Cruisin'

Jim, Adam, Jacob, Richie, and I arrived in New Orleans on Sunday, eager and excited to start our week-long cruise. Unfortunately, our ship was delayed getting to the port due to the medical evacuation of a passenger on the inbound cruise. The ship had to divert off course to meet up with a Coast Guard helicopter from Key West, then it experienced engine problems as it tried to make up the lost time en route to Louisiana. Norwegian Cruise Lines did call to inform us of the change in schedule, but the day ended up being very long and, when all was said and done, we walked onto the ship about nine hours after we had anticipated.

Monday started off on a happier note, as we were at sea and enjoying everything that our ship had to offer. We ate, went to a magic show, ate, played ping-pong, ate, played shuffleboard, ate, sunned, ate, drank, ate, saw a Broadway show, and ate some more. On Tuesday we docked in Mexico, albeit quite a bit later than scheduled. Besides spending the day eating and going to shows, we also went ashore for a while. Jim and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary that day and our waiter at dinner sang "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" to us and gave us a small cake. Since we were already eating desserts, he offered to have it delivered to our cabin so we could enjoy it later. Well, the cake never arrived and we joked that the waiters tell every couple the same story, then just use the same cake over and over again. With all the food at our disposal, we didn't really mind losing our cake, even though it did look delicious and we all had a running debate going over what flavor it was.

On Wednesday, our ship anchored off Belize City. We hired a driver to take us to see the Belize Wildlife Sanctuary and show us around the area. It was an interesting port, yet very poor and quite run-down. We were happy to spend our tourist dollars there to support their troubled economy. Our tour guide was a 60-ish, knowledgeable man who actually was an old buddy & former schoolmate of the current Prime Minister of Belize. Talk about having friends in high places!

On Thursday we will be in Roatan, Honduras, where we intend to just relax in the port area and hang out on the ship. We have an all-day shore excursion planned for Friday in Cozumel, so it will be nice to take the day off Thursday to bum around. Our weather has been great - well if you consider 80s and humidity to be great. (I do!) We lost a few dollars in the casino this evening, and are off now to watch a late-night comedy show. I have taken lots of pictures and will post some when I update next.