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world-traveller-to-be-blog · 8 years ago

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I want to see the world.

Travelling has always been a dream of mine. My first vacation was to Walt Disney World in 2005. I was five years old and to this day I still remember how happy I was there. However, that is not what sparked the burning desire inside of me that longs to see the world and all its glory. What triggered my dream of travelling, or rather, my acknowledgment of it, happened quite recently.

This past December, I was fortunate enough to be a passenger on the Disney Fantasy and travel to four different locations in the Western Caribbean, all of which had a major impact on my dream.

Our first stop was Cozumel, Mexico. My family and I spent the day at a wonderful little water park called Playa Mia Beach. The buildings were all sorts of colours. There were palm trees everywhere you looked and the smell of ocean salt in the air made me smile the instant I arrived. On the beach, we had a waiter named Sam, who would bring us unlimited drinks all day at our request. He was one of the nicest people I had met that week. That day, I got to go canoeing and pedal-boating on the ocean, collect sea shells, swim in the ocean, play at the waterpark and lay beneath the sun without a care in the world. However, that was all great but my favourite part was the authentic Mexican food that I got to indulge in. There was a lunch buffet in a cute little pavilion over-looking the ocean and it was beautiful. The food in Mexico was incredible, and it made me want to try food from other places of the world. This was actually quite an interesting discovery for me because I have been a picky eater since birth. I figured, if I like the food in Mexico this much, there has to be other places that have food I will love as well. I began to think, maybe I’m just a picky eater because I’m sick of eating the same old things in the same old place. Mexico taught me that from now on, whenever I visit a new city, I will try their food and hopefully be as happily surprised as I was in Cozumel.

Next was Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. This island impacted me because of the incredible experience I took part in that day. I got to take a boat tour to “Stingray City,” which is a sand bar about 45 minutes out in the ocean from the main island where visitors can swim, snorkel and interact with wild stingrays. In all honesty, regardless of how excited I was for this cruise excursion, I was extremely nervous as well. It was a good kind of nervous though. It wasn’t until I took my first step off the boat and into the abnormally warm ocean water that all the worry that overwhelmed me just seconds prior, had vanished. The water was 84 degrees Fahrenheit and it was the most incredible colour of blue I had ever seen. My family and I shuffled our way through the water to the nearest guide who was holding a massive female stingray. She let me hold it for myself and of course give me the photo opportunity of a lifetime. To my surprise, the ray was quite heavy and difficult to handle, but I tried my best to keep it steady. Once the stingray swam back to the guide, my family and I spent some time just swimming around and snorkeling with these beautiful creatures. I was completely amazed by how beautiful they were and how surreal the experience was. I was surrounded. Everywhere I looked there were wild stingrays. We spent a good amount of time with one guide in particular. His name was Matt and he was from Ontario, Canada like my family. He packed up and moved to the Cayman Islands so he could work for Stingray City and after being there myself, I can see why. He was holding a small male stingray and I got to hold that one and take photos with it as well. Matt was extremely informative about the stingrays and it was obvious that he loved his job. I could only imagine how amazing it must feel to wake up every day knowing that you get to interact with wild stingrays, and make a living out of it. The visit to Stingray City made me realize the most important thing while travelling: experience. It made me want to continue experiencing things as amazing as Stingray City. I crave experiences like that, and it would be amazing to gain those experiences while exploring the rest of the world.

On the third stop, we visited Falmouth, Jamaica. This place taught me about the importance of meeting new people. You always hear people saying how awesome Jamaicans are, but until you really meet one of them you will never know just how accurate that statement is. At our stop in Jamaica, we participated in an excursion at Dunn’s River Falls, where we got to climb a natural waterfall. It was hands down one of coolest things I have ever done, and the most fun I had ever had. However, what really made this place a 10/10 was the people. First and foremost, our tour guide, Anne-Marie, was incredible. She was so kind and welcoming and wanted all of us tourists to feel safe and welcome in her country. When we arrived at the falls, we met up with two men whose names escape me at the moment, but they had so much energy and it radiated through the entire group as they led us up the falls. They made the experience even more fun than it already was by cheering us on and getting everyone super hyped up. The person who impacted me the most however, was a man that we ran into shortly after we had conquered the waterfall. On our way back to the busses, a man carving small wooden figurines called over myself, along with my brother, my mom and my dad. He had carved out two turtles and two tiki-head figurines. He looked at my mom, asked for her name, and then carved it into the back of one tiki-head and then did the same with my dad. He told my dad that my mom was the queen and that he should always obey her, which got a laugh out of everyone. He then proceeded to ask for my brother and I’s names, and carved them into the two turtles. After placing each of the figurines into our hands, my dad asked him how much he owed him for his kind gesture. The man simply said “whatever you can or feel is necessary.” This shocked me and also filled me with such joy. The man’s goal was not to sell his products to us, but to put a smile on our faces. He was so kind and generous and was satisfied regardless of how much my dad paid him in the end. The people in Jamaica are so happy and care-free, just as everyone describes them. I was taught two phrases that day that all Jamaicans live by: “No problem mon” and “Irie” (which means “all good”). The people there were incredible, and it made me want to meet people from other parts of the world as well.

Our final stop was at Disney’s Private Island in the Bahamas, called Castaway Cay. Unfortunately for me, the sun was so strong that day that I ended up with heat stroke, but I did get a pretty good feel for the island before I headed back to the ship early to sleep it off. Just as you’d expect from Disney, the customer service was beyond satisfactory and as magical as ever. I spent most of the day snorkeling (which could be why I ended up with heat stroke) and I found a statue of Mickey Mouse sitting at the bottom of the snorkeling lagoon, surrounded by a number of small fish. The water was quite cold though, about 68 degrees Fahrenheit. As I walked down the paved pathway to go grab some lunch, I ran into Mickey, Minnie and Goofy, who were hosting a dance party on the beach, which I thought was adorable. Disney has always and will always hold a special place in my heart. In fact, another one of my dreams besides travelling, is to spend a summer in Orlando, Florida working as a cast member for the mouse himself at Walt Disney World. What I learned from visiting Castaway Cay was that Disney really does know how to put on a vacation, and if I ever find myself in France, China, Hawaii or California, I would love to visit one of their other locations.

This week long Caribbean cruise may have been one of the best weeks of my life. Everything I did, everything I saw and everyone I met contributed to the realization that I want to travel the world. Although I am only sixteen years old, I have so many ideas of places I would like to go and things I would like to see. If I had never gone on the Disney Cruise back in December, I’m not sure I would have yet figured out my unconscious desire to see new places. I hope that one day in the future I will be walking down the streets of Paris, sailing on a catamaran through the waters of Spain, boarding a plane to Australia, or maybe on a mission trip building homes in Guatemala, and I will look back on myself as a sixteen year old girl, and know that she was proud of me for following my dreams.

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