Carl's Centennial Celebration Continued--The Cruise!

After the party in Deer Park, Texas, many of us accompanied Carl and Marilyn to Galveston for a Caribbean cruise.  The "cruisers" included Carl's "children": Thomas and his wife Melody, and Margaret and me; his grandchildren Stacey and family: husband Darren and two of the great-grandchildren Ashley and Nate: and Sabrina, accompanied by a close family friend Rhonda. Marilyn's daughters Nancy and Kay with their husbands Bob and Rick rounded out the party!  After saying our "good-byes" to the rest of the family, we traveled to the port and boarded (after a LONG weather delay!) the Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas.

The ship's crew took great delight in Carl and his birthday, and made him welcome throughout the ship.  Mealtimes were especially fun. The first formal night fell on his birthday and we celebrated with the entire dining room, singing to him and sharing a delicious cake given to him by our travel agent Tish Black-Hughes, who we cannot recommend highly enough.  She took care of every detail!  Call her! (unsolicited ad!)

 Carl and Marilyn with his kids, grands and great-grands!

Marilyn's daughters and their husbands were such a blessing!  They worked overtime to make the trip a success! 

Darren and Ashley 

Our friend Rhonda with our daughter Sabrina

Our first stop on the voyage was Cozumel, Mexico where our shore excursion took us to the Mayan ruins of Tulum. 

The ruins are populated by local animals including these iguanas.  The males have the large sail-like dorsal fins.  Guess the females find them attractive; there are lots of iguanas!

Iguanas were not the only fauna spotted at Tulum: we also noticed these two specimens of Gawkus touristica californensis.  Not native to the Tulum area, they probably had escaped off a passing ship. They were easily identified by their partially-bare upper extremities, the pinking skin, as well as the typical blue color which covers the lower body half, the small boxes in front of them and the wires coming from each ear. Though they scampered away to the beach and into the water when approached, we were able to capture them and take them back to the ship with us so they could be returned to their native habitat.

With this view of the nearby Gulf of Mexico it is very easy to understand the Mayans' choice to build their city of Tulum here.

 Two of our favorite activities are birding and geocaching (not least because they are free!)  We spotted these beautiful Yucatan Jays at Tulum; never had seen them before! 




We did no "shore excursions" on Grand Cayman, preferring to wander and geocache around the capital.

 The "no name cache" was located in this little bar.

A "virtual cache" was associated with this square in the center of town.  We always learn a lot of local history when we cache this kind of area.  We added three new countries to our geocaching lists.

 On Jamaica we took a trip to a local cave,   the "Green Grotto" which we really enjoyed.  

The trip concluded with a trip to one of the most visited sights in Jamaica, the Dunn's River Falls.  The charm of these falls, described as the "cascading" variety, is that your guide takes you down several flights of stairs to the beach, from where you climb back UP the waterfalls to the top!  Lots of fun!

Still, all the shore visits notwithstanding, everyone's favorite activity on a cruise is eating! 

The food is marvelous, the service impeccable, the surroundings enchanting, and your company is hand-picked! If you've never taken a cruise, put it on your "bucket list" today.

There are lots of bargains out there; hope you can take one soon.