4-Wheeling Fun in Mexico!

Okay, I'm so out of practice writing blogs that I totally forgot yesterday.  Of course it doesn't help that I had tile guys in my house all day long.  They are back here this morning.  But today they are only grouting and should be gone again within 30 minutes giving my kitchen back to me with all new granite and tile.  So, it's all good.

When last we visited, we went over the beginning of the Meyers Girls Cruise last week.  Just to catch you up in case you missed that post, me, two cousins, my sister-in-law and 3 aunts all sailed out of Galveston on Navigator of the Seas for a 7 night cruise to Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Falmouth, Jamaica. Generally, I travel with one other person, my travel buddy Jenny.  But I've also done cruises with nephews and my niece, my parents and our family friends Doris and Don Bailey.  However, I've never been on a cruise traveling with 6 other people all at once.  I have to say I was a little intimidated by the possibilities prior to the trip.  It's hard to say if the trip will become more work than fun when you are talking about trying to make sure all 7 of the travelers including yourself are pleased most of the time. I must say that it was, perhaps, the most fun I have had on a cruise.... ever! I only hope that they had as much fun as I did. I feel like there was a perfect mixture of family time as well as just plain old fun. Maybe it was the company we were keeping. After all, most Meyers' are pretty laid back people.

So our first stop was Cozumel.  I have been to Cozumel 13 times now.  I am done with it.  There is nothing wrong with Cozumel.  They have more excursions to choose from than just about any other port you can visit in the Caribbean.  The only problem is that all Western Caribbean cruises go there and almost every cruise I have ever been on was a Western Caribbean cruise. Basically, I've just been there so many times that it is no longer a novelty to me. However, if you haven't been there, it is a wonderful stop for fun and adventure or just a terrific place to relax on a beach.

My sister-in-law and I decided to do the ATV excursion while we were there.  It was about the only one left in Cozumel that I was interested in that I hadn't already been on.  So, it was time.  Many times in the past, I have seen people getting back on the ship covered in filth and smiling from ear to ear to discover that they had just returned from an ATV excursion.  They always talked about how much fun it was and I thought, this is something I should try.  One other detail, Eileen and I are both Parrotheads, so we had decided months ago that we were going to have to visit Margaritaville in each of the ports that we visited.  So, when we arrived in Cozumel, we disembarked from the ship immediately following breakfast to head to Margaritaville first before our excursion which was not set to begin until 11:00 a.m.  We had roughly an hour and forty-five minutes to get to Margaritaville, shop there, have a drink and then get back to the dock where we were supposed to meet for the excursion.

Now, I've only been to the Margaritaville in Cozumel one other time and it was about 3 years ago.  When I went there previously, we were at the other dock that is located closer to downtown.  Margaritaville was within walking distance from that dock.  As it turns out, it wasn't within walking distance from the dock we were at on this particular occasion.  But Eileen and I persevered.... as long as we could.  After walking a couple of miles and still being unsure of how much further we had to go, we gave up and flagged down a taxi.  As it turned out we only had about another mile to go.  But I am not ashamed to tell you, the taxi was totally worth the price for that one mile. After arriving at Margaritaville, we shopped a little.  Eileen was able to find a cap for my brother Robbie that she thought he would really like.  Of course, we'll never know if he would have liked it since it got lost somewhere between Margaritaville and the ship.  But I think he would have liked it. Before leaving we got on their free WIFI network, posted a few photos on Facebook, caught up on texts, and I called to check in with my mother to see how dad was doing.  Then we finished our shopping and caught a taxi back to the dock.  In the taxi, the trip from the Royal Caribbean dock is about 5 minutes long.  It is considerably longer by foot especially if two of the feet in question are mine.

Back at the dock we caught up with our excursion group and were taken by bus to a place about 15 minutes from town where they had built trails through the jungle.  Some of the trails were paved with rocks while others were nothing but a little creek bed or sometimes a flowing creek to drive the ATV through.  Before we got on the 4-wheelers, there was a short lesson on driving them.  They apparently had both fully automatic ATV's and manual ones.  We thought we were getting automatic ones, but as it turned out we didn't. Shifting the gears while driving through foreign terrain and using a thumb throttle rather than a hand grip throttle proved to be quite the challenge.  But again, we persevered. My poor thumb may never recover. But I had a great time.  As you can see from the photos, it was rough and wild at least for this girl.

The photo above is the only action shot I got and it was purely accidental. While I was driving I left my handy dandy underwater camera dangling from my wrist and as luck would have it, it took a picture of Eileen behind me while I drove without my knowledge! There were also numerous other photos of my legs at close range and one very questionable one of I don't even know what.... Those have all since been deleted. But I really like the blurred action photo of Eileen.

After an hour and a half or so on the trails, we were taken to a beach for another hour to relax.  By the time we got to the beach, I just wanted to go back to the ship, take a shower and eat.  So, I didn't really do much other than walk in the water to get the mud off of my legs and then lay on a chase lounge under an umbrella.

From under the umbrella on the beach in Cozumel

Back at the ship we stood in line for about 20 minutes waiting to get on the ship and then went straight to the Windjammer for a late lunch when we were on board.  It was a totally great day and I would definitely recommend the ATV excursion to anyone who wants a little adventure on their trip.  It is limited to people between the ages of 16 and 70 and there is a weight limit.  Otherwise, it's a great excursion for the family.

Next time I'll tell you all about our day in Grand Cayman where I don't think I could ever spend too much time.  Have a great weekend!

Meyers Girls Cruise - Part 1

Hi!  Remember me?  I'm the one who used to post blogs almost daily about inane travel observations, places you could go, places I've been, old family vacations gone awry and any number of other topics travel related. Then in April, I went to a cruise convention, came home got busy and the blogs have become more and more infrequent since. In fact, I don't remember the last time I wrote a blog. Now you may have been congratulating yourself about getting out from under those constant reminders to check my blog but I have bad news. My writing fire has been reignited and I am ready to get back to it.

I spent last week on a cruise. You might recall that last Oct, Nov, Dec and so on, I was mentioning - I don't know, perhaps hourly - that I had 8 rooms blocked on a cruise ship leaving Galveston on a 7 night Caribbean cruise. Then in December, sadly my uncle whose health had been deteriorating for several years passed away. While at the funeral, my mom mentioned that we should all go on a cruise and take my aunt who had just become a widow along. You should know that when my mom gets an idea, she is sort of like Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and the gang in one of those 1940's movies where somebody says "Hey! Let's have a party!"  and suddenly all of the characters are on ladders decorating a barn to the point that it becomes some elaborate ballroom in the next scene. Well in this case, my mom's "barn" was Navigator of the Seas and a group of us just returned from a 7 night long party in which we had a terrific time visiting with cousins and aunts that I personally haven't spent time with in years!

As it turned out my mom did not get to go with us.  About 5 weeks ago, my dad had back surgery to repair some disks in his back.  I'm no surgeon and I've slept since then, but I'm pretty sure that's what they did. Mom spent the next several weeks after his surgery trying to get him to be self sufficient.  Less than a week before we were to leave, we even went to CVS and got him one of those "grabbers" so that he wouldn't have to bend over to pick things up. We thought as long as my brothers checked on him daily, that he would be able to get through a week without her only weeks after the surgery.  But then, just days before we were to leave, he developed a serious infection.  His condition required additional surgery and hospitalization for nearly a week.  So, mom stayed home and I was down one "Judy Garland".

Now, I don't mind telling you that it's sort of hard to keep up with Mickey and Judy anyway, what with all the stardust and dreams that float around when they are in the vicinity.  But they can organize a great time if you don't get tired of people telling you about all the things you need to do to keep up your end of the bargain. You see, I like for things to just happen.  I don't like to be forced to make them happen.  And that's where Judy and Mickey come in.  They thrive on making things happen. So we never had a Mickey on this project in the first place since it was a "Meyers Girls Cruise" and now we were down a Judy to boot.

But the good news is that our "barn" - The Navigator of the Seas just underwent an extensive revitalization in January and it was in tip top condition for our party. There was really nothing to be done except to show up and have a great time.  So, that's what we did.

First I should tell you about everyone who came along.  In the first room, 7240 were Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Vera.  They are my dad's sisters. Aunt Dorothy has 5 sons and is now working on great grandchildren.  Aunt Vera has 3 sons and a daughter and some great grandchildren, as well.  Her daughter, Terry was traveling with us.  Their cabin was the only one we had on the starboard side of the ship.  Their room was just steps from the forward elevator bank.  If you walked through the elevator bank, our other 3 cabins were right there.  Aunt Miggie had a room alone 7540.  She was supposed to room with Mom, but when she had to cancel that left Aunt Miggie with a room of her own. She's my dad's youngest surviving sister (which makes her Aunt Dorothy and Aunt Vera's kid sister) and she was the recent widow.  Aunt Miggie has one son. Three doors down from Aunt Miggie were my cousins Terry and Cindy in cabin 7546.  Terry is Aunt Vera's daughter and one of only two female cousins I have in the Meyers family.  Cindy is the daughter of my dad's sister Nina who passed away a few years ago after a long battle with cancer and the other female cousin.  Finally, my sister-in-law, Eileen and I were in the cabin next door to Terry and Cindy's - 7548. Eileen is a special ed teacher and has been saying for years that she wanted to go on a cruise with us but since we always go during the school year, she always got left out.  When Mom and I mentioned this one, Eileen jumped on it.  Despite her lapse in judgement of marrying my brother, I still consider her to be one of my closest friends.  Just kidding... Rob is about the best big brother a girl could have.

Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Miggie and Eileen waiting for the shuttle to take us to the cruise ship.

 So, now you are acquainted with our traveling party. Terry had originally not planned to go since she has always had problems with sea sickness.  But as the trip grew near, she decided that she was going to have to risk it since she didn't want to miss out on the trip.  Eileen also had sea sickness concerns.  She decided to use a patch for her motion sickness.  I'm not sure what route Terry took in making sure it was not a problem. But I will report that there was absolutely no motion sickness during our cruise at all. So whatever everybody did worked.

Cindy, Terry and Eileen on the Promenade deck during 70's night!

We all met up in the cruise ship terminal in Galveston.  Eileen, Aunt Miggie, Aunt Dorothy and I arrived together while Cindy, Terry and Aunt Vera got there slightly ahead of us.  Since I had been on a number of Royal Caribbean cruises previously, I had achieved Platinum status in the Crown and Anchor Society which meant that we got to get in a shorter line for boarding.  So our wait time to get on the ship was practically non-existent.  Once on board, we all went straight to our rooms and dropped off our carry on bags then headed to the Windjammer for lunch.  This was one of only a handful of trips to the Windjammer for us during this cruise.  In the past I have almost always eaten breakfast in the Windjammer and on sea days, most of my lunches are spent there, as well.  However, I have never been a fan of buffets and it's my least favorite part of sailing.  Wait, I take that back....  Since they quit allowing you to take drinks to muster and quit letting you take pictures during muster, it has become my least favorite part of sailing.  But it is closely followed by buffets.  Seriously!!!!  A handful of people in Europe die due to the lack of a muster drill at the beginning of their cruise and suddenly, this potentially life saving drill is the most important thing going.... Okay, maybe it is kind of important.  But at least let me take pictures!!!

Following muster we went back to our rooms to unpack and Eileen's luggage still had not arrived.  Eileen became very alarmed.  I was less so.... perhaps because it wasn't my luggage.  Our cabin steward asked if perhaps there was liquid in the piece of luggage.... (like, other than the bottle of wine???)  We couldn't think of anything.  Finally, around 7 that evening Eileen had to go to a conference room on deck 2 and retrieve her luggage after a guy in charge opened and smelled her bottle of Downy Wrinkle Release to insure that she wasn't smuggling scotch in her wrinkle release bottle.  By the way, he didn't care about the bottle of wine. That was fine since it was sealed.  Royal Caribbean now allows one bottle of wine to come on board on embarkation day with each adult.  Just don't put any booze in your wrinkle release bottle and all is good.

So finally, we could get ready for our 8 PM dinner.  We were all seated at table 428.  But for some reason Aunt Miggie's seapass card stated that she was at table 428 on deck 5 while the rest of us were at table 428 on deck 4.  So, while Eileen had been trying to track down her luggage and apparently drinking a beer without me, I was trying to get that situation straightened out.  It turns out that there is only one table 428 and it is on deck 4.  Apparently, the folks in the dining room just thought Aunt Miggie would appreciate taking the scenic route to our table.

From left to right: Me, Aunt Dorothy, Eileen, Terry, Conroy, Aunt Vera, Cindy and Jorge.  Aunt Miggie took the final night off from dinner so she isn't pictured here.

Dinners turned out to be one of the highlights of each day during our cruise.  For one thing, it was one of the few times each day that we were all together.  In addition, we had perhaps the best waiter/assistant waiter combination I have ever had during a cruise.  Jorge and Conroy were fabulous!  Conroy was Jamaican and an absolute delight!  He smiled all the time and continually worked at doing whatever was necessary to make sure we were constantly surprised and pleased.  Jorge was just as accommodating.  In addition, he did tricks for us each night as we finished our desserts.  So in addition to being served amazing food we were thoroughly entertained each evening.  I really can't say enough about either Jorge or Conroy.  Our table was for 8 diners and since mom wasn't there, we had an empty seat each night.  After the first few nights Jorge mentioned removing the place setting.  But then instead, we developed a running joke about what mom was eating each night and we began getting entrees and desserts for mom.  I'm pretty sure that mom gained about as much weight on this cruise as I did!  I think they brought her 3 or 4 desserts one night. She was unstoppable!

Tomorrow we'll continue on about the cruise.  But for now, I have granite guys who are about to arrive to start work on my kitchen!  Woohoo!!!!