The Mr. & I celebrated our Paper Anniversary aboard the Carnival Valor. We wanted to go to Paris+London, cruise Greece, hit up the Carribean, visit Mexico, and if we had no money at all we were just going to roadtrip to Cabazon to visit the dinosaur themed tourist trap as seen in “The Wizard.” In the end we were fortunate enough to do a cruise out of Miami to the Caribbean. The itinerary was dope and the price for a balcony room was good enough for us. (A balcony room is sooo worth the extra dough.)
We landed in Miami with a bit of Hurricane Alex’s leftovers and our first few days at sea were straight ugly. I attempted to get as much sun as possible, since SF is not a warm town I try to get mine where I can. I’m pretty much golden now, thankfully (after layers and layers of sunburn finally healed due to my attentive care, haha).
Note: When you travel with just two people its really difficult to get a GOOD PHOTO of two of you together. Pretty difficult, especally by the Mr.’s standards. When you hand someone the DSLR its a hit or miss, almost always a miss.
Fancy Night One
My meal grilled lobster tail & shrimp. The food is all-inclusive, breakfast/lunch/three-course dinner, yadda. The buffets aren’t that great, but the plated dinners & desserts make up for it!
1st Port of Call: Grand Cayman Island
As you see the sky is overcast. I guess this is a high-traffic cruise port because there were three other ships docked at sea when we got to Grand Cayman. We rented a car, Jeff drove on the left side of the rode in the right side of a car, beached at Rum Point where luckily it was too far for the 10,000 cruisers to reach.
Movie Nights
They show movies outside on the lido deck at night. We didn’t have friends to kick it at the bars with. The “disco” really sucked, but we tried… we really tried… So this was probably our favorite night activity.
2nd Port of Call: Isla Roatan, Honduras
(Our anniversary) We scheduled a private tour around the island. Roatan is beautiful, too much to take into 7 hours. .
Anniversary Dinner
The ship has a steakhouse, you have to pay $30 extra per person, but it was seriously five-star quality stuff. The Mr. has filet mignon on his plate, I had lobster. Dessert was pretty ridiculous too…
3rd Port of Call: Belize
We visited Mayan ruins. I was fucking miserable here I couldn’t even pay attention to our guide. I left this place with 50+ mosquito bites all over my body. NO LIE. Too bad…. SMH.
2nd Fancy Dinner Night
We shut it down.
4th Port of Call: Cozumel, Mexico
I booked us at a beach resort with an open bar. I drank 4 rum punches before lunch then KTFO. Then two more rum punches after lunch. HAHA. Unfortunately the water right in front of the resort was covered in seaweed, so we used the pool here instead of dipping into the ocean.
1st Real Sunset
Alex is finally gone and the sky finally broke to give us a sunset. Hallelujah.
2nd Sunset/Last Night
Our last full day on the ship was a complete day at sea. It was completely clear during the day and I took that time to get burnt. It hurt for three days after and I was as red as a lobster, but my chest is finally a shade of brown common to Filipinos. The band you see below is a group of Filipino “uncles” they played dope shit all throughout the cruise, some nights they played “Earth, Wind, & Fire,” “Journey,” “America,” and anything else your dad or uncle played while growing up. I wish we had family with us to enjoy their shows with.
Southbeach
Brunch at the Lincoln Mall. Ohh and check out my new property below, complete with a yacht and shit. Ohh and we finally met our online friend, Krystle. I’d post a pic but I only stole photos from our point and shoot for this blog. Krystle, if you’re reading this, thanks for the tour-guiding!!! Anyways, we loved Miami, we’ll definitely be back.
Overall our trip was dope. I still have some qualms about getting up at 7am (EAST COAST TIME) while on vacation and only being able to spend 8 hours at a port. You’re dead tired and you have to keep moving just to experience the place. Its not my usual cup of tea, but hey, we managed to visit four countries in seven days, so I guess I can’t complain!
Onto the next… we booked Vegasssssssssssssss =)