Friday, December 13, 2024

Day 27: Belize


This is the day that kind of ended with a bang, but, of course, I didn’t know that this morning. We did sleep in a bit, having been out late last night, and I had another big bowl of watermelon chunks for breakfast, and then stuck around for lunch in the buffet. I’m much happier there now that I’ve discovered the chopped salad area. 




Salad eaten from a huge ramen bowl

G just couldn’t sit still, and ended up taking one of the last tenders to shore about 2pm, and the very last tender back, just for the boat ride. It’s a long tender in Belize. They say it’s 45 minutes, but by the time you factor in loading and unloading, it’s closer to an hour. It’s been years since I’ve gone ashore in Belize, though the first time I did, we took one of my favorite shore excursions ever, cave tubing. That was incredibly beautiful (the scenery was like a calendar) and fun, and we even ate termites (taste like mint) on the hike to where we jumped in the river with our tubes. But, aside from that (and that required a long drive after the long tender), I don’t have a lot to recommend in Belize.  Last year G did visit some ruins and enjoyed that, and there are some manufactured excursions, like a zip line, but Belize City itself is a little sketch. 














Lychee, raspberry and rose mousse. 
Not very tasty. 

Service has picked up considerably at dinner with the Made-Dima pairing, plus Inna as our Restaurant Manager.  We didn’t have to rush at all to be able to get to the MTG cocktail party at 6:30pm, but it didn’t help that I did a major face plant at the door to the dining room. Actually, I caught an edge of my sandal on one of those metal thresholds and did a major knee plant, boom, right down in my knees. I guess I’m lucky that I didn’t break anything, and was able to get up and walk to the party, but, oh my, I had a huge swelling on one knee, and was a little shaken. And then Restaurant Manager Uday, who had heard about it, tracked me down in the party to express his concern and see how I was. How I was was sore, and word got out, so when the party was over, we returned to the cabin full of ice buckets and towels and anything I might need. And I needed it all.  I was still very lucky it wasn’t worse, but I can’t recommend doing this. At all. 

MTG cocktail party food

Captain Traverso had told us that last night would be quite bouncy, and it was. The hangars were dancing and banging in the closet, and as stiff as I was, I had to shove a towel around them to quiet them. If you’re a cruise newbie, this is not an uncommon thing to have to do. In fact, you can almost count on it the last night of the cruise when your hangars are empty because your clothes are packed. Just shove a towel between the hangars and the ceiling, allowing it to fall a little behind the hangers. This silences them immediately. And if that doesn’t work, just throw the hangers on the floor. 😉