Grand Caribbean Cruise

After the debacle with Carnival’s “Luggage Express” (which is actually a rather accurate name, since your luggage can get home in a jiffy, but your husband on the other hand cannot), we opted to use self-debarkation. We easily navigated off the ship, through customs, and to the buses for transfer to Miami airport. (Tip: Using Carnival’s Luggage Express is a waste of money and is more trouble than it’s worth. You won’t save any more time, and more than likely, you will end up stressed out and with headache since they apparently still have a lot of kinks in the system…more on that in a minute.)

We arrived at the Miami airport (luggage in tow) within 40 minutes of walking off the ship. We checked in with the lower level airline staff and then proceeded to security. Mind you, Miami ranks high on the list of user un-friendly airports…signage to our gate directed us to the end of an empty hallway. When we finally realized we needed to go upstairs signage directed us to a closed security checkpoint. The information desk was closed. Watching others proceed to the right we followed suit and found another checkpoint, conveniently situated right at the top of our gate (who knew?). We made it through security and to the gate without incident.

It’s worth mentioning here that Delta Airlines had nothing to do with screwing up our flight home. It was Carnival’s system that was screwed up and which caused us all the stress and and anxiety the night before. Again, Carnival’s “Luggage Express” isn’t worth the headache, don’t bother.

Unfortunately for us, our flight was delayed 30 minutes, making the likelihood of missing an already ridiculously tight connection all the more real. Deciding to be proactive, I approached the gate agent to see about possible re-routing…special thanks goes to David Easton of Comair, who directed me to a Delta agent a few gates down…he was able to confirm seats on a later connection should we miss the original flight. Alas, we were guaranteed to get home on Sunday.

We ended up arriving in Cincinnati at 2:56pm. Our connection was leaving at 3:05pm. Mike and I readied ourselves to haul ass off the aircraft, and the other passengers did the same (seems almost all of us were about to miss our connection). Seeing as that we were seated mid-plane, it seemed unlikely we were making our connection. We made peace with ourselves and excepted the inevitable (a midnight arrival home and to work at 7am) …but then the heavens parted and music began to play…

”Would Michael Johnson and Jody Levison-Johnson please proceed to the front of the aircraft to see the customer service agent? She is prepared to escort you to your flight…”

And sure enough, a wonderful woman, boarding passes in hand, met us on the tarmac, ensuring that we made it to our connecting plane to reach home (Mike actually hugged her before we boarded).

Thanks to Delta Airlines and Comair who made getting us home their priority as well as ours. Well, and as for Carnival you suck.

Carnival printed out our boarding passes for our flight home tomorrow and dropped them off in our cabin. Only one problem, though…my boarding passes weren’t there (but my wife’s were). Apparently Carnival didn’t think it was out of the ordinary that my wife would be traveling back home to Rochester without her husband. Or more likely, they didn’t bother to even look at the documents. I’m glad that we looked at them ahead of time.

So…several trips down to the purser’s desk to get this straightened out but no one can help us. “There’s nothing we can do.”, she repeats over and over. “It’s a problem with our agent” (who remained nameless), she says, and “Maybe it’s a security issue with your husband, they don’t do this for no reason.” We ask if she can call Delta to figure out what’s going on. “No” she says. We ask if she has a terminal to check our confirmation number on Delta’s Web site. “No” she says, “There is nothing we can do”.

The reason I bought a Carnival Cruise ‘Package’ was so that they would take care of these little details…like getting me back home!

I tried to log on to delta.com myself to check the status and get more information, but the WiFi connection on the ship is so bad it won’t even load the site.

Cruise Tip: When booking a cruise, there is a very real possibility that you, or one of your loved ones, will get stranded in an unfamiliar city if the booking was mishandled. Luckily for us, we packed a small overnight bag that I can use for whatever city I may be spending the night in tonight. Also, when considering your vacation budget, tack on a few hundred bucks for a hotel, cabs, tips, and meals in case something goes wrong.

The weather started out cloudy and overcast but before you knew it it was sunny and hot as hell! I love Caribbean weather! Jody and I sat out and suntanned in the morning and I re-read “Selling the Invisible” by Harry Beckwith over a couple of Foster’s oil cans in the afternoon in the shade at the back of the ship.

Watched an amusing ‘Hairy Chest’ contest on the Lido deck (I declined to participate though I am confident that I could have been a contender). Billy Bob from North Carolina ended up winning the contest…with 1000 Nascar fans, and 1000 drunk college kids on board, he was an obvious shoo-in.

I was feeling a little sluggish today…too many margarita shots and cheap Mexican beer with the frat boys on the catamaran from the day before, I suspect.

We had a great time snorkeling in Cozumel. It certainly wasn’t the ‘millionaires’ luxury yacht that we signed up for in Roatan, but the positive party atmosphere and exceptional service from the crew made it a million dollar experience.

The catamaran’s crew was simply awesome. Not only were they professionally manning the boat at all times while giving us a great tour of the Cozumel coast, but if one of the guys walked by and noticed that your beer was half empty…a fresh replacement would be in your hand in under 120 seconds flat. They really made us feel like rock stars.

The snorkeling was pretty good, too. We saw green ones, and blue ones, and purple ones, and yellow ones, and striped ones, and orange ones. Of course, my underwater disposable camera shot out of my pocket like a missile and floated ashore lickity-split after I dove in so I can’t prove how really cool it was. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Shopping along the strip in Cozumel was okay…a little boring and a bit too commercialized for my tastes. But if safe and mediocre is your thing, then Cozumel is a very nice place to spend a little quality shopping time. It was a bit too much like an American city for me.

No vacation would be complete without some cheesy cruise ship photos. These beauties were taken on the way in to Cozumel.

The Xunantunich ruins excursion was great. It rained all day, but the cool 78 degree weather was a welcome break. Our tour guide, Marisol, was absolutely wonderful…she talked literally for 3.5 hours about Belize and the Xunantunich excavation site and she was entertaining and informative 100% of the time.

The shore excursion description boasted that you would arrive at the Mayan ruins via an “old-fashioned ferry”. That didn’t quite prepare Jody and I for the rickety flatbed wooden float that was manually hand cranked along cables (the cable wheel was a recycled automotive rim) across a river to reach the Mayan site. You should have seen the biceps and forearms on the ferry operator…seriously, he was Popeye the Ferryman!

Lunch was a bit hurried but offered at the “5-star” Windy Hill resort in the Cayo district of Belize. We were guided to a roofed but open-air dining room where we were served fruit punch (made with purified water), red beans and rice cooked in coconut milk and roasted chicken (despite Marisol’s promise that we were having iguana (sometimes called “bamboo chicken”) or gibnut (a large Belizean rodent also known as “The Royal Rat”) Unfortunately, due to the weather, we were running a bit late and literally inhaled lunch and ran to catch the bus.

Yes, I climbed to the very tippy top of this thing to sacrifice myself to the gods…but they wouldn’t have me. It was a wonderful view from heaven, nonetheless.

We ended up walking around Roatan after our snorkeling excursion was canceled. Roatan is a very poor island but you can tell that they are trying very hard to make it a tourist destination. I was affected by the poverty and the beauty both at the same time…it was bitter-sweet and is hard to describe.

As soon as we hit the pier, a young boy, maybe 12 or 13 years old attached himself to us and escorted us throughout our entire walk, following us into stores, pointing out coconut trees and native birds, and making sure we didn’t trip on obstacles in the road and sidewalks, or go places that we maybe shouldn’t go. He was very polite, courteous and respectful and he kept a lot of the other locals from harassing us as we walked (It was obviously unspoken that “we” were “his”). It turns out that’s how the boy makes his money…he gets paid a small tip from the local merchants every time we buy something at their shops (and a tip at the end for ‘escorting’ services before we re-board the ship).

We ended up at a little ramshackle hut on the water and I had two of the coldest Coronna’s that I’ve ever had with some friendly locals. They even had faster Internet access than on the ship (see below)!

I could tell that the boy with the monkey was annoyed that I didn’t give him a dollar for taking a picture of him (yeah, I should have).

Our Roatan excursion was cancelled today.

We were supposed to board a 70 foot luxury catamaran this morning that was to give us a shore-tour of the coast of Roatan Island…and ending with lunch, cocktails and an hour of snorkeling along one of the best coral reefs in Central America.

But, no…it was cancelled, just like yesterday’s activities were cancelled.  “Mechanical difficulties” Carnival personnel tells us this time. And so we waited in line yet again to try and book one in Cozumel (like 50 others ahead us…people are starting to really get annoyed with Carnival at this point)

I think I have a new career idea: I will become a boat mechanic on an exclusive tropical island. No really, think about it…how many vacation experiences will I be able to save if I’m the only guy at a popular tourist destination that knows how to fix a carburetor.

Lots of pictures to come when I have more bandwidth!

I don’t usually go for cheesy tourist traps, but I have to say…hanging out at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville in Grand Cayman made us TOTALLY forget about our canceled snorkeling and stingray excursion. Here’s the thing about Margaritaville…its authentic and its fun (and its not a cheesy tourist trap). The food was great, the bartenders were super friendly, the drinks were cold and everyone in that joint was an old friend that day. Jimmy’s got a beer called Land Shark Lager that’s crisp and icy and he had a dozen of them behind the bar with my name on them. I need a parrot hat.

Update: Jody wanted me to mention the kick-ass Margaritas…she was hammed. And the Land Shark lager was delicious enough that I picked some up at our local grocery a couple of days ago.

My wife gets crazy motion sick and her doctor prescribed her something called Transderm Scop. She has absolutely no symptoms of motion sickness whatsoever. It’s just a little patch that goes behind your ear. It works like a miracle.