Harvest Caye, Belize

We got to sleep late after the nightmare night and warn our room

steward of the horrors that were awaiting him.  The seas were rough last night and several of us had to take bonine and now I'm wondering if Oscar got a stomach flu, was seasick, or as Julie pointed out, could be teething too.  He has done this before where the night has been 

  bad, but then he is fine the next day and he seems fine now as we go for a light breakfast and head off the ship to our first stop at a private cruise line stop.  The first cool thing we notice is that we just get off the boat, taking our towels for around the pool with us as if 

we're still on the ship.  We walk down a long pier and go first to the butterfly habitat where we try to make sure that none of the kids gets jumpy and swats a butterfly that has the temerity to land on them.  We head out and there are a couple of cages of toucans past this, parrots and  

 then head to the kid's splash pad, which Oscar believes is too scary for him.  So, on to the beach and here we hit our stride.  We find a great set of chairs and then go sit in the surf with waves breaking over us, the kids splashing around and just soak in sun and surf.  The

water is incredibly salty though and the sand is very rough on my feet, so it's no wonder that Oscar wants to be carried around.  We take a break to sit in the chairs and there are drinks for sale and for the first time in my life I have a beer and a pina colada before 11am.  

   I realize now that there are times when this is appropriate and feeling like you only took a nap instead of slept last night because you had to deal with a vomiting toddler warrants drinking early in the morning.  I'm feeling very relaxed as we 

 return to the splash pad and then amble our way back to the boat while strolling through the stores.  We stop at the liquor store of course for free tastings, find some new scotch for John and a cream Belize based alcohol for the passport party we plan to give and find out 

 that they take it to the boat for us.  The prices are good for duty free and there is more selection than on the boat, and we don't have to carry anything.  All in all, John and I have decided that a cruise made of of only private cruise line stops would be just the thing some time....It was relaxing with 

 none of the feelings that you might be missing something as you do when you stop in a real stop with history and culture.  NCL built this island, imports the workers from the mainland and adds dashes of local color and culture, but none of the pushiness of all the other stops 

and locals trying to get you to buy things.  Don't get me wrong, I like these stops and I'm not saying that locals shouldn't be pushy when confronted by 3000+ people disembark on a daily basis, but this stress free stop is nice to have in the middle of the cruise  

and better even than a sea day in some ways because you still have the beach, the shops, the food, but no stress.  We had always avoided cruises with these stops, but that stops now because Harvest Caye was great and we heard someone else on the cruise remark that this island wasn't nearly as good as Carnival's private island.