A Christmas Dream: Belize

By
Saint Greg

April 18, 2019

Good morning from Belize. I set three alarms this morning and reluctantly got up on the first sound at 6:45.

Last cruise you may remember I forgot to put on sunscreen and I paid for it–twice. Not happening today. I coated my body in so much spf70 and off active I looked like I was getting ready for a wrestling match or body building competition. Then after I got dressed I thought “Maybe I didn’t have to put it on my ENTIRE body.

Atrium Bar

The coffee shop line is the longest I’ve seen. It goes to the Alchemy bar. There are around 20 people in line. I remembered the coffee orders down in the atrium yesterday so that’s where I got my coffee this morning–Much quicker I think.

Lido Deck

Due to the time crunch I grabbed the quickest possible breakfast which is at the blue iguana.

Here is the schedule for today.

Main Lounge

I am so glad I booked the Carnival excursion. The line for the tender/water shuttle stickers went from the alchemy area to the casino bar. I don’t need one with my CCL ticket. And I actually could’ve done the earlier version of the excursion. Their meet time was 7:30 and they left at 8:10. This is real time so you can see they’re running behind. My time was 8:15 and my excursion is way over on the second page.

When we got off the tender/water shuttle it was raining. But by the time we got on the tour bus it had stopped. We boarded the shuttle at 9:55 and departed at 10:00.

There was plenty of room on the bus. I had my own row of two and there were two empty rows in front of me. We had plenty of time for people to use the bathroom in the terminal before boarding.

“You got me blacklisted at Hop Sing’s?”

45 mins in and we’re in the middle of nowhere now. Tour guides are entertaining. A couple moved to the seats in front of me. Woman is reclined. Man is eating peanuts. I feel like I’m on an airplane now…then the guy behind me keeps leaning forward with his forearms on the seat backs with his head over my shoulder. He’s probably reading this now. What’s up, yellow beard?

Nice hat choice by this tour guide.

The tour guide said their gas is $5.80 here. The driver in Roatan said it was $5 there.

11:25 we arrived at Aiyn Ha Restaurant. There everyone was able to use the restroom and/or bar. I got a local beer.

Our boat departed at 11:40. We were able to take our beverages with us. We were supposed to put life vests on. Instead of running the strap around my back, I strapped in my phone. I can swim. My phone cannot.

We were going pretty fast and there were some sharp turns. One of the guides was taking peoples phones to get pictures of them. I refused as I held on for dear life to my phone and my beer.

Mr. Peanut from the bus was now working on granola bars. It turns out his left cargo pocket was a feed bag.

We arrived at Lamanai at 12pm. We weren’t allowed to take any beverages other than water off of the boat. I downed my beer. Once we got out of the boat it was sounding like Jurassic Park our there. It turns out it was a couple of howler monkeys going crazy.

They say this is two trees that became one. Something about birds or animals feeding on them.

We had an option for anyone with mobility issues to take a shorter route and skip the last ruin. Mr. Peanut raises his hand. Looked to me like he may have had knee replacement surgery.

The first ruin we came to was the Jaguar Temple. They named it that because the jaguar was seen as the biggest most powerful creature in the area.

This is on each side and is supposed to represent the face of the jaguar.

The next ruin we saw was the ball court. The game they played was similar to ping pong but they hit the ball off of their arm, shoulder, or waist and try to get it in a hoop that was just barely bigger than the ball. A member of the winning team would have to blood let to offer up blood to the gods. If it was a guy he would cut his tongue or…member….If it were a female she would have to cut her tongue or…one of the twins.

The next ruin we saw was the high temple. Some climbed it. Some didn’t.

The last ruin we saw was the Mask Temple. This is the one you would have skipped if you had mobility issues.

After that we had quite a hike in the jungle back. Top to bottom of the map I posted above.

Once back to the boat area we had a few minutes to use the restroom and/or gift shops before heading back.

We boarded the boat at 1:50 and departed at 1:55.

We arrived back at the restaurant at 2:20. We were given 30 minutes for lunch. Lunch consisted of rice and beans, stewed chicken, potato salad made with sour cream, plantains (grilled I think), and I believe the drink they gave us was tang. I tried a little taste of each but I didn’t chow down like other people did. I don’t know anything about the health code in Belize.

Our bus arrived at 2:45. I was able to get my row back—yellow beard in tow. Mr. Peanut and wife sat closer to the front of the bus. Nobody was in front of me this time. The bus departed at 2:50.

One of the guides was handing out Christmas cards from her family. I didn’t want one so I pretended to be asleep when she was handing them out…worked good. They didn’t talk the rest of the trip back in case anyone wanted to sleep.

We arrived back at the port at 4:05 and the last tender/water taxi is at 4:15. I probably should’ve grabbed a spot at the front of the bus. There was a slowdown getting off. Maybe someone up front who had knee replacement surgery.

I was on the tender/water taxi by 4:15 but we didn’t pull out until 4:25. Tonight is formal night and I want to be at the dining room at 5:45 so no time to rest up when I get back to the ship.

I got off of the tender at 5pm. I went up two flights of steps and started feeling that temple climb. I knew every elevator coming up was going to be full so I walked to the forward elevators, took them up to deck 9, then walked back to my room. I made it there in 5 mins. After showering and throwing the formal day monkey suit on I raced down to alchemy to see if i could get a drink in.

Suri hadn’t made me a drink yet so I let him go wild. This is an orange drink and it was good.

After that I headed to dinner but stopped to take this.

Dinner

Mushrooms, crabcake, four seasons salad

Filet mignon

Grand Mariner soufflé

Cabin

After dinner I went back to the room to get out of the monkey suit.

Alchemy Bar

I went back to the Alchemy and let Suri cook something else up. He came up with a good coconut drink.

After that I asked Manol to make something custom. He made me this. Tasted like pancakes to me.

Maria got in the mix with this pink lemonade tasting drink.

I had seen Maria using raspberry vodka so I asked her to use it on me.

I asked Maria for something cherry. This is like a chocolate covered cherry. She sold four of these while I was drinking it. They didn’t have the heart straw though.