We’re in the home stretch of this 7-day western Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Celebration, and day 5 is in the books. Today’s port-of-call took us to Honduras to the Carnival-owned port of Mahogany Bay located on the island of Roatan.
The bay gets its name from the valuable mahogany trees that grew in abundance on the island, which were highly sought after by European colonizers for their use in furniture and shipbuilding.
In the 16th century, the island was settled by English pirates who used Roatan and the surrounding Bay Islands as a base for attacking Spanish galleons. The island later became a British colony and was home to a community of freed slaves who were brought to Roatan by the British to work on plantations.
In 2007, Carnival Corporation purchased 40 acres of land on the island’s southern coast and developed a cruise ship terminal and private resort that caters exclusively to Carnival’s passengers. The area includes a 20-acre beachfront property with two miles of white sand beaches, as well as a variety of amenities such as restaurants, bars, shops, and water sports facilities.
We arrived shortly after 8 am and since this is the primary beach day for this cruise, the ship emptied out pretty quickly as guests scattered to grab the best spots on the beach.
Once you exit the ship, it’s a short walk to the welcome center where you first must pass through a Dufry Duty-Free shop (no, no Cuban cigars here just insanely priced Dominican ones that you can get back home for less) before entering the welcome center. Unlike Costa Maya and Cozumel, the other two port stops during this trip, the shopping area is very up-to-date since it was built just over 15 years ago.
Carnival-arranged excursions all meet right in the center of the welcome area and third-party operators are also doing their best hard-sell to get you to go on one of their zip line, horseback, or ATV adventures.
This area features the typical stores that you’ll find in every port, Diamonds International, Cariloha, etc., as well as some local vendors in kiosks and in a larger building where they have individual stalls to hawk their trinkets. You’ll also find a restaurant offering frozens, beer, tequila, and jerk chicken.
From here you can drop a couple of bucks to take the chair lift over to the beach or walk it. The chair lift is more of a scenic attraction than a mode of transportation, as it’s much quicker to walk, plus during your walk to the beach you can also take a side path which is designated as a nature trail where there are plenty of great photo spots as well as the opportunity to see some of the native wildlife… or as someone shouted… “Look at that HUGE rodent!”
Once you’re on the beach, you’ll see a sign advertising some of the activities you can partake in, for a fee, of course:
- Snorkel Mask & Fins – $20
- Fun Cat – $40 for a half hour, $60 for an hour
- Aqua Cycle – $26 for a half hour, $46 for an hour
- Hobie Kayak – $30 for a half hour, $50 for an hour (2 passengers)
- Floating Mat – $10
- Sea Clam – $60
- Aqua Cycle Boat – $60 for a half hour, $80 for an hour
- Hydro Bike – $20 for a half hour, $30 for an hour
- Clamshells – $40
- Paddle Board – $16 for a half hour, $26 for an hour
- Sea Hammock – $34
- Paddle Boat for Two – $26 for a half hour, $46 for an hour
- Paddle Boat for Four – $35 for a half hour, $61 for an hour
- Umbrella – $30
- Kayak for One – $19 for a half hour, $34 for an hour
- Kayak for Two – $26 for a half hour, $46 for an hour
So while you can score a lounge chair for free, adding an umbrella to that will set you back $30. However, if the sun isn’t your thing, further back from the beach there are some loungers that are under trees which provide a bit of shade.
There are two restaurants/bars on the beach for when you get hungry. It’s important to note, that even though this is Carnival’s port, the cost of food and drink is not included in your cruise fare. If you have the Bottomless Bubbles or Cheers! beverage packages, they are not valid for drinks on the island, so you will have to account for that.
All aboard was 5:30 pm which meant that most people stayed ashore for much of the day making the ship pretty empty so there were no lines for food onboard today. I stopped by Big Chicken to grab some of those previously mentioned chicken tenders, but after seeing some of the chicken sandwiches being served, opted for one of those instead.
This Big Chicken turned out to be a big mistake.
The large, breaded chicken breast (available in white or dark meat) was dry and… cold! Even though the breasts were under a heat lamp, it was obvious with the first bite that these were prepared a while ago and left to sit as even the lamps weren’t providing enough warmth for these chicks.
They say looks can be deceiving, and they certainly were!
So about the food. Carnival is not known for being heaven for foodies. While there are a lot of spots to get your grub on, there’s nothing that stands out as being special or has that wow factor that keeps you coming back for more.
Sure Guy’s burgers are good, after all, how can you screw up a cheeseburger?
Yes, Blue Iguana has good tacos, but again… how can you screw up a taco?
The menus each night for the main dining room have been somewhat uninspiring. For example, the menu for the night included mains such as cornmeal-crusted chicken breast, BBQ spare ribs, and lasagna.
But as cruise lines continue to struggle financially since COVID, food is one area where many are cutting back in an effort to trim costs and avoid waste. We’ve all seen those plates of wasted food piled up tables at the buffet left by those whose eyes were way bigger than their stomach.
For entertainment tonight there was a game of Deal or No Deal, where the top prize was a grand and the audience played along with punch cards that allowed them to win prizes like casino cash, bingo cards, and even a free cruise.
The contestant in the first show of the evening ended up taking a deal when she only had four cases left to open with the grand prize still available. She walked away with, I believe $269, but when all the cases were open, the one she selected – 13 – contained the $1,000 which would have been hers if she just hung in there!
For dinner, I headed over to Farhernheit 555, the ship’s steakhouse once again ($48 per person). The meal started out with a tiny beef stuffed cherry tomato, which was so good I could have had a full plate of them for my meal.
Next up was Tuna Tartare. This was served with a cheesy nest with an egg on top of the tuna. Not bad, nothing to write home about.
The salad course was baby lettuce with heirloom tomatoes served with Ranch. Meh, it was a salad, so not much to say here.
The other night I ordered the bone-in ribeye, tonight I decided to try the spiced rubbed version which did not have the bone. I asked for it to be cooked rare with broccoli and onion rings. When it came out, it didn’t have any bit of pink to it at all and the onion rings were actually a baked potato.
Not one to ever send food back, I ate the steak anyway, but it was way overcooked for my liking but was seasoned well.
Dinner was definitely a swing and a miss, but the ice cream and sorbet for dessert made for a somewhat sweet ending.
As I was walking back to my room, the hallway was littered with plates, cups, to-go containers, and glassware outside staterooms. This is one thing that drives me crazy on Carnival! But… this is what they want you to do!
Many Facebook groups and online forums debate continuously about this and Carnival has confirmed multiple times that they do indeed want you to put this disgusting mess in the hallway as they have crew scheduled to make rounds to pick it all up.
This isn’t something you do when you order room service at a hotel, and not sure why Carnival feels this is the best way to handle the room service aftermath, but it’s not something that I’m a fan of. The last thing I want to see on my way back to my room for the night is someone’s leftovers laying in the hall.
We’re currently sailing back to our home port of Miami and have the next two days at sea which means unless you’re up at 4:30 am you’ll probably have a hard time finding a deck chair on the pool deck! Just kidding, while the pool areas are crowded, there are plenty of spots to soak up the sun on Carnival Celebration, you just have to seek them out.
Oh, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that today is 4/20, and being that I’ve been fighting the battle of the pot smokers for the whole cruise so far, I was expecting to be stoned just off the smell around the ship today. Shockingly, I actually made it through an entire day without smelling weed at all.
Imagine that.