Kyle’s Blog

Writing about Spring Break couldn’t possibly be any more bitter sweet.  It was one of the greatest weeks of my life, just an absolutely incredible amount of fun.  Me and 20 of my closest friends went on the Carnival Valor, a cruise ship out of Miami that stopped at Costa Maya, Belize, Cozumel, and the Grand Cayman Islands.  I’ll break it down day-by-day, partly for your reading enjoyment, partly because it’s the only way I’m going to remember it.

Saturday:  The roommates leave.  John, Bryan, Lucas and myself leave UConn the most excited we’ve ever been to leave.  We rock out to questionable songs.  Bryan almost kills us three times on the way to the airport, at least I counted three, John counted five.  We meet up with Lucas’ girlfriend Genny and her three roommates Jen, Moe, and Michelle at LaGuardia to board our plane for Miami.  We stay in Miami that night, and to start off Spring Break go to an Irish pub…that has one chef, and no liquor license.  Party animals

Sunday: Were on the valor.  The ship is absolutely ridiculous.  We explore the eleven floors from the second floor and our tiny little room with beds coming out of the ceiling to the eleventh floor with mini golf course, mini volleyball court, and mini basketball court.  We decide to have our first drink of spring break at the casino bar, which became our favorite place to go to meet up.  A 10 dollar long island iced tea, with five dollars to the casino in a match play gift certificate that sounded like an awesome deal but is a huge let down, much like slot machines.  We are introduced to the Lido deck where everyone hangs out and tans, and is also the place that serves the greatest chicken fingers known to man.

Lido Deck

Monday: The first Fun Day at sea. We are on our way to Costa Maya, so everyone on the boat is drinking, relaxing, tanning, swimming, pretty much stuff you can only do on vacation.  I manage to put sun screen on my entire face, except the two corners of my forehead.  I end up with devil horns.  I also break my sunglasses.  If it wasn’t for the open bar at the captain’s dinner and our first formal night, I might have been more upset.  Tonight marked day two of my 5 days in a row of red meat for dinner.  If you aren’t eating flat iron steak or prime rib, you’re not really living.

Holding onto my glasses, that I never wore again

Tuesday: Costa Maya, Mexico.  What was going to be a beach day turned into a rainstorm for an hour and us huddling in a tiny little Mexican bar.  We threw the smallest coconut in the world for three hours in the sun, resulting in insane sunburns for myself and Bryan as well as a sore arm for Lydia.  Honestly, I don’t remember if we went to the One Small Step dance club or not this night, but I felt like we were there every night, so it counts.

Wednesday: Belize.  Probably our most interesting excursion of the week as we went cavetubing.  We got into one of the many unmarked vans for the week, paid a man fifty dollars to drive us fifty minutes away from our boat, and leave all of our valuables with him.  Questionable decision making, but it’s fine.

Thursday: Cozumel, Mexico.  Today we planned on making it a beach day.  This unmarked van took us to the most decrepit hotel any of us had ever seen and dropped us off.  We walked behind it to where the “beach” was, and to our amazement found a private area with only three other people.  We ended up setting up camp and just hanging out with the place to ourselves.  We also managed to eat a plate of nachos in three minutes to go with our three buckets split between three people, greatness.

The girls in Cozumel

Friday: Grand Cayman Islands.  We spent the first half of the day at the beach in insanely hot temperatures, and then got on a catamaran and went snorkeling at one of the most famous barrier reefs on the island.  I’m not much of one for looking at fish, or animals of any kind really above water or below, but I made it through.  Really glad I did it, and really glad the obligatory picture was captured.

Saturday: Fun Day at Sea Everyone was excited for it.  We all were a little upset that it would be our official last day on the cruise, so we did everything on the boat we could think of.  The girls insanely got up at 730 to get their favorite deck chairs, and then sat out there in their blankets.  I said they were my closest friends, not my smartest friends.

Sunday: Depressing, depressing, reality.  We’re off the boat, on the shore, sunburnt and sullen.  Other than eating lunch in my hometown, the day was an incredible downer.  Super pumped to study for exams this week though, super pumped.