The Cruise

This post is a lot later than I had planned. I had planned to get it done by 6 pm, but my mother and I have been cooking all afternoon and evening. Tomorrow we will have the whole family at the house for Christmas, do we’ve been getting ready.

So, you want to know about the cruise. The first thing I will say is that Carnival has some beautiful gay men working on the Valor. They are all so sweet too, and they were the best part of the cruise. A couple of things about this cruise: 1) the seas were very choppy and the weather was terrible, 2) the food was not as good as the last time I went on a cruise, and 3) there are some ugly, trashy people that go on cruises.

Now on to what we did. Monday we set sail several hours late because of an issue with fueling the ship. Tuesday was a day at sea, where we spent most of the day exploring the ship and trying not to be seasick. Wednesday, we went to Cozumel where we spent the day shopping. I was able to buy a few Christmas gifts. Then we headed back to the ship as it started to rain. Thursday, we docked in the tiny fishing village of Progresso. This is where we got onto a bus for an excursion. The bus first took us to the Mayan city of Mayapan, which was the last major city of the Mayans. There, we were able to climb one of the pyramids. I learned that I am too old to climb pyramids. It was quite a workout. However, the major workout was yet to come. We next headed to a place near what they claimed was a palace of Empress Carlota (I do not believe the were correct because while Carlota toured the very rural Yucatán, she apparently did not stay long enough to build a palace). At the ruins of the palace are underground caves you can swim through. It was billed as a tubing trip, but they only told you on the way that the lazy river in the caves was really lazy and had no surface currents. So, we had to swim. Thank goodness we didn’t have to swim far because it really was a workout. I was sore for days afterwards. We were fed lunch after the swim. The lunch was good but cold. We were on the #4 bus, and I’m sure the #1 bus had warm food. We then explored the palace ruins for a few minutes and the boarded the bus back to the ship. Friday was another day at sea.

While we were on the ship and basically confined to the inside areas because of the rain, we took in a lot of the activities onboard. We played trivia and came close to winning a few times and finally did win the one called Calling All Nerds. I’m a historian and sci-fi geek and the two girls I played with are nuclear physicists, so no one else stood a chance. We also took in a few Christmas shows. They were fun, especially when Alex, one of the Carnival workers from Mexico City, sang “The Hat I Got for Christmas Is Too Big.” Actually he lip synced it and did a little dance. It didn’t hurt that he was the most beautiful man on the ship. We went to some of the comedy shows as well. They had two comics, one was fairly funny, the other was not. The unfunny one was an insult comic and that’s just not my humor. I also went to the hairy chest contest hoping to see some hot men. It was incredibly disappointing as some of the men didn’t even have hair on their chests.

That was about it for the cruise, but there is one other thing. I was so proud of this one young person. I guess they were non-binary. During the day he dressed as a guy and at night as a woman. I have to say that took a lot of courage. Cruises out of New Orleans are filled with rednecks and judgmental people. It’s not easy for a passenger to be gay and with a boyfriend. The ships do have nightly LGBT get togethers, but I’ve never seen more than half a dozen people show up for them. I didn’t get to say to the person how proud I was that they were able to live their true self because I felt either that they might take it the wrong way or something like that. I also never got the chance to say anything to the couple anyway, but I was very proud of that young couple.