Grand Caribbean Cruise

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

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!

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.

We received a follow-up email from Orbitz’ customer service regarding our upcoming trip (which is still more than a month away, BTW).

They wanted to, “ensure that you have a remarkable vacation” and provided us with additional information about online registration, online access to our travel documents, Funpass details and other useful stuff about our itinerary.

I appreciate this attention to detail. This cruise was a reasonably large investment and I do appreciate that they are keeping in touch and reminding us that they have all of the details covered (so we don’t have to worry about it). I only mention this at all because I generally don’t have a whole lot of faith in big corporations “getting” how important the customer experience is. I think Orbits gets it…or at least their Marketing Department gets it. Either way, I don’t care…. I’m feeling pretty good about the trip, and that’s all that matters.

At the conclusion of the email they say, “We hope you enjoy your cruise vacation!”

Ha! I think they might really mean it!

At long last, my husband and I had finally agreed to go on vacation. A real vacation…not with friends (not that we don’t love our friends) and not with family (not that we don’t love our family). We did a tremendous amount of research, contemplated our old standbys (Disney) and decided we wanted the perfect combination of relaxation, beaches and ‘interesting” things. So…a cruise seemed like the perfect option. Now a cruise to the old standards (St. Maarten, St. Thomas) was simply not going to fly, because as I said, we needed the unique balance of relaxation, beaches and “interesting” things. We finally found the perfect cruise, to the Exotic Western Caribbean which included Honduras, Belize and Cozumel…plenty of beaches and plenty of ruins (also known as “interesting” things).

We booked our cruise through Orbitz and it was a thoroughly pleasurable experience. But I should caution you, it took a fair amount of time to sort through the details, secure the deal we had seen online, and ensure that all of the requisite information was correct. The Orbitz Cruise Specialist was helpful and accommodating, contacting Carnival Cruises to secure our past passenger number (we had cruised on Carnival literally a decade before) and when he encountered a glitch in his booking process, again contacted Carnival to ensure we would receive all of the benefits that a past passenger is entitled to.

Almost instantaneously after completing the call with the Orbitz representative, I received confirmation emails that allowed me to log on to Carnival and complete all of the necessary outstanding paperwork (citizenship, etc.) which would expedite our boarding process and also establish our cruise accounts so we can begin spending money the moment we board. We were also provided with a link to check our cruise documents which would be updated to reflect any new information. I logged on again this week and was able to secure our flight information (we booked flights through the cruise line when we contacted Orbitz) and am able to schedule any of our shore destinations or special services well in advance of boarding the ship.

The whole process was as easy as pie (okay…that is not an expression that applies to me, ask my family about the apple pie I made one Thanksgiving), but it really was not complicated or difficult. I would recommend Orbitz any time and also am a big fan of the Carnival online options which I am certain will see me as a visitor a half a dozen or more times before our departure.

Visit the Orbitz Home Page for the latest deals (Just click the ‘Cruises’ tab, enter your zip code and click “Go”…that’s what we did).

My wife and I usually enjoy vacationing with friends and family, but this year we’ve decided to finally take a trip on our own, just the two of us…our first vacation alone together since our honeymoon 13 years ago.

After going round and round for months about where we should go, we pulled the proverbial trigger and booked a cruise on Carnival Cruise Lines. We’re going to Belize, Cozumel, George Town and Roatan Island. It was relatively inexpensive, considering it included airfare, all of our meals, plus accommodations for the week. And so we thought, what have we got to lose?

The whole idea for this site began when started doing research online, trying to figure out where we wanted to go and how we wanted to get there. We couldn’t find any good resources that told us what to look for (and what to look OUT for) when booking a cruise vacation. It was frustrating, and I got to thinking…Since I am an amateur blogger and photographer, and I do Internet Marketing and PR for a living, wouldn’t it be great to start an online journal and capture the whole cruise experience from start to finish so that others could learn from what we learned!

And so that is the story of how the Grand Caribbean Cruise site was created. We hope that you enjoy it. We’ll let you know how it goes!