Our cruise finished yesterday. Overall, the week went well and we were treated wonderfully by the staff on our ship. Royal Caribbean gets a big thumbs up from us for their service.
Our first port was Cozumel. my wife, daughter, and I did a dolphin excursion, where we got to swim with them at this place in Chankanaab. We were in one of the small pens on the right of the picture.
Turned out to be just one dolphin but that made it better. They divided us into groups of 7 or so and sent us off with a trainer to one of the pens where we had a dolphin (ours was named da vinci) waiting for us. We got to pet it, kiss it, be kissed by it, splash it, and then do some "swimming" with it. We waded out into the water where da vinci came up from behind us on his back and we grabbed his flippers and he pulled us along. It was fantastic and not nearly long enough. We then went back out in the water and da vinci came up from behind us and pushed us with his hose on our foot. It was painful for me probably because da vinci had to work really hard to move me through the water. My daughter had the hugest smile on her face for these two swims, and it was worth the cost of the whole trip just for that. We also got to swim with one of the manatees. He wasn't terribly large as manatees go. Felt very weird, like how I imagine an elephant would feel. He also had some slimy stuff on his back.
We ate lunch at one of the four restaurants on the campus, thinking what could be better than eating mexican food in mexico! boy, were we mistaken. Felt like we were eating at dodger stadium, and it may not have even been that good.
the next port was Grand Cayman. My group had an appointment to sing at a school but i didn't go. We had to take a tender to shore and my previous experience with this had been on one of the ships lifeboats. That was going to be a challenge for me as my legs, feet, and hips were in a lot of pain last week. They had a great time and the kids at the school were incredibly fun. Wife and jr. went off the ship to all the tourist shops on the dock and bought knickknacks.
our last port was Falmouth, Jamaica. We sang at a church and were beat to death by the humidity. We also started almost 20 minutes late as they were strictly on island time and in no hurry to get started. Had about 200 young school kids there and they were the noisiest audience possible - our program really wasn't designed for them, but we had been told this was a ticketed event and was a fundraiser for the school attached to the church. that wasn't accurate.
One of our group was responsible for coordinating some kind of mission work at each port. We helped paint the church in jamaica, and gave school supplies and toys to kids at two schools and two orphanages. It was worth doing.
We gave five concerts on board the ship, four of them for the 150 supporters who came along with us (this was a fundraiser for our group) and then a final concert saturday afternoon for anyone on the ship who wanted to attend. We brought along a special speaker as well, and he was outstanding.
It was my/our first time in the caribbean, and my family came away incredibly impressed at how blue the water was. It was especially beautiful in Cozumel. Would enjoy going again, but maybe the Fall or Spring would be more comfortable with the weather.