Belize Saturday, February 7, 2015

We are so excited to travel with Bill and Barb to Belize on a Tradewinds Experience luxury cruise. Bill and Barb bought into the club in the BVI's on our RCI trade cruise last February. We bought in later and here we are in beautiful Belize!

Thanks (NOT) to United Airlines we had to spend Friday night in Houston instead of Belize City as planned. We arrived in Houston and took our shuttle to the Hampton Inn. Our shuttle driver stopped at a liquor store for us and we bought a nice Malbec, which was consumed from paper cups in our room. Then we walked next door to Church's Chicken and brought our dinner home.

Saturday morning we woke early, had our breakfast at the Hampton Inn and shuttled to meet Barb and Bill at the airport in the United Club Room. We arrived in Belize City and after three separate lines, we made it to the Mayan Island Airlines counter. We were put on a different plane than Bill and Barb, although we had both booked the 12:30 flight. Funny that Bill's luggage arrived on our flight! The plane ride was awesome. It was a 10-12 seater. I got to sit right behind the pilot. Very fun to see the beautiful Belizean countryside. The land near the ocean seems semi-arid. As we flew inland, the vegetation grew more lush. The landing strip was so short that the pilot had to brake hard and then turn the plane around in a little landing stop cul-de-sac.

We were picked up by a taxi driver named Robert from Robert's Grove Resort where Tradewinds is headquartered. We had a native beer, Belikan and looked around the lovely resort. It is very laid back with plenty of space and tropical vegetation. Tradewinds failed to provide us with Squirt, but low and behold - Robert was drinking a FRESCA! I asked him where he bought it and he said Seine Bight. Rick and I took two of the resort's bikes and peddled to the tiny market. We left with 12 bottles of Fresca in our bike baskets. Yippee!

At 5:00 we boarded Affinity, a beautiful 59 foot catamaran. With Tradewinds you do not know your sailing mates until embarkation. It seems difficult maybe, but it really is pretty cool. Fun to get to know new people from all over. Our captain is David, a Belizean and his girlfriend, Patries (pronounced Patrice) is our First Mate. She is Dutch, but hails from Vancouver.

Thomas is a captain who is sailing with us so he can work with Tradewinds.

After we were shown our room and had time to unpack, we all assembled on deck for the daily Boat Drinks and snacks.

Tonight we had pineapples filled with a cream cheese dip. Yummy. The drinks were Rum Punches and Sea Breezes. 

As we were all seated at the dinner table, Patries had everyone make an introduction and tell what they were hoping to get out of the trip. It was fun to learn about everybody. Most want to meet and enjoy new people.

Our boat mates are:

Dennis and Mary Heaton from Denver

Dan and Lynda Rojics from Indiana

Bruce Chapman from Calgary, Canada

Barb Doerr and Bill Robinson our Denver friends

And us!

Dinner:

Black bean soup - spicy!

Romaine salad with balsamic dressing

Watermelon salad with red onion and feta

Local farm raised shrimp and linquine

Key lime pie

We turned in early, as we did not get much sleep the night before. Our cabin is so huge compared to our first Tradewinds cruise. In the British Virgin Islands we were on Cruise Class, which was very bare bones compared to this Luxury Class. It is a totally different experience. Although we loved our first cruise very much, this one is so much more comfortable.