4-27-2010 Roatan, Honduras

Well here we are on the slippery slope to matching nylon track suits! We all purchased clearance Princess Caribbean T-shirts on board and wore them off the ship at our first port of call--Grand Cayman. Must admit that Grand Cayman didn’t do much for us. There was the usual array of Diamond sellers and T-shirt hawkers, so we hopped the local bus and paid $2.50 to go to Seven Mile Beach, which apparently is a bit shorter than its name. The sand was beautiful and white and the sun was shining, but the waves were a bit high for bobbing around, and the greatest insult was that a rum-punch was $8.75. Add to that the hoard of Carnival revelers that came and took over our covered pavilion and then proceeded to screech up and down the beach at each other and it was not the best beach adventure.

Roatan, Honduras today made up for it. We docked at Carnival Corporation’s new cruise dock (apparently there wasn’t a cruise dock, so they built it themselves)--complete with an old ski chair that takes you to the beach--about a 5 minute walk otherwise. They do have to stop the chair regularly for old people to get on and off and, while Fritz was making disparaging remarks, I had to remind him that he caused the chair to be stopped at Steamboat when he caught his ski tip getting off.

Still, we didn’t wait around the perfectly manicured beach at Mahogany Bay, but entrusted ourselves to Marlon and his trusty Toyota Corolla Taxi with the sagging headliner, no rear-view mirror and a piece of rope for the driver’s door handle. He gave us a tour of the island, including such hot spots as the new Wendy’s hamburger joint, the police check point where they have a rope stretched across the road as a speed bump, and Half Moon Bay where we spent the most delightful day. This bay has the best snorkeling on the island, and we were not disappointed. There was about 5 different kinds of coral, including my favorite--huge chunks of brain coral. There were dozens of fabulously colored fish from mottled browns that surprised you when they moved, to reds, to neon blues and greens and manta rays and fuzzy caterpillar like things. The water was like bath water and the outside air temperature was 106 degrees with 100% humidity, so the water was that much more enticing. Of course we had to cool off with some rum punches and local beers and fish fresh out of the bay---so you can see why this day rated as pretty close to perfect. Plus, we were only a slight shade of pink from yesterday, compared to many of our shipmates who spent their time in the sun and are now varying shades of brilliant red to flame red to “oh my god why didn’t I wear more sunscreen “ red.