I'm gonna skip the cruise blog today and write a quick note about a very special day, July 14 2001. On this day, 10 years ago to the day, Kelly Renee Hoffart married David Elliott Carlson. 10 years, 3 kids and a lot of great times later we arrive at today. To celebrate this great occasion, we went out for dinner at Carabbas and then went to watch And Then There Were None at the Alley Theatre (live action Agatha Christie play). It was a great night and a great time with my wife of 10 years.
I wanted to blog very quickly and just let everyone out there know how much I cherish and love my beautiful bride. God brought us together, and we are now one. I can't imagine my life without this amazing woman of God in my life, and I am so excited about the years to come. We have come a long way, but I know God has a lot more in store for us - and it will only work as long as she is by my side.
Kelly, I love you with all of my heart.
Come back on Friday for Day 5 of the cruise blog - Roatan ....
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Cruise 2011 - Day 4
Day 4: Roatan, Honduras
(sorry it took so long to post this .... got busy having fun with the family and then work hit me)
We had a time change overnight on the boat to sink us up with time in the countries, so we actually got an extra hour of sleep on the boat. Hurray!!! Now, Ken, the over-the-top-lets-see-how-drunk-we-can-get-the-entire-boat, cruise director did remind us on numerous occasions the night before that we should not do the sensible thing and actually get rest with the extra hour, but instead we should party even longer! Oh yeah, baby. So, since it is so apparent that Ken totally has our best interests at hand, we decided to ..... do the opposite and actually go to bed at a decent time.
The result, I woke up an hour early - lol. But at least the weight room room was less full. I guess all that partying did me some good - haha. So another beautiful morning in the Caribbean. I could get used to this working out and seeing a whole different country coming into view every morning.
Now, Roatan. What a beautiful island off the coast of Honduras. We were actually a little discouraged with the Costa Maya stop, but Roatan completely flipped us. This little island, looks like, from the boat, a tropical paradise. There are green hills, the port is really cute (see pictures below) and the water is once again beautiful.
Our planned excursion in Roatan was to go zip-lining on the canopy top of the jungle. When we got to the booth, and because we are really wanting some beach time after seeing such beautiful water, we upgraded the package and got a zipline/beach combo excursion. We were not disappointed with either. The zip lines were awesome!!!! My pictures won't do it justice. Basically, once they got us all geared up. We loaded up on a truck, did some off-roading up some pretty steep hills. When the truck couldn't go any further, we got out and hiked up some more through the jungle. The trees were beautiful and there were huge iguanas all over the place ... ranging from 12 to 18 inches long. We finally got to the first zip platform (after climbing some more stairs up the tree), they gave us the run down and Kelly was on her way. Then I followed. Some zips were short, some were long. Some really high, some low. All of them were over this lush jungle. It was awesome. I got some quick video that I will try and post too. Also, our guides were really good. They did a good job of keeping us safe, letting us know what to expect and helping us out when we needed it (like when Kelly didn't make it to the end of one of the lines :) ).
We finished the zips and headed to the beach. After a little confusion on if we were allowed into this one beach park, we finally got to the beach on our cruise and this beach, Tabyana Beach, was phenomenal! White sands, crystal clear water, good food, chairs. Stick us in those chairs with a book to read and we are livin' the dream, baby! We had a great time sippin on pina coladas and wading in water, chillin on the sand, and we even stumbled across this huge beautiful star fish that was at least 12 inches across.
After a couple of hours at the beach, we headed back to the ship, do some souvenir shopping at the port and then got back on board with plenty of time to spare. Then we listened to some of the Caribbean music from the band on the boat called Flex. Another relaxing night of fine dining and enjoying the fresh sea air and then we were off to bed. Tomorrow's port of call is in Belize City. We have to start our excursion early, so we turned in early, even with the voice of Ken in our head reminding us to party party party (aka, buy our drinks, buy 0ur drinks, buyour drinks).
I want to take a quick aside and mention one thing about this cruise that we were surprisingly pleased with. When we first got on the boat we noticed the ship had its own photography crew, and on day 2 we noticed the photo area, where the pictures from the day before were all available for sale at a fairly high price. We kinda laughed about it, but also went ahead and posed for some pictures with backdrops behind us throughout the cruise. It was kinda fun doing all these photo shoots :) The phot staff were awesome. They were everywhere all the time. The staff looked like one of the smaller crews on the boat - maybe 10 of them - and they took pictures, lugged their own equipment around, set it up broke it down, they had to work the area where they sold the pictures, they were on the boat at the parties, on the boat in the main atrium for the backdrop photos, and they were off the boat taking pictures in the port. And they always had great attitudes. AND the pictures that we took were REALLY REALLY good. So good, in fact, that we decided to get a couple of the pics and we are so pleased with them. I am gonna try and get those pics posted, too, at the end of this trip blog.
Next up - Belize!!
The port from our ship
Ziplining
Tabyana beach
Chillin on the boat
more pics of the island
Chillin on the boat
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Cruise 2011 - Day 3
Day 3: Costa Maya
So we wake up and we are all of a sudden in a different country. This cruise thing is pretty cool. :) Today is Costa Maya, Mexico. I started the morning out in the weight room again. Then we ate breakfast in the buffet restaurant, Raffles. The activity on the ship this morning was a lot more hectic than yesterday. I guess everyone is up and about to get off the ship and do their exursions - or whatever else there is to do in Costa Maya.
Costa Maya - what can I say about it. No one has ever heard of it probably. That's because it looks to be a town that the cruise industry fabricated just so they can have another stop. The port was nice and clean and the buildings seemed new. There were a bunch of shops that were willing to 'deal' with you - yeah right. There was one little thing we wanted and they would never give it to us for the price we wanted - and we could have found it in Wal-Mart for even less. I can't complain, though, because the one souvenir I wanted, I got here today - a Nacho Libre luchador mask - yeah baby!!!
There was one good thing at the port, and it was one of the highlights of the whole trip for us. There was this dude painting these really cool paintings with nothing but spray paint. His pictures were cool
- i don't really see how you could safely transport them, but that is beside the point. He had this sign above his little booth, and when you read it like Nacho Libre - it is stinkin' hilarious:
Kelly and I can't stop laughing everytime we read this - lol.
Our excursion in Costa Maya was to visit the Mayan ruins of Chacchoben. It was rainy on us, so that kinda put a damper on this excursion, but these ruins were pretty cool to see. The most impressive thing to us about these ruins is how everything was built up. This whole area of Mexico at Costa Maya was basically marsh lands - it was kinda like a Mexican version of Louisianna, but all of a sudden 60 kilometers inland there are hills???? We think we heard the tour guide say that the Mayan people built the hills and then also put these temples and their village on top. There were some pretty impressive sights from the top parts that we had access to. Also, I got to summon my eagle powers for my match against Satan's Cavemen later on that night (major Nacho Libre reference).
There were some more shops at the ruins as well. Again - no one wanted to deal with us. Poor Mexican families my rear. They were selling mini cans of Off for $10.00!!!! Overall, the excursion was cool. How often do you get to see Mayan ruins? They were awesome :)
We got back on the boat on time - this is something we were very mindful of. There is no way we want to be left behind. We had another great dinner, and then we watched a Cirque de Solei type show. It was 2 aerealists and the girl was very bendy. This was was awesome and we were amazed at some of the things that this pair was doing. Absolutely stunning.
Overall, we weren't too impressed with this port because it felt so fabricated. Tomorrow is Roatan. I hope this port is better.
Here's some more random pics of the day:
So we wake up and we are all of a sudden in a different country. This cruise thing is pretty cool. :) Today is Costa Maya, Mexico. I started the morning out in the weight room again. Then we ate breakfast in the buffet restaurant, Raffles. The activity on the ship this morning was a lot more hectic than yesterday. I guess everyone is up and about to get off the ship and do their exursions - or whatever else there is to do in Costa Maya.
Costa Maya - what can I say about it. No one has ever heard of it probably. That's because it looks to be a town that the cruise industry fabricated just so they can have another stop. The port was nice and clean and the buildings seemed new. There were a bunch of shops that were willing to 'deal' with you - yeah right. There was one little thing we wanted and they would never give it to us for the price we wanted - and we could have found it in Wal-Mart for even less. I can't complain, though, because the one souvenir I wanted, I got here today - a Nacho Libre luchador mask - yeah baby!!!
There was one good thing at the port, and it was one of the highlights of the whole trip for us. There was this dude painting these really cool paintings with nothing but spray paint. His pictures were cool
- i don't really see how you could safely transport them, but that is beside the point. He had this sign above his little booth, and when you read it like Nacho Libre - it is stinkin' hilarious:
Kelly and I can't stop laughing everytime we read this - lol.
Our excursion in Costa Maya was to visit the Mayan ruins of Chacchoben. It was rainy on us, so that kinda put a damper on this excursion, but these ruins were pretty cool to see. The most impressive thing to us about these ruins is how everything was built up. This whole area of Mexico at Costa Maya was basically marsh lands - it was kinda like a Mexican version of Louisianna, but all of a sudden 60 kilometers inland there are hills???? We think we heard the tour guide say that the Mayan people built the hills and then also put these temples and their village on top. There were some pretty impressive sights from the top parts that we had access to. Also, I got to summon my eagle powers for my match against Satan's Cavemen later on that night (major Nacho Libre reference).
There were some more shops at the ruins as well. Again - no one wanted to deal with us. Poor Mexican families my rear. They were selling mini cans of Off for $10.00!!!! Overall, the excursion was cool. How often do you get to see Mayan ruins? They were awesome :)
We got back on the boat on time - this is something we were very mindful of. There is no way we want to be left behind. We had another great dinner, and then we watched a Cirque de Solei type show. It was 2 aerealists and the girl was very bendy. This was was awesome and we were amazed at some of the things that this pair was doing. Absolutely stunning.
Overall, we weren't too impressed with this port because it felt so fabricated. Tomorrow is Roatan. I hope this port is better.
Here's some more random pics of the day:
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Cruise 2011 - Day 2
Day 2: A Day at Sea
Well, we are on the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. I woke up promptly at 6:00 (Thanks, AonHewitt!!) and got up to walk around the boat and check out the views. We never imagined the vastness of the waters would be so awe-inspiring. Once again, we are blown away with God's creation. The breeze and the water completely woke me up so I decided to go work out. Working out on the boat, looking out at the water was pretty stinkin' amazing.
Once Kelly was up and we were both ready for the day, we ate breakfast in one of the main restaurants on the boat called Windows. It was a very elegant restaurant in the aft (back) of the ship, and it had these huge windows that looked out over the back of the ship. The wake that this boat made was huge and that was a pretty cool sight to see too. The breakfast was awesome!! Fresh fruit, omelettes and coffee. Yummy, yummy, yummy.
The rest of the day was basically just chill time. I got an anniversary package that included two 25 minute massages, so Kelly used one of those and loved it. We found a quiet spot on deck and read, we chilled at the pool, ate lunch in the buffet restaurant called Raffles. More good food! It was just an all around relaxing day.
We ate dinner in the other main free restaurant called The Garden. Again, very delicious. I am starting to see a trend in the quality of food - lol, and can I just say - coffee after dinner with dessert is soooooo good.
This boat has a theatre in the back of the boat that takes up two levels. They have shows and stuff there every night. This night was a Broadway revue show, so we decided to go. The show was actually very good. The singers were very good and the dancers were pretty good too. They did songs from Wicked, Jersey Boys, In the Heights, Movin Out and Mamma Mia. Even though we didn't know all the songs, I was pretty impressed.
One thing we were not impressed with was Ken, the cruise director. We actually first saw Ken on the television the night before. Apparently, all the main shows in the theatre get recorded and they show them on the room tvs later on. Well, late on the night of Day 1, we caught a glimpse of the opening show which was really just a big commercial of perfomances to come. Ken was over-the-top-I'm-gonna-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-you-excited-about-this-show guy. I can already tell that this guy is going to annoy me. Ken opened the Broadway revue and introduced the show to us. He also apparently likes to promote evey passenger to get liquored up as well. Maybe he gets a commission on the alcohol sales on the boat?? My guess is every time he gets a mic in his hand he is going to ask everyone if they are having a good time - no one is going to respond to his liking, so he will ask again and everyone will finally chime in just so we can get past that routine. I'll let everyone know how that goes. :)
All in all, a great day at sea. Tomorrow is Costa Maya. We are excited about something different, and our excursion there is to go look at some Mayan ruins.
Here's some pictures from today:
Well, we are on the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. I woke up promptly at 6:00 (Thanks, AonHewitt!!) and got up to walk around the boat and check out the views. We never imagined the vastness of the waters would be so awe-inspiring. Once again, we are blown away with God's creation. The breeze and the water completely woke me up so I decided to go work out. Working out on the boat, looking out at the water was pretty stinkin' amazing.
Once Kelly was up and we were both ready for the day, we ate breakfast in one of the main restaurants on the boat called Windows. It was a very elegant restaurant in the aft (back) of the ship, and it had these huge windows that looked out over the back of the ship. The wake that this boat made was huge and that was a pretty cool sight to see too. The breakfast was awesome!! Fresh fruit, omelettes and coffee. Yummy, yummy, yummy.
The rest of the day was basically just chill time. I got an anniversary package that included two 25 minute massages, so Kelly used one of those and loved it. We found a quiet spot on deck and read, we chilled at the pool, ate lunch in the buffet restaurant called Raffles. More good food! It was just an all around relaxing day.
We ate dinner in the other main free restaurant called The Garden. Again, very delicious. I am starting to see a trend in the quality of food - lol, and can I just say - coffee after dinner with dessert is soooooo good.
This boat has a theatre in the back of the boat that takes up two levels. They have shows and stuff there every night. This night was a Broadway revue show, so we decided to go. The show was actually very good. The singers were very good and the dancers were pretty good too. They did songs from Wicked, Jersey Boys, In the Heights, Movin Out and Mamma Mia. Even though we didn't know all the songs, I was pretty impressed.
One thing we were not impressed with was Ken, the cruise director. We actually first saw Ken on the television the night before. Apparently, all the main shows in the theatre get recorded and they show them on the room tvs later on. Well, late on the night of Day 1, we caught a glimpse of the opening show which was really just a big commercial of perfomances to come. Ken was over-the-top-I'm-gonna-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-you-excited-about-this-show guy. I can already tell that this guy is going to annoy me. Ken opened the Broadway revue and introduced the show to us. He also apparently likes to promote evey passenger to get liquored up as well. Maybe he gets a commission on the alcohol sales on the boat?? My guess is every time he gets a mic in his hand he is going to ask everyone if they are having a good time - no one is going to respond to his liking, so he will ask again and everyone will finally chime in just so we can get past that routine. I'll let everyone know how that goes. :)
All in all, a great day at sea. Tomorrow is Costa Maya. We are excited about something different, and our excursion there is to go look at some Mayan ruins.
Here's some pictures from today:
Monday, July 11, 2011
Cruise 2011 - Day 1
Well, Kelly and I are back from our 7 day cruise. I thought it would be fun to 're-live' the cruise, so I am going to try and give daily updates on this blog as if we were on the cruise. So that means up first is ...
Day 1
We are finally here on the NCL Spirit!!! It is pretty cool. We have never cruised before, so I don't really know how to size these boats, but it looks and feels pretty stinkin' big. We couldn't snag any really good pictures of the boat at the port in New Orleans, but I'm hoping to get some pics at our first stop on Costa Maya on Day 3.
When we first got on the boat it was pretty overwhelming how big it was and how many people were running around like little ants trying to make reservations, book excursions, find their rooms, find their luggage, etc ... We were one of those ants and had no idea how to get anywhere. We finally found our room. Nothing fancy, just an interior room with no window. It was small, but we are able to move around in it nicely.
Once we got situated in the room and started to get our bearings on where things were on the boat, we had a quick safety drill and then it was a Bon Voyage BBQ party at the pool on the top of the boat with live music from a Reggae style band. They called it barbecue. Let me just say this. If there ain't sausage and if there ain't brisket then it ain't barbecue. The food was good, don't get me wrong, but it was not barbecue. It was burgers and dogs and grilled chicken with some sort of bbq sauce on it. Very yummy, just not BBQ - lol
We spent the rest of the night getting more acquainted with where stuff was on the ship. We found a live jazz band called the Spirit Orchestra - a bass, drums, keys, sax, trumpet and trombone. This music was awesome and I think we will try and find where they are playing and go listen as much as we can. We also used the rest of the night to watch the boat coast through the Mississippi River. Who thought it would take so long to get from NOLA to the Gulf of Mexico.
The ship is rocking (so don't come a knockin'???). We haven't felt any sea sickness yet, but that may change when we get on open seas and the boat is moving faster. Next up - Day 2, a full day at sea with lots of activities on the boat. Yippee!!
Here's some pics of Day 1 (you can click on them to make them bigger):
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