We had already packed up beach bags the night before and obviously didn't waste time showering just to go get sand back in all those unmentionable places. We donned our bathing suits (me for the first time this whole cruise) threw on cover ups and made our way with our bags to the elevator for a quick buffet breakfast. One nice swim accessory I found for my last two beach day trips is a swim shirt. It's made of the same material as a swimsuit so it gives you the coverage without billowing up like wearing a regular t-shirt. I'd much rather have a farmer's tan line than a painful sunburn. When the elevator arrived, a lone man was inside and it looked as hazy inside as the Taj Mahal's lower level at showtime. It took me a second to realize that the elevator wasn't really on fire. Just as I figure out that it was actually this guy taking advantage of an empty elevator to smoke, the mist dissipates and his sly self quickly tucks his vape pen back into his pocket. Yeah, sir, about as subtle as a child swearing they didn't eat that cookie while their face is smeared in chocolate. I'm guessing he was the same guy I saw later in a full Piazza Café sneaking some puffs while the fun squad host had stepped away.
At the buffet I inadvertently chose all syrup based items for breakfast. And happily used the mystery pitcher of syrup. I would get teased later for a certain something's reaction to my breakfast.
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| Yes, even syrup on the sausage too. Syrup runs all over the plate so one day you end up with a bite of syrup covered sausage and you realize it tastes really good. |
Tender ride was easy and I don't think they even filled it all the way before leaving. We reported to the information hut and turned in our cabana tickets. They had us add our names, ages, and cabin numbers to a sign in sheet. When we found the tram, they were already loading up to cabana #8 and we had #12. The tram driver would stop in between a few cabanas and let off a few groups so it didn't take long until it was our turn to get off. The cabanas only go up to #15. By the time I got off the tram I had accrued at least a couple mosquito bites on my arms. One I even caught in the act as I had my arm draped across the open back of the seat. I also banged my knee into the railing as I climbed down the stairs but it was on my other leg so now I had matching bruises. By the end of our time on HMC, I estimated about 6-8 bug bites on my arms and legs. Joni blamed it on my syrup infused breakfast. I blamed it on thinking that HMC wasn't some remote jungle like we visited on our Panama Canal cruise and left the bug spray in the cabin.
One tip I've heard along the way is that if you only have a couple people using your cabana, still list the max allowed on the form. This was in order to get extra drinks etc. I did notice that while they still ask you how many people and give you plenty of room to list flipper sizes etc, they now had a finite number of soda cans you were allowed to request. I believe it was a limit of either 6 or 8 because I opted to split evenly between Diet Coke and Sprite when Joni said she didn't want anything but the water bottles also included. I still wrote that we had 4 people on the form so it was a little odd to find only 3 mats and snorkel packs. No bother though as we only needed 2 of them.
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| The third floating mat is in the corner behind these two |
Since we had arrived before the food did, we ignored our growling bellies and instead prepared to hit the water. I've learned the hard way when it comes to HMC's baking sun, especially when you're in your own little world lying on your stomach on the floating mat so first order of business was to swim in sunblock before swimming in the ocean. The skies were still a little cloudy and it made the water a bit cool when you first got in. We'd also find ourselves randomly swimming or floating into pockets of colder water. Now that I've experienced RCL's Labadee cabana life, I still say that HMC reigns supreme in my cruise line private island repertoire. The only non powdery sand we encountered was near the end when either kids digging or the waves turned up a bunch of pebbles at the water's edge that you had to walk over for a couple steps. I didn't see much fish this time as I have in the past but honestly I could lie on those floats in that clear water all day.
Your cabana comes with an outdoor shower to rinse off, a rotating misting fan, two wicker loungers with padding, a ceiling fan, air conditioner, and table with four dining chairs in addition to the food, drinks, towels, mats, and snorkel equipment.
After a while I got out to check the time to see how long we had left until our stingray excursion and discovered we'd already been in the water for over an hour. I was taking a break on the lounger when the crew arrived to set up our food. I called Joni back in from the water and we made brunch out of cut up veggies with blue cheese/ranch dip, cut up fruit slices, tortilla chips and sour cream, salsa, and guacamole. They also give you a bowl of whole oranges (why someone would think of a bowl of oranges I don't know), 2 water bottles the size you'd find in your cabin for a fee, and your requested soda can breakdown. The drinks get delivered in ice in a cooler but you also get plates, cups, and a metal container of ice if you wish to pour your drink into a cup of ice.
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| The streak of never getting my last name right also continues. I do say though this time was the coolest mistake. Seems I'm now a Limited Edition. |
They also bring you 1 towel per person listed but since I thought that used to be listed on our paperwork and now wasn't, we each brought one blue towel from our cabin just in case. It actually worked out well because we had a towel for drying off, a towel for laying out on the lounger, and a towel to take with us to the stingray excursion. We did make sure that we each grabbed one of the cleanest blue towels to bring back when we packed up at the end of the day. We'd only drank from one of the water bottles during the day so I used my returning towel to wrap up the other inside my backpack and brought it back on the ship with no issue. By the 2nd to last day, we'd depleted my free bottle for being gold and dug into this new bottle when we wanted cold water in the cabin.
I was transported back to Key West when our cabana was soon visited by chickens looking for a handout. The woman supervising the food delivery crew stomped her feet and yelled at them when they first came in but once she left, they knew we were suckers and would give them some nibbles. I also learned that these chickens are picky eaters. I threw over a small piece of cauliflower and a chicken ran over, sniffed it, and gave me a dirty look. Guess even young chickens don't want to eat vegetables. We got a much more appreciative result when we threw pieces of tortilla chip though. I had one chicken who'd decided to bail and see if the villa next to us had something better until I tossed a tortilla chip piece his way and he ran back so fast I was sure he'd given himself whiplash.
On a side note - the villa next to us was full of a family who seemed to have brought a bunch of friends of their college age child to celebrate graduation. Both the parents and the young adults were wandering the villa near the end of the day triple checking the fridge(s) to be sure they'd gotten all the beer. Then one of them decided it would be a fun challenge to have everyone jump off the top railing onto the sand in front of the villa. Thankfully as far as I saw, no one hurt themselves.
After some more time in the water, it was close to stingray time so we hopped out to pack our things for the excursion and to slip back into our flip flops and coverups. There is a cupboard with shelving for storing your stuff in the cabana but no way to lock it so I wasn't comfortable leaving my phone, money, and ID while we were out of the immediate area. I left a couple personal effects to show that we didn't leave for the day and took the time to put the dips inside the mini fridge. I'd rather not take the chance on coming back to something perishable having been out in the sun or possibly investigated by a curious chicken in our absence. It felt like a super long walk to get back to the pier so when we passed the barbecue lunch just before the info booth main area, Joni wanted to stop and down a quick lunch. Knowing that we only had a couple minutes to spare, I grabbed a hot dog thinking it would be portable to eat as we walked but Joni wanted a burger and some sides. She regretted that when trying to wolf down her burger so fast that it was getting stuck. She had to equally as quickly wolf down some lemonade to force it down.
We made it to the information booth with plenty of time to spare and turned in the slip of paper I'd won from the raffle. Another round of signing in our names, ages, and cabin numbers before being told to wait by the fountain. A short while later, they made the announcement for a couple excursions to gather by the fountain and we had a sizable group for our 12:30PM slot. Each stingray excursion session lasted an hour so there was multiple times you could sign up to attend. We were all led onto another tram that took us back past our cabana to the stingray area. They had two rooms with cubbies for leaving your stuff that they locked the door to while we were gone. There was also several bathroom stalls here too in case anyone needed to take care of business or at least change into their swimsuits. They insisted we all wear their provided water shoes and blow up life vests but also provided optional snorkel gear. They dunked the water shoes and the snorkel gear in a trash can full of some sanitizing solution between each use. Joni ended up being handed two right shoes and we all had a good laugh when a lady near the end of the line realized she'd been handed two left shoes.
Once we were all suited up and our stuff stowed away, we were told to head down the path to the pen where the stingrays are kept inside by netting. There is also plenty of other sea life swimming around with them or at least hanging out on the sandy bottom. There was a little bit of a hold up at the steps leading into the pen because the Carnival photographer was having everyone pose for pictures on the stairs. Except that he backed off when we finally reached the water's edge. Between our large group, a handful of people trying to float on top of the water to snorkel, and the choppy water, it became quite the ab workout to try and stand in one place without getting knocked over. They stress the importance of watching out for the stingrays as they swim around you and not to step on them or any other random sea life on the bottom. They did caution not to try floating above them either but a lot of snorkelers seemed to disregard that. It would be one thing if you were out in open water but not when you're less than a foot away from someone else who is desperately trying to keep their balance.
I'd like to thank the lovely woman and her 16 year old daughter who took in my scared self and let me act like a barnacle as we moved around the pen. When the photographer started having people line up to take pictures holding and petting a stingray I was determined to get photographic evidence of facing my fears. Then we all were instructed to get into a closed circle where the guide passed around a starfish, a sea cucumber, and a live conch shell for everyone to hold. Lots of laughs and nervous giggles holding the conch shell and watching that little foot come dangling out. Poor Joni, it's a wonder she didn't end up with hand shaped bruises on each arm because both me and the lovely woman from before were holding on to her trying to keep our balance in the circle. Joni joked that it was helping her stay upright as well. Wasn't until a short while later that Joni asked if I was going to hold her arm forever that I realized I even still was holding on. One young boy was all excited for the snorkeling and petting the stingrays but when it was announced that we'd formed a circle to feed them, he bailed. The young couple next to me in the circle was endearing because you could tell he'd dragged her to do this just like Joni had done with me. Each time a stingray would come by, she'd freak. I think she was wishing she was a turtle and could crawl back into her shell the way she tucked into herself and shrieked. Whenever an animal was passed around to hold, she'd recoil when I tried to pass it on to her and I'd have to instead hand it to her boyfriend. I was almost tempted to buy one of the pictures of Joni and I during feeding simply because she was behind us in mid-freak out.
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| No that's not a giant mushroom I'm holding |
When it came time to feed the stingrays, the guide went around and handed us each half a fish with instructions on how to hold it so the stingray doesn't suck on our fingers in the process. I'd been given such a little half that it was hard to hold it so that it stuck outside of my clenched fist. The guide kept grabbing the same 1 or 2 stingrays for the feeding as he moved around the circle and it seemed like the poor stingrays were trying to say "Dude, I'm full!" They'd swim off and he'd reach behind him and grab them back for the next person. When he came to me, he held the stingray in one hand and guided my hand with the fish down under the water to the stingray's mouth warning me not to pull back my hand. I didn't until he let go of my arm and moved on to the next person.
A few people had already opted at this point to get out of the water in favor of retrieving their cameras and taking pics from the pavilion just before the steps. I think we would have also been fine leaving our personal belongings along the bench seat lining the pavilion as well since it was up and away from the water but still in sight. At one point, our guide decided that too many people were almost stepping on a starfish on the bottom and he chucked it across the pen. Joni gasped and only then did he explain that he did it to keep everyone from stepping on it. A little bit more time to stand around or snorkel and then our guide announced that the excursion was over. I was glad I faced my fear but was ready to be out of this choppy water. As we walked back up the path Joni asked if I enjoyed it. I replied that it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience and now I can say I did it and don't ever have to do it again. Everyone around us got a good laugh out of my reply.
Even though we probably could have walked back to our cabana, we opted to ride the tram with everyone. Only the tram took us all the way back to the pier so we had a longer walk back to our cabana. We noticed that by now the barbecue lunch was being cleaned up so we were glad we had snacks to come back to in the cabana. Joni thought to stop one of the ladies dropping off cruisers in her go cart and ask about a ride back to our cabana. The woman seemed surprised at such a request but obliged. With the anxiety about the stingray excursion behind us, I was so hyped up I was ravenous and nearly polished off the rest of the dips after Joni had her fill and moved on to one of the free loungers in the sand to get some sun. I then returned to the water wanting to get every minute I could since I don't get to swim very often. Joni soon joined me and we bobbed in the water moving mostly to avoid random cold spots. Just before 3PM I opted for some lounger time in the shade and Joni returned to her sunning. By 3:15PM, as a lot of cabana goers had started packing up and the clean up crew was circling like vultures, we decided we'd had our fill as well. As soon as we started gathering our stuff, the clean up crew hopped into our cabana only to then confirm we were leaving.
We made our way back to the pier and of course the line for the tender was extensive. We hung back a bit to look at the shops before bothering to get in line. The line moved quick though and I found it odd that we were made to go through metal detectors and put our bags through x-ray machines before moving on to the tender dock. We just spent the day on a private island enjoying the beach and the ocean. What sort of weaponry were we going to pick up from here to sneak back onboard? A ninja starfish? Despite the long line, we all made it onto the same tender which this time was one of the island's glass bottom boats. Easy ride back to the ship and we heeded the tip of heading down a ways from where you first board the ship and take those elevators to avoid the wait with the crowd. Back in the cabin we took turns showering and changing into regular clothes once again.
A new friend greeted our return:
But I think someone was a little jealous or a little seasick:
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