The Carnival Conquest left from the Port of Galveston on February 26 and returned on March 5, 2006. The itinerary is listed below:


Carnival Cruise Lines Seven Day Western Caribbean Cruise
February 26 - March 5, 2006

Day Port of Call Arrive Depart
Route
Sunday Galveston, Texas   4:00 PM Route of the Western Caribbean Cruise
Monday At Sea    
Tuesday At Sea    
Wednesday Montego Bay, Jamaica 8:00 AM 5:30 PM
Thursday Grand Cayman,
Cayman Islands
7:00 AM 4:00 PM
Friday Cozumel, Mexico 9:00 AM 8:00 PM
Saturday At Sea    
Sunday Galveston, Texas 8:00 AM  

Our first stop was Montego Bay, Jamaica, where we hired a taxi to take us to the Rocklands Bird Sanctuary in Anchovy. On the porch at Rocklands, visitors can use small bottles of sugar water to attract hummingbirds. The birds will perch on your finger and feed. At $25.00 per hour a guide will show you around the property. Without our guide, Fritz, we would have missed seeing the Common Potoo and the Greater Antillean Bullfinch, which Fritz called a Jamaican Bullfinch. Please be aware that even though you agree on a set time/price with your cab driver and/or cab driver's dispatcher, it may not be honored!!

At our second stop, Grand Cayman Island, we took a private tour that included the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park. Since were the only ones on the tour, we spent extra time walking the gardens. Our tour guide, Paula, was informative and rapidly responded to our calls to stop so we could get looks at species such as the Smooth-billed Ani. There were birds in the park but not at levels that were seen prior to Hurricane Ivan which struck in September, 2004.

Our final port of call was Cozumel. We had signed up for the Carnival sponsored tour to the Myan Ruins at Tulum, which bypassed the island of Cozumel and went directly to the town of Playa del Carmen on the Yucatan Peninsula. From here we took a bus to Tulum. We got great looks at Orange Orioles in the palm trees surrounding the ruins.

Total Number of Species Seen: 46 (Jamaican Endemics; 11)