A Mother/Teen Daughter Travel Blog
Hi All. It’s Brooke!
Over winter break, we took a Central American Cruise on Carnival Magic. Our first port happened to be Cozumel on Christmas Day. Choosing an excursion, we didn’t want to do something super crazy because we wanted to keep the entire family together and make it as stress free as possible, so we decided on spending the day at Paradise Beach.
One of our excursions during our Christmas Carnival Cruise 2017 was to the Central American country of Belize. We narrowed down our excursion choices to cave tubing, scuba diving or hiking the Mayan ruins. Last year, we snorkeled in caves in Riviera Maya so cave tubing was voted off the list. While scuba diving at the Great Blue Hole sounded remarkable, being novices, we’ve really been planning on a full scuba instructional vacation, and furthermore, the phrase “heavily inhabited with sharks” left the Mayan ruins as a fine selection. Besides, we already had water based excursions planned for Honduras and Mexico.
For Christmas this year, we decided to trade in the cold and snow for the tropics and set sail on a Carnival Cruise. (Itinerary coming in future post) Since we had a wide range of age groups traveling, we figured a cruise would meet everyone’s needs. Don’t get me wrong, we had a spectacular time–laughs, wonderful memories , quality time together, etc. However, upon reflecting if we’d cruise again during the holidays, or anytime for that matter, this is still left undecided.
Christmas.
Forty-seven years celebrated exactly the same– same family members; same neighbors; same hand made ornaments each telling a nostalgic tale, same trivial meal preparation squabbles; same Christmas Eve Mass…sacred traditions created with love and family bonding for almost half a century.
So what happens when you lose an integral part of that tradition?
Growing up, I had the privilege of going on many cruises because my parents absolutely loved to cruise. As an adult, and a mom, I had never planned a cruise vacation until a few years ago, wanting my kids to experience the difference between a resort vacation and an adventure at sea. We took a Caribbean cruise from Miami to the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Grand Turk, St.Thomas and St. John. It was amazing family bonding time; however, after the trip, I couldn’t help but reflect on the pros and cons of cruising. For me personally, the pros as cons weigh pretty evenly, and I believe it really comes down to personal preferences.
Pedis-n-Passports 