Cruise Highlights!

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Still have yet to upload a single picture from the cruise, but will (hopefully) get to this by the weekend.
Since I also have still yet to go food shopping, unpack anything other than my toiletry bag, or clean the apartment I’m also going to keep this short.
So, top 5 cruise highlights:

1. Our balcony! Norwegian cruise line has a weird booking system. If you agree to pay for at least a room with a porthole window, but do not choose the location, they will sometimes upgrade you when you arrive. I have no idea how they figure out who to upgrade, where, why..but it’s great when it works out. We paid for a porthole room and ended up with a private balcony! It was pretty darn amazing, and B and I spent a good portion of the week sitting in our deck chairs enjoying the breeze and staring at the water.

2. Mayan ruins excursion--despite the downpour, I think both B and I really enjoyed this part of the trip. We visited the partially excavated Mayan city of Altun Ha, which is about an hour outside of Belize City, Belize. It was kind of (kind of=very) scary to clamber around on the rocks and pyramid shaped structures in the rain, but worth the effort. Got to see some jungle, ruins, and take pictures without killing ourselves on the sloping and very slippery rocks..so quite a success!

3. Food glorious food! Despite cruise ships being known for the buffets, we mostly avoided this dining option. It gets kind of overwhelming to be surrounded by so many people filling their plates with food, so we used the dining rooms and specialty restaurants for most of our meals. I’m still slightly annoyed by the fact that you have to a pay a cover charge for the specialty restaurants, but B pointed out that we made out like bandits on the room..so I couldn't’t really whine that much. The dining room food was good, but the restaurant food was great! We tried most of the specialty options, including Italian, French, Mexican & Steakhouse. My favorite meals were probably the Portuguese style Bouillabaisse in the French restaurant and the steak at the steakhouse. Yum!

4. Getting to explore (a little) in new places. Instead of booking an excursion in Honduras, B and I wandered into the small town near the port. The people seem to rely almost exclusively on the tourist business brought by the cruise ships, but it was still really interesting to explore. We enjoyed a beer while sitting at an outdoor café that jutted right over the water, and B bought me a coconut to drink out of. A man with a large knife (or small machete) lopped the top off and stuck a straw right into the coconut! We didn’t get to explore much of Belize City due to our Mayan ruins tour, but we did get to see a little bit of the city and countryside via our bus.

5. Relaxing, reading, and just lounging around with B, J & WB. Some much needed down-time was enjoyed by all!