Heather and I took off on a 5 Day Western Caribbean Cruise aboard the Carnival Ecstasy with our good friends Jae and Dustin. We left out of Tulsa on August 26th flying to Dallas and then onto our final destination of Houston where we met Jae and Dustin. We then hopped over to the Enterprise rent-a-car station to pick up our rental and headed out to Galveston.It was a little overcast on the day of the departure which was somewhat of a bummer but not that much, I mean we were on vacation. Once we made it to Galveston it was right to the ship to begin eating and drinking our way into vacation heaven. Dustin and I had been kidding around about how quickly we would have a drink in our hand once we reached the boat, but little did we know the girls were about 10 steps ahead of us on a b-line for the bar.
Foo Foo drinks in hand we sat down on the Lido deck for a quick snack while we waited for our rooms to be ready. We finally shoved off around 4:00 pm and were headed to Progreso, Mexico. Due to Hurricane Ernesto (which was headed straight for us) we had to switch our days in port for Cozumel and Progreso with a chance we wouldn’t get to go to Cozumel at all. We were however lucky and Ernesto took a right hand turn and left us with smooth sailing. Well, it was smooth once we all grew our sea legs.
Progreso was a fun stop, the water and swimming wasn’t very good but the town and people were all very nice. We met Tony, a local tour guide who took us to the Mayan Ruins of Dzibilchaltun and then to the Yucatan capital of Merida. We didn’t really have anything planned for this port other than sight seeing. By the end of the day after running all over Mexico we were ready to be back on the ship relaxing by the pool.
The next day we woke up in Cozumel! The water in Cozumel is absolutely gorgeous! We were so happy it turned out to be our second stop because if we would have had that water one day and then the water in Progreso the next it would have been terrible.
In Cozumel Dustin and Jae had a Snuba shore excursion planned and Heather and I were off to fulfill one of her biggest wishes, Swimming with Dolphins.
We made our way over to Dolphin Discovery where Heather went through about a 30min dolphin school and then they took her to the dolphins. I’ve never seen a smile that big on her face, it really did go ear to ear. She did the foot push, dorsal tow and even squeezed in a dance or two with them. After she finished her hour with the dolphins we headed up the beach to the snorkeling beach. Due to a slight case of sunburn I spent most of my time in the shade re-hydrating while Heather swam around like a little fish. Cozumel was without a doubt the highlight of the trip, it’s just so pretty it’s hard to leave.
When we arrived back in Galveston we had planned to spend the day at Moody Gardens. Moody Gardens is an aquarium, open-air rain forest habitat and a science pyramid. We were busy the rest of the day walking around and just enjoying our last day of vacation.
The trip was a blast! We were very happy that we got to spend it with our friends and be sure to check out the photo album to see some of the pictures from the trip. Dustin and I ended up taking over 700 pictures so there are a few to enjoy.
- Heather & Paul
0 Response to “Our 5 Day Carnival Cruise”