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I Belize in MAGIC! MITSUGIRLY revisits the Western Route. My Novel.


mitsugirly
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Hi Kim, I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas, and that you have a Happy New Year! I love your reviews, and want to thank you, as we visited Paradise Beach in Cozumel last week after reading your review of your time there. My family and I really enjoyed our brief stay there, and the food and swimming were excellent. The pool was the highlight of our day, and we thoroughly enjoyed lounging in the chairs on the ledge of the pool while our children swam. It was very clean and had nice facilities. We will definitely be returning there on our next visit. Thank you for taking the time to do these reviews, and thank you for all the detail and pictures. I always reference your reviews prior to our trips to see where you have been and what you recommend. Thank you again!

 

Which Royal Caribbean ship have you booked? We are sailing on the Vista in February, and it is my family's first time on Carnival, though I have been on them a number of times when I was younger and still at home with my parents (first time back in quite a while for me). We are looking to sail on Harmony in 2019. Look forward to your next review!

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Hi Kim' date=' I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas, and that you have a Happy New Year! I love your reviews, and want to thank you, as we visited Paradise Beach in Cozumel last week after reading your review of your time there. My family and I really enjoyed our brief stay there, and the food and swimming were excellent. The pool was the highlight of our day, and we thoroughly enjoyed lounging in the chairs on the ledge of the pool while our children swam. It was very clean and had nice facilities. We will definitely be returning there on our next visit. Thank you for taking the time to do these reviews, and thank you for all the detail and pictures. I always reference your reviews prior to our trips to see where you have been and what you recommend. Thank you again!

 

Which Royal Caribbean ship have you booked? We are sailing on the Vista in February, and it is my family's first time on Carnival, though I have been on them a number of times when I was younger and still at home with my parents (first time back in quite a while for me). We are looking to sail on Harmony in 2019. Look forward to your next review![/quote']

 

 

Thanks so much for the comments and so glad the reviews can be of help.

 

 

I'm so happy you enjoyed Paradise. It really is a lovely place to spend the day and yes, very clean facilities.

 

 

We have booked the Jewel of the Seas for our next cruise. I can't wait (not necessarily for the ship, but for the ports).

 

 

Hopefully some day I'll be on the Vista. It looks like an amazing ship! Have an amazing cruise!!!

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Up next....ROYAL CARIBBEAN!! Can you believe it? I'm expanding. ;p

 

Oh wow. I love your reviews and as mentioned before, use them as part of my research. We have only done 1 Disney cruise and 3 Royal cruises (with another one booked for 2019). I would love to hear your thoughts and experience on Royal. You're going on Jewel of the seas? What ports? When? We really love Royal from the ships we've been on (which each class differs in amenities and size so tons of options).

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Thanks for another great review! I think I need to head back to Belize and Roatan, it's been a while. And I need to check out Costa Maya. Where is the pool in Costa Maya located. I know in the port, but is it part of someplace like Margaritaville in Grand Turk? Could you walk to Blue Kay?

 

Enjoy your upcoming NCL and RCL cruises. We've done the MR several times with DCL and CCL. It's an easy trip for us since we're currently in AZ. Obviously not like the Caribbean, but still fun. The Jewel may be the only ship I'd never get DH back on. We enjoyed our cruise on her, but didn't really like the layout and a few other things. Looking forward to reading about your trip on her.

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Oh wow. I love your reviews and as mentioned before, use them as part of my research. We have only done 1 Disney cruise and 3 Royal cruises (with another one booked for 2019). I would love to hear your thoughts and experience on Royal. You're going on Jewel of the seas? What ports? When? We really love Royal from the ships we've been on (which each class differs in amenities and size so tons of options).

 

Yep, we will be on the Jewel this time. We will be going to 3 new ports: Grenada, Martinque and St Croix. :D Then we will also be going to St Maartin and Barbados again. I'm super excited.

 

 

 

What ship on Royal are you going on?

 

Jewel of the Seas

 

 

Thanks for another great review! I think I need to head back to Belize and Roatan, it's been a while. And I need to check out Costa Maya. Where is the pool in Costa Maya located. I know in the port, but is it part of someplace like Margaritaville in Grand Turk? Could you walk to Blue Kay?

 

Enjoy your upcoming NCL and RCL cruises. We've done the MR several times with DCL and CCL. It's an easy trip for us since we're currently in AZ. Obviously not like the Caribbean, but still fun. The Jewel may be the only ship I'd never get DH back on. We enjoyed our cruise on her, but didn't really like the layout and a few other things. Looking forward to reading about your trip on her.

 

 

Yep, I was glad to get back to this western cruise again since it had been awhile for us. We had a great time (like always).

 

 

It's sorta like the one in Grand Turk and you just walk down the pier and you are there...surrounded by shops, restaurants and the pool in the middle of it all. It's a really nice port.

 

 

You could potentially walk to Blue Kay, but I wouldn't. You would waste a lot of valuable time getting there and it's only a few bucks to get there to begin with and only takes about 6 minutes by cab.

 

 

Yea, I'll try any ship once (well, I try not to repeat any of the ships if I can help it lol) but I'll enjoy my time no matter what, since this will be a port-intensive cruise to begin with. :D

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I finally read all of this. I have been reading for a couple of weeks in segments! Loved the review as always.

 

You got some great pictures and I love how colorful the ship is. I might be trying Carnival for the first time this year. I wanted to do the Magic or the Breeze, but for the date that works for me, it might have to be another ship. It's more of a work trip, so my choices are slim.

I love sailing out of Port Canaveral, but I am a huge Disney fan and seeing the ships in port would make me sad not being on one of them instead. ;p But once out to see I am sure I would get over that! hahaha.

 

Thanks again for the reviews you do. When I look at new destinations, I always come look at your reports to see if you have been there and what your thoughts are on the destination.

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I finally read all of this. I have been reading for a couple of weeks in segments! Loved the review as always.

 

You got some great pictures and I love how colorful the ship is. I might be trying Carnival for the first time this year. I wanted to do the Magic or the Breeze, but for the date that works for me, it might have to be another ship. It's more of a work trip, so my choices are slim.

I love sailing out of Port Canaveral, but I am a huge Disney fan and seeing the ships in port would make me sad not being on one of them instead. ;p But once out to see I am sure I would get over that! hahaha.

 

Thanks again for the reviews you do. When I look at new destinations, I always come look at your reports to see if you have been there and what your thoughts are on the destination.

 

Thank you and glad you enjoyed it.

 

 

If you get a chance to sail the Breeze, do it. I loved that ship and it's still my favorite Carnival ship.

 

 

I have 3 new destinations coming up on my next cruise...stay tuned. :D

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Great review as always Kim! I can’t wait to hear what you think about the Mexican Riviera.....I’ll be waiting for your review.

 

Happy Sailing!

 

 

Thank you and glad you liked it. Actually we cancelled our MR cruise and have booked a southern cruise again (with 3 new ports for us).

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Thank you and glad you liked it. Actually we cancelled our MR cruise and have booked a southern cruise again (with 3 new ports for us).

 

 

 

You definitely can’t go wrong with the southern Caribbean, I would take it over the MR any day. Although the MR is a totally different experience and has its good points as well. Happy planning!

 

 

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You definitely can’t go wrong with the southern Caribbean, I would take it over the MR any day. Although the MR is a totally different experience and has its good points as well. Happy planning!

 

 

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Yea, it sounds like it would be a big difference in experiences after reading up on it. I love the southern Caribbean and looking forward to it.

 

 

The Jewel of the Seas is my favorite cruise ship!

 

 

Glad to hear you liked it so much Carol. Hopefully we will too...but any cruise is a good cruise to me. :D

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So, we will start this review out a week before the cruise.

 

It was a HECTIC week! Anyone who follows my reviews knows that my daughter, Sakari, LOVES to draw. It's her life. She's very good at it. She has been tested the last 2 years and determined to be "gifted" in arts. I'm so proud of her. However, this time around was a little different. I received notice that her name was submitted to the gifted program and they were requiring an art portfolio to be submitted for consideration to the arts school program. She doesn't have a portfolio and I keep a majority of her work in tote(S) that I would have to frantically run around trying to locate some of her best work to submit.

 

The other issue was, this portfolio was to be submitted on the day we leave for vacation AND she was supposed to have an interview on the day we return from vacation. Mom-panic-mode kicked in.

 

I still needed to pack and double up on seeing patients for the week and now this.

 

It was a very long week, but we managed to be able to submit prior to that friday and they agreed to forgive her for not being able to make it to the interview. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If she's accepted, this means she will get to go to the arts school in 6th grade and automatically be enrolled in the arts high school.

 

Everyone keep your fingers crossed for us!

 

Ok, next deadline for that week....Friendship/kindness rock painting. What? Never heard of it. However, there were a few people on our roll call for this cruise that does this and posted their rocks. I instantly fell in love...and thought this was right up Sakari's alley! I showed her and she immediately wanted to do some for the cruise.

 

We headed out to buy the supplies and came home that night and started painting.

 

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She was loving this new "artsy" thing to do.

 

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We had so much fun that we think we are going to make this an event that we do for every cruise.

 

This was the first batch, but we did a second batch later in the week and for some reason I don't think I got a picture of them.

 

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Even Kolin, my youngest son, joined in one night and had some fun coming up with ideas to paint.

 

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I guess people have groups all over the place that paint rocks and they leave them in areas for others to find. They either keep them or move them somewhere else. I believe they are meant to brighten someone's day. So, hopefully we would be able to do that for several people on the cruise.

 

 

I was watching a cruise video from ParoDeeJay, and saw that he found one of your friendship rocks! Scroll to 6:06...

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Brayden found a friend at the buffet. I have no idea where this came from or what they had to offer in there.

 

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The hubby went to the bathroom and when he came out...everything was closed. Oops. He waited to long.

 

The safety drill was at 3:45pm and our meeting place was in one of the MDR. We sat down and was told to move that we were in the "special section". Wellllll excuuuuse me. I guess I'm not special after all.

 

The safety drill started and several voices gave us instructions on what to do in case we sunk, were attacked by pirates or any other odd things. This safety briefing was brought to you by Reverend Doctor E and he was HILARIOUS! So many voices and had people laughing during the entire drill. I love when they add a little bit of humor into it. I feel like it keeps people interested and listening and he definitely had the attention of all the guests. The drill started at 3:42 and ended at 3:45pm. Quickest, most entertaining drill ever!

 

After the drill we headed outside to watch the sailaway.

 

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We met a couple and hung out with them for a little while as we pulled out. It was their first cruise and they were so excited asking all kinds of questions about the ports and such. She was a nurse...of course. I'm completely convinced that cruising is all nurses do. Every cruise there are so many of them. The weird thing is, we never seen this couple again during the cruise.

 

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We headed down to the lido to dance all the cool dances they do at sailaway. It took awhile to locate Kendra. After the dancing was over, papaw Sam danced with Kam and she had a great time.

 

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Being a nurse also, I love to cruise and it is my way to escape work and detach. we work extra to pay for our cruises.
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Thank you Kim for such a wonderful review!!! We just booked this exact cruise for May 19th yesterday! All these ports will be new to us other than Cozumel (been there many times). Do you have any excursion suggestions for 1st timers to Belize/Costa Maya/Roatan, et. al.? Thank you so much again! :D

 

Joan R.

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We were told that we would be headed to snorkel the "wall". Now when someone tells me "wall" I just instantly freak out. Remember Sakari hanging out over the wall in Curacao when we went scuba diving? Yea, walls completely freak me out. So I was definitely making sure that Sakari was keeping her life jacket on.

 

It looked to be getting deeper over that way.

 

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There were places to the left of us that were fairly shallow. To the right...was the "wall"

 

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They kept motioning us to move out...as in toward the wall and away from the shallow coral. No, no, no, I don't want to go that way.

I am so excited to read another review from you. I'm going to tell you as soon as I saw it, I thought about the scuba trip and the wall. I remember almost having a panic attack while reading. hahahaha I am starting to feel anxiety and can't see how this turns out. Again, she is one brave little girl!!! Must be the Buckeye in her!! ;)

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I was watching a cruise video from ParoDeeJay, and saw that he found one of your friendship rocks! Scroll to 6:06...

 

Yep, it has been pointed out already. How amazing is that that someone found one and it's actually in THEIR review. I (and especially Sakari) was so happy to see this.

 

 

Being a nurse also, I love to cruise and it is my way to escape work and detach. we work extra to pay for our cruises.

 

Absolutely! We have a very hard career (not to downplay anyone else's career because everyone is important) but I personally work 7 days a week and I HAVE to have my 3-4 vacations a year just to survive. :D

 

 

Thank you Kim for such a wonderful review!!! We just booked this exact cruise for May 19th yesterday! All these ports will be new to us other than Cozumel (been there many times). Do you have any excursion suggestions for 1st timers to Belize/Costa Maya/Roatan, et. al.? Thank you so much again! clear.png?emoji-grin-1677

 

Joan R.

 

Thanks so much for the comments and glad that you enjoyed it.

 

 

As for suggestions, what type of things are you looking for? (Obviously knowing most of my endeavors consist of beach/water/snorkeling, so keep that in mind that this is what I usually suggest ;);p)

 

 

I am so excited to read another review from you. I'm going to tell you as soon as I saw it, I thought about the scuba trip and the wall. I remember almost having a panic attack while reading. hahahaha I am starting to feel anxiety and can't see how this turns out. Again, she is one brave little girl!!! Must be the Buckeye in her!! clear.png?emoji-wink-1685

 

Yes, when it comes to the water...she is very brave. She asks all the time when are we going to dive with SHARKS! She's crazy. The other night she said she wanted to try cave diving...um, I'm instantly freaking out and I said "You realize it's dark in there right?" She said "Yea, but I'll have a light...it'll be fun". I'm going with a big negative on that one...at least for me (and for her for quite some time). yikes!

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If you get a chance to sail the Breeze, do it. I loved that ship and it's still my favorite Carnival ship.

 

 

Kim,

Awesome review!! I've read a number of your reviews over the years and always enjoy them. We've cruised the western route quite a few times, and I enjoy comparing our experiences/excursions to yours. Chankanaab is our favorite place to snorkel so far.

Also, the Breeze is our favorite Carnival ship too. We've cruised the Vista but still prefer the Breeze. I can't wait until it homeports in Port Canaveral.

Take care and thanks again for the review.

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Kim,

Awesome review!! I've read a number of your reviews over the years and always enjoy them. We've cruised the western route quite a few times, and I enjoy comparing our experiences/excursions to yours. Chankanaab is our favorite place to snorkel so far.

Also, the Breeze is our favorite Carnival ship too. We've cruised the Vista but still prefer the Breeze. I can't wait until it homeports in Port Canaveral.

Take care and thanks again for the review.

 

Aww thanks and glad you enjoy them. Chank is probably my favorite snorkeling in Cozumel but doesn't compare to some of the other Caribbean islands. So amazing!

 

 

I haven't got a chance to sail the Vista yet...maybe some day.

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Absolutely! We have a very hard career (not to downplay anyone else's career because everyone is important) but I personally work 7 days a week and I HAVE to have my 3-4 vacations a year just to survive. :D

 

Like you, I work 7 days a week and really need vacations to stay somewhat normal! Thank you for such amazing reviews!!!

 

I have one Aruba question: How far apart are Arashi and Boca Catalina? Can you easily walk between them? I have 5 year old twins. My two can swim, but are nowhere near Sakari in terms of strong swimming at this point. I LOVE snorkeling and photographing what I see, but I also want the kids to enjoy the beach (husband is somewhere in between). What would be our best option? Or should we do a tour to see the flamingos and butterflies before the beach? I've read a ton but can't decide!

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Like you, I work 7 days a week and really need vacations to stay somewhat normal! Thank you for such amazing reviews!!!

 

I have one Aruba question: How far apart are Arashi and Boca Catalina? Can you easily walk between them? I have 5 year old twins. My two can swim, but are nowhere near Sakari in terms of strong swimming at this point. I LOVE snorkeling and photographing what I see, but I also want the kids to enjoy the beach (husband is somewhere in between). What would be our best option? Or should we do a tour to see the flamingos and butterflies before the beach? I've read a ton but can't decide!

 

Aww thanks for the compliments.

 

 

Arashi and Boca are next to each other. Although we didn't walk (because we had a car) it could (and has) been easily done. You can even swim between the two.

 

 

For snorkeling, I would definitely go to Boca and if the kids are into snorkeling, it's a great place for them too. Going out from Boca was super easy and pretty shallow almost all the way there. If they can swim, they could probably go along with you and if they get tired, for most of the way you could easily stand up and hold them up to rest. The beach itself is pretty small though but we liked it (so much that we went back another time during our stay).

 

 

Arashi is a very nice beach and pretty and easy to swim in. You can also go over to the snorkeling area from there but I found it a lot harder to do. It's the kind of area where it's hard to enter the water over by the snorkeling because of so many huge rocks and coral and then you can get into areas that are hard to maneuver and get stuck and cut. I just really didn't enjoy going to the snorkeling from Arashi, but that may just be me. :)

 

Depending on how long you are going to be there...if you want to see the butterflies, you should probably go there first. I would say you could spend about 1 or 1 1/2 hours there and then on to Boca/Arashi.

 

 

I'm not sure what flamingo's you are referring to?

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BELIZE: Tuesday 8-5pm

 

I had set my alarm for 7am but was wide awake at 6:45am. What is wrong with me? I'm not a morning person. Someone has taken over my body! Kendra was up shortly after me and we all headed down to the buffet for some breakfast.

 

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The scrambled eggs were a little better this morning but I opted for some french toast...just in case. THERE WAS NO BACON POLICE THIS MORNING! Say what??? Did an irate passenger capture them and tie them up for the remainder of the cruise? We could only hope! I loaded up...and no I don't waste any of it. Bacon=heaven and I don't eat a lot of it at home so this is my "treat" week.

 

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We were pulling in on time and the birds were welcoming us. Sakari believes she's a bird whisperer and brought them in closer to the ship.

 

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We headed back to the room to grab our things and knew that we needed to meet in the theater for our excursion.

 

On the way there, Sakari left another friendship rock.

 

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We needed to meet at 8:30am and I didn't want to be late. Kendra is getting a little better at being closer to "on time" for things these days. Not necessarily "on time" but "close to".

 

We booked the Snorkeling Wonders of The Barrier Reef Excursion with Carnival. Now everyone knows that I normally DO NOT book excursions with the cruise lines if I don't have to. There has to be a good reason to book with them (for instance in Belize, since it's a tender port, some excursions booked with them will leave directly from the ship and no tender needed).

 

This excursion did leave directly from the ship and we did not tender over. However, this would not be the reason we decided to book with Carnival. We booked because there was NO local vendors that went to where we wanted to go: Rendezvous Caye. Seriously...no vendors at all other than the cruise ships. I wonder how they managed that!

 

Previously we booked with a local vendor to go to Goffs Caye, which is very similar to Rendezvous Caye. They both are very tiny little islands situated in the middle of no where. They are very primitive but I believe that Rendezvous did seem a little nicer with more there than Goffs.

 

 

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So, I just knew I had to go there. The price of the excursion was $74.99 per adult and $59.99 per child. I personally don't think that it's too bad of a price but did know that it didn't include anything other than transporting you there and back and the snorkel equipment if needed. There's no lunch or beverages included. But to experience this place was worth it because I truly enjoyed going to Goffs Caye last time.

 

The excursion is supposed to be for 4 hours and everyone knows that when you take a ship sponsored tour, traveling to and from is included in that time. Therefore making the time at the island extremely short. This is another reason that I never book ship excursions.

 

They did have food, snacks and drinks available for purchase there.

 

It was supposed to be a 40 minute boat ride each way.

 

 

 

I loved your entire review. We are going on the Magic in April and your review was perfect to get me ready for all my planning. I realize you went with a ship excursion in Belize so I am not sure you will be able to answer my question or not. In the Funtimes it states that the ship always remains on port of departure time not local time. So for Belize we are in port 8am-5pm. Do you know if these times are still ship time? So it is actually 6am-3pm local time?

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I loved your entire review. We are going on the Magic in April and your review was perfect to get me ready for all my planning. I realize you went with a ship excursion in Belize so I am not sure you will be able to answer my question or not. In the Funtimes it states that the ship always remains on port of departure time not local time. So for Belize we are in port 8am-5pm. Do you know if these times are still ship time? So it is actually 6am-3pm local time?

 

 

Honestly, I never really pay attention to local time for the fact that what matters to me is ship time and I never adjust my clocks because I need to know what time it is on the ship to get back in time. Most of the vendors and shops know what time the ships are in port and are usually open so that they can make money (if that's the reason you are asking). Yes, the 8-5pm will be ship time.

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