November 16-30,2024. Florida, and Celebrity Cruise 

Well off we headed west to get to the Tampa Cruise Port for our last minute Thanksgiving FREE Cruise. We took Alligator alley across the bottom of Florida. We stopped at the rest stop for a little lunch.

After lunch we continued on to the town of Naples and some chocolate Italian Ices.

Chocolate Italian Ice with Vanilla Icecream layered in. It doesn’t get better than that!!

We decided to stop and camp at Myakka State Park. We were here when we first hit the road and really really loved this state park. It’s gigantic with lots of wildlife. Vultures, alligators, wild pigs. Plenty of bike and hiking trails. 

We then continued north to spend a couple of days with Greg’s parents before we set sail on the Cruise.

Gregs Dad drove us to the Cruise Port. It was quite a delay getting on the ship. Line after line after line. Finally one of the workers took the time to explain to us why it was such a long wait. This ship, The Constellation was a transatlantic cruise. Actually it was the same ship we cruised on in Italy. So because it was coming from another country, every passenger and every crew member had to disembark and go through customs. Then on top of that the Coast Guard had to board the ship and do a thorough search.  We did finally get on and dropped off our bags and made it on time for the lunch buffet followed by gelato. 

The temperature has gotten pretty cold. It’s perfect weather for van sleeping but not so perfect for cruising. And on top of that it’s super windy. But hey, it’s better than working. The ship went under the sky bridge in Tampa which was pretty cool. A very tight squeeze. I’m glad we went to the 11th deck to experience that. After that we had some dinner and then to the show.

Day 2 on the ship was a sea day heading towards New Orleans.

I woke up early on Saturday and headed up to have some coffee and watch the sun rise and it was freezing. 46°. I was planning on sitting outside on the deck but instead sat inside and enjoyed it from the window. We traveled on the Mississippi River which was really cool.

Greg joined me for breakfast and then we headed on our way Bourbon Street.

We visited a bunch of places that we had been to back in the day when we were drinking. It was a bunch of fragmented memories that we pieced together as we headed down Bourbon Street and Canal Street. There was lots of outdoor musicians. Some were excellent. We came back to the ship for lunch and then headed back out again. We checked out Caesars Casino where I got my new Diamond Card. This was one of the perks of getting my new credit card. I got pumped up to a Diamond member in both Caesars and Wyndham. Lots of perks and benefits being a Diamond member. One of them being a free vacation in Atlantis, Bahamas. We will have to squeeze that in next year. 

The ship stayed docked until 10 o’clock at night so we had a late dinner and kind of just hung around. Normally we would go to the 7PM show but the show tonight was the same magician that we saw on the cruise in Italy.  It was that cruise that Greg gambled all week with the $160 winnings that he won on the very first day.  When we got back home after Italy, the offers on FREE CRUISES started pouring in. We have had atleast 50 free cruise offers since then and have booked 3 so far. The one we are on right now and then 1 in March and 1 in April. WE LOVE FREE!!

If you zoom into the above picture, you can see all the oil rigs glimmering in the morning sun. It’s pretty cool. Two more days at sea before getting to Honduras. We have been going to all the shows which have been great and I have been participating in most activities. Greg doesn’t like games of any kind but he will participate in the Trivia and he did cheer me on when I entered (and won) the relay competition. Below is the hat I won. 

Woke up at 6 and headed upstairs to see the sunset but instead was met by a thunderstorm. After the storm was a pretty nice rainbow and then soon after pulled into the pier of Honduras and it did stop raining. 

Our plan was to go to the beach today and just hang out. It’s not a beach day so we did a little exploring near to the port and then headed out past the safety of the tourist scenario. We were immediately surrounded by local hawkers trying to get you to buy a tour. It was pretty chaotic and a bit slummy with wild hairless dogs and toothless men right up in our face. We endured about 5 minutes of it repeating over and over that we are just out for a walk. Then turned and went back to the safety of the cruise port. 

We headed back to the ship, I got my bathing suit on, had the whole pool area to myself, layed out my towel on a lounge chair, put in my earbuds, turned on an episode of “Wiser Than Me” podcast and that’s when the skies opened up!! Pouring rain for the next few hours. This is why the island is so green and lush. Random thunderstorms most every day. 

That night we had to set the clocks 1 hour ahead again. We arrived at Costa Maya early. It was pretty foggy and a HUGE carnival ship was already docked. We backed in right next to it. 

That’s our little shop on the left next to the giant ship on the right. We took some photos on our way off the pier and Greg told one of the Carnival workers that he worked on the Original Carnival Celebration. The guy couldn’t believe it. That was a long long time ago.

We continued down the pier with the other ten thousand passengers. At this point 2 other gigantic ships also docked. So there were a ton of people heading to Costa Maya,Mexico. This place would be totally awesome with just one ship here but it was super crowded. we did a brief walkthrough the crowd.

We took a few photos, tried our best to find WiFi. We were unsuccessful so another day with no WiFi. We both probably have a thousand emails. So we headed back to the ship had lunch and then plates around the pool. It was a super hot day today. I went swimming like 10 times. I love hot weather if there’s a pool nearby.

The ship set sail at 5pm. We watched from Deck Ten as the other ships loomed over us.

Next day arrival was in Cozumel. This port was my favorite of the 4 we stopped at on this cruise. 

We made sure to get back on the ship for the lunchtime Thanksgiving feast. It was delicious. The only thing missing was the green bean casserole.

Next day was a sea day and for the last couple of days, I’ve been playing pickleball on board. I’m going to try to play more often when we hit the road again. 

We arrived back on Tampa and the temperature when we woke up at 6 am was 47°. Good thing we didn’t pack our pants or sweatshirts. We are going to try to either walk or take an Uber out of the port area and then let Greg’s dad know where he can pick us up from. The port area here is Tampa is pretty chaotic.

There’s also some kind of delay going on where we are unable to get off the ship but thankfully we got a good seat in the dining room with a great window view of what’s going on outside. 

I can’t believe that November is over already. Below is our calendar for each days events. December we begin our journey out west about two hours at a time. Looking forwrd to some slow motion traveling.