BELIZE: Tuesday 8-5pm

I had set my alarm for 7am but was wide awake at 6:45am. What is wrong with me? I'm not a morning person. Someone has taken over my body! Kendra was up shortly after me and we all headed down to the buffet for some breakfast.

The scrambled eggs were a little better this morning but I opted for some french toast...just in case. THERE WAS NO BACON POLICE THIS MORNING! Say what??? Did an irate passenger capture them and tie them up for the remainder of the cruise? We could only hope! I loaded up...and no I don't waste any of it. Bacon=heaven and I don't eat a lot of it at home so this is my "treat" week.

We were pulling in on time and the birds were welcoming us. Sakari believes she's a bird whisperer and brought them in closer to the ship.

We headed back to the room to grab our things and knew that we needed to meet in the theater for our excursion.

On the way there, Sakari left another friendship rock.

We needed to meet at 8:30am and I didn't want to be late. Kendra is getting a little better at being closer to "on time" for things these days. Not necessarily "on time" but "close to".

We booked the Snorkeling Wonders of The Barrier Reef Excursion with Carnival. Now everyone knows that I normally DO NOT book excursions with the cruise lines if I don't have to. There has to be a good reason to book with them (for instance in Belize, since it's a tender port, some excursions booked with them will leave directly from the ship and no tender needed).

This excursion did leave directly from the ship and we did not tender over. However, this would not be the reason we decided to book with Carnival. We booked because there was NO local vendors that went to where we wanted to go: Rendezvous Caye. Seriously...no vendors at all other than the cruise ships. I wonder how they managed that!

Previously we booked with a local vendor to go to Goffs Caye, which is very similar to Rendezvous Caye. They both are very tiny little islands situated in the middle of no where. They are very primitive but I believe that Rendezvous did seem a little nicer with more there than Goffs.

So, I just knew I had to go there. The price of the excursion was $74.99 per adult and $59.99 per child. I personally don't think that it's too bad of a price but did know that it didn't include anything other than transporting you there and back and the snorkel equipment if needed. There's no lunch or beverages included. But to experience this place was worth it because I truly enjoyed going to Goffs Caye last time.

The excursion is supposed to be for 4 hours and everyone knows that when you take a ship sponsored tour, traveling to and from is included in that time. Therefore making the time at the island extremely short. This is another reason that I never book ship excursions.

They did have food, snacks and drinks available for purchase there.

It was supposed to be a 40 minute boat ride each way.

We sat in the theater waiting for them to call our excursion. Kam was a little tired. I don't think she's use to getting up this early.

They finally called for our group to head down and off we went.

 To read our full day of Rendezvous Caye, click the following link:

When we got off the boat, somehow Kam was with us. We checked in, security, elevators...wait, where's Kendra and family? I have Kam! She was no where in site.

We waited by security...and waited, and waited. When do you think she got off the boat and showed up? LAST! The VERY LAST people to get off the boat. How does this happen? We were sitting right next to them! I had to use the restroom. I'm totally convinced this stuff only happens to me. It's usually B that's trying to tag along with us, but now it's Kam's first cruise and she's already doing it.

We finally made it to our room and headed for the shower.

Sakari even has to draw on the mirrors. Art is life!

I remembered that you could go up to the Italian restaurant and eat lunch for free when it was open. I decided that's what we would do today and headed up.

We were immediately seated.

They give you a check off menu and you go down the line and check off what you want and hand it back to them to prepare.

The salad and roll arrived and it was good

It didn't take long before our food arrived and it was SO YUMMY!

Kendra then messaged me wanting to know what we did for food. I told her where we were at and her and Kam came upstairs. When she got there, they told her they were closed and she would not be able to eat there. She came over and sat by us. I offered some of mine...several times actually, and she never answered. So, I finished it off.

Then we would watch another family come in and they had them sit down right beside the check in desk. I did see them filling out papers. I think they made them food to go and have no idea why they would not let Kendra do that. It was weird.

After lunch we walked around for awhile and noticed they had Pixels completely shut down and they had things roped off, construction going, noise, building, blankets...you name it.

This would be the day that I went around and took pictures of most of the ship. It's like it was abandoned today. You have to remember, we came back from our excursion so early and had a lot of ship time while people were still gone.

We decided to head back to the room and take a nap. I normally don't nap when I'm on the ship but today I was tired from so much snorkeling and swimming. I felt it was justified.

There's one thing that I noticed on this cruise this time around...I could hear every single noise and voice in the hallway from my room. I had never noticed this before. It has never bothered me. But it was if the walls were paper thin in my room this time around. Housekeeping also walked in at one point. Oops, I forgot to lock the door.

We decided to get up after awhile and left the room at 7:15.

Sakari would head off to the munchkin club and we would head off to Pixels to look for our pictures. It was if nothing had even been done that day. Everything was cleaned up and perfect again.

After we found our pictures and had them put it in our folder and we headed off to donate some money at the casino.

We picked up the munchkin from the kids club and she was a little upset that when she goes and Kam goes, Kam cries and only wants to be around "sissy". They allow Sakari to stay in the "baby club" with Kam and she states that she can't leave Kam's site. She tries to sneak off and go to her age appropriate club, but it never works...or at least doesn't work until it's almost time to go. It makes for a boring time at the kids club for Sakari and I believe she wasn't enjoying herself.

However, they did braid her hair for her and put some beads in it. She was super excited about that.

She also made a flower and got to pick out 2 charms.

She made a bracelet as well.

I guess this company must be the one sponsoring the beads and throughout the week she would make more bracelets for us.

Now you have to see this video. When we were anchored, the entire back of the ship was swarmed with dragonflies. Like A LOT!

Then after we pulled out, we would have some of the remains from the dragonfly swarm still with us.

After picking up Sakari, we decided to have pizza for dinner and to the back of the ship we went.

But, first some pictures along the way.

Not.quite.there.yet!

We all had to use the restroom and the restrooms are at the end of the buffet and kind of in the middle. Well when you come out, you can go back toward the buffet or go the opposite way and it takes you out to the pool on the aft of the ship. This is also where the pizza place is located. So of course we went that way.

We made it back there and started walking toward the pizza shop and noticed huge "Fun Ashore" flags up. It was like roped off. Immediately some employees come running up to us saying "What are you doing here?" "How did you get out here?" Um...the door? I felt like we had just walked into the White House and was being swarmed by security. They informed us that we were not allowed back there and they were setting up for a private party and we had to leave. Ok fine, I just want some pizza! They told us to go back the way we came and around.

They had sat up some lounge chairs and also some high tables. If these are the same tables I seen on another cruise, then they light up different colors. At one point they were testing the music and sound system and wow was it loud!!! If I was on another ship close by, I bet I would have heard it.

We finally got our pizzas to share.

Once again, Sakari started complaining of chest pains. She was holding her chest again. How can this be? You didn't mention it hurting all day today. You went snorkeling in some of the roughest water. You have been to the kids club and although you claimed you were bored, you did mention playing on some baby slide with Kam. Now all of a sudden it hurts again? I seen the gator tears coming but she stopped herself again and just held her chest. I really don't understanding what is going on with her. There one minute and gone the next. Heartburn? What?

Sakari insisted she wanted to go back to the room and lay down. Along the way, she would pass out some more friendship rocks.

But even though her chest hurt, that's no excuse not to get ice cream. Right?

When we arrived back to the room, we actually had a "night" towel animal instead of receiving it during the day. That's more like it!

I did discover that our room steward did not leave us any pool towels. Gasp! If you are going to forget to leave a family pool towels, our family is not the ones to do it to.

I called housekeeping and told them we needed 3 towels. I was not about to wait until the next morning to get them. That has happened to us before and we spent half the morning waiting on the towels when we could have already been off the ship. Our beach time is precious to us. No waiting aloud...well, unless you are Kendra a suppose.

They didn't arrive at my door for almost 1/2 hour. I was so ready for bed but had to wait up. I was busy listening to Sakari whine about her chest and also saying "I can feel my lungs breathe". Um ok. She was not gasping for air, she had no other symptoms. I gave her some pain medication and decided it would be another restless night of me monitoring her to make sure she was ok.

Our pool towels arrived. They only brought two. Are you kidding me? She said she would go back and get another and no longer did I shut my door and she was back again with the other. Thank goodness I didn't have to wait again.

Right before going to bed, I went to call Kendra to see what time she planned on getting up. I noticed there was a message on my phone. The message was actually for someone else and I figured it was an old message from the week before. The message said they were calling back to discuss their complaint of the sewage smell in the room. Interesting...

Off to bed we went.