Cruise Day 3--Roatan

Roatan, Honduras

Our first port was the little island of Roatan. Casey arranged for us to have a driver through a tour group and the first place he took us was a petting zoo.

Because Monkeys.

And Parrots.

And pretty flowers.

And little deer, toucans, bush rabbits (capybaras?), lemurs (non-native, and comatose in the daytime), and this funny guy--coatimundi. He likes having his back scratched.

After a bit of shopping in the gift shop (Rosalie's goal was to buy something with her birthday money in every port) we asked Kenny, our driver, to take us to Tabyana beach. This was our favorite place to snorkel the first time we went on a cruise and it still is. Things have changed, though. The coral you can get to from Tabyana beach has died back a little, and the waterfront development on the beach has boomed. Last time we just walked through the alley between resorts (which it looked like you might still be able to do?) but this time our driver insisted we had to go through a resort and pay $10 per person to have access to the beach chairs, bathrooms, shower, pool, and restaurant. In the end we were glad we did--you really want a shower after being in the ocean for a few hours. And the pool at Paradise Beach was so shady and uncrowded, our kids loved hanging out there after being in the full sun.

The shock-proof underwater camera we bought turned out to be a good investment.

Rosalie is an enthusiastic snorkeler. She never pays attention to which direction she's going and every time I was with her I had to keep her from heading straight out to sea. She saw the most creatures because she spent the most time snorkeling of all of us.

Meredith had decided before we left for the cruise that she would NOT be snorkeling. We didn't even bring gear for her. Luckily she changed her mind and Anika was willing to lend her her gear.

One memorable thing: Clarissa was approached by a very aggressive mother and daughter team who had heard from Ani that her sister wanted her hair cornrowed. Ani barely escaped being cornrowed herself, even though she didn't want it. These ladies were tough bargainers and while Lissa was being braided, the other one steamrolled Anderson into being massaged. He thought they were just being nice, and was trying to be nice himself, even though he thought it was pretty weird. In the end they each had to pay $15 dollars. At least Lissa had something to show for it for a few days. 

On the way home we asked Kenny to take us to a store where we could buy children's shoes. We found a nice pair of sneakers for $9. Then Anderson saw a pair of swim shorts at a second hand store and he got those for $3.

We hadn't bothered with lunch so we were really hungry when we got back to the ship. We coaxed Rosalie into going to the Irish Pub themed restaurant, O'Sheehan's (get it? Oceans). It was a little hard to wait, but they did have hamburgers and chips, so she was okay. We all enjoyed our food, especially the appetizers and desserts. The best thing about the sit down restaurants on the cruise was the desserts. The desserts at the buffet all tasted like they were made of gelatin.

And then, at last, Rosalie and Casey and I got to go on the ropes course. That was a lot of fun! It was nighttime and dark but the course was lit up with spot lights. It was nice because it was cooler than it would have been in the day, but we also didn't get any pictures.