January 1 – Harvest Caye Belize

Weather – 26º, RAIN, torrential RAIN,

we are here

and thunderstorms

Steps – 7,150

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I planned to add Belize to my country count, but we thought the weather gods planned differently.

Our tour meeting time was 8AM on New Year’s Day. I’m not sure this was good planning on our part, but the tour description of “looking for wildlife in the surrounding rainforest and then enjoy a hike with a naturalist” was too good to pass up just to sleep in. We actually turned our clocks back an hour last night, so that helped.

first tender boarding - will we go?

We waited for a while in the theatre for our tour to be called, then it was time to board the tender. We are at anchor today, so need to be ferried to shore. When we went into the theatre it was raining a bit, but by the time we made it onto the tender it was TORENTIAL. The mere 5 steps from the ship to the tender got us pretty wet. Once abord the tender we wondered to each other what we were actually going to do – would we bail (some people turned right around and went back to the ship) would we at least take the tender to the island and just stay on to come back, we weren’t sure.

pelicans

Our tour was supposed to be boat ride searching for wildlife PLUS a wander through the rainforest…the RAINforest! The boat ride would probably be fine, but the wander?!? We’ve been there, done that…wandering through the Brazilian RAINforest in a downpour, and that time we were prepared-ish for the weather. We weren’t very keen but decided to take the tender in and then worst case just take it back.

Again, the weather gods had a different plan. The weather was too bad for the tender service to proceed. We were told to get back on the ship, have a coffee etc. and then we’ll be notified.

first thing in the morning

About an hour later the tenders were a go and the tours were on, until they weren’t. Once we got to harvest Cay and found the tour rep we were told our particular tour was cancelled – ugh!

There were a couple others tours avail, but neither seemed ideal. One was to a garden (OUTDOOR) and the other was to ruins, again…outdoor. Nope. We were not going on an excursion today. Oh,

as the storm rolled in

well…these things happen. I was wondering when something would go sideways with ports this cruise…something always does.

We wandered around the port a bit, got some lunch, wandered a bit more and headed back to the ship.

Harvest Caye is a private island owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines – the parent company of Regent. The port is designed exclusively for NCL passengers. We were hoping to get out of the port to see some of the actual island and Belize, but all we saw was the port. Things here are exactly as you would expect from a tourist driven port – shops, restaurants, bars, but more…pools, beaches, a zipline, a butterfly enclosure.

butterflies

hard to capture the rain, but it's there

Most of the activities and excursions were included for Regent guests (like usual), but NCL passengers had to pay – just the difference between the 2 cruise fares. Although food and drinks are also included on Regent, on the island they are not.

Even if we were beach folks, today was not an ideal beach day. By the time we were back onboard, we battled 2 downpours on the island. Our plan was to see animals and rainforest. We actually saw a bunch of pelicans divebombing fish, so that was neat.

On the way back to the ship the tender service was again halted due to lightening – a 10 min ride took over 30 – ugh.

Downpours came and went all day long. At one point, it wasn’t raining when we left our room, but by the time we climbed 3 floors to the pool bar it was torrential again. Not the end of the world, but it sure was something.

The rest of the day was spent on the balcony – napping, chilling, blogging, reading and watching the rain come and go.