Chad and Tina cruise the Western Carribean Part 2 (from 2007)

Day 5:

This is the second of a two-part series. To read part 1 click here

We arrive at Limon, Costa Rica, and disembark for our shore excursion at 7:30am. Tina with a croissant and I with my bacon bar. My heart is starting to hurt. We’re taking a two hour bus ride through the mountains to a rain forest where we’ll be zip-lining through the trees with all the monkeys.

Tina gets prepared for what is sure to make her piss her pants…

…and she’s off!

After nine different zip lines, some as far apart as a football field, she arrived at the bottom with dry shorts. Damn. After that, we hop on an aerial tram for a ride through the rain forest at about 70 feet off the ground. We saw a few spiders as big as your fist, weird flowers, and some stupid birds. No monkeys. Friggin bullshit. Now I understand why developers are destroying the rain forests; cuz they’re boring as hell. This place would be a lot cooler with some condos , a pool, maybe a movie theatre, and a monkey zoo so they can’t hide in the trees when I come to see them.

On our two hour ride back to the ship, we passed the Dole Plantation, The Del Monte Plantation, and the Chiquita Plantation. Nothing but banana plants as far as the eye could see. How many you ask? A bunch! HAHAHAHA! Get it?! A bunch! Oh man, I need a nap.

Blah, blah, dinner. Blah, blah, towel animal. For some reason, this one is seductively posed. Our room steward is beginning to creep me out.

Tonight we’re partying, cuz we have a day at sea tomorrow. WOOHOO!!

Day 6:

I skipped the bacon this morning and went with the sausage instead. Ya know, the more heart healthy option. They have oatmeal, but this is vacation, and oatmeal can kiss my ass. Today was a pretty lazy day. I got Tina to come work out with me, we went to an art auction (for the free champagne), Tina went to bingo (again…and it turns out third time is NOT a charm – stupid bingo), and we slept out in the sun by the pool.

Tonight was another fancy night, so we got ourselves all pimped out and headed to the pre-dinner martini party. I’m double-fisting the martinis and it’s only 7pm.

Tina is buzzed on vodka by the time we get to dinner and is so amazed by our waiter’s sleight-of-hand trick with two wine corks that she decides to try it for herself.

This is about 5-6 minutes in…

And finally…

Back in our room, we’re attacked by a killer towel monkey.

As an added bonus, tonight is the Grand Gala Buffet at 12:30am, ya know in case five meals a day just don’t stave off your hunger. They had some great displays…

…but what does yours truly think of the food?

I’m going to bed

Day 7:

At this point I’ve eaten enough bacon to have had two heart seizures, but I don’t care cuz bacon tastes good. We arrive in Belize City, Belize this morning and board a catamaran at 11:30am for a twenty-five minute trip out to the reef (only Australia’s great barrier is larger), to try out Snuba.

While Tina and I are both certified Scuba divers, she’s had trouble in the past with her ears at depth, and I don’t care for snorkeling, so Snuba is a happy medium. It’s basically scuba diving at twenty feet without an air tank; you are just attached to a twenty foot air hose. It’s 50% snorkeling, 50% scuba, and 100% lame. The good news is that now she wants to go back to Belize and try to scuba dive again. After our child’s play, we hop back on the catamaran for a trip to a private island.

And out comes the free rum punch.

Free rum punch on the catamaran, free rum punch on the island and after an hour and a half, everyone is rum punch drunk.

And I neglected to wear sunscreen on this particular day, so I’m redder than the Kool-Aid Man. On the boat trip back to our cruise ship, we’re all dancing and conga-lining and high-fiving and having a blast. I wish we could’ve had this day at the beginning of our trip. Everyone boards the cruise ship and the majority head up to the pool bar where we all continue to drink and dance and hoot and holler. This dude is wearing the same suit as me...so obviously, he's badass.

…until we all head back to our rooms to pass out. Tina and I wake up at 8pm, grab a coupla pepperoni pizzas and a ton of ice water, and stay in our rooms the rest of the night watching tv and rubbing on aloe.

Day 8:

This is it, the last day. Mmmm, bacon. Yeah, I’m about over my bacon kick now. I’m starting to sweat bacon grease and some fat guy tried to put me on his cheeseburger. Tina headed to morning bingo and lost again. It would probably be cooler to burn $20 bills, but at least bingo takes longer. It still sucks donkey balls and I still loathe it.

I had time today to ponder three things: The first is that this ship has a Purser’s desk, which is essentially the information desk. I kinda find that sexist. I mean, why can’t it be called the Walleter’s desk? This ship had a bunch of pursers, no walleters, and judging by the nightly 11pm meetings of the Friends of Dorothy, there were a handful of fannypackers. Giggle-giggle.

The second thing is these two pictures, which were side by side on the ship:

I guess Carnival has an opposition to masturbation. What a bunch of fascists.

The third thing had to do with Domino’s Pizza. If you recall back in the late 80’s and early 90’s Domino’s drilled it into your head to Avoid The Noid. Now I don’t know whatever happened to The Noid, but if he’s being abusing drugs and alcohol over the last ten or so years, then this may be him. Either way, I stayed out of his way the entire cruise.

And what’s up with the dude on the right? This picture just creeps me out.

Well enough of my ramblings, it’s the last evening on ship, so I grabbed a photo of the sunset…

…had dinner, and checked out tonight’s towel animal which was some sort of baby. Tina, in her recent throes of baby fever, demonstrates for me what a great mother she would be. Tina had a baby…

…and it’s head popped off!

Finally, we end the trip with Tina heading to bingo. Why? Because she’s getting her ass handed to her in the casino and she’ll lose less money if she plays stupid, old lady bingo. What’s that you say? How’d she do? Do you really have to ask?

Yep, she won $1000.

It’s like I’ve been saying, if you find yourself on a cruise ship, head over to the bingo room, because it’s the greatest game in the history of everything of all time, ever.