Caribbean Cruise post - Part II

Heading into Cozumel on Friday

It’s Monday morning (early) and I’m up and getting ready to head out on my Navy reunion tour bus here in Mobile, Alabama in a couple hours. Joan is still sleeping so I thought I’d finish up the cruise post and give you a couple photos to look at.

In backwards order we arrived back in New Orleans on the Carnival Conquest early Sunday morning and were docked by the time we got up from bed. During the night during one of my several bathroom breaks I was up and peeked out the port to see the passing Louisiana towns along the Mississippi River.

As I mentioned previously it takes about 6-7 hours to cruise up the river to New Orleans. Kind of cool to get up in the night and have that as your scenery.

The huge and beautiful Carnival Magin

Reveille was early as we had to be out of our stateroom by 8:30 a.m. So we got cleaned up and had breakfast in the main dining room about 7:30 a.m. and came back to our room, finished our packing (our main suitcases were picked up for shore delivery Saturday night) and headed to the lounge to wait for our debarkation number (26) to be called.

It’s always fun to walk by the guest service desk on the last morning of the cruise and hear people arguing about their large onboard bill. “I don’t remember ordering three Mimosas at the bar last night?”

“If you would like to see your signature on the charge slips we will be happy to provide it for you,” the nice receptionist said.

Almost at the dock

They had a video playing of our cruise on the big screen and it was nearly two hours before we were called to leave the ship. It takes a while to debark 3,000 people one-at-a-time. We were in no hurry as our next adventure didn’t start until 5 p.m. in Mobile, Alabama which is only a two-hour drive from New Orleans.

Finally we checked off the ship, collected our luggage and headed to our roof top parking spot where we loaded our luggage (mostly full of dirty clothes) into the Tahoe and headed to Mobile.

We arrived in Mobile a little after 1 p.m. and checked into the Admiral Semmes Hotel, which is a beautiful and classic old establishment. Some of my shipmates were already here and we sat in the hospitality room and visited until the start of the business meeting at 1700 hours (5 p.m.).

I met a former Cogswell sailor that I served with who was attending his first reunion and later we went out to dinner with him and his wife. All in all a wonderful start to the reunion. By the way he’s aged a lot, glad I didn’t.

During our earlier sitting, we washed some clothes in the hotel laundry so we now have enough clean clothes to make it home to Michigan on Thursday.

Joan heading to her Salsa and Salsa class

On Saturday, our last full day on the cruise I took the “Behind The Fun” tour which is an inside look at the ship. Joan would prefer to have her fingernails pulled out one by one than see all the inner workings of a cruise ship so I went alone.

We toured the engine control room, the backstage of the theater, the crew’s living area, the food storage areas, the various galleys on the ship and my favorite, a tour of the bridge. Because of security concerns we had to go through a metal detector and surrender any cameras and cellphones before the start of the tour so I have no personal photos of the adventure. The ship did take a photo of us on the bow (not accessible to passengers normally and with the Captain on the bridge, but I’ll have to scan them and put them up when I get home.)

It was a great tour, lasted more than three hours and they gave me a free hat, so what a great day.

We again ate in the main dining room for dinner and then went back to our stateroom to complete our major packing as your luggage had to be picked up between 8-11 p.m. outside your stateroom door.

Joan tiene mucho Margaritas

We went to the family friendly comedy show in the Degas Lounge and then went back to get some sleep.

On Friday we went into Cozumel, but only Joan really went ashore. She signed up for a “Salsa and Salsa” class where she learned out to make varieties of salsa, learned some salsa dance moves and how to make a Margarita. I think she drank a few too, judging from the photo. The tour included “All you could drink Margaritas, and I think Joan drank all she could.

Joan was back early and glad of it as when sailing time came the line up to get back on the ship was down and around the end of the pier. They will leave you behind if you are not back on when it is time for the ship to leave, but I think everyone made it back.

We had to take on a pilot for the short trip in and out of Cozumel, but the pilot was only onboard for about 10 minutes each way. I took a picture of the “Piloto” boat, which means Pilot in Spanish and it is posted in a separate post below with some more cruise photos.

Joan said she is ready to whip up some mean salsa from our vegetable garden with the knowledge she picked up during her shore excursion.

This is a little abbreviated as we have to get ready to head out on a city tour here in Mobile. I will write more reflections on the tour and Navy reunion later.