Cruising and The Love Boat

"Love, exciting and new. Come aboard we're expecting you....

The Love Boat soon will be making another run,
The Love Boat promises something for everyone.
Set course for adventure
Your mind on a new romance

LOve won't hurt anymore
Its an open smile on a friendly shore
Its love....
Welcome aboard its love

OK, so if you are younger than 30 you probably have never heard this song, but it was going through my mind as I went on our cruise. :) Comparing what I had seen many years before, on a TV show, to a real life cruise.

We went on a great cruise to the Western Caribbean! It was so warm and beautiful. Our boat was bigger than the Love Boat, but our cruise director's name was Jullie! I wondered how many times she is teased about that!

We left on Saturday, the 15th, for New Orleans. We arrived in the evening and stayed over night (we couldn't find an early enough flight, Sunday morning, to make it to the boat on time). Sunday we went back to the airport where a shuttle took us to the boat terminal. We got on board at noon. There was no Julie or Captian Stubbing there to greet us as we entered the boat.

We got into our room around 2 p.m. and unpacked. The rooms were a decent size (more room than the Love Boat rooms), with 2 twin beds, a bunk that pulled down over one of the beds and a trundle that pulled out from underneath one of the bed. We opted for the trundle with Jacob so he wouldn't try to jump off.

There was a fairly large closet with shelves, a desk, other drawers and a bathroom with shower. Worked great for the trip! That evening we started to take a tour of the ship with one of the cruise directors, but Jacob was so tired he fell asleep in Jason's arms. So we went to dinner and ate like this.

Sunday night we sailed from New Orleans, down the river until Midnight, before we entered the gulf and headed down to Costa Maya. I got up on Monday morning and went outside to the upper deck to exercise. It was windy, but so warm--it just made me HAPPY to be up there and outside in such beautiful weather!

That day we spent at sea. We explored the ship...(This is the life! We had taken Jacob to the day care for about an hour and he seemed to really like it, but he would never go again, so this was it for relaxing out in the sun without a 2 year old).....ate, and explored the ship some more.
The food was pretty good on the ship, although I heard no announcements that there would be a "midnight buffet on the Lido deck" like they did on the Love Boat. They had an open buffet on the top deck where you could get all sorts of food. We did that on days when we came from shore later than lunch was served at the "restaurants" on board. One of our favorite restaurants was Windows. It had great views of the ocean and we ate there usually for breakfast (waffles, pancakes, french toast, fruit, croissants--I could eat those all day, yogurt, bacon, sausage....great breakfast foods.) Jacob seemed to develop a love of butter during the trip. For some reason he had to have it on all the bread he ate.
They had great bread at every meal! My favorite dinner was sword fish and shrimp kabobs. So good!

As we waited for dinner each night we had to come up with games to keep Jacob entertained. One of them was using the dinner knives. He actually started it one night showing us the two big knives with the butter knife and said they were a family. The mom, dad and Jacob knives. He would move them around and then pick them up in one hand and tell us they were cuddling. We went with it because it kept him from squirming and and trying to get out of his chair. :)

Another favorite food was ice cream, which we ate nearly everyday around 3 p.m. (after our late lunch) and again after dinner. That is something you can do when you are on vacation!

That evening we decided to go to the 7:15 show. It was a tribute to different Broadway musicals and we thought Jacob would probably enjoy it. He was tired again so before the show we were doing all sorts of things to try and keep him entertained until it started. He took pictures with our camera. Some of me and this picture (which he took)shows how he felt about waiting. Once the show started he was fine and enjoyed it.

Tuesday morning we arrived in Costa Maya. I had never heard of it before. Apparently it was popular with divers and then the cruise lines came in with tourists. It is a very small place and the cruise ships seem to give them most business. We went to the beach, played in the water, ...found some kids (from the ship) building sand castles and Jacob wanted to join in the fun. Jason went out on a kayak and took Jacob around in the shallow area. Jacob loved that!

Wednesday we landed in Belize. We decided to take a shore excursion, the ship offered, to a Mayan ruin called Al tun Ha. The bus took us through Belize and gave us some history of the country. It reminded me of the ruins at Chichen Itza(up by Cancun), but smaller. It is still amazing what they built.

By the end of our trip Jacob was beat (it was very hot) and he slept on the bus.

Thursday morning we docked in Roatan. It was beautiful coming in. It is a small island (8 miles long and 4 miles wide), and because it is small, it didn't seem as commercialized. I loved Roatan. Pictures taken from the boat.

We spent that day playing at the beautiful beach. That was my kind of beach...palm trees shading the lounge chairs, a walk out beach, warmth, beauty...ahhh...my kind of vacation spot!!















A picture of the boat Jason wished was his














Friday we docked in Cozumel. We went ashore and found a local giving rides in a glass bottom boat with snorkeling. The fish were beautiful and once we were out and Jason was snorkeling (that is him on the far left)
one of the divers, from the boat, would swim under the boat to the glass part, put a tortilla in his teeth, and the fish would swim to him and eat the tortilla from him. Those guys could hold their breath (it seemed) forever!

After snorkeling we walked around town and along the beach in that area.


Saturday was our last day at sea before going back. Hard to believe the week was coming to an end. We docked on Sunday morning, headed to the airport and took another evening flight.
...
...ah, to be doing this again. :)

P.S. At the end of the cruise Julie was there as we disembarked...but there was no island in the distance with a plane flying over it and Tatu ringing a bell saying, "Da plane! Da plane!" :)