Our Texas & Caribbean Trip -Part 3

On Thursday, Dec. 14 we were in Falmouth, Jamaica. (It was my mom's 70th birthday but we didn't  have wi-fi to send her many happy returns of the day.) ☹ 

It was raining so there was no point in rushing off the ship. Who thinks to pack an umbrella when you're going on a cruise? Not I. Somehow I was picturing every day as being sunny. Ha.
We chose to try the main dining room for breakfast, instead of the buffet. The chef was featuring chocolate that morning so we each had a chocolate pastry of some variety. 🖒 I had this omelet with smoked salmon, which I would definitely recommend. 

A wet, drizzly Jamaica...

This is the extent of the Jamaica we saw. 

By 9:30am, the sun was trying to come out so we decided to go on shore. We spent a couple hours browsing among the shops on the pier. I'm sure if you venture farther inland you would get to see the real Jamaica, but we opted to stay here this time with the weather being so iffy. 

                           

There was one band with street dancers...

Jamaican music has a distinctive sound. 

 And a craftsman weaving baskets...

...but the wood carvings fascinated us the most. JR bought a shark, and A bought a sea turtle. 

I was tempted, but the thought of dusting it for the next 25 years... sometimes I'm too practical for my own good. JR also found a very nice marble chess set. 

R was craving coconut water. (Flashbacks to Ghana.) For $5 they will hack one open right before your eyes. Yum! It doesn't get any fresher than this. Unfortunately there is no way to get the meat out (not to mention illegal to take on the ship) so we had to throw it away after we drank all the water.  

And then it started to rain again, so we made a dash back to the ship. It was soon positively pouring. 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 Oh, whadda ya do on a rainy day in an ark? 𝅘𝅥𝅮𝅘𝅥𝅮 

(Am I the only one that grew up in a home where we sang a lot of silly songs? Veggie Tales ain't got nothing on my mom.) 

Anyway, it was napping weather so we indulged. 

We heard the water is normally very blue in Jamaica, but that it had been raining for the past 3 days so it was very muddy near shore.  Here is proof.

We went up to Deck 12 at 4:30 to watch the sun set and the ship leave port. 

When we were ready to leave Jamaica, the captain made an announcement. Among other information given, he asked everyone to be especially diligent about washing our hands. Our sister ship, Independence of the Seas [pictured below], that was docked on the other side of the pier from us all day, spilling her passengers into the same space as us, had sickness on board. Fabulous! Later we found out that in fact that ship had made it into the news for having 300 some sick passengers on board. Cruise ships are breeding grounds for germs in spite of the constant cleaning going on; all it takes is one virus and people start dropping like flies. Which is why Royal Caribbean has hand sanitizer everywhere. Upon entering the buffet, if you didn't utilize the automatic dispensers, a staff member was there with a bottle saying "no washy-washy, no yummy-yummy". As far as we know, Liberty didn't pick up Independence's bug.     

 JR went down to Deck 4 when we were leaving port -the farthest point forward you can go on the ship. He is in the black shirt on the left side along the railing. I just threw this picture in to give you a visual how huge the ship is. 

 R & I played a round of mini golf... 

...then we went in the hot tub in the adult-only solarium. It was virtually empty because everyone else was dining. Isn't it just the coolest thing ever to sit in a hot tub that is extending out over the edge of the ship? 

Speaking of the adult-only solarium, this is the kid-free pool. Kinda magical at night.

I won't bore you with more pictures of plates of food here, but we went to the buffet that evening instead of the dining room. We were quite happy to discover on the menu Jamaican specialties like Jamaican jerk chicken, seafood, fried plantain (Evie!! My heart was happily wallowing in Ghana as I munched on plantain), and rum cake. Below is the only picture I ever took in the buffet. That is carvings of cheese- the bowl, the hand.   

 A. sampled the cheese and deli meats but found them disappointing compared to the deli where she works.
I was disappointed there was no midnight buffet on this ship, no ice sculptures and all that jazz.
And since I ate way too much, 6 laps around the jogging track was my penance.

This was the evening our stateroom attendant surprised us with a monkey towel art. She even had to "go to pains" to find this hanger to make it happen because we were using all the ones in our closets.

The men stayed up till 1am watching the showing of 'Dunkirk' on the big screen by the pool. 

Room service is free, so A & I decided to order it for Friday morning. Just for the novelty of it. We had ordered for 8:30-9, but at 8:15 our room phone rang and they said our breakfast is on the way. I could get used to this. 

 It was a lazy day of soaking up too much sun (someone got lobster red...) and trying out ship amenities, like the water slides. We went on the regular slide (if you scroll up to the photo of JR in Jamaica you can see the orange & green slides on the back of the ship behind him), then JR & R went on the one where you sit on a 2 person yellow inflatable raft which shoots you down a slide, up a wall, and down backwards. R was sure I would scream if I went on it so I didn't. But in the back of my mind, I have a feeling I should've tried it anyway. I hear one of the benefits of getting older is that you stop caring what people think of you; I must be getting old because I am game to try crazier things now than I did in my teens and 20s.
On the other hand...

 I am that old lady who sits around crocheting. Yup, I really did that. Being uncool and embarrassing is a tough part of a parent's job description, but some one's gotta do it. And I wasn't the only one; I saw one other lady knitting on the ship. 
   Because we had so many at-sea days, it's a good thing we had a ship with a lot of activities. There was surfing, but the line was always long so none of us tried it. A rock climbing wall, sports court, ice skating... there is always something going on. And then there was low key stuff like bingo, and goofy things like Best Belly Flop in the Pool contest. (For the inquisitive minds, nope, didn't do those last 2.)   
   There was a soft serve ice cream machine beside one of the pools. We could have a cone whenever we wanted. I lost track of how many cones we ate. When it comes to ice cream, I never grew up- I'll take a cone over a bowl any day.

It was formal night again, so we dressed up for dinner. Happy anniversary to us! 

 Some of us had wild mushroom puff pastry for a starter...

 ...and the rest of us had roasted peach soup. 

 JR's prime rib...

My fisherman's platter... a foretaste of heaven!

 And for dessert, we all had the chef's recommendation of the day - Baked Alaska. 

We may or may not have also ordered a Royal Mariner's Souffle... 

While we were eating, they had the chef's parade. They introduced the head chef, the pastry chef, etc. and then they all paraded through the dining room while we applauded. 

 Since the formal portraits with the ship's photographers were a bust, we took our own. A young lady who happened by just then volunteered to take some for us. We clean up pretty good, don't we?

Is it time for an honest confession? I look at these pictures and I sigh. Some people have it and some people don't. I need help with fashion; I have no sense of style. I think I put a nice outfit together but then I see myself in photos and it doesn't look classy after all. More like 'tried and couldn't'. Some day when my ship comes in I am going to hire a  clothing consultant/personal shopper to turn me out fashionably. Taking applications awhile, by the way. 
Meanwhile... the lighting was really bad in this spot. My hair is NOT that white. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

 Towel art of the day was a lobster (how appropriate!) and a scorpion.

 to be continued...

Our Texas & Caribbean Trip -Part 2

On Tuesday, Dec. 12, we were in Cozumel Mexico.

The cruise pier in Cozumel

It was a gorgeous 75* in Mexico. We got off the ship and browsed through these shops on the pier to get a feel for the prices and availability of souvenirs. "Come look in my shop. I have better prices than my neighbor." R & JR purchased knock-off Ray-Bans for $20. They had free wi-fi here, but only JR was able to send/receive messages.

JR had decided in advance that he'd love to try scuba diving on this trip. There was a beginners class, which basically amounts to sitting in the swimming pool, practicing breathing through a scuba mask. When he inquired at the dive shop on the ship, the instructor said he does not need to take the beginner's class- he can skip straight to the Discover Scuba package. They would teach him everything he needs to know right on the beach and he could immediately dive for 2 hours in a coral reef. Cool. Let's do it.  

 He'll tell you this was the best hundred bucks he ever spent. 

Meanwhile, R sacrificed scuba and snorkeling adventures to escort A & I for some beach time. The price for a taxi is posted so we didn't have to haggle with them. A steep $15 one-way, but that's the price of being a tourist. So off we go. The driver immediately asked if it's our first time in Cozumel and proceeded to give us the tourist spiel. Wait, what? Did you just say it costs $19 per person to set foot on the beach? You're kidding, right? This is insane! You come to my country and you can go to the beach for free, but you want to charge me almost $100 (counting the taxi to and from)??  Somehow this little tidbit didn't make it into any of the reviews or guidebooks I carefully researched before our trip. We were completely nonplussed. We weren't even carrying that much cash on us at the moment! The driver, who had been rapidly hurtling his taxi toward the beaches, pulled over and patiently explained again that we simply cannot go to the beach for free. When he saw he was about to lose a sale, he reluctantly offered us another option- he knows of a little place.... if we buy food or drinks, we can access their beach at no charge. We told him we don't drink alcohol, but he said soft drinks count. Ok, so we could spring for a virgin pina colada, let's do it. He was satisfied; we were shell-shocked but willing to venture on. It felt like we were living on the edge as he merged back into traffic and sped toward what we could only assume was the beaches. 

   A couple of miles down the road, he pulls into a thatched roof hut of a restaurant and turned us ignorant, stingy tourists over to the staff. Good riddance, he surely muttered under his breath. A waitress obligingly gave us the 5 second tour of the tiny establishment, and we went searching for the best beach lounge chairs. It was a "those over there look better... or maybe those down there" kind of thing and we ended up a bit of a ways down the beach from the original restaurant/tequila shack. We barely got our beach towels spread over the chairs before a Mexican appeared and asked if we have a pass. Once again we found ourselves listening to the explanation that the beach is not free. He explained in accented English that we have 2 choices- a $10 pass or a $15 pass, that include certain perks. Wait, we just got here and aren't ready for our obligatory drink yet. And we really don't want 2 drinks per person, we just want to sit on this chair and soak up some Caribbean sun, thank you very much. You could say we're stubborn or stingy, or you could call it not being gullible, but either way when he saw we weren't buying his sales pitch, he offered us a better deal- for $5 each we could use the beach, the chair, the umbrella, wi-fi, and he'd even throw in the sand for free. (He didn't actually say that sand part, I just stuck that in there.) We paid up because he didn't give us a choice. I had a bad feeling about it when he didn't bring us any kind of pass, although he did bring A's change for her 'beach fee' in American dollars. I asked R "what are we going to do if someone else comes along asking us to pay up? we have no proof that we did already pay." Well, after being there for a couple hours, we caught on to the system. We thought it was all one and the same, but it wasn't. There was a string of little dining establishments along that stretch of beach- we had moved down to a different one from the original drinks-only spot, so that's why we had to buy a 'pass'. All the tourists around us received the same spiel so we weren't being "taken". (And I take comfort in the fact that we weren't the only country hicks that needed the finer points of being a tourist explained to us.) 

 We never did buy a drink, but there were plenty of pesky hawkers with boxes of smelly cigars and overpriced trinkets. I lost track of how many times I was asked if I want a temporary tattoo. Really?  The wi-fi was weak at best, completely worthless actually, and we were there for sun so we wanted nothing to do with the umbrella we paid for. In spite of everything, it was gorgeous there. The water is so blue. We got our $5 worth.

We went back on the ship for a late lunch. It was perfect because the ship was nearly deserted so we could get a window table.

 After re-hydrating, we took A back on shore to shop for souvenirs. She found a real nice Mexican blanket for a reasonable price. Kinda wish we would've done the stick-your-feet-in-a-fishtank-and-let-them-nibble-off-the-dead-skin thing -just for the experience.

This pictures makes me think "big sister/little sister". Our ship is the larger one. And Liberty of the Seas isn't even Royal Caribbean's largest ship. Amazing.

Did I mention the gorgeous sunsets yet?

 Yes, we're eating again. Fruit plate for our starter...

 Chicken Cordon Bleu...

 Strip steak... 

Royal Caribbean is rated "meh" for their food quality but I'm really not sure why. We thought it was top notch, at least in the main dining room. 

 We were on the lowest level of the 3 story dining room. This particular evening we were sitting in the center, directly under a huge chandelier. Totally Titanic-ish. Without the icebergs.

 The ship is gorgeous at night, all lit up. Is that a thing? Can a ship be gorgeous?

Because of the change in itinerary, the ship stayed in Cozumel till midnight. But we stayed on the ship after dark, going to the evening show and watching a Christmas movie on the huge screen by the pool.

Wednesday was another at-sea day, since we couldn't go to Grand Cayman. During the night we steamed out of the Gulf of Mexico and into the Caribbean Sea. As soon as we woke in the morning we could feel the water was a bit rougher than the Gulf had been. But we still didn't get seasick. Such a massive boat doesn't exactly bob around, even in the open ocean. 

We spent most of that day relaxing on Deck 12 where it wasn't very crowded and protected from the wind. 

Did I mention the sunsets at sea? :) Comes around awful early out there, like 4:30pm. 

 Sorry about the photo overload... I just can't get enough of sunsets at sea. 

    Wednesday night was Italian Night in the main dining room. Yes, please. Chilled strawberry soup...

 Chicken Marsala...

 Lasagna...

 Dessert menu... there were classics they had every evening, and there were royal desserts that changed by the day... 

 Of course, one of the royal desserts on Italian night was Tiramisu!  

 JR opted for the sticky bread pudding, topped with vanilla bean ice cream instead. 

 Our stateroom attendant did towel art for us every evening. This time she gave the kids an elephant. Always fun to come back to our room and she what she made for us this time.

That was also the evening there was an ice skating show on the ship. Yes, there is a skating rink on the ship. We never did skate because they only allow 50 people on at a time, and even that is a bit of a stretch. But the show exceeded my expectations- it was Olympic quality skating. Photography was strictly forbidden so I don't have photos of it.  However, getting yelled at by some crabby people on the way in to the theater kinda spoiled it for me. We should've held out for the Thursday evening repeat performance. 

 to be continued...