Life is a Journey

Months earlier, I was perusing the Carnival website and looking at the excursions. Much to my surprise, I found a walking tour of the Casino for only $19 per person. I booked it immediately. While we've taken this cruise itinerary several times before, we've never done a tour so we were excited to get to the island and begin our day. Once on land, we checked-in with the tour operator and were told that we had approximately 30 minutes to kill before the tour started so we walked around for a bit just enjoying the old buildings. When it was time for our tour to start, we were very surprised when we were told to get on a tram. In my head I was thinking, "Oh oh, did I check-in to the wrong tour?" We followed the group and boarded the tram and the driver announced that we would first get to see the island from the hills and then we would go to the Casino. In actuality, we got much more! First, we went through a few of the streets near the beach area and o...

Did I leave you hanging? It should come as no surprise that I hardly slept that first night. I swear it sounded like someone was rolling a bowling ball! I crawled out of bed at six, got dressed and went in search of some coffee. As I walked up the stairs, I knew that even though I REALLY wanted coffee, it would have to wait because I also wanted to take some pictures before the ship was crawling with people. I'm so glad I put the coffee on hold. It sounds corny but the ship looked so magical at this hour of the morning. I used both my camera and my phone to take several shots. Here is one shot in Panorama mode on my phone. The sun was starting to come up and the sky was an amazing color of blue. Now, it was time to enjoy some coffee! To my right, the sunrise... To my left, Catalina. I realized that this would be the perfect time to check out the water park area of the ship! As I approached, I was in awe of the tubular water s...