Who's having fun on the Fun ship?

This is a photo-essay of epic proportions. Everyone should go on a cruise. It is super fun. You get to run around and do whatever you want all day and then eat in a fancy restaurant at night. They even put your napkin on your lap for you, and you can order whatever food you want, and as much of it as you want. But drinks are not free. On a more serious note: If you're going on a cruise to see other countries and learn about other cultures, a cruise is not the way to do it. The boats are only in a place for 8 hours or so, and there's not enough time to get from the pier, orientate yourself to a new place, and discover new things. It's too hectic, and the places that cruise ships land are too touristy to be any good anyway. I was a bit disappointed with our trip to Cozumel, but we tried.

We tried our best to do everything right. We bought cruise wear with elastic waistlines, we practiced our shuffleboard, we even practiced eating extra amounts so that we'd be prepared for the 24 hour buffet. However, while the cruise met our expectations, there were still surprises.

First off: The window in our room. Imagine our disappointment when Ruth pulled back the curtain to reveal this view. So we shrugged it off and headed to the dining room.

Only to be assaulted by what can only be described as a set-cast off from Running Man or some other post apocalyptic 1980's action movie.
We decided to go along, to get along. At least there was plenty of coffee and desserts and other foody-type foods. This is the all you can eat room. There's always food in there. We ate our breakfast and lunch in this room. With sunglasses on.


Our first port of call was Key West. We got in around 7:30 in the morning, and decided to skp the pub crawl and instead mingled with the locals. Like Hemmingway here.
This photographer and I got real friendly. He never called me back.
No comment.

Ruth found some locals of her own to befriend.
After making friends, we walked all the way down to the Southern Most point. Everyone else did too. So we waited in line for a long time to have our picture taken in front of it.
But we grew weary and moved on without having a proper photo taken.


We didn't have much time left after that excursion, so we spent the rest of the time just wandering through town taking in the sights and laughing at all the cheesy souvenirs.



After we got back on the boat we had lunch and attended an art auction. We only went to that because they were giving out free champagne. Nothing is free on a cruise ship, unless they're trying to sell you something more expensive. We had to leave though, because Fritzella the cow was embarrassing us by drinking heavily and trying to bid on the most expensive items. " No Fritzi! You can't bid on that $60,000 Mickey Mouse Litho! No no no!"

We wiled away the rest of our hours lazing in the sun on the top deck of the boat.
We had cocktails, soaked up some sun and caught up on our reading.
Eventually, even the brilliant blue Carribean sea speeding past us while the wind gently ruffles our hair and the sun envelopes us in a warm embrace gets old. So we went inside to further explore the ship.
We took one look at this and went back outside. This is pretty representative of the nausea inducing decor on the ship.



The next day we stopped in Cozumel, Mexico. The town looks exactly like any other Mexican touristy town. Dilapidated buildings and people trying to sell you the same crap from every corner. The only thing we really wanted to do was find the Mayan ruins.
We found a taxi that would take us to San Gervasio and back for $45. This seemed steep to us, but we didn't have many other choices. Turned out though, that the ruins were pretty far away. Since they were so far away and in a remote area of the island, the taxi driver had to wait for us. He told us he would only wait for one hour. One hour was not enough time to fully appreciate the whole site, but we tried.
We rushed from site to site within the park but quickly realized that without a guide we weren't getting much out of the piles of rocks. There were no interpretive markers anywhere. At least I can cross Mayan Ruins off my list.

Fritzella once again embarrassed us by crossing into forbidden territory to climbing on the ancient stones. Because of her rash and incredibly inconsiderate actions we weren't able to see the actual pyramid at the site (or rather, we ran out of time and decided that we'd seen enough rocks). Guess I need to read up on my history before my next Mayan expedition.

When we left the ruins at San Gervasio we saw a horrible car crash at the intersection with the main highway. Two rental jeeps, with Alamo logos on the side, had collided and one was pretty much completely crushed. There was a white tarp on the ground that all the people were standing around. It was pretty sad to see. When you get off the cruise ships they warn you not to rent any jet skis or scooters or anything. I guess this is why. Maybe people forget that they're in a different country and they have to behave cautiously, or just that traffic rules tend to be different...I don't know what to read into it.

We spent the rest of the day doing what you normally do in Mexico. Drinking cheap beer.
And, hanging out with the locals. We really wanted to go into McDonald's and use the bathroom but it didn't work out.

Our last full day on the ship was a "Fun Day at Sea" We competed in tons of games and swam in the pool and ate even more food that we did on the previous days.
I competed in the Ship Olympics. Here's a shot of the towel-race-around-the-pool portion. I also competed in the bean bag toss and swim-with-a-towel-across-the-pool events. I won the Ship Olympics.
Laura was not impressed by my trophy.
We also played mini golf, but the wind and the rocking of the boat added extra elements of challenge to the game. Ruth won, because all brits are good at golf.


This is George, the cruise director. I'm pretty sure his main job was to walk around, talk to guests and look cute. He did all three very well.