Winter Break 2024. Chapter 5. Three Pyramids and a Whole Lot of Whining.
Well, He is risen. Tzvi woke up today to a miraculous recovery, or at least he was feeling a lot better.
Today we woke up next to the Norwegian Breakaway, also docked at Roatan. (We took that ship out of New York pre-Hallie.) We headed to breakfast, buffet as usual. Tzvi decided to test himself and had a buttered English muffin. While we were sitting Hallie whispered to me that next to us was a HAFTR teacher. Ends up she was the secretary in the Early Childhood. We started talking and she said she recognized Madeleine. We obviously discussed yesterdays’ medical emergency as well as the amount of Jews on board, the two hot topics. They have a daughter who is in 3rd grade at HAFTR. Maybe she and Hallie will play together. Then again, probably not.
We had some time to kill, so I did a quick 20 minutes at the gym and Tzvi did work. We got ready, and made it (basically) on time for our 11:00am shore excursion. Inbar didn’t join us because she was afraid to get off the ship in Honduras.
Our shore excursion was a four hour trip to a beach club across the island. We were loaded into a van and driven 20 minutes along what may have been the only paved road on the island. At one point Hallie asked “why is Honduras so messy?” Tzvi tried to explain first-world countries and third world countries to her, but she didn’t really get it. We were dropped off at a beach around 1130am and told that there was a 1pm shuttle back to the ship and a 3pm shuttle. Tzvi did some quick math and then told the tour guy that didn’t make sense because it was a 4 hour tour, from 11am to 3pm; 1pm would get us back at 130pm, 3pm would get us back at 330. The guy got a supervisor, but no one really had an answer.
It was okay though, because we pretty much knew when we sat down that we would be heading back on the 1pm shuttle. In all honestly, we did have a nice time and it wasn’t the worst beach we’ve ever been to, but it was far from the best. There were chairs, but no umbrellas, and Hallie had very basic French fries for $6. The girls collected shells, we made Madeleine a mermaid tail, stepped in the water a bit (which was kind of gross), and then we were ready to go. A little before 1pm a guy came around and asked who was going back on the shuttle. We said we were, and then he said we would definitely have a seat and “if you want to take care of me at the end that would be good.” Tzvi was offended at the notion of being asked for a tip by someone who had done nothing, but thank God he gave him $10 because when we got to the shuttle there we only three seats left (which I guess he held for us). There was no way we were staying there until 3pm.
The best part of any shore excursion day is, you guessed it, getting back on the ship. We went straight to the pool just in time for it to get cloudy. We got seats, grabbed some food at the buffet, and then played in the kiddie area and hot tub. Hallie and I also went on the big water slide. You had to be 48 inches and she justtttt made it. I’m really proud of her for trying all these big slides. While we were in the pool we listened to a Jewish family explaining to a Christian family why they should visit Israel. Because now’s the time to pitch that one.
We changed and then headed to the rock wall! Hallie, Tzvi, Inbar and I climbed. (I’d like to note the miraculous recovery of my husband who was deathly ill yesterday and rock-climbing today.) I managed to make it to the top and ring the bell. Hallie made it to the lower bell, which was very impressive, and then Tzvi made it to the lower bell, which was less impressive. Then Madeleine did the carrousel a million more times and Hallie and I went on the Abyss again, the ten story regular slide.
We changed for dinner and headed out. Tonight is Caribbean night, and I think we all looked the part.
this photo was too good not to buy
Dinner was at 150 Central Park, the nicest restaurant on the ship. We decided that for this meal Tzvi and I would sit next to each other, rather than me sitting in the middle of the two girls like every other meal. Madeleine wasn’t having it and kept trying to sit in the booth with us. We had eaten at this restaurant on Allure of the Seas 12 years ago when they served a 7 course tasting menu, but now it’s just a regular menu. Our waiter was from Mumbai and was very good and knowledgeable. We asked him about the changes to the restaurant and he said that things are very different than they were when we were on Allure and guests aren’t thrilled. Anyway, I started with a delicious pumpkin soup and a Caesar salad. Tzvi had a sunchoke soup and a beet and goat cheese salad. Tzvi had the halibut, and I had the cauliflower dish, which was fine, but without the Greek yogurt sauce it was very spicey. Madeleine had all the noodles. Dessert was weird. It was great food, but weak on dessert.
Of course we then stopped at the buffet for dessert number 2. Then Madeleine and Tzvi went back to the room and Hallie and I walked around a bit and looked at our photos. Eventually we got the girls to bed, and then Tzvi got himself to bed. He still wasn’t 100% and ended up just falling asleep. I went to the Love and Marriage show by myself. It was hilarious and of course the best one was the couple married 60 years. I will say though the middle couple (Ezra and Lori, of course), married 18 years, were very good as well. Good show. I capped off the night with another Kahlua and cream. Now I’m just the girl that sits at bars alone at night. A guy asked if I was here by myself. I wonder if there are many 34 year old women who go on cruises alone.
Good day.
Thursday
Last night was rough. I don’t think it kept anyone else up though. Then my alarm went off, but when I went to the Royal Caribbean app, it said ship time was an hour behind, so it was really 630 and not 730 and my phone had automatically moved an hour forward. Wonderful. At the real 7:30 everyone got up and got dressed. We had to have a very fast breakfast to make it to the pier in time for our 8:45 tour.
We were docked in Puerto Costa Maya, Mexico. The dock is about a mile long and took 15 minutes to walk from the ship to the meeting point for our excursion. We got there by 9am, but not before I had to run back up to the buffet to get Madeleine’s sweater that she forgot (and felt she needed in this heat). We just cant seem to keep track of sweaters on this trip. Anyway, we were obviously the last to join the tour, but we made it.
Our tour for the day was a visit to the Mayan ruins of Chachoben. After making me walk through the ruins of the Roman Forum in 2014, Tzvi promised me that I would never need to go to any ruins again. When we were booking shore excursions though, my mother-in-law said the last thing she wanted to do before she died was visit the Mayan ruins. Okay, maybe she wasn’t that dramatic, but she wanted to see ruins, and honestly there was nothing else that seemed worthwhile so we said okay. When she cancelled, we looked again and decided to just stick with what we had already booked.
The tour was a three hour excursion – an hour to the ruins, and hour and a half at the ruins, and an hour back. The van was nice and had a driver (Balthazar!) and tour guide (Sergio). We learned that there was basically nothing in Costa Maya before 2001 when the cruise port opened. I guess that’s when someone realized cruise ship passengers will pay anything to see some old rocks. Sergio kept talking about the archeologists who discovered Chachoben, except it sounded like he said oncologists, which was disconcerting. We drove through a whole lot of nothing, except for a bunch of fruit stands. Sergio kept telling us how amazing the mango and pineapple is that’s sold at the side of the road, but there was no opportunity to stop, so that was kind of a tease.
Finally we made it to Chachoben and began our trek into the jungle. We started on a gravely walkway that quickly turned to muddy, jungle floor. When I say we walked and pushed a stroller through the jungle for an hour, I’m not exaggerating. It was a little jungle with some light excavation of Mayan ruins. We saw a few pyramids from around 200 AD, which were cool to see. After 20 minutes Madeleine decided she needed to pee and just couldn’t wait, but of course there is no bathroom in the middle of the jungle, so Inbar tried to take her behind a bush to pee. As soon as Madeleine crouched down she started saying she was itchy and we looked down to find that ants were crawling up and down her legs. We got them off her, but they still managed to get in her socks and shoes. And she didn’t pee. And Inbar got ants in her shoes. It was a disaster. Eventually we made it back around and out of the jungle where we paid $11 for two cups of freshly cut pineapple and mango. The mango was too soft for me, but it did taste very fresh. We got back on the bus, where we were given ice cold cervezas and Mexican coke for the hour long ride back. At least now I can cross Mayan ruins off my list.
We walked around the port a bit and looked at the stores. We kept passing stores selling beauty products and eventually Tzvi asked if we thought the swarthy, dark men working in the stores were Mexican or Israeli. Finally Tzvi said he’d give me $10 if I asked someone if they were Israeli. Well, I walked right up to a store, pretended to be interested for about 10 seconds and then asked a woman where she was from. Well, obviously she said Israel. Yes, they barely have roads in Costa Maya, but they have Israelis selling beauty supplies. When we asked why they would want to go live in Mexico she just said, “Have you seen the beach?” I still haven’t seen that $10 by the way.
We got back on the ship and had lunch, then spent the afternoon swimming and hot tubbing.
Then we all changed and headed to dinner at Wonderland, an Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant. A man dressed as the mad hatter called our names and took us through a doorway that was sitting in the middle of the entry way. He kept laughing (I guess like Johnny Depp in the movie), but then when we entered he started humming the Jurassic Park theme and then said ‘wrong movie,’ which I guess is his joke, but I didn’t really get why (and then we kept hearing him hum the same music all throughout dinner). We were handed framed menus that we had to paint with water to make the words show up. Hallie used all of the water, plus her cup of drinking water and probably ruined the menu, but at least she had fun. Tzvi ordered a smoky cocktail, which was cool, but so smoky it was undrinkable. I got one of those drinks that comes with a full glass of cotton candy that melts as you pour the drink over it, which is cool, but was just too sweet.
The kids each started with a fruit bowl, which came topped with a huge mound of cotton candy. That was a nice start for them. All of our food was weird, but in fairness, I went into this meal knowing this would be one of those dinners where I appreciate everything is interesting but don’t actually like anything. We started with a birds nest of chocolate dusted noodles and deviled eggs. Then there was a deconstructed burrata salad, and then cones of avocado mouse (which were supposed to have crab, and were kind of plain with just avocado). There was also a hollowed out half of a lime filled with spicy tuna and topped with a lemon granita; Tzvi and Inbar really enjoyed that. For the mains we got branzino and halibut. The halibut came in a bag and had a lot of mushrooms; Tzvi said it was okay. The branzino came with a bread crust and was served over a delicious rice. Tzvi and Inbar loved the branzino and ate most of it. Hallie didn’t eat much, and Madeleine had a few bites of mac and cheese fries (basically fried sticks of mac and cheese, which Tzvi tried and said were very good). For dessert we had something that looked like a cartoon mushroom but I’m not sure what it actually was, and then a chocolate ball that they poured melted chocolate over and inside was a peanut butter mousse. That was delicious. We kept seeing them doing big birthday celebrations so we told them it was Hallie’s birthday. That was cute.
After dinner we made a stop at the buffet where Madeleine had shredded carrots and chocolate ice cream… together.
Then we tried to see the Fine Line… again. We got seats and watched as a man in a dress spun around in a circle for five minutes as the show began. I guess the special thing is that he doesn’t get dizzy? Finally the show started. The aqua theater is very cool and has a pool with two sides where the stage goes up and down in the pool. As it started, the stage rose up and there were performers seated on chairs that came up from the bottom of the pool. That was pretty cool. Then they started dancing. And then they stopped dancing. A voice came on and apologized for a technical difficulty. We waited a bit and then the cruise director, Steve from Canada, came out to tell us that there was something wrong with the mechanism that raises and lowers the stage in the pool and it’s not something they can just fix on the spot. Just no luck with this show. Instead they did an alternate version that had no dives and was way less cool, basically just a bunch of dancing with some splashing around. There was also some cool aerial stuff by a woman who flies over the audience in a harness. The girls still enjoyed it, but hopefully we get to see the whole show at some point.
Of course Madeleine made a last stop at the ‘merican round and then we put the girls to bed. Once they were asleep we capped off the day with a last Kahlua and Cream, which we took to Central Park. We sat outside for a bit enjoying the night air.
What an exhausting couple of days.