Caribbean Cruise, 2006

1. Our first view of land as we approached Key West, FL. The small boats were beautiful when viewed from the deck of the Glory. Getting off the ship was somewhat slow as we docked at a Naval Base and had to catch a shuttle to the downtown area of Key West.

2. Key West was fascinating with many beautiful buildings and street scenes. Here is the original Green Parrot lounge. We also saw the southernmost point in the US, Ernest Hemmingway's home, the end of US 1 and many street scenes and shops before boarding our shuttle through the Naval Base back to the ship.

3. Every evening we ate dinner in the Platinum Dining Room with our traveling companions. Here I am with first of the four courses. The food and service was excellent. We had the same waiting staff every night. After desert was served, they entertained us with a spirited dance. Formal attire was required on two evenings. There were also many other less formal dining choices from round the clock buffet lines to short serving lines featuring hotdogs, hamburgers, deli food, Chinese or fish and chips for examples. There was no problem finding plenty of good food but trying to not overeat was a challenge.

4. At Belize, we had to use tender boats to get from ship to shore and back. Here we are going ashore with our ship Carnival Glory in the background. Belize is an interesting country located south of Mexico in Central America. It was known as British Honduras prior to 1973 when it gained its independence. People there speak English with the same accent I think of as Jamaican. We did not sign up for any of the ship excursions on this trip as we wanted to explore on our own. This resulted in an interesting tour of Belize City with a private vendor.

5. This is a typical view from the van of our guide, Bernard. He showed us the poorer part of town, then the beach, some shops and then the nicer part of town. While the ship counseled against taking one of these private tours, we felt quite safe with Bernard and he did an excellent job of touring us around. While Belize obviously has some poverty, they are a very proud people and worked hard to get the tourist dollar.

6. This is a man made beach area outside Belize City. It was a very interesting place with shops and a variety of boats. The trip from the pier to here and back provided a wide variety of scenery.

7. Costa Maya is a very modern resort built for cruise ship stops. It has a modern shopping mall with both swimming pools and a beach area built very close. This amphitheatre was right in the middle and was very convenient for me to wait while the better half did some shopping. Costa Maya was our last stop before leaving for Cape Canaveral. It was very difficult to select only seven photos to represent the cruise. Each stop as well as the ship itself could easily have been a page in itself. I may do that in the future if I have time. This cruise was definitely a different experience for us and will become a vacation option in the future. I would especially recommend a cruise for people who enjoy fine food, gambling, meeting people, and a wide variety of fun activities and entertainment. If one wants quiet and solitude, other options might be better. In any case, we had a wonderful time and are very glad we now have these great memories.