Spring Break 2024-New Orleans & West Caribbean

Above is Hudson with a serving of beignet-hot, doughy and super messy powdered sugar.

…and afterwards

We tried turtle soup with sherry, seafood jambalaya and eggs Benedict.

At the end of our meal I saw that they had bananas foster on the menu. I thought to myself, “Let’s see what their version is like.” Turns out this is the birthplace of bananas foster lol. While our server made the dessert at our table, she told us the story of bananas foster and how it originated right there!

We camped outside armed with food and drink. the store had a bathroom but there were numerous portapotties on the street also.

Father of the year award? No? OK. LOL I just realized how green Hudson is.

Hurry back the parade is here!

At first things were slow. Then toward the end, these double decker buses came by and started throwing all sorts of items out to people. Hud wanted cabbage, that specifically.

This guy parades

Are Funyuns Irish? Some of our final score included bead necklaces, faux flowers, real carrots and cabbages, candy, toys, snacks and anything green or consisting of a clover. I got a cool green flower for my Nawleans hat!

To exit we walked as far away from the parade as possible to avoid rush prcing on Uber. That brought us into the neighboring area where we found ourselves at a laundromat. Pickup time!

…and a pile of fried seafood-fish, shrimp, crawfish and soft shell crab

Did I say this city has love?

Gambling aside, I should talk a little bit about being able to drink in public. It’s a strange thing where any damaging vice is considered a norm. While walking back through Bourbon St and the side passages the 5 blocks to our hotel I told Hudson to look people in their eyes and try to see what they’re feeling. The eyes of this city vary so much, from aware to stay away and glazed to cloudy. After tonight though I will say that New Orleans is a tolerant city and open minded relative to my eyes.

This ended up being kind of special, a look into the music side of New Orleans which runs deep in the street and bar scene.

A Summary?

Even though this was just the starting point to another adventure, New Orleans ended up being the place that I got the best feel for. This is probably due to the length of time we had here as well as the relative comfort of language and culture.

Before starting I imagined us walking around with 2 foot tall plastic beakers of hurricane. Instead we got drunk off of anything but and experiencing a warm side of southern hospitality. It’s still foreign to me yet genuine and welcoming. Thanks for the sliver of life, New Orleans!

The cemetery is primarily Catholic. Bodies are placed within and sealed.

Because temps get up to 350 degrees, they naturally degrade over the course of a few months. Bodies are placed above ground because New Orleans is below sea level.

There are mostly family crypts here, each structure for a family, however there are also communal ones based on interest where people pay (sometimes a minimal amount) to join an association (ethnicity, occupation etc) which includes, you guessed it, burial. If you’ve dealt with any of these, you know that weddings and deaths can be surprisingly pricey. Here is a plaque for a musicians tomb. Sorry if my death structure nomenclature is incorrect.

This is Voodoo Queen Maria Laveau (and family’s) tomb. She’s got quite the interesting history. Notice the superstitious triple x’s carved into the side? If I heard our guide correctly, her tomb was at one point was surreptitiously painted pink overnight. That became the start of cemetery security and required tours.

Something something Nicolas Cage.

This was referred to as the Protestant or “smoking section”

It ended up being an informative and gloomy day which matched the mood of our tour. We rendezvoued back with June and Hud for food.

We walked to the Mississippi River for some views…

…and a trolley ride back into town before jumping onboard the ship.

Before boarding June found a FB group for our specific cruise, and a couple of cruise regulars decided to put together a Hawaiian style meet and greet. Ready for mayhem.

We used our specialty dinner vouchers for our anniversary dinner at the Italian restaurant La Cucina.

No pic on this but the table next to us had an older guy sitting at the end of the table begin to choke. I could feel the unease of the guy choking and those around him. At first I side eyed him to watch then I eventually stared him in the eyes and slowly got up. Now I was engaged. What to do? Heimlich? No, palm strike! Would this be my moment of Scouting saviourship? A time to remember forever while reliving the tale around a scout campfire? I walked over and was ready to bend him over and palm the center of his back when some of his dinner party looked at me and said they had two nurses present in their dinner party. Oh well I’s ready.

Any hoot, after that we went to watch the show “Burn Up The Dance Floor”-a mix of dancing to various types of Latin and blues music. The entertainment aboard ended up being just ok.

Onto the good-ish stuff-Stepping foot onto Caribbean islands

At the port area we paid an additional $6 US pp “preservation fee”. mmmkay.

There were two other families riding with us.

Putting our phones in a communal wet bag was a safe idea but then we ended up not taking many pictures!

We got to see a flounder/ray (something flat), barracuda and other small fish in around 10-15 feet of water.

We tried to see a shark in a hole

The starfish were nice but look but no touch

Then we got blasted by incoming rain and saw an occasional manta ray in the shallows.

Our Capitan made guac and chips which we greedily ate. The original plan was to eat off of an inner tube in the shallows next to the boat but that plan got rained out.

Feeling kinda jipped (sp) instead of paying the $15 taxi ride back we decided to walk and dry out our towels at the same time. It was so hot I imagined the water evaporating right off of the towel on my head.

The nice thing about cruises with kids is that if they are old enough and tired you can return them to the ship, dump them off and go back out adventuring knowing that they can find their way to food, the room and whatever entertainment is available onboard. From the port June and I headed back out, past the megatourist area marked by huge Margaritaville and Senor Frogs signs. Keeping the all aboard time in mind we went as deep as we could, past small discos, sleeping shopkeepers, rubble and a water filling business to a down to earth looking eatery. 

We got a dish of 3 tacos 85pesos/16 and a Modelo for a total bill of $9 us.

Verification-the lady there mentioned that ship crew members go there to eat.

Our most real Cozumel townie experience. There’s only so much you can do in a few hours! We didn’t even scratch the surface.

June loves sloths. Our first stop was Daniel Johnson’s Hangout. So hot and so many tourists waiting.

Don’t touch? June not happy.

I guess it was just a liability thing. We definitely got to handle the animals. After seeing sloths we went into the cappuccin monkey enclosure and stood in a ring while the monkeys ran around and basically had their way with us. My moustache was popular.

…Then birds in a bird enclosure.

As usual, the boys would have been happy just playing with stray cats.

It turned out that the snorkeling to follow was right next to Daniel Johnsons.

Brady’s Caye

After drift snorkelling in beautiful blue waters we checked out the adjacent super tourist island.

We wanted a chance to see what the rest of Roatan was like so we asked our driver to take us someplace hole in the wall like. I think there was some miscommunication but we ended up at a different coast town for a meal.

Bye bye Roatan! It’s happy hour back onboard.

New Day, New Caye-Belize

One of the first things we did was jump into the water.

Placencia is filled with local eateries and souvenir shops. There are 3 lengthwise pathways that run down this peninsula-a beach on one side, a central foot path running down the middle and a vehicular road to the west. 

They’ve got small Chinese owned grocery stores and the usual small clothing stores you’d expect. And cats.

Today was freaking 🔥. Head hurts hot. It’s difficult to get from place to place, to cover ground like I like to and to top it off all the golf cart rentals in the near vicinity are out. 

For lunch we stopped off at Omar’s Creole seafood for red snapper with coconut sauce, fish tacos and grilled chicken. Two beers, two waters and a juice later our bill was about $56 USD.

The conversion btw is 2 BD to 1 USD.

I don’t know why but I like to go thrifting while traveling. I guess I imagine I’ll find something amazing one of these times, or at least a nice shirt to take home as a souvenir. Humana is one we’ve seen throughout Europe.

…and a few more random pics

English is spoken amazingly well here on Placencia. It’s strange because the local people are black and have that Caribbean vibe yet they speak what I would consider haole English. 

Now we head back to resort like Harvest Caye to spend the rest of our time in port including a quick dip in the pool.

Harvest Caye also has a small zoo, ziplining, a butterfly enclosure and stores to buy chocolate and other overpriced items. Honestly way too manicured and controlled for me; I get that onboard the ship anyway.

See ya!

It’s happy hour back on board while we wait for our dinner buzzer to call us.