Norwegian Pearl Cruise Countries 24 Colombia, 25 Panama, 26 Costa Rica, 27 Honduras, 28 Belize, 29 Mexico, Stop 57

I stand by this statement!

Dec. 23 Port of Miami

Although we are hitting a few countries, I'm only counting this as one stop since we are only unpacking once. Our itinerary:

We say goodbye to Dad and Pat and head south. At Miami airport, we return our rental car and uber to our ship. Once there, the NCL people have a very organized system where every passenger gets a PCR test.

We board and do our usual exploration of the ship. A note on cruises--some people LOVE them; some people HATE them! This we know. For the adults, it's a nice break from planning. The kids can eat whenever they want and whatever they want! They can meet up with other teens their ages and ditch us. Dmitri can play poker. I can nap and read and enjoy the lovely weather. It's a win win win win for all four of us. And Dmitri LOVES being able to see several countries without unpacking and repacking!

Dec. 24 and 25 At Sea

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we are at sea. We work out, relax, read, find trivia games to play. Jack checks out the teen room. Mia finds a gang of kids her age--AND a family with an unlimited drink package. She lucked into that situation. They are on a mission to make paying for unlimited drinks worth their money so they are very generous about supplying her with drinks for the entirety of the cruise.

We decorate (and eat!) Christmas cookies!

Loving this lady and her choice of outfit!

Dec. 26 Cartagena, Colombia

Jack stays on the ship during this stop so we tell him he can't count it as a country he has been to! Mia, Dmitri, and I get off the ship and walk around Cartagena. It's very hot but colorful and charming and we like it quite a bit.

Dec. 27 Gatun Lake (Colon), Panama

Before we arrive, our ship goes through the locks and it's pretty freaking cool to see. The Panama Canal!!!! The only way to get off the ship is by booking an excursion so we opt for "Land Divided-World United." We are picked up and taken to Miraflores Locks. While there we see ships going through the locks and it's pretty crazy. The ships have to navigate these very SMALL spaces. Very impressive. Since our ship has just gone through a lock, we are now on the sideline able to see it all from a different perspective. I might never look at a shipping container the same way ever again after seeing many, many, many, many of them on ships going through the Panama Canal.

Dec. 28 Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

Although we get off the ship, we don't make it very far. We park at a cafe with decent internet and get caught up on some travel planning and work. It's not the most exciting stop, but days like this are necessary when we are traveling full time. It's not all vacation and sight seeing. Some days are TCB days and today is one of them.

Dec. 29 At sea

Lounging, eating, exercise, drinking, poker. Rough life.

Dec. 30 Roatan, Honduras

SLOTH!!!!!! Omg, I am SO so so so so so excited because we have booked a tour where we will get to hold a sloth. https://monkeyandslothhangout.com/home/

****A note on interacting with wild animals--I only recently realized (long after we were in Roatan) that sloths become very stressed when people hold them. Was I naive at the time we booked this tour? Probably. We certainly strive to be humane while out in the world. We will not go to any elephant "refuges" where they bathe elephants or basically do anything other than observe them. All I can say is that we went to hold sloths out of ignorance (much like you will see when we visit Brisbane and hold koalas!) but I strive to do better and become more informed and educated in the future.

We are met at the port and first taken to West End where we browse shops and have a bite to eat and a drink. And gelato! Then we stop at a chocolate shop and yum yum yum.

Then it's off to see the sloths (slith? that's what the kids decide the word should be for more that one sloth) and monkeys. The monkeys are HILARIOUS jumping all over us and trying to pull Dmitri's hair--he didn't laugh about that as much as the kids and I did! And the sloth, Olivia, was so so so cute!!! This excursion was a definite hit!!

After a WONDERFUL visit, we have a little free time before heading back to the ship. Our driver takes us this to a gorgeous ocean side restaurant and I have a swim with Mia and we all have some yummy food (and BEER!) before heading back to the ship.

Good thing we were told to empty our pockets before meeting the monkeys.

As always, Jack manages to find friendly cats!

As you can see, I am BEYOND excited!!

Dec. 31 Harvest Caye, Belize

What a lovely, wonderful lazy day on Harvest Caye. We sit by the water, some of us play beach volleyball, there are tropical drinks to be had. There is even a blue morpho butterfly sanctuary. A perfectly beautiful way to end 2021.

Mia's gang on board the ship

Jan. 1 Costa Maya, Mexico

Happy New Year! We celebrate the start of 2022 in Mexico. We take a cab to a mellow stretch of beachside restaurants. It's another lazy day to eat and drink and take a dip in the water and walk along the beach.

Jan. 2 At Sea

We are enjoying all the trivia games on board the ship! No surprise to anyone, there is trivia on cats and Jack helps our team absolutely kill it!!!!

Jan. 3

We arrive safe and sound back at the Port of Miami. After fretting for a few days whether our flight will go, we head to the airport and fly to Los Angeles. Phew. Between surges of omicron and winter weather, lots of flights have been canceled and we were really sweating this one out. But all is well as we wing our way west for a brief return home.

As we were getting off the cruise we could see the next group waiting to board. What they didn't know at the time was that during our cruise many crew members had covid. It spread so quickly that the next cruise out they were at sea for just a few days and then had to return back to Miami and end the cruise early. We were pretty pissed they didn't let any of us know about the outbreak. I mean, basically we docked and people headed out to disperse to different states and countries with no warning they had been exposed to covid. We only found out about this later. Pretty big fail, NCL!!!