Royal Caribbean Vacation Research Paper

Vacation is something many people love and look forward to. The ability to put our daily tasks on hold for a short time to have a break is something that all people need from time to time. Periodically we all seem to have those times where we get a week or two off to have the time of our lives. I had an experience like this when my family and I decided to go on a Royal Caribbean Cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. Strangely though, this experience impacted me in two completely opposite, and nearly paradoxical, ways. Truthfully, what I took away from my Royal Caribbean Cruise would be considered by many to be the opposite of what one would expect. It was going to be the trip of a lifetime. Over the course of my entire life up to this point I had

Yet, the locals still roamed the coast seeking to make a few bucks, however they were not as relentless and consented to leave when we politely said no. At last, we were at the beach, and we kicked back to relax, swim, and hang out. The beach was truly magnificent in every sense of the word. In fact, it was even more stunning than the beach in Galveston. The white, sandy beaches stretched for miles in both directions. The sound of the waves splashing against the shore became mesmerizing. The feel of the cool water on my skin in the heat of the tropical climate sent me into ecstasy. The view was a live scene of something I had previously only seen in calendar pictures. It was amazing. It was paradise. However, it was at this time that I realized swimming in the ocean and lying on sand in one hundred degree weather is only fun for me for about forty-five minutes. In other words, was getting bored. I had not brought a book and I left my cellphone on the ship. I could tell my dad was feeling the same way. My dad and I are the type of people that need our minds stimulated in some way, usually in the form of work or a hobby. Do not get me wrong, we enjoy relaxing immensely, but stimulating our minds with anything from a hobby to reading a book is much more relaxing to us than just frying on the

We thought it might be interesting to see what a Mexican town was really like. As we strolled in, our jaws dropped. We suddenly realized the gorgeous beaches and the grandeur of the tourist trap was a façade in the fullest sense of the word. As we walked upon the crude and uneven sidewalks we noticed the buildings were largely unmaintained and left to crumble. Women sold produce under pitiful excuses of shelters made with rusty barn tin. Locals seemed confused by our presence and likely wondered why we weren’t on the beach like the rest of the tourists. I gasped as I noticed the utility lines and the electrical work. Since my father and I are both electricians, we took special care in examining this aspect of the town. Electrical contacts, which would typically be concealed in a locked panel in a utility room, were openly accessible on the sides of buildings, covered only with sliding glass windows or crudely made wood panels. As we passed a large, high voltage transformer, we noticed a few lizards rush out of one of the holes that had rusted through the protective casing. A gapping hole in a transformer leading to exposed, high voltage lines is definitely a hazard. Put simply for non-electricians, if a child were to crawl through the small hole on the side of this transformer and touch the live parts, what would be left of him or her would likely be stuck to