Western Caribbean Cruise Details

Better late than never right? Here are the details of our recent trip to Florida (for New Year's) and then our 7-day Western Caribbean cruise.


First stop: St. Pete's Beach where we spent three days and enjoyed the sights and sounds of our favourite haunts. We went to Cody's Steak House (always a staple for any trip to Florida!), the ladies enjoyed pedicures, courtesy of my sister, who as of today is 24 weeks pregnant, and we soaked up a little sun. If I had my time back, I would have chosen to stay in Florida for about a week rather than just three days. It's never enough time!


Petite's first time on a sandy beach; she LOVED it!





My dad with Petite as she gets the hang of her Elmo harness. It didn't take her long to figure out that by putting this thing on, she could have some freedom, and when she figured THAT out, my dad had quite a job to keep up with her! Here she is, running, along the walkways at the Ellenton outlet stores.

NOTE: I'm generally not a fan of harness or leashes, but not knowing what the ship was like (i.e., whether there was a space at the bottom of the railing), it was better to be safe than sorry. So we picked up this harness for Petite just in case and got her used to it.




On January 2, we headed over to the port of Tampa and boarded the Carnival Legend for our 7-day cruise. This photo was taken at Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, as we were returning to the ship from wandering at the stores and shops along the quay.




Sunrise on board, for our first day at sea, January 3, 2011.

Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands was our first port of call on Jan. 4, 2011. Hubby, Petite, my mom, dad and I all went ashore together --via tender boat; as you saw above, our ship was anchored offshore -- to roam about and poke into a few stores. It was very picturesque and as you can see, still decorated for the holidays.

Our second port of call was Isla Roatan, Honduras on Jan. 5, 2011. A BEAUTIFUL island! OMG, it's gorgeous. We elected to do a beach break excursion. We walked straight off the ship, along the walkway pictured below, through the shopping area and over to Mahogany Bay beach to spend a few hours.

Initially, Petite came with us. She was excited to get in the water and play on the sand!

But Petite had caught a little bit of a sniffly nose, so we brought her back to the ship after awhile. Hubby stayed with her for a few hours, and then my sister and mom relieved him of baby guard duty, and he returned to the beach to spend time with me. I think this is one of the two or three pics we had taken together while we were on the cruise!

Here are the beach chairs and the area that everyone gathered in for the day at the beach. Music was coming from the nearby bar on the beach, you could rent snorkel or scuba gear (I went snorkelling for the first time in my life! VERY cool!) and the clamshell cabanas were comfortable enough to relax in. A fairly good day; I just wish Petite had been able to enjoy more of it.

January 6 saw us dock outside of Belize City, Belize. There were a few cruise ships docked for the day but in Belize, apparently it's very shallow and they haven't excavated to allow the ships to dock alongside the quay as they did in Isla Roatan. Thus, we boarded a tender boat for a 20 minute ride between our ship and the dock. This is the quay in Belize and some of the shops. Plenty of passengers, aren't there? There are a lot of excursions to chose from, but with a toddler who is too young to do any of them or who doesn't have the attention span for them, we elected mostly to just roam around the quay. In Belize, I really wanted to do the cave tubing excursion, but it just wasn't possible. Hopefully in a few years, I'll get to return and do those sorts of things.

Leaving Belize, we spotted this gem of a view. We couldn't let it pass by without taking a photo. Hubby took this one; I think it's spectacular.

And lastly, on January 7, our port of call was Cozumel, Mexico. I knew that Hubby wanted to hit the beach again, but Petite wasn't up for the length of time it took for that excursion. So I told Hubby to go with my sis and her friend so they could enjoy the beach, while I stayed with Petite. Because we split up, Hubby took our camera and went off to see the Mayan Ruins/beach in Cozumel. Petite, my dad, and I went ashore early. And later in the day, my mom, my sis and I went again. We hit the shops along the quay and I picked up a couple of souvenirs for Hubby's kids and our friends K&K.

Anyway, all that to say: Hubby took our camera so I used my mom's camera to take photos of the quay. Mom's pics haven't been downloaded yet, so I'll have to show you Hubby's pics of the ruins and the beach.

And lastly, aboard the Carnival Legend again, here are a few pics of the local flavour. The photo here is one of the piano bars on board, very near the restaurant.

Our steward, Sri, made sure our towel animals gave us a grin! Here's the monkey that greeted us one evening!

And this is a pic of our stateroom as we first saw it on our embarkation day. It can accommodate a family of up to 4 people, with a pull-out and a pull-down bed. But in our case, they had it made up for two adults and an infant. And this was a crib Petite couldn't climb out of! (For reference, we had cabin 7176, an unobstructed view on the port side of the ship.)

While on board, we celebrated my mom's birthday in Cozumel, Mexico. We couldn't do a whole lot for her, but my sis did a great job decorating her stateroom (her room and my parents' were adjoining) and we gave her cards, and sang Happy Birthday at dinner and all that. She was adamant that we not tell the staff for fear they would embarrass her!

IVF Update

On Thursday, January 27, we go to Montreal again for a follow-up appointment with our doctor. I'm not entirely sure of the purpose of this one; the test results are normal as far as I know so in my view, the next step is figuring out the calendar. But we'll see what they want us for and what they have to say. I think we'll be taking Petite with us for this jaunt, although her caregiver says that we can leave her there until we return. I just have no idea when that will be, and that uncertainty isn't what I would like to impose on Petite's caregiver. She's so good to us, I need to reciprocate. But it means taking Petite to the hospital with us, trying to entertain her and then hope to heavens she sleeps during the return two-hour drive. Wish us luck. We may need it!