So, first, about the RV park: they put us in a site that surely was NOT intended for an RV our size. Every other RV in the lane was parked at a certain angle, but due to the presence of a tree at the back of our site we had to pull in at the complete opposite angle, placing our utilities on opposite sides of the RV. Normally your power, water, and sewer are all close to each other on the driver's side of the RV, but we had to park between the hookups so that power was on one side and the water/sewer were on the other. Our wires and hoses are plenty long to accommodate this, but it made it pretty obvious we were too big for the spot. I felt badly for kind of infringing on our neighbor's spot, but there weren't many other options to switch campsites, so we stayed where the office put us. Not a really big deal, but the first time we've been so badly misplaced in an RV park, so I'm mentioning it as a curiosity rather than anything else.
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| You can see the offending tree and the bad angle here |
We had not yet booked a storage spot for the cruise, as we were really hoping to keep it at Sherwood Forest, but they would only rent a spot to guests in person in their office. We were taking a bit of a gamble there, but when we showed up they did indeed have several storage spaces available and we were able to get one for the time we needed. It was awesome to have a spot just 5 minutes down the road (and it was only that far away because the road to the back of the community is a little curvy and max speed of 10mph).
We did stop by Epcot again while we were at Sherwood Forest - we painted some more spots on the paint-by-number-mural we had worked on before, it's coming along quite well!
The weather started turning a bit chilly - good time to get out of town on a cruise! And here our excitement began. On Wednesday - just three days before we were due to sail on the Disney Fantasy - Disney sent us a note that our cruise itinerary changed from an Eastern Caribbean cruise (with stops at Tortola and St. Thomas) to a Western Caribbean cruise (with stops at Cozumel and Costa Maya). Thanks COVID! (The implication from the email was that the Eastern Caribbean islands were not welcoming cruise passengers due to Omicron.) Now, there's nothing particularly wrong with the Western Caribbean, but we've done it a lot, and when we booked this cruise nearly a year ago we specifically paid significantly more money for the Eastern Caribbean route, and Disney wasn't offering any kind of refund, so this wasn't too palatable. They offered the opportunity to reschedule or cancel without penalty, so we rescheduled for the next eastern sailing two weeks later (turns out that one suffered the same fate, but we wouldn't learn that until later...). This ended up being cheaper because we could book it at the last minute rate, and the refund we received was just about enough to pay for a Carnival cruise! We were presented with a quandary at this point - we had storage booked for the period we were supposed to be on the cruise, but if we didn't go on the cruise, we would have to find somewhere to stay in the RV at the last minute - a distinct problem in today's RVing environment. So, with the refund we got from Disney and the problem of finding somewhere to live for a week, Aaron decided to go ahead and book us a cruise on the Carnival Mardi Gras! It left out of the same port as our rescheduled cruise for the exact same time period, so solved all of our RV parking problems.
The Mardi Gras is Carnival's flagship, the newest ship in the fleet (they've been sailing for about 6 months). And it is HUGE! It has 18 restaurants, two major evening entertainment venues, two comedy lounges, a ropes course with a zip line over the ocean, and even a roller coaster! Ironically the sailing we went on went to Cozumel and Costa Maya, just as we would have done on the Fantasy, but it went there for a lot less money, and with such an amazing ship, we booked the cruise just for the experience on the flagship rather than any concern about the ports. We had a blast! The evening entertainment kept us crazy busy every night and we were SO impressed by the shows on their 'Center Stage' in the ship's atrium. I could write a whole review here on the ship, but I imagine no one wants to read that (let me know privately if you do!), so I'll just post some pictures of the trip. The RV lasted the week in storage without incident - and as far as we can tell, no new rodent residents ;-).
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| The Mardi Gras shares the name of the first ever Carnival cruise ship in 1972 - this plaque commemorates the two |
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| The ship was too huge to get a full picture from the dock, but you can see most of it here. (And in case you're wondering, Mexico requires masks indoors AND outdoors.) |
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| This was taken from the shopping area in the port at Cozumel |
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| For the first time I think ever we went on an 'excursion' in a port that wasn't booked through the cruise line - we just walked across the street from the port to rent a Jeep and drive around the island on our own! |
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| Crocodile! We drove down to Punta Sur, an ecological preserve at the south end of the island. The water was SO clear, you could see every bit of the crocodile even though he was mostly submerged. |
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| Atop the lighthouse at Punta Sur |
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| There were several iguanas in Punta Sur |
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| Iguana tracks! |
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| After exploring the natural and historic landmarks we grabbed a drink on the beach |
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| At Costa Maya we just got out to wander around the port |
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| On the chairlift to Carnival's private beach on Isla Roatan |
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| Our ship had to stop for a rescue at sea! The people in this tiny wooden boat had run out of gasoline in the sea about halfway between Cuba and Mexico (we don't know where they were headed); our ship filled them up with gasoline and water. |
And some pictures of the ship itself since it was so amazing!
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| Dinner at the Teppanyaki restaurant |
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| "Art of the Table" dessert at the steakhouse - the chef came out to decorate a large tray with syrups and delicacies |
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| Can't be a Carnival ship without ice carving! |
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| Appetizers stacked up in a box at the Chef's Table! |
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| One of the many shows on Center Stage - the cool thing here is that the backdrop is all just a bunch of screens stacked together! The screens were high resolution and nearly seamless; during the day, the screens dropped below the stage to reveal massive windows behind them. |
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