Who would think a cruise ship excursion could be a full contact sport? Our port of call today was Roatán, Honduras, largest of the Bay Islands at the southern end of the 1000-kilometer-long Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System. The Liberty was late in clearing customs as it waited for a sister Carnival liner to dock in Mahogany Bay. Stacey and I waited patiently in line at the embarkation deck for clearance to exit. That's evidently a mistake on a cruise ship, because when the path to the gangplank opened, a crushing mass of opportunistic humanity surged in front from the sides of the line. I can't call them vultures, because those scavengers politely wait their turn at the kill. My family would never survive in the event of martial law.
After disembarking, visitors who booked shore excursions were herded into another of those generic tropical malls. I noticed the stores and even at least one restaurant were exactly the same as those in Belize City. The duty free shop has been the same in all three ports, with the unimaginative moniker "Dufry." I half expected to see the same staff. We navigated through this promenade of uniformity to the excursion staging area.
