boat, and Michelle who was to be our
videographer. She was Australian. After a slow ride through the
marina, we finally made it out to the ocean where we could open
throttle and speed up. Michelle talked to everyone and got us on
tape, except for one elderly lady who exclaimed "I don't want my
picture taken" and refused to be filmed. We were amazed at how pretty
the water was.
Made it to Stingray City, spent 45-60 minutes there, it felt like 20.
We donned our masks and snorkels and jumped in, the water was only
about 3.5' to 4' deep. We avoided the stingrays at first, until the
guides caught one and we could touch it or hold it. After a while we
relaxed… but still kept one eye peeled so we would know if a stingray
was coming near us. I also practiced snorkeling, as I hadn't done it
in 20 years and the last time had been in a lake! I tried to show
Karen and Trisha, but they weren't really into it. We all go to hold
the stingrays, and some even were brave enough to feed it. Our guide
went and found "Darth Vader", a huge black female ray that was famous
for two things: first, it was old (at least 27 years old), and second,
it had been filmed on a National Geographic special. It was the only
black ray there, the rest were dark brown.
We then got back aboard our boat and went to snorkel some more at
Coral Gardens, a coral reef area. K&T opted to stay on the boat, but
not me! I got some flippers and headed out. I had no idea what kind
of fish I saw, but I saw at least 4 different kinds. It was fun to
swim around with flippers, boy was I glad that salt water is so
buoyant. Back on the boat, a lady said that she had seen a barracuda
in a spot where there were no fish around, yikes! Michelle said she
saw some mini-lobsters and a moray eel. We spent about 45 minutes at
Coral Gardens.
Trip back to the pier was fine. We tipped the boat guides $20, and
the van-driver $10 because he gave us a lot of info. I also bought
Michelle's dvd for $60, she said it would be on my ship by the last
tender, or if not, they'd mail it to me in about 2 weeks. We only had
about 1.5 hours left before last tender. We really enjoyed Nativeway,
the guides were friendly and knowledgable, and we had a blast. I,
especially, have discovered that I love to snorkel and can't wait to
do it again some day.
Getting back into Georgetown at 4:15 local time, we knew the shops
closed up around 5 pm. We weren't very interested in spending more
time walking around, so we decided to just go back to the ship. No
Tortuga tour, no Hard Rock Café. Oh well, next time! Tender ride
back to ship seemed slow, but probably wasn't.
Boy were we famished! I had a small cup of punch after snorkeling,
but other than that, none of us had anything to eat or drink all day.
Plus we got sunburnt; K&T didn't use any sunscreen that day, and I
had, but obviously I had missed some spots. All 3 of us couldn't wait
to get back and take a shower. We decided to try and make
reservations at Portofinos… we were lucky and got a table for 6:30 pm,
only about an hour away. Perfecto!
For appetizer I had the tiger prawns on risotto & spinach. Excellent!
Trisha had the corn chowder (she liked it). Karen wasn't interested
in an of it, but on the waiter's (Tsolt, from Hungary) recommendation
she tried the thin-sliced beef dish which he then asked if she wanted
oil and malt vinegar, and she said yes. It was gross… or rather, not
to our taste. Next up, I had a pasta dish: lobster spaghetti - chunks
of lobster in spaghetti with peas and zucchini and lobster sauce. It
was delicious too. Karen had Caesar salad. For entrees, we all chose
the filet mignon and we were all happy with it. We also had a variety
of breads and probably 4-5 glasses of iced tea each! Even though we
were completely stuffed, Tsolt convinced us to try the Tiramisu. Wow!
It was a very elegant-looking desert and came with a B52 shot
(baileys, kahluah and crème). I'm the only one who enjoyed the B52
shot, but it was a bit much. Overall we were very happy with
Portofinos, the food and service was great.
Came back to the dining room to change into shorts and loose clothes
and made our way down to La Scalla theater to catch the "Love and
Marriage Show". We got there in time to catch some of the try-outs.
It was hilarious. This was the first time we got to see Richard the
Cruise Director, he was pretty darn funny too. We laughed a lot. We
don't recommend anyone sitting up at the top towards either side, due
to being close to the bar… the bartenders and waiters were quite noisy
and sometimes we couldn't hear the show. The show was totally
hilarious and not to be missed.
We went to the Mardi Gras parade, and felt that it was very similar to
the Bon Voyage parade. We were at a bad spot (at one of the ends of
the Promenade) and had to stand behind people, so we didn't get to see
much. Pretty much felt that we wasted our time with that one.
That was it for the night. We wanted to try the self-service ice
cream machine, but it closed at 10pm, we just missed it.

While out and about, I stopped at the Guest Relations desk to see if
they had my Stingray City dvd from Michelle. Sure enough, they did!
Woo hoo! How they made the dvd so fast, I'll never know. Went back
to the room, joked around for a bit, and then crashed. (Note: we
watched the stingray city dvd the night after we got back, and it was
great, worth the $60!)

4/8/04 DAY 5: COZUMEL
Woke up at 6:30, had breakfast in the Windjammer: Cantaloupe, cereal,
scrambled eggs and a slice of French toast. It was quite yummy and
hit the spot. Spent next few hours catching up on my journal, met K&T
for "Cozumel Shopping Highlights" at Cleopatra's Needle. We ended up
winning a Silver Emporium necklace & bracelet ($8 value). Then K&T
played bingo and I observed. Drinks were 2 for 1, so I got 2 Pina
Coladas for me, and 2 Strawberry Daquiri's for K&T. Hamish was
hilarious as usual. After Bingo it was time to disembark to Cozumel
for our Dolphin Discover excursion. We were docked at the Punta
Lagosta pier, right downtown - so no need for a tender. Yay!
The taxi ride to Chanknaab Park was quite the thrill, it seemed that
our driver only knew one speed: accelerate. At one point, on a
single-lane highway, he decided to pass the civilian car ahead of him
at the same time another taxi was coming directly at us. Both cars
scooted to the side allowing us to survive the experience. And zoom,
away we went. What a thrill ride! Chanknaab was gorgeous, but all we
did was wait around in a large group of about 50 people. Finally they
had us all rounded up from our taxis and then brought us into the
park, where we waited and waited some more. Eventually, they were
ready to take them out to the dolphins after everyone had gotten a
life jacket on. I paid $20 so that I could be an observer - this
covered the $10 taxi fare and $10 park entrance fee. I was allowed
onto the pier where family members could watch and take pictures.
Unfortunately, K & T's group were led to one of the furthest pens from
the pier, so my pictures of them were very small. I ended up taking
pictures of the pen closest to me, and got some great shots of Foxy
the dolphin. 20 minutes later, they were done. Overall, we felt this
was not worth the money spent: the Dolphin Encounter cost $100 per
person, and we waited around for about 4-5 hours for a 20 minute
experience. For $35 more a person, they could have done the "Dolphin
Swim" and got a lot more time with the dolphins. These were
Chanknaab's prices, the ship's excursion did not charge anything over,
so we blame Chanknaab. We ended up buying 3 of the photos, and also
felt that their staff in the gift store was not very friendly.
Perhaps this was because of the 10 or so cruise ships in Cozumel that
day… with the possibility of 40,000 people (counting pax and crew)
being on land from cruise ships alone.
After waiting for so long, we were in no mood to stick around and look
at the rest of the park. So we got in a taxi and headed back to
Cozumel for some shopping. This driver was a tad slower, much to my
dismay. We were dropped off at the Punta Lagosta Mall. We walked and
shopped all they way up the main street until we got to Los Sinco
Soles, and had our dinner at Pancho's Backyward. At one point we also
stopped in a store and Trisha got half of her head braided. By 6:00
we had arrived at Pancho's Backyard and ordered food. Karen and I had
the carne asada (which came with rice, beans, guacamole, quesadilla
and a chicken enchilada with mole sauce); the meat was cooked to order
(medium) and was delicious. We forgot to say "no sour cream", but the
dollops were not huge, so that was fine. The chicken enchilada was
dry even with the mole sauce, and was made with corn tortillas which
are not to our liking. Trisha ordered the chicken enchilada and ended
up eating the chicken out of it, along with most of the salsa that had
been placed at our table. : Overall, we were happy with the food.
We were too tired to try their famously large margaritas, instead we
watched other people drink them. Pancho's Backyward was nice and
quiet and had a very relaxing atmosphere. The marimba players were
not playing while we were there. The total price was just over $60
for the three of us - with no drinks ordered, I felt this was a tad on
the expensive side… but worth it. They gave us a lot of good food.
We shuffled, stumbled, and shopped our way back down the main street
back to the Punta Lagosta pier and boarded the ship at around 8:30,
about an hour before "last call". Also, it was quite warm and muggy
and I had developed some "chafing in the nether regions" to quote
Colby from Survivor All Stars, so it was good to get back on the ship
and stop walking around to make the rash worse.
At 9 pm, we went to La Scalla theater to watch "Broadway Through the
Ages". It was a very well done show, though I thin we enjoyed "Ice
Jammin" and "Love & Marriage Show" a bit more. We had intentions to
go to Karaoke Night, but that fell apart. Trisha conked out, Karen
and I went to Johnny Rocket's for shakes. This time I had vanilla
(Karen had strawberry) and lo and behold, there was still some ice
cream in mine… it was just a tad thicker than before. The shakes hit
the spot. We got back to our cabin around 11:00-11:30 and crashed.

4/9/04 - DAY 6: COSTA MAYA
Woke up at 6:30 to get off at Costa Maya at 7:00. K&T went to grab a
bite to eat at Windjammer while I finished getting packed for our
Mayan Ruin excursion. We made it to Deck #1 at 7:4 or so. The ship
was supposed to be docked by 7:00 am, but was over an hour late in
docking. We finally went to shore, but my legs were still chafed and
sore and I could hardly walk. I decided to cancel the Chachoben Ruins
excursion because I could hardly walk, and that tour would consist of
about 90% walking. We sepnt about 1.5 hours in Costa Maya shopping,
and Trisha found a lady who braided the rest of her hair. We bought a
lot of souvenirs here. We were the only ship in Costa Maya, there
wasn't a whole lot here for us to see or do. Mostly it was a place to
relax or to catch excursions. K & T briefly entertained the idea of
going horseback riding while I went back to the ship, but they ended
up scrapping that idea and we all went back to the ship.
We ended up going to Windjammers so I could get a bite to eat. Played
bingo later that morning, no winners. At 9pm, we went to the "El
Gaucho" show, which was a guy who was from Uruguay and who was very
talented and funny. After that was another show, called "The Quest",
but I was tired and went back to the cabin to read and go to sleep.
K&T said the show was good.

4/10/04 - DAY 7: LAST DAY AT SEA
Woke up late (8:00) and went to WJ for breakfast. K & T played bingo
twice today (ouch $140 for Bingo!) and didn't win anything. During
the second game, someone won the carry-over cash prize of $9,000.00.
Wow. Rest of the day was spent packing & lounging and getting ready
for departure. We figured out our tips and got "brown" luggage tags,
which meant we were the 6th color to be called, scheduled for some
time between 8:00 and 8:30 the next morning.
Went to Magic Flute dining room and saw Mike & Martha. Originally I
wasn't feeling the greatest, but I mustered up my courage (ow, ow,
twist my arm) and had some good food. I had the shrimp cocktail for
an appetizer and the New York steak for dinner; K&T both had the
Turkey dinner. Food was good. Can't remember what we had for
dessert.
We went to the Farewell Party in La Scalla theater, but it was mostly
just a "thank you for using RCCL" and a quick promo of the "Your
Cruise In Review" dvd that they were offering in the photo gallery.
(As an aside: Karen ended up buying it and we just finished watching
it last night… not worth the $30 we paid for it, as it consisted of
about 10 minutes from our cruise and the rest felt like
advertisements.) We gave our room attentdent, waiter, and assistant
waiter their tip envelopes. We left the head waiter's tip on the
table. Our head waiter was "Rajeesh", and although Martha said good
things about him, we were severly unimpressed. He never once
introduced himself to us, and on our last evening, he talked only to
Martha. We only left him a tip because we felt it was required… but
if it had been up to us, he would have gotten nothing.

4/11/04 - DAY 8: DISEMBARKATION IN MIAMI
Karen got up early and had breakfast in WJ. We got down to the
Schooner Bar which was the closest we could be to the gangway. They
ended up calling BROWN towards 8:30 a.m., which was right on time. We
passed through Immigration quickly. We did end up having to wait for
our luggage a bit; somehow they had gotten separated; and then we went
through Customs with no trouble at all, luckily they did not choose us
for inspection so it went very fast. We then caught a cab to the
Hilton Aiport hotel, which cost us $20.xx this time, instead of $23.
This cabbie drove a little faster than our first guy.
At the Hilton, we waited around for an hour until they got us a room,
as it was still fairly early in the morning (about 9:30). By 10:30 we
had a room. We noticed that they had a Easter Brunch going on, but
the price was $29.95 a person, so we were like "forget that!" Then
the other shoe dropped… we found out, much to our dismay, that the
Dolphin Mall was closed, or that the shuttle was not running. There
was nowhere that we could go for free, and we weren't interested in
paying a high fare to go somewhere via taxi after just having to pay
$20 to get there. So… after worrying about it for a few hours, we
decided to plunk down the money at the buffet. However, as we did not
have reservations, we ended up having to wait in line for 50 minutes
before finally being seated after people who had reservations. The
also took some people who had signed up after we had, because they had
a larger party and a larger table had come available. To us, it
looked as though we would never get seated. The food was OK, but we
did not eat $30 worth each. This was the final straw for this hotel,
we will never EVER visit them again. Warning to all: if you want a
hotel, stick with something close to the pier (do not get hotels
nearby the airport because they are not close to the pier at all, and
there is nothing to do around there).

4/12/04 - DAY 9: HOMEWARD BOUND
We got up at 4 a.m. and made it down to the lobby by 4:50 to catch the
first shuttle to the airport. We were determined to get on, airplane
staff or no! Actually it ended up being no problem at all. We also
made it into the Miami Int'l airport without any problems. Our long
flight from Miami to LA was uneventful, and we actually made it there
30 minutes early. At LAX, however, the plane to take us to Sacramento
was very behind. We ended up staying there for 2.5 hours before the
plane finally arrived. At Sacramento, the guy working at the Hertz
rental car desk was a moron, and took up another 45 minutes of our
time. A guy who was behind us in line, and who had the good fortune
to be served by a different Hertz employee, actually got his car
before we did. Grr. Driving 2 hours home, we got lost once and got
stuck in a accident backup for about 15 minutes until we could take
the detour. Finally got home at 4:00 pm (was expecting to be home by
1:00pm) and were we ever happy to be home.

OVERALL SUMMARY:
Overall, a kickass vacation! Flying from Sacto (78 degrees) to Denver
(36 degrees) and then to Miami (84 degrees) was great. Boarding the
ship went smoothly with only minimal waiting. Treated like royalty
aboard the ship, the only downside to the whole ship was the volume of
passengers (3000+). We met some really nice people from all over the
country (actually, all over the world). The entertainment on the ship
was also wonderful… a show every night on top of music, shopping,
food, bingo, the works. The private balcony was GREAT! We also had
no bad weather, so we never got sick and didn't need to take any
medicine. Woo hoo! The ports of call (Belize, Grand Cayman, Cozumel
and Costa Maya) were great too. I definitely would love to do it all
again, however this time I'd pick more snorkeling excursions and more
Mayan Ruin excursions to make up for the one I missed. I
absolutely loved snokelling!










  #2  
Old April 15th, 2004, 11:09 PM
Lunyma
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Posts: n/a
Default Our Voyager Of The Seas trip (4/4/04) (VERY LONG)

Thanks for taking the time to write such a thorough trip report. This was
obviously your first cruise, and I think you made the best of it, but I also
think that next time (and there WILL be a next time), you will probably do a
little more research for your pre/post hotel, and cruise excursions. All in
all, it sounds like you had a wonderful time. I just think you could have
saved a few bucks along the way...

Pam



  #3  
Old April 16th, 2004, 12:44 AM
Kowboyguard
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Default Our Voyager Of The Seas trip (4/4/04) (VERY LONG)

We stayed at the Wydamn Suites for much cheaper and it was WONDERFUL! They had
free shuttles running, the rooms were two bedrooms and huge, a big hot
breakfast and close to everything including the airport. We signed up at the
website to become free members and when we got to our room, it was stocked with
FREE beveraes that we had listed as our favorite and some snacks as well, CANT
beat them!!
  #4  
Old April 16th, 2004, 01:36 AM
Dale Parker
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Default Our Voyager Of The Seas trip (4/4/04) (VERY LONG)

I really enjoyed the review of your cruise. It was great. Thanks.
"Grey Wolf" wrote in message
...
First off, I apologize for the length. I tried to cut out a lot of
stuff from my journal, and it still ended up being HUGE. So my
apologies again, hope this doesn't bore any of you. I had a great
time, would love to do it again in a few years!

David

=================================================
VOYAGER OF THE SEAS - WESTERN CARIBBEAN - 4/4/04
=================================================
4/3/04 - PRE CRUISE: GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE
Flight from Sacto to Denver uneventful.
Flight from Denver to Miami uneventful, had some nice turbulence on
our descent into Miami gave a nice little adrenaline rush to the start
of our vacation!
Stayed at Hilton Airport, never will go there again. Not only did we
have to wait for a shuttle for over an hour: first one we must have
missed, second one we saw was already full, third one we almost got on
but was kicked off because they took airline crew (pilot &
stewardress) first. So we finally made it on the 4th shuttle. Not
very happy customers by this time.
The free shuttle from Hilton to the Dolphin Mall was great and just
what the doctor ordered.

4/4/04 - DAY ONE: MIAMI
Overnight at Hilton Airport was fine. Gift shop lady complained about
breaking a $20 when I bought two rolls of Rolaids for $3 and some
change. Told me I should have went to front desk to break the $20.
Screw 'em, they work for the most frickin' expensive hotel I've ever
been in, they should be able to break a $20. This was the second
black mark on my Hilton Airport experience.
Cab to the pier cost us $23 bucks. Ouch. Knowing that we had to look
forward to a similar charge when we returned in a week did not make
things any better. Tipped a porter to take our luggage. There was
still a line at 11:20 when we got there, they hadn't started letting
people on yet. We had our documents already filled out on the
internet, so all we had to do was give them credit card info and our
signatures and we got our Sea Pass. I think we were aboard by 12:15.
Wow, what a ship. We found our room already cleaned, but no luggage
or tux yet. We dropped off our carry-ons, grabbed the cameras, and
explored the ship. Going out on deck 12 we met a bar staff guy who
sold us our first new drinks: Miami Vice as we were leaving the Port
of Miami. We waved at people, Trisha flirted with a "hottie" on the
coast guard ship that was just below our viewing spot.
First casual dinner (late seating) met Mike & Martha and their two
kids. nice folks from Long Island, NY. For dinner I had the cod filet
with mashed red potatoes and a banana cream rum-cake for desert.
Karen & Trisha had the Chicken Philadelphia (chicken breast stuffed
with cheese & broccoli) and for desert the white chocolate parfait.
Overall we quite liked our dinner. Rusen was our waiter and Lord our
assistant. Both guys were complete gentlemen and quite friendly.
We went to the Bon Voyage Parade on the Royal Promenade and had a good
viewing spot; Karen won a raffle for 2 tickets for the Tulum Express
in Cozumel. We never win anything, so even though we already had
plans for Coz, we were excited to win something.
Came back to cabin after the parade, our suff was now there. Trisha
conked out right away, Karen and I were still wide awake so we went up
to JR's at 12:15 a.m. and had runny milkshakes (tasty but would've
been better if they were thicker) with all of the teenagers that were
there. Came back to cabin and conked out.

4/5/05 - DAY TWO: AT SEA
Woke up at 8:30! Wow, that's sleeping in for us! It felt good! Sea
breeze was nice cool, not too balmy (yet!). We had breakfast at
Windjammer, a quick one due to finding out that a "Shopping Talk"
seminar was starting at 9:00. During the meeting, we managed to catch
a free Del Sol Frisbee that was tossed out into the audience. It
changes colors when put into sunlight (or UV). This was our second
win (we're NEVER this lucky!).
K&T went and gambled in the Casino. K lost but T won $45 in quarters.
I merely "observed" and meanwhile enjoyed my second new drink: a Coco
Loco.
We had lunch at Johnny Rockets (K & T had grilled cheeses & a
strawberry & chocolate shake respectively; I had a grilled ham &
cheese and a rootbeer float). The food was good. K (a second time)
and T were both unimpressed with the shakes, as they were still runny.
My rootbeer float came with real ice cream, to my happiness. Then K&T
went to bingo, while I decided to sit in the sun and read on our
balcony. About 15 minutes later, I decided to work on my tan instead
of read (mostly due to the fact that sitting in the sun was making me
too sleepy to read). K&T came back - didn't win bingo but did win
another raffle (win #3, what the heck is going on here?!?), the prize
being tickets for 2 for the cozumel submersible excursion. Again we
already had plans for Cozumel, so we didn't want the tickets. But it
was exciting to win. By the way, bingo cost $35 per "6-pack" of
cards; so it cost Karen $70 for her and Trisha. The cost was the
major reason I did not play. They came back with stories of a "really
funny guy" who did the bingo.
At 7 pm, K&T went to the spa to get their hair done for our first
formal night. I wore my slacks, a nice silk shirt and clip on tie,
and the tux jacket as my formal getup. K&T came back and looked
gorgeous. We stood in line for 20 mins at the Magic Flute, which was
slow to open due to formal pictures being taken. For dinner, I had
the shrimp cocktail appetizer, lobster bisque soup, and some pasta
dish with chicken and a creamy Cajun (to me, it was Cajun-light)
sauce. Both Karen and Trisha had the oxtail broth and Caesar salad,
and beef tenderlonin for dinner. Dessert consisted of strawberry
shortcake for Karen and I, while Trisha opted for the sugar-free
chocolate mouse cake, which she didn't like.
After pleasant dinner, we returned to cabin and played some cards. We
could tell we were in the Caribbean Sea, the weather outside was quite
warm and humid. I had a hard time getting to sleep due to the warm
temps. Karen set the wakeup call to 5:30 a.m. due to an early arrival
in Belize.

4/6/04 - DAY THREE: BELIZE
5:30 a.m. came way too early. K&T ordered breakfast from room
service, I was still 'tasting' the lobster bisque and pasta and
decided to skip breakfast. We sent some postcards off. While they
were eating, I went up to the jogging track (deck 12) and took some
pictures of the sunrise. We caught a tender to Belize City, our first
tender ever! Weather was very mild, so the sea was calm and the
tender trip was a breeze. The Voyager was about 4 nautical miles off
the coast, so the tender ride took about 15-20 minutes, but it felt
like only 10.
Went to meet Coral Breeze at flagpole to start our Cave Tubing tour,
they were nowhere to be found. A guy named "Marvin" came up and
offered to take all of us Coral Breeze people. Found out he was with
Wet-N-Wild Cavetubing, a tour through Eco Tours Belize. Marvin took
our names down and how much deposit we had paid and we gave him the
remainder of the money that we were going to pay Coral Breeze. He
said that CB was not going to make it and that they had authorized him
to take us. We were sweating it, because we were supposed to meet CB
at 6:30 to start at 7, and Marvin showed up at 6:50.
Marvin agreed to make our 12:30 departure time.
We boarded his bus along with 7 other passengers from Voyager of the
Seas, so our group consisted of only 10 people!!! The van itself was
not in the best of repair, Marvin had to bolt down one of the seats
and the A/C spewed out some sort of rubber foamy stuff on one poor
passenger. Marvin apologize profusely explaining the top had just
been re-furbished the day before. He drove us down the back-streets
of Belize City (poor living conditions) and stopped at a gas station
to fill up. Gas was $7 something in Belize dollars, or over $3.50 in
USD. Guess we can't complain about paying $1.95 a gallon back home.
We arrived at cave tubing site where we geared up with tubes and head
lamps. Walked at a good pace through the official rain forest (gets
over 140" of rain a year). Saw examples of several plants, including
a gum tree (once used to make chewing gum), pineapple, avocado, a
mimosa (carnivorous plant), strangler figs, and others. Also, Marvin
spied a basilisk lizard and was able to catch it. We were near the
river, so he carried it there and dropped it in the river. The lizard
swam "ran" back to the shore. Pretty neat. We crossed the river and
hiked a while more until we reached the beginning place. He led us to
the furthest cave, pointing to where the shorter route started. So
that was good: we got the longer trip! We hopped in the river and
away we went.
We floated down the river, paddling frequently as the river was quite
slow. I'd actually almost describe it as a creek. The water was
nice, most places it was nice and deep. Floating into the caves was
awesome. In some places the river got pretty low causing "ripples" in
which, in Marvin's words, it was time to "butts up, feet forward!" to
try and float over them. Alas, us heavy people sometimes had a hard
time going over these rapids as our tube or butt would get stuck on
the rocks. My headlamp was also kind of dim, so I didn't get to see a
lot of cave features. I was more worried about paddling and keeping
up with the group. Eventually we made it back to the point where we
had originally crossed the river and so our tour was nearly over. We
walked back to the starting point where we were served BBQ Chicken,
Rice & Beans, a tropical coleslaw (with pineapple and, I think, a
cooked banana) and lemonade. It was delicious.
On the way back to town (it was a good hour long drive to get to the
Cave Branch River from Belize City, so another hour going back) we saw
a big bus (Greyhound size) pulled over broken down. It was the
official Voyager of the Seas tour. As we zoomed by (another bus had
already stopped and was helping out), we knew then that we would make
it back to the ship in time before it leaved, because it would not go
anywhere until those people made it back. Being on an independent
tour, we did not have that guarantee, and had been worried about
missing our ship the whole day. Now we could relax.
The tender ride back to the ship took about 15-20 minutes but felt
like 30. Not sure why they went so slow on the way back. On the
ship, Karen and Trisha went to listen to a talk about shopping for
jewelry (Diamonds and Tanzanique), only because it was being held in
Cleopatra's Needle and Bingo was following it. They wanted to get
good bingo seats. I joined them about 10 minutes prior to bingo
starting, just to watch (I was not going to pay $35 to play bingo!).
I ordered a drink, a yummy Pina Colada. K&T did not win anything this
time, but we were all entertained by Hamish, the assistant cruise
director, who was the "funny guy" that they had told me about. He was
very funny.
After a quick trip back to our room, we headed to Studio B for "Ice
Jammin", the show on their ice rink. It was spectacular. With music
selections from world-music (Africa, Japan) to jazz, Latin, and
rock-n-roll, the skaters were simply awesome. While there, I had
another drink: a grasshopper on the rocks. I think I had the only
green drink on the ship! After the show, we went to dinner and opted
to try Island Grill instead of dressing up for "smart casual". We
arrived at the perfect time to watch the sunset. It was our second
time eating in full view of the Carib Sea (first time was at Johnny
Rockets, but this had a better view); it was enhanced by the movement
of the ship. After dinner we retired to the cabin so Karen could get
rid of her headache; unfortunately it never happened so we stayed
there and missed the "Dreamscape" show. Bummer.

4/7/04 - DAY FOUR: GRAND CAYMAN
Got up kind of late (8 a.m.) due to no early port time. We had
breakfast in the main dining room. Met some nice folks from Florida
and another couple from Europe (unfortunately didn't get to talk to
them much as they were at the other end of the table). The FL couple
had traveled more extensively than us, and had some good stories to
tell us. They said Rio was their favorite place of all to travel to,
but for our Western Carib. Cruise, they recommended Altun Ha and
Xcaret Ecological Park (in Cozumel). Of course we already had plans
for Coz, but I took a note to save it for next time.
After b-fast, we got dressed up to go ashore and spend time in the
water. However, there was a "win a cruise" bingo game happening
first, so we went to that. Again, I didn't play. I had the drink of
the day, "Rum Punch", and let me tell you: they make them strong in La
Scalla Theater! I'm still not sure if there was any punch in that
drink. :-) K&T didn't win. Hamish was the guy doing the bingo
again, he's a vibrant, funny, engaging person. I thought he'd make a
fine Cruise Director.
Directly after bingo, I stood in line to get tender tickets and met a
nice lady from Sacramento! Yay, finally someone from Calfifornia!
Got our tickets about 30 minutes later, I rushed back to cabin to
throw on some sun block, and get down to Deck 1 to catch the tender.
We managed to get on the first tender, although our tickets were for
tender #3. Yay! Tender ride was slow, but only took about 10-15 mins
as we were a lot closer to shore than we had been in Belize.
We could not find the Nativeway people, so we had to talk to the lady
in the info booth and she ended up calling them. We met Eldon at the
gazebo at the north pier. He took our names and told us to meet back
in about 30 minutes. We walked around for a bit and came back, Eldon
met us and led us to where the tour bus was. It was already full of
people! They had room for us and another party of 3, and we were off.
(Evidently, they had a group of about 15 people all together, some of
which had gone with Nativeway before.) We drove down to the Yacht
Club marina, past 7 Mile Beach. We saw a Pizza Hut, KFC and Wendy's
fast food stores, and a "Papa Johns Pizza" too. Cayman was really
built up, nothing at all like Belize City. On our way into the
marina, we got to see a good-sized iguana at the side of the road.
Cool!
Met our guides at the boat, and Michelle who was to be our
videographer. She was Australian. After a slow ride through the
marina, we finally made it out to the ocean where we could open
throttle and speed up. Michelle talked to everyone and got us on
tape, except for one elderly lady who exclaimed "I don't want my
picture taken" and refused to be filmed. We were amazed at how pretty
the water was.
Made it to Stingray City, spent 45-60 minutes there, it felt like 20.
We donned our masks and snorkels and jumped in, the water was only
about 3.5' to 4' deep. We avoided the stingrays at first, until the
guides caught one and we could touch it or hold it. After a while we
relaxed. but still kept one eye peeled so we would know if a stingray
was coming near us. I also practiced snorkeling, as I hadn't done it
in 20 years and the last time had been in a lake! I tried to show
Karen and Trisha, but they weren't really into it. We all go to hold
the stingrays, and some even were brave enough to feed it. Our guide
went and found "Darth Vader", a huge black female ray that was famous
for two things: first, it was old (at least 27 years old), and second,
it had been filmed on a National Geographic special. It was the only
black ray there, the rest were dark brown.
We then got back aboard our boat and went to snorkel some more at
Coral Gardens, a coral reef area. K&T opted to stay on the boat, but
not me! I got some flippers and headed out. I had no idea what kind
of fish I saw, but I saw at least 4 different kinds. It was fun to
swim around with flippers, boy was I glad that salt water is so
buoyant. Back on the boat, a lady said that she had seen a barracuda
in a spot where there were no fish around, yikes! Michelle said she
saw some mini-lobsters and a moray eel. We spent about 45 minutes at
Coral Gardens.
Trip back to the pier was fine. We tipped the boat guides $20, and
the van-driver $10 because he gave us a lot of info. I also bought
Michelle's dvd for $60, she said it would be on my ship by the last
tender, or if not, they'd mail it to me in about 2 weeks. We only had
about 1.5 hours left before last tender. We really enjoyed Nativeway,
the guides were friendly and knowledgable, and we had a blast. I,
especially, have discovered that I love to snorkel and can't wait to
do it again some day.
Getting back into Georgetown at 4:15 local time, we knew the shops
closed up around 5 pm. We weren't very interested in spending more
time walking around, so we decided to just go back to the ship. No
Tortuga tour, no Hard Rock Café. Oh well, next time! Tender ride
back to ship seemed slow, but probably wasn't.
Boy were we famished! I had a small cup of punch after snorkeling,
but other than that, none of us had anything to eat or drink all day.
Plus we got sunburnt; K&T didn't use any sunscreen that day, and I
had, but obviously I had missed some spots. All 3 of us couldn't wait
to get back and take a shower. We decided to try and make
reservations at Portofinos. we were lucky and got a table for 6:30 pm,
only about an hour away. Perfecto!
For appetizer I had the tiger prawns on risotto & spinach. Excellent!
Trisha had the corn chowder (she liked it). Karen wasn't interested
in an of it, but on the waiter's (Tsolt, from Hungary) recommendation
she tried the thin-sliced beef dish which he then asked if she wanted
oil and malt vinegar, and she said yes. It was gross. or rather, not
to our taste. Next up, I had a pasta dish: lobster spaghetti - chunks
of lobster in spaghetti with peas and zucchini and lobster sauce. It
was delicious too. Karen had Caesar salad. For entrees, we all chose
the filet mignon and we were all happy with it. We also had a variety
of breads and probably 4-5 glasses of iced tea each! Even though we
were completely stuffed, Tsolt convinced us to try the Tiramisu. Wow!
It was a very elegant-looking desert and came with a B52 shot
(baileys, kahluah and crème). I'm the only one who enjoyed the B52
shot, but it was a bit much. Overall we were very happy with
Portofinos, the food and service was great.
Came back to the dining room to change into shorts and loose clothes
and made our way down to La Scalla theater to catch the "Love and
Marriage Show". We got there in time to catch some of the try-outs.
It was hilarious. This was the first time we got to see Richard the
Cruise Director, he was pretty darn funny too. We laughed a lot. We
don't recommend anyone sitting up at the top towards either side, due
to being close to the bar. the bartenders and waiters were quite noisy
and sometimes we couldn't hear the show. The show was totally
hilarious and not to be missed.
We went to the Mardi Gras parade, and felt that it was very similar to
the Bon Voyage parade. We were at a bad spot (at one of the ends of
the Promenade) and had to stand behind people, so we didn't get to see
much. Pretty much felt that we wasted our time with that one.
That was it for the night. We wanted to try the self-service ice
cream machine, but it closed at 10pm, we just missed it.

While out and about, I stopped at the Guest Relations desk to see if
they had my Stingray City dvd from Michelle. Sure enough, they did!
Woo hoo! How they made the dvd so fast, I'll never know. Went back
to the room, joked around for a bit, and then crashed. (Note: we
watched the stingray city dvd the night after we got back, and it was
great, worth the $60!)

4/8/04 DAY 5: COZUMEL
Woke up at 6:30, had breakfast in the Windjammer: Cantaloupe, cereal,
scrambled eggs and a slice of French toast. It was quite yummy and
hit the spot. Spent next few hours catching up on my journal, met K&T
for "Cozumel Shopping Highlights" at Cleopatra's Needle. We ended up
winning a Silver Emporium necklace & bracelet ($8 value). Then K&T
played bingo and I observed. Drinks were 2 for 1, so I got 2 Pina
Coladas for me, and 2 Strawberry Daquiri's for K&T. Hamish was
hilarious as usual. After Bingo it was time to disembark to Cozumel
for our Dolphin Discover excursion. We were docked at the Punta
Lagosta pier, right downtown - so no need for a tender. Yay!
The taxi ride to Chanknaab Park was quite the thrill, it seemed that
our driver only knew one speed: accelerate. At one point, on a
single-lane highway, he decided to pass the civilian car ahead of him
at the same time another taxi was coming directly at us. Both cars
scooted to the side allowing us to survive the experience. And zoom,
away we went. What a thrill ride! Chanknaab was gorgeous, but all we
did was wait around in a large group of about 50 people. Finally they
had us all rounded up from our taxis and then brought us into the
park, where we waited and waited some more. Eventually, they were
ready to take them out to the dolphins after everyone had gotten a
life jacket on. I paid $20 so that I could be an observer - this
covered the $10 taxi fare and $10 park entrance fee. I was allowed
onto the pier where family members could watch and take pictures.
Unfortunately, K & T's group were led to one of the furthest pens from
the pier, so my pictures of them were very small. I ended up taking
pictures of the pen closest to me, and got some great shots of Foxy
the dolphin. 20 minutes later, they were done. Overall, we felt this
was not worth the money spent: the Dolphin Encounter cost $100 per
person, and we waited around for about 4-5 hours for a 20 minute
experience. For $35 more a person, they could have done the "Dolphin
Swim" and got a lot more time with the dolphins. These were
Chanknaab's prices, the ship's excursion did not charge anything over,
so we blame Chanknaab. We ended up buying 3 of the photos, and also
felt that their staff in the gift store was not very friendly.
Perhaps this was because of the 10 or so cruise ships in Cozumel that
day. with the possibility of 40,000 people (counting pax and crew)
being on land from cruise ships alone.
After waiting for so long, we were in no mood to stick around and look
at the rest of the park. So we got in a taxi and headed back to
Cozumel for some shopping. This driver was a tad slower, much to my
dismay. We were dropped off at the Punta Lagosta Mall. We walked and
shopped all they way up the main street until we got to Los Sinco
Soles, and had our dinner at Pancho's Backyward. At one point we also
stopped in a store and Trisha got half of her head braided. By 6:00
we had arrived at Pancho's Backyard and ordered food. Karen and I had
the carne asada (which came with rice, beans, guacamole, quesadilla
and a chicken enchilada with mole sauce); the meat was cooked to order
(medium) and was delicious. We forgot to say "no sour cream", but the
dollops were not huge, so that was fine. The chicken enchilada was
dry even with the mole sauce, and was made with corn tortillas which
are not to our liking. Trisha ordered the chicken enchilada and ended
up eating the chicken out of it, along with most of the salsa that had
been placed at our table. : Overall, we were happy with the food.
We were too tired to try their famously large margaritas, instead we
watched other people drink them. Pancho's Backyward was nice and
quiet and had a very relaxing atmosphere. The marimba players were
not playing while we were there. The total price was just over $60
for the three of us - with no drinks ordered, I felt this was a tad on
the expensive side. but worth it. They gave us a lot of good food.
We shuffled, stumbled, and shopped our way back down the main street
back to the Punta Lagosta pier and boarded the ship at around 8:30,
about an hour before "last call". Also, it was quite warm and muggy
and I had developed some "chafing in the nether regions" to quote
Colby from Survivor All Stars, so it was good to get back on the ship
and stop walking around to make the rash worse.
At 9 pm, we went to La Scalla theater to watch "Broadway Through the
Ages". It was a very well done show, though I thin we enjoyed "Ice
Jammin" and "Love & Marriage Show" a bit more. We had intentions to
go to Karaoke Night, but that fell apart. Trisha conked out, Karen
and I went to Johnny Rocket's for shakes. This time I had vanilla
(Karen had strawberry) and lo and behold, there was still some ice
cream in mine. it was just a tad thicker than before. The shakes hit
the spot. We got back to our cabin around 11:00-11:30 and crashed.

4/9/04 - DAY 6: COSTA MAYA
Woke up at 6:30 to get off at Costa Maya at 7:00. K&T went to grab a
bite to eat at Windjammer while I finished getting packed for our
Mayan Ruin excursion. We made it to Deck #1 at 7:4 or so. The ship
was supposed to be docked by 7:00 am, but was over an hour late in
docking. We finally went to shore, but my legs were still chafed and
sore and I could hardly walk. I decided to cancel the Chachoben Ruins
excursion because I could hardly walk, and that tour would consist of
about 90% walking. We sepnt about 1.5 hours in Costa Maya shopping,
and Trisha found a lady who braided the rest of her hair. We bought a
lot of souvenirs here. We were the only ship in Costa Maya, there
wasn't a whole lot here for us to see or do. Mostly it was a place to
relax or to catch excursions. K & T briefly entertained the idea of
going horseback riding while I went back to the ship, but they ended
up scrapping that idea and we all went back to the ship.
We ended up going to Windjammers so I could get a bite to eat. Played
bingo later that morning, no winners. At 9pm, we went to the "El
Gaucho" show, which was a guy who was from Uruguay and who was very
talented and funny. After that was another show, called "The Quest",
but I was tired and went back to the cabin to read and go to sleep.
K&T said the show was good.

4/10/04 - DAY 7: LAST DAY AT SEA
Woke up late (8:00) and went to WJ for breakfast. K & T played bingo
twice today (ouch $140 for Bingo!) and didn't win anything. During
the second game, someone won the carry-over cash prize of $9,000.00.
Wow. Rest of the day was spent packing & lounging and getting ready
for departure. We figured out our tips and got "brown" luggage tags,
which meant we were the 6th color to be called, scheduled for some
time between 8:00 and 8:30 the next morning.
Went to Magic Flute dining room and saw Mike & Martha. Originally I
wasn't feeling the greatest, but I mustered up my courage (ow, ow,
twist my arm) and had some good food. I had the shrimp cocktail for
an appetizer and the New York steak for dinner; K&T both had the
Turkey dinner. Food was good. Can't remember what we had for
dessert.
We went to the Farewell Party in La Scalla theater, but it was mostly
just a "thank you for using RCCL" and a quick promo of the "Your
Cruise In Review" dvd that they were offering in the photo gallery.
(As an aside: Karen ended up buying it and we just finished watching
it last night. not worth the $30 we paid for it, as it consisted of
about 10 minutes from our cruise and the rest felt like
advertisements.) We gave our room attentdent, waiter, and assistant
waiter their tip envelopes. We left the head waiter's tip on the
table. Our head waiter was "Rajeesh", and although Martha said good
things about him, we were severly unimpressed. He never once
introduced himself to us, and on our last evening, he talked only to
Martha. We only left him a tip because we felt it was required. but
if it had been up to us, he would have gotten nothing.

4/11/04 - DAY 8: DISEMBARKATION IN MIAMI
Karen got up early and had breakfast in WJ. We got down to the
Schooner Bar which was the closest we could be to the gangway. They
ended up calling BROWN towards 8:30 a.m., which was right on time. We
passed through Immigration quickly. We did end up having to wait for
our luggage a bit; somehow they had gotten separated; and then we went
through Customs with no trouble at all, luckily they did not choose us
for inspection so it went very fast. We then caught a cab to the
Hilton Aiport hotel, which cost us $20.xx this time, instead of $23.
This cabbie drove a little faster than our first guy.
At the Hilton, we waited around for an hour until they got us a room,
as it was still fairly early in the morning (about 9:30). By 10:30 we
had a room. We noticed that they had a Easter Brunch going on, but
the price was $29.95 a person, so we were like "forget that!" Then
the other shoe dropped. we found out, much to our dismay, that the
Dolphin Mall was closed, or that the shuttle was not running. There
was nowhere that we could go for free, and we weren't interested in
paying a high fare to go somewhere via taxi after just having to pay
$20 to get there. So. after worrying about it for a few hours, we
decided to plunk down the money at the buffet. However, as we did not
have reservations, we ended up having to wait in line for 50 minutes
before finally being seated after people who had reservations. The
also took some people who had signed up after we had, because they had
a larger party and a larger table had come available. To us, it
looked as though we would never get seated. The food was OK, but we
did not eat $30 worth each. This was the final straw for this hotel,
we will never EVER visit them again. Warning to all: if you want a
hotel, stick with something close to the pier (do not get hotels
nearby the airport because they are not close to the pier at all, and
there is nothing to do around there).

4/12/04 - DAY 9: HOMEWARD BOUND
We got up at 4 a.m. and made it down to the lobby by 4:50 to catch the
first shuttle to the airport. We were determined to get on, airplane
staff or no! Actually it ended up being no problem at all. We also
made it into the Miami Int'l airport without any problems. Our long
flight from Miami to LA was uneventful, and we actually made it there
30 minutes early. At LAX, however, the plane to take us to Sacramento
was very behind. We ended up staying there for 2.5 hours before the
plane finally arrived. At Sacramento, the guy working at the Hertz
rental car desk was a moron, and took up another 45 minutes of our
time. A guy who was behind us in line, and who had the good fortune
to be served by a different Hertz employee, actually got his car
before we did. Grr. Driving 2 hours home, we got lost once and got
stuck in a accident backup for about 15 minutes until we could take
the detour. Finally got home at 4:00 pm (was expecting to be home by
1:00pm) and were we ever happy to be home.

OVERALL SUMMARY:
Overall, a kickass vacation! Flying from Sacto (78 degrees) to Denver
(36 degrees) and then to Miami (84 degrees) was great. Boarding the
ship went smoothly with only minimal waiting. Treated like royalty
aboard the ship, the only downside to the whole ship was the volume of
passengers (3000+). We met some really nice people from all over the
country (actually, all over the world). The entertainment on the ship
was also wonderful. a show every night on top of music, shopping,
food, bingo, the works. The private balcony was GREAT! We also had
no bad weather, so we never got sick and didn't need to take any
medicine. Woo hoo! The ports of call (Belize, Grand Cayman, Cozumel
and Costa Maya) were great too. I definitely would love to do it all
again, however this time I'd pick more snorkeling excursions and more
Mayan Ruin excursions to make up for the one I missed. I
absolutely loved snokelling!












  #6  
Old April 16th, 2004, 03:22 PM
Sandy K.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Our Voyager Of The Seas trip (4/4/04) (VERY LONG)

I enjoyed your post. We did a Western Caribbean cruise same week, on the
Mariner of the Seas. I find it interesting to see how others spend thier
time aboard ship.

Thanks,
Sandy K.

"Grey Wolf" wrote in message
...
First off, I apologize for the length. I tried to cut out a lot of
stuff from my journal, and it still ended up being HUGE. So my
apologies again, hope this doesn't bore any of you. I had a great
time, would love to do it again in a few years!

David

=================================================
VOYAGER OF THE SEAS - WESTERN CARIBBEAN - 4/4/04
=================================================
4/3/04 - PRE CRUISE: GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE
Flight from Sacto to Denver uneventful.
Flight from Denver to Miami uneventful, had some nice turbulence on
our descent into Miami gave a nice little adrenaline rush to the start
of our vacation!
Stayed at Hilton Airport, never will go there again. Not only did we
have to wait for a shuttle for over an hour: first one we must have
missed, second one we saw was already full, third one we almost got on
but was kicked off because they took airline crew (pilot &
stewardress) first. So we finally made it on the 4th shuttle. Not
very happy customers by this time.
The free shuttle from Hilton to the Dolphin Mall was great and just
what the doctor ordered.

4/4/04 - DAY ONE: MIAMI
Overnight at Hilton Airport was fine. Gift shop lady complained about
breaking a $20 when I bought two rolls of Rolaids for $3 and some
change. Told me I should have went to front desk to break the $20.
Screw 'em, they work for the most frickin' expensive hotel I've ever
been in, they should be able to break a $20. This was the second
black mark on my Hilton Airport experience.
Cab to the pier cost us $23 bucks. Ouch. Knowing that we had to look
forward to a similar charge when we returned in a week did not make
things any better. Tipped a porter to take our luggage. There was
still a line at 11:20 when we got there, they hadn't started letting
people on yet. We had our documents already filled out on the
internet, so all we had to do was give them credit card info and our
signatures and we got our Sea Pass. I think we were aboard by 12:15.
Wow, what a ship. We found our room already cleaned, but no luggage
or tux yet. We dropped off our carry-ons, grabbed the cameras, and
explored the ship. Going out on deck 12 we met a bar staff guy who
sold us our first new drinks: Miami Vice as we were leaving the Port
of Miami. We waved at people, Trisha flirted with a "hottie" on the
coast guard ship that was just below our viewing spot.
First casual dinner (late seating) met Mike & Martha and their two
kids. nice folks from Long Island, NY. For dinner I had the cod filet
with mashed red potatoes and a banana cream rum-cake for desert.
Karen & Trisha had the Chicken Philadelphia (chicken breast stuffed
with cheese & broccoli) and for desert the white chocolate parfait.
Overall we quite liked our dinner. Rusen was our waiter and Lord our
assistant. Both guys were complete gentlemen and quite friendly.
We went to the Bon Voyage Parade on the Royal Promenade and had a good
viewing spot; Karen won a raffle for 2 tickets for the Tulum Express
in Cozumel. We never win anything, so even though we already had
plans for Coz, we were excited to win something.
Came back to cabin after the parade, our suff was now there. Trisha
conked out right away, Karen and I were still wide awake so we went up
to JR's at 12:15 a.m. and had runny milkshakes (tasty but would've
been better if they were thicker) with all of the teenagers that were
there. Came back to cabin and conked out.

4/5/05 - DAY TWO: AT SEA
Woke up at 8:30! Wow, that's sleeping in for us! It felt good! Sea
breeze was nice cool, not too balmy (yet!). We had breakfast at
Windjammer, a quick one due to finding out that a "Shopping Talk"
seminar was starting at 9:00. During the meeting, we managed to catch
a free Del Sol Frisbee that was tossed out into the audience. It
changes colors when put into sunlight (or UV). This was our second
win (we're NEVER this lucky!).
K&T went and gambled in the Casino. K lost but T won $45 in quarters.
I merely "observed" and meanwhile enjoyed my second new drink: a Coco
Loco.
We had lunch at Johnny Rockets (K & T had grilled cheeses & a
strawberry & chocolate shake respectively; I had a grilled ham &
cheese and a rootbeer float). The food was good. K (a second time)
and T were both unimpressed with the shakes, as they were still runny.
My rootbeer float came with real ice cream, to my happiness. Then K&T
went to bingo, while I decided to sit in the sun and read on our
balcony. About 15 minutes later, I decided to work on my tan instead
of read (mostly due to the fact that sitting in the sun was making me
too sleepy to read). K&T came back - didn't win bingo but did win
another raffle (win #3, what the heck is going on here?!?), the prize
being tickets for 2 for the cozumel submersible excursion. Again we
already had plans for Cozumel, so we didn't want the tickets. But it
was exciting to win. By the way, bingo cost $35 per "6-pack" of
cards; so it cost Karen $70 for her and Trisha. The cost was the
major reason I did not play. They came back with stories of a "really
funny guy" who did the bingo.
At 7 pm, K&T went to the spa to get their hair done for our first
formal night. I wore my slacks, a nice silk shirt and clip on tie,
and the tux jacket as my formal getup. K&T came back and looked
gorgeous. We stood in line for 20 mins at the Magic Flute, which was
slow to open due to formal pictures being taken. For dinner, I had
the shrimp cocktail appetizer, lobster bisque soup, and some pasta
dish with chicken and a creamy Cajun (to me, it was Cajun-light)
sauce. Both Karen and Trisha had the oxtail broth and Caesar salad,
and beef tenderlonin for dinner. Dessert consisted of strawberry
shortcake for Karen and I, while Trisha opted for the sugar-free
chocolate mouse cake, which she didn't like.
After pleasant dinner, we returned to cabin and played some cards. We
could tell we were in the Caribbean Sea, the weather outside was quite
warm and humid. I had a hard time getting to sleep due to the warm
temps. Karen set the wakeup call to 5:30 a.m. due to an early arrival
in Belize.

4/6/04 - DAY THREE: BELIZE
5:30 a.m. came way too early. K&T ordered breakfast from room
service, I was still 'tasting' the lobster bisque and pasta and
decided to skip breakfast. We sent some postcards off. While they
were eating, I went up to the jogging track (deck 12) and took some
pictures of the sunrise. We caught a tender to Belize City, our first
tender ever! Weather was very mild, so the sea was calm and the
tender trip was a breeze. The Voyager was about 4 nautical miles off
the coast, so the tender ride took about 15-20 minutes, but it felt
like only 10.
Went to meet Coral Breeze at flagpole to start our Cave Tubing tour,
they were nowhere to be found. A guy named "Marvin" came up and
offered to take all of us Coral Breeze people. Found out he was with
Wet-N-Wild Cavetubing, a tour through Eco Tours Belize. Marvin took
our names down and how much deposit we had paid and we gave him the
remainder of the money that we were going to pay Coral Breeze. He
said that CB was not going to make it and that they had authorized him
to take us. We were sweating it, because we were supposed to meet CB
at 6:30 to start at 7, and Marvin showed up at 6:50.
Marvin agreed to make our 12:30 departure time.
We boarded his bus along with 7 other passengers from Voyager of the
Seas, so our group consisted of only 10 people!!! The van itself was
not in the best of repair, Marvin had to bolt down one of the seats
and the A/C spewed out some sort of rubber foamy stuff on one poor
passenger. Marvin apologize profusely explaining the top had just
been re-furbished the day before. He drove us down the back-streets
of Belize City (poor living conditions) and stopped at a gas station
to fill up. Gas was $7 something in Belize dollars, or over $3.50 in
USD. Guess we can't complain about paying $1.95 a gallon back home.
We arrived at cave tubing site where we geared up with tubes and head
lamps. Walked at a good pace through the official rain forest (gets
over 140" of rain a year). Saw examples of several plants, including
a gum tree (once used to make chewing gum), pineapple, avocado, a
mimosa (carnivorous plant), strangler figs, and others. Also, Marvin
spied a basilisk lizard and was able to catch it. We were near the
river, so he carried it there and dropped it in the river. The lizard
swam "ran" back to the shore. Pretty neat. We crossed the river and
hiked a while more until we reached the beginning place. He led us to
the furthest cave, pointing to where the shorter route started. So
that was good: we got the longer trip! We hopped in the river and
away we went.
We floated down the river, paddling frequently as the river was quite
slow. I'd actually almost describe it as a creek. The water was
nice, most places it was nice and deep. Floating into the caves was
awesome. In some places the river got pretty low causing "ripples" in
which, in Marvin's words, it was time to "butts up, feet forward!" to
try and float over them. Alas, us heavy people sometimes had a hard
time going over these rapids as our tube or butt would get stuck on
the rocks. My headlamp was also kind of dim, so I didn't get to see a
lot of cave features. I was more worried about paddling and keeping
up with the group. Eventually we made it back to the point where we
had originally crossed the river and so our tour was nearly over. We
walked back to the starting point where we were served BBQ Chicken,
Rice & Beans, a tropical coleslaw (with pineapple and, I think, a
cooked banana) and lemonade. It was delicious.
On the way back to town (it was a good hour long drive to get to the
Cave Branch River from Belize City, so another hour going back) we saw
a big bus (Greyhound size) pulled over broken down. It was the
official Voyager of the Seas tour. As we zoomed by (another bus had
already stopped and was helping out), we knew then that we would make
it back to the ship in time before it leaved, because it would not go
anywhere until those people made it back. Being on an independent
tour, we did not have that guarantee, and had been worried about
missing our ship the whole day. Now we could relax.
The tender ride back to the ship took about 15-20 minutes but felt
like 30. Not sure why they went so slow on the way back. On the
ship, Karen and Trisha went to listen to a talk about shopping for
jewelry (Diamonds and Tanzanique), only because it was being held in
Cleopatra's Needle and Bingo was following it. They wanted to get
good bingo seats. I joined them about 10 minutes prior to bingo
starting, just to watch (I was not going to pay $35 to play bingo!).
I ordered a drink, a yummy Pina Colada. K&T did not win anything this
time, but we were all entertained by Hamish, the assistant cruise
director, who was the "funny guy" that they had told me about. He was
very funny.
After a quick trip back to our room, we headed to Studio B for "Ice
Jammin", the show on their ice rink. It was spectacular. With music
selections from world-music (Africa, Japan) to jazz, Latin, and
rock-n-roll, the skaters were simply awesome. While there, I had
another drink: a grasshopper on the rocks. I think I had the only
green drink on the ship! After the show, we went to dinner and opted
to try Island Grill instead of dressing up for "smart casual". We
arrived at the perfect time to watch the sunset. It was our second
time eating in full view of the Carib Sea (first time was at Johnny
Rockets, but this had a better view); it was enhanced by the movement
of the ship. After dinner we retired to the cabin so Karen could get
rid of her headache; unfortunately it never happened so we stayed
there and missed the "Dreamscape" show. Bummer.

4/7/04 - DAY FOUR: GRAND CAYMAN
Got up kind of late (8 a.m.) due to no early port time. We had
breakfast in the main dining room. Met some nice folks from Florida
and another couple from Europe (unfortunately didn't get to talk to
them much as they were at the other end of the table). The FL couple
had traveled more extensively than us, and had some good stories to
tell us. They said Rio was their favorite place of all to travel to,
but for our Western Carib. Cruise, they recommended Altun Ha and
Xcaret Ecological Park (in Cozumel). Of course we already had plans
for Coz, but I took a note to save it for next time.
After b-fast, we got dressed up to go ashore and spend time in the
water. However, there was a "win a cruise" bingo game happening
first, so we went to that. Again, I didn't play. I had the drink of
the day, "Rum Punch", and let me tell you: they make them strong in La
Scalla Theater! I'm still not sure if there was any punch in that
drink. :-) K&T didn't win. Hamish was the guy doing the bingo
again, he's a vibrant, funny, engaging person. I thought he'd make a
fine Cruise Director.
Directly after bingo, I stood in line to get tender tickets and met a
nice lady from Sacramento! Yay, finally someone from Calfifornia!
Got our tickets about 30 minutes later, I rushed back to cabin to
throw on some sun block, and get down to Deck 1 to catch the tender.
We managed to get on the first tender, although our tickets were for
tender #3. Yay! Tender ride was slow, but only took about 10-15 mins
as we were a lot closer to shore than we had been in Belize.
We could not find the Nativeway people, so we had to talk to the lady
in the info booth and she ended up calling them. We met Eldon at the
gazebo at the north pier. He took our names and told us to meet back
in about 30 minutes. We walked around for a bit and came back, Eldon
met us and led us to where the tour bus was. It was already full of
people! They had room for us and another party of 3, and we were off.
(Evidently, they had a group of about 15 people all together, some of
which had gone with Nativeway before.) We drove down to the Yacht
Club marina, past 7 Mile Beach. We saw a Pizza Hut, KFC and Wendy's
fast food stores, and a "Papa Johns Pizza" too. Cayman was really
built up, nothing at all like Belize City. On our way into the
marina, we got to see a good-sized iguana at the side of the road.
Cool!
Met our guides at the boat, and Michelle who was to be our
videographer. She was Australian. After a slow ride through the
marina, we finally made it out to the ocean where we could open
throttle and speed up. Michelle talked to everyone and got us on
tape, except for one elderly lady who exclaimed "I don't want my
picture taken" and refused to be filmed. We were amazed at how pretty
the water was.
Made it to Stingray City, spent 45-60 minutes there, it felt like 20.
We donned our masks and snorkels and jumped in, the water was only
about 3.5' to 4' deep. We avoided the stingrays at first, until the
guides caught one and we could touch it or hold it. After a while we
relaxed. but still kept one eye peeled so we would know if a stingray
was coming near us. I also practiced snorkeling, as I hadn't done it
in 20 years and the last time had been in a lake! I tried to show
Karen and Trisha, but they weren't really into it. We all go to hold
the stingrays, and some even were brave enough to feed it. Our guide
went and found "Darth Vader", a huge black female ray that was famous
for two things: first, it was old (at least 27 years old), and second,
it had been filmed on a National Geographic special. It was the only
black ray there, the rest were dark brown.
We then got back aboard our boat and went to snorkel some more at
Coral Gardens, a coral reef area. K&T opted to stay on the boat, but
not me! I got some flippers and headed out. I had no idea what kind
of fish I saw, but I saw at least 4 different kinds. It was fun to
swim around with flippers, boy was I glad that salt water is so
buoyant. Back on the boat, a lady said that she had seen a barracuda
in a spot where there were no fish around, yikes! Michelle said she
saw some mini-lobsters and a moray eel. We spent about 45 minutes at
Coral Gardens.
Trip back to the pier was fine. We tipped the boat guides $20, and
the van-driver $10 because he gave us a lot of info. I also bought
Michelle's dvd for $60, she said it would be on my ship by the last
tender, or if not, they'd mail it to me in about 2 weeks. We only had
about 1.5 hours left before last tender. We really enjoyed Nativeway,
the guides were friendly and knowledgable, and we had a blast. I,
especially, have discovered that I love to snorkel and can't wait to
do it again some day.
Getting back into Georgetown at 4:15 local time, we knew the shops
closed up around 5 pm. We weren't very interested in spending more
time walking around, so we decided to just go back to the ship. No
Tortuga tour, no Hard Rock Café. Oh well, next time! Tender ride
back to ship seemed slow, but probably wasn't.
Boy were we famished! I had a small cup of punch after snorkeling,
but other than that, none of us had anything to eat or drink all day.
Plus we got sunburnt; K&T didn't use any sunscreen that day, and I
had, but obviously I had missed some spots. All 3 of us couldn't wait
to get back and take a shower. We decided to try and make
reservations at Portofinos. we were lucky and got a table for 6:30 pm,
only about an hour away. Perfecto!
For appetizer I had the tiger prawns on risotto & spinach. Excellent!
Trisha had the corn chowder (she liked it). Karen wasn't interested
in an of it, but on the waiter's (Tsolt, from Hungary) recommendation
she tried the thin-sliced beef dish which he then asked if she wanted
oil and malt vinegar, and she said yes. It was gross. or rather, not
to our taste. Next up, I had a pasta dish: lobster spaghetti - chunks
of lobster in spaghetti with peas and zucchini and lobster sauce. It
was delicious too. Karen had Caesar salad. For entrees, we all chose
the filet mignon and we were all happy with it. We also had a variety
of breads and probably 4-5 glasses of iced tea each! Even though we
were completely stuffed, Tsolt convinced us to try the Tiramisu. Wow!
It was a very elegant-looking desert and came with a B52 shot
(baileys, kahluah and crème). I'm the only one who enjoyed the B52
shot, but it was a bit much. Overall we were very happy with
Portofinos, the food and service was great.
Came back to the dining room to change into shorts and loose clothes
and made our way down to La Scalla theater to catch the "Love and
Marriage Show". We got there in time to catch some of the try-outs.
It was hilarious. This was the first time we got to see Richard the
Cruise Director, he was pretty darn funny too. We laughed a lot. We
don't recommend anyone sitting up at the top towards either side, due
to being close to the bar. the bartenders and waiters were quite noisy
and sometimes we couldn't hear the show. The show was totally
hilarious and not to be missed.
We went to the Mardi Gras parade, and felt that it was very similar to
the Bon Voyage parade. We were at a bad spot (at one of the ends of
the Promenade) and had to stand behind people, so we didn't get to see
much. Pretty much felt that we wasted our time with that one.
That was it for the night. We wanted to try the self-service ice
cream machine, but it closed at 10pm, we just missed it.

While out and about, I stopped at the Guest Relations desk to see if
they had my Stingray City dvd from Michelle. Sure enough, they did!
Woo hoo! How they made the dvd so fast, I'll never know. Went back
to the room, joked around for a bit, and then crashed. (Note: we
watched the stingray city dvd the night after we got back, and it was
great, worth the $60!)

4/8/04 DAY 5: COZUMEL
Woke up at 6:30, had breakfast in the Windjammer: Cantaloupe, cereal,
scrambled eggs and a slice of French toast. It was quite yummy and
hit the spot. Spent next few hours catching up on my journal, met K&T
for "Cozumel Shopping Highlights" at Cleopatra's Needle. We ended up
winning a Silver Emporium necklace & bracelet ($8 value). Then K&T
played bingo and I observed. Drinks were 2 for 1, so I got 2 Pina
Coladas for me, and 2 Strawberry Daquiri's for K&T. Hamish was
hilarious as usual. After Bingo it was time to disembark to Cozumel
for our Dolphin Discover excursion. We were docked at the Punta
Lagosta pier, right downtown - so no need for a tender. Yay!
The taxi ride to Chanknaab Park was quite the thrill, it seemed that
our driver only knew one speed: accelerate. At one point, on a
single-lane highway, he decided to pass the civilian car ahead of him
at the same time another taxi was coming directly at us. Both cars
scooted to the side allowing us to survive the experience. And zoom,
away we went. What a thrill ride! Chanknaab was gorgeous, but all we
did was wait around in a large group of about 50 people. Finally they
had us all rounded up from our taxis and then brought us into the
park, where we waited and waited some more. Eventually, they were
ready to take them out to the dolphins after everyone had gotten a
life jacket on. I paid $20 so that I could be an observer - this
covered the $10 taxi fare and $10 park entrance fee. I was allowed
onto the pier where family members could watch and take pictures.
Unfortunately, K & T's group were led to one of the furthest pens from
the pier, so my pictures of them were very small. I ended up taking
pictures of the pen closest to me, and got some great shots of Foxy
the dolphin. 20 minutes later, they were done. Overall, we felt this
was not worth the money spent: the Dolphin Encounter cost $100 per
person, and we waited around for about 4-5 hours for a 20 minute
experience. For $35 more a person, they could have done the "Dolphin
Swim" and got a lot more time with the dolphins. These were
Chanknaab's prices, the ship's excursion did not charge anything over,
so we blame Chanknaab. We ended up buying 3 of the photos, and also
felt that their staff in the gift store was not very friendly.
Perhaps this was because of the 10 or so cruise ships in Cozumel that
day. with the possibility of 40,000 people (counting pax and crew)
being on land from cruise ships alone.
After waiting for so long, we were in no mood to stick around and look
at the rest of the park. So we got in a taxi and headed back to
Cozumel for some shopping. This driver was a tad slower, much to my
dismay. We were dropped off at the Punta Lagosta Mall. We walked and
shopped all they way up the main street until we got to Los Sinco
Soles, and had our dinner at Pancho's Backyward. At one point we also
stopped in a store and Trisha got half of her head braided. By 6:00
we had arrived at Pancho's Backyard and ordered food. Karen and I had
the carne asada (which came with rice, beans, guacamole, quesadilla
and a chicken enchilada with mole sauce); the meat was cooked to order
(medium) and was delicious. We forgot to say "no sour cream", but the
dollops were not huge, so that was fine. The chicken enchilada was
dry even with the mole sauce, and was made with corn tortillas which
are not to our liking. Trisha ordered the chicken enchilada and ended
up eating the chicken out of it, along with most of the salsa that had
been placed at our table. : Overall, we were happy with the food.
We were too tired to try their famously large margaritas, instead we
watched other people drink them. Pancho's Backyward was nice and
quiet and had a very relaxing atmosphere. The marimba players were
not playing while we were there. The total price was just over $60
for the three of us - with no drinks ordered, I felt this was a tad on
the expensive side. but worth it. They gave us a lot of good food.
We shuffled, stumbled, and shopped our way back down the main street
back to the Punta Lagosta pier and boarded the ship at around 8:30,
about an hour before "last call". Also, it was quite warm and muggy
and I had developed some "chafing in the nether regions" to quote
Colby from Survivor All Stars, so it was good to get back on the ship
and stop walking around to make the rash worse.
At 9 pm, we went to La Scalla theater to watch "Broadway Through the
Ages". It was a very well done show, though I thin we enjoyed "Ice
Jammin" and "Love & Marriage Show" a bit more. We had intentions to
go to Karaoke Night, but that fell apart. Trisha conked out, Karen
and I went to Johnny Rocket's for shakes. This time I had vanilla
(Karen had strawberry) and lo and behold, there was still some ice
cream in mine. it was just a tad thicker than before. The shakes hit
the spot. We got back to our cabin around 11:00-11:30 and crashed.

4/9/04 - DAY 6: COSTA MAYA
Woke up at 6:30 to get off at Costa Maya at 7:00. K&T went to grab a
bite to eat at Windjammer while I finished getting packed for our
Mayan Ruin excursion. We made it to Deck #1 at 7:4 or so. The ship
was supposed to be docked by 7:00 am, but was over an hour late in
docking. We finally went to shore, but my legs were still chafed and
sore and I could hardly walk. I decided to cancel the Chachoben Ruins
excursion because I could hardly walk, and that tour would consist of
about 90% walking. We sepnt about 1.5 hours in Costa Maya shopping,
and Trisha found a lady who braided the rest of her hair. We bought a
lot of souvenirs here. We were the only ship in Costa Maya, there
wasn't a whole lot here for us to see or do. Mostly it was a place to
relax or to catch excursions. K & T briefly entertained the idea of
going horseback riding while I went back to the ship, but they ended
up scrapping that idea and we all went back to the ship.
We ended up going to Windjammers so I could get a bite to eat. Played
bingo later that morning, no winners. At 9pm, we went to the "El
Gaucho" show, which was a guy who was from Uruguay and who was very
talented and funny. After that was another show, called "The Quest",
but I was tired and went back to the cabin to read and go to sleep.
K&T said the show was good.

4/10/04 - DAY 7: LAST DAY AT SEA
Woke up late (8:00) and went to WJ for breakfast. K & T played bingo
twice today (ouch $140 for Bingo!) and didn't win anything. During
the second game, someone won the carry-over cash prize of $9,000.00.
Wow. Rest of the day was spent packing & lounging and getting ready
for departure. We figured out our tips and got "brown" luggage tags,
which meant we were the 6th color to be called, scheduled for some
time between 8:00 and 8:30 the next morning.
Went to Magic Flute dining room and saw Mike & Martha. Originally I
wasn't feeling the greatest, but I mustered up my courage (ow, ow,
twist my arm) and had some good food. I had the shrimp cocktail for
an appetizer and the New York steak for dinner; K&T both had the
Turkey dinner. Food was good. Can't remember what we had for
dessert.
We went to the Farewell Party in La Scalla theater, but it was mostly
just a "thank you for using RCCL" and a quick promo of the "Your
Cruise In Review" dvd that they were offering in the photo gallery.
(As an aside: Karen ended up buying it and we just finished watching
it last night. not worth the $30 we paid for it, as it consisted of
about 10 minutes from our cruise and the rest felt like
advertisements.) We gave our room attentdent, waiter, and assistant
waiter their tip envelopes. We left the head waiter's tip on the
table. Our head waiter was "Rajeesh", and although Martha said good
things about him, we were severly unimpressed. He never once
introduced himself to us, and on our last evening, he talked only to
Martha. We only left him a tip because we felt it was required. but
if it had been up to us, he would have gotten nothing.

4/11/04 - DAY 8: DISEMBARKATION IN MIAMI
Karen got up early and had breakfast in WJ. We got down to the
Schooner Bar which was the closest we could be to the gangway. They
ended up calling BROWN towards 8:30 a.m., which was right on time. We
passed through Immigration quickly. We did end up having to wait for
our luggage a bit; somehow they had gotten separated; and then we went
through Customs with no trouble at all, luckily they did not choose us
for inspection so it went very fast. We then caught a cab to the
Hilton Aiport hotel, which cost us $20.xx this time, instead of $23.
This cabbie drove a little faster than our first guy.
At the Hilton, we waited around for an hour until they got us a room,
as it was still fairly early in the morning (about 9:30). By 10:30 we
had a room. We noticed that they had a Easter Brunch going on, but
the price was $29.95 a person, so we were like "forget that!" Then
the other shoe dropped. we found out, much to our dismay, that the
Dolphin Mall was closed, or that the shuttle was not running. There
was nowhere that we could go for free, and we weren't interested in
paying a high fare to go somewhere via taxi after just having to pay
$20 to get there. So. after worrying about it for a few hours, we
decided to plunk down the money at the buffet. However, as we did not
have reservations, we ended up having to wait in line for 50 minutes
before finally being seated after people who had reservations. The
also took some people who had signed up after we had, because they had
a larger party and a larger table had come available. To us, it
looked as though we would never get seated. The food was OK, but we
did not eat $30 worth each. This was the final straw for this hotel,
we will never EVER visit them again. Warning to all: if you want a
hotel, stick with something close to the pier (do not get hotels
nearby the airport because they are not close to the pier at all, and
there is nothing to do around there).

4/12/04 - DAY 9: HOMEWARD BOUND
We got up at 4 a.m. and made it down to the lobby by 4:50 to catch the
first shuttle to the airport. We were determined to get on, airplane
staff or no! Actually it ended up being no problem at all. We also
made it into the Miami Int'l airport without any problems. Our long
flight from Miami to LA was uneventful, and we actually made it there
30 minutes early. At LAX, however, the plane to take us to Sacramento
was very behind. We ended up staying there for 2.5 hours before the
plane finally arrived. At Sacramento, the guy working at the Hertz
rental car desk was a moron, and took up another 45 minutes of our
time. A guy who was behind us in line, and who had the good fortune
to be served by a different Hertz employee, actually got his car
before we did. Grr. Driving 2 hours home, we got lost once and got
stuck in a accident backup for about 15 minutes until we could take
the detour. Finally got home at 4:00 pm (was expecting to be home by
1:00pm) and were we ever happy to be home.

OVERALL SUMMARY:
Overall, a kickass vacation! Flying from Sacto (78 degrees) to Denver
(36 degrees) and then to Miami (84 degrees) was great. Boarding the
ship went smoothly with only minimal waiting. Treated like royalty
aboard the ship, the only downside to the whole ship was the volume of
passengers (3000+). We met some really nice people from all over the
country (actually, all over the world). The entertainment on the ship
was also wonderful. a show every night on top of music, shopping,
food, bingo, the works. The private balcony was GREAT! We also had
no bad weather, so we never got sick and didn't need to take any
medicine. Woo hoo! The ports of call (Belize, Grand Cayman, Cozumel
and Costa Maya) were great too. I definitely would love to do it all
again, however this time I'd pick more snorkeling excursions and more
Mayan Ruin excursions to make up for the one I missed. I
absolutely loved snokelling!












  #7  
Old April 16th, 2004, 05:26 PM
Grey Wolf
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Our Voyager Of The Seas trip (4/4/04) (VERY LONG)

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 10:22:31 -0400, "Sandy K."
wrote:

I enjoyed your post. We did a Western Caribbean cruise same week, on the
Mariner of the Seas. I find it interesting to see how others spend thier
time aboard ship.

Thanks,
Sandy K.


Hi Sandy,
Well, it was funny how we didn't do a lot of things we thought we were
going to. Originally Karen and Trisha had talked about going ice
skating and rock-wall climbing, for example. When it came time to do
it, Trisha didn't want to. She also did not want to go out and spend
time in the pool or on the deck. So instead we spent a lot of time
indoors at bingo, shows, and shopping.
The nice thing about the Voyager (and I assume the other Voyager-class
ships) is that there is plenty to see or do... so even missing some of
the events we had planned, we were never bored. I actually enjoyed
some downtime to be able to write in my journal or even read part of a
book.
So what did you do on your cruise? I'm curious, please share the
details! :-)

David
  #8  
Old April 16th, 2004, 05:34 PM
Grey Wolf
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Our Voyager Of The Seas trip (4/4/04) (VERY LONG)

On 15 Apr 2004 22:09:19 GMT, (Lunyma) wrote:

Thanks for taking the time to write such a thorough trip report. This was
obviously your first cruise, and I think you made the best of it, but I also
think that next time (and there WILL be a next time), you will probably do a
little more research for your pre/post hotel, and cruise excursions. All in
all, it sounds like you had a wonderful time. I just think you could have
saved a few bucks along the way...

Pam


You're right, it was my first time and I did waste a lot of money. I
did miss out on one excursion that I had paid for, and of course the
exorbiant hotel prices.
Speaking of hotels, I had originally booked at the Holiday Inn on
Biscayne (in Miami) which was very close to the pier... but a friend
of ours who had come back from their first cruise on Carnival said
that the hotel was in a bad part of town and they were afraid to go
out. So Karen talked to her TA, who happened to be from Miami, and he
recommended the Hilton Airport. She called them up, and they offered
her a deal that was only a little bit more expensive, and so she took
it, and I cancelled my Holiday Inn reservations. Little did we know
that there was more to consider besides just hotel service. The rest
is history.

All in all, after I finish paying off my credit card, I will be ready
to go again, hopefully even smarter!

Also, I re-read my post and noticed that in one section I talked about
going to the dining room to change into shorts. HA HA! This was not
the case... I meant "we went to the cabin to change". I repeat, we
did not change in the dining room. :-)

David
  #9  
Old April 20th, 2004, 03:29 AM
Lisa
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Posts: n/a
Default Our Voyager Of The Seas trip (4/4/04) (VERY LONG)

David, I'm so glad you all had such a good time! I don't know how you
could avoid having a good time, to tell the truth. I can't wait for
our next cruise! Lisa
 




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