Caribbean Cruise. A fantastic vacation.

January 23rd, 2007, 10:54 am Josh Houghtelin Travel, Holiday

Paul & I got a late start but we finally left the iced city of Clinton, Missouri at 6:am Sunday morning. We boarded our flight at 8:30 Central time and landed in Tampa at 12:00 noon (Eastern time now). We got a bad ass hotel room with an excellent view of the ocean. It didn’t take long for us to get a complimentary car and make our way to the Spa. I managed getting cleaned up real well. I even got a hair cut and pedicure. hehe. After the Spa we burnt some time swimming, walking, gazing, and even drinking a bit. I really like the Vodka (Grey Goose) and RedBull. Mmm.. At 7:00pm we found the open bar and drank a bit more before feasting on an open buffet. After dinner I hit the jacuzzi outside and went for another walk soaking up this beautiful weather while Paul took off to hang out with some girls we met earlier.

I ended up finding a group of people Paul knew and hung out with them chatting over a few drinks until about 11. It started to get a little chilly around then (probably around 65 degrees) so I called it a night.

We got rounded up on a bus with a few other people around 1 and worked our way to the ship. I was on the Ms Inspiration. It’s straight chaos getting onto one of them things. It seemed like nobody knew what was going on. It was crazy. None of that seemed to matter though when we realized the ship was already serving food. Hehehe. Can’t beat being able to eat as much as you want as often as you want the whole time you are on the ship. A couple hours later, after a fire drill test, we left the port and disembarked on our trek to Grand Cayman.

The first day at sea was pretty nice aside from the insane sun burn I got from falling asleep on the deck of the ship. It took me a day to figure out where everything was and how the maze of stairs and hallways connected to each other.

When we ported at Grand Cayman it was mass chaos watching everyone try to make their way to the 3rd floor so they could get on a tender to shore. All the signs led to the tender at the bow of the ship. I somehow stumbled across another tender somewhere midship and walked right on. Heck of a lot easier than getting lost in the shuffle trying to get on the big one at the front of the ship. I couldn’t get over how clear the water is there. I immediately found my way to the 7 mile beach. I also managed getting on a submarine tour. I wanted to scuba dive but it didn’t work into my time schedule very well. The submarine provided a killer view of the reef. I somehow managed skipping the line to get on another tender at the end of the day to get back to the ship. I was really positive about everything and my luck was right there with me. hehe.

After another day at sea we docked at Cozumel. Paul rented a Jeep so we drove to the Aztec Ruins there for a while. After seeing enough of that we hit the beach on the west side of the island where it was mostly Spanish speaking servers ( Uno Mas Porfavor! hahaha) and very few tourists it seemed. We drank margaritas all day, swam on the beach, and watched the eye candy. I’d say that was probably the best part of the trip right there. After we were probably a little excessively fried we made our way back to the tenders and got back on the ship to return home.

Being on the cruise ship was awesome. I never found myself in the Casino (not a fan of gambling) nor did I really spend any time in the Paris lounge which was the stage/theater on the ship but short of that, I enjoyed every other little club, event, bar, social gathering, and whatnots they had going on. I ate sushi, a couple hamburgers, pizza, and ruben sandwitches every day, drank way too much, had an insanely good time, and didn’t get myself into any trouble. hehe. The formal dinners every night with gourmet food was really good as well. I could always find room for that. The trip was awesome.

As for tips for anyone else going on a cruise. Bring a little cash (no bills bigger than 20, mostly 5’s will work best) and a really good, positive attitude. I can’t wait to find out if I’m going on the Meditteranian cruise the last week of April! Now for some of the pictures. (My internet is being flaky from the ice so the collection will slowly populate)

The Flickr photoset

The plane flight out there was even nice…

A view from the Hyatt hotel room.

My first glimpse of our ship.

The first sunset.

You know where you can find me….

Cruise ship valet? Grand Cayman was nuts…

The 7 Mile Beach… (although this is looking in the wrong direction. heh)

Ooooh the sea breeze blasting thru my hair.. a bit burnt but loving it!