Isla Roatan, Honduras

We woke up to rough seas this morning and once we got ready and went up to the Lido Deck for breakfast, our Cruise Director announced over the loud speaker that we were not yet docked in Roatan due to the high winds and very small canal in which the ship normally enters to dock. He said he would give us another update in half an hour. We went ahead and had breakfast and were headed back to the room when they announced they were going to make another pass at trying to enter and they would give us an update as soon as they knew something more. After attempting to near the passageway again, it was decided it was just too dangerous to dock so our day trip to Roatan was cancelled and we were encouraged to enjoy this additional day at sea.

Roatan

Roatan

Of course, we were disappointed as this was one of the new ports that we haven’t visited before and LJ had worked hard to make it a very interesting day. We were to have a private local guide for the day and had a ziplining excursion planned, plus a visit to a monkey farm (in honor of my mom) as well as a visit to a local orphanage and any additional time would be spent seeing the local sites and learning more about the island. As a special addition, LJ was supposed to call once we were docked to a resort that offered snorkeling with dolphins to see if they might have availability for us to go there as well, which would be put in place of ziplining and the monkey farm.

Well, certainly the cruise line would have preferred that we be able to make our stop but it was out of everyone’s control so we just made the most of our day. I found a chair up on deck to camp out and read and LJ took advantage of the time to do some photographing of the ship. We met in the Pasta Bar and I got a bowl of pasta to go and we headed to the Encore Lounge for a Newlywed game of sorts.

I can’t say enough about our cruise director, John Heald. LJ had read about him on Cruise Critic and had read some of his blog and he definitely lived up to everyone’s stories about how funny and personable he is. He started the hour asking which couples had been married the longest, with several couples in the audience being married over 50 years. The couple who had been married the longest had been together for 63 years. He brought them up on stage to ask a little more about them and also their advice to the newlyweds in the audience. Her advice was to let it to when he messes up, at least most of the time and his was to always have the last word, “Yes, Dear”. They were precious. He next asked for all the ladies on their honeymoon to stand, five ladies stood, he ended up bringing four up on stage and promised the last they would be participating in an event later in the week.

One by one he brought the couples up to find out about their proposals and that led to some other questions as well. Then he brought up the groom to once again propose to his bride. The first was a very tall girl from Latvia. She met her husband in a club, he was from the UK and it took John a while to realize what the audience was gathering… she was an exotic dancer and he was a customer. Finally John realized and brought the groom up. He was from North Carolina… and works as an engineer at a race shop no less. Each couple was interesting but at the end of it, I told LJ that the cruise director was really able to turn an introduction of the oldest married couple and four newlywed couples into a full hour of entertainment – he is quite talented.

After the show we decided to take a nap, then as is the usual routine at this point, LJ headed to the gym and I read in the room; he returned and we got ready for dinner. The show tonight was Dancing in the Streets and was the best production show we’ve ever seen on board a cruise ship, great music, phenomenal dancing and great special effects. After the show, time to go to bed and get ready for our visit to Belize.