Grendel
Where ever you go, there you are.
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2003
- Messages
- 680
Well were getting closer to the end. The next Star Wars sequel will probably be out before I get my last trip report in. 
Don't forget to read Day 4 Grand Cayman first.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=568471
4/28 Day 5 Cozumel.
Another beautiful day in paradise! We woke up and wandered out to our verandah to see our ship being escorted by a PT boat. Visions of McHales Navy instantly popped in and out of my head. I borrowed one of the girls binocolaurs to get a better look and saw some of mexicos finest lounging casually threw out their boat. Though I'm not sure anyone can be classified as "lounging casually" while holding a semi-automatic weapon. Our saftey ensured we consumed our morning repast while watching the "Magic" approach Cozumel. I'm not sure what I expected..well that's not entirely true...from the posts I've read I kind of expected a under developed tropical port something of the size of the Georgetown, Grand Cayman port. Wow! it was alot bigger and more developed than I thought. And I was amazed at the number of Cruise ships scattered around the port( I think I counted 5 or 6 ships already in port ). I'll confess to something else. Because so many people commented on how much more beautiful Grand Cayman was than Cozumel and how the snorkeling was better etc. I had low expectations. This turned out to be great as I was so pleasantly surprised at how beautiful it really was there. The first thing I noticed was the water. It looked like pool water!! As far as the eye could see was the wonderful blue/clear water. Defintely the antithesis of the Boston Harbor where I'm used to seeing boats and piers. I couldn't wait to get off the ship and take a closer look. We had purchased only one excursion..The Ocean Explorer Excursion. Given our disappointment with the previous days excursion I went and checked at the excurison desk to see how much transportation was involved and when we could expect to be back. 10 minute taxi drive and about an hour long excurision..we'd be back in less than 2 hours....sounded great! Sunblocked and dressed it was down to the promenade lounge to pickup our "Donald Duck" stickers this time and follow the "Donald Duck" Paddle. No waiting for tendering this time, so its right off the boat and were handed off to the local tour guide "Christopher" who's going to take us the rest of the way. So now its follow the "Fish" paddle down the pier to our taxi. Once again we were all struck by how beautiful the water was. Following the "Fish" paddle past the guard station where more of mexico's finiest are fully armed and at the ready..its over to the esculator that takes us up and over the street to the taxi stand. Apparently the local taxi company must have a deal with these excursions because they just put us in a cab and tell the driver where to go and ZOOOMMMM! DW didnt realize we were in a country that uses the metric system...so she was a bit concerned that the speedometer read 80!..but that was 80km/ph...of course it was still pretty fast for side roads. So here we are in this small taxi zooming down the street...mexican music blaring in the radio and a driver who is just staring ahead not saying a word. It was great...we were excited...we loved the view as we were driving by it defintely felt like an adventure. Somehow our tour guide managed to get there before us even though he left after us? It's follow the "Fish" paddle again and were at another pier with our boat thats going to take us on our exploration. ( I'll make one side comment...while we were driving I noticed all of these excursion groups diving and snorkeling only 50 ft or so off the main strip. I thought to myself what a jip..you pay for an excursion and your sitting a stones throw from the road...I was sadly mistaken ). Down into the bowels of the boat we go. It's a semi-sub..it doesnt go under water but our seats are probably 6ft or so under the surface. We get another introduction from Christopher and some explanation of what the dark red bio-hazard bags are for.
and its off we go. Wow and Wow...it was like snorkeling without getting wet. I'm sure there are better excursions you can do to see even better sea life...but this was defintely worth it. Here's where I found out how mistaken I was about those excursions I saw on the side of the road. As soon as you go from the road to the water its a whole different world. I would never have imagined that there was this beautiful coral reef with all of these exotic fish. We saw so many interesting coral formations...I couldnt get over the size of them. My favorite fish had to be the parrot fish. A bit scary looking up close but what wonderful colors. Before you knew it we were back on the pier, back into another taxi( pretty funny..i dont think the taxi guys really wanted to take tour people...the cab we were supposed to take grabbed another "paying" customer and stuck them in our cab.. ) and it was back to the port and its still early afternoon...woo hoo..its time to shop!!! Since we had done it in the other ports we had to find "Del Sol" in cozumel. Unfortunately its way down at another pier...hey more atmosphere to soak up. Shopping was certainly interesting. DW does not like confrontation and likes to shop in peace...if your like this Cozumel is not for you. After about 1/2 hour I could totally tune out all of the vendors trying to get me to come into thier stores. We stumbled across a store owned by an American so we didnt have to bargain for postcards, magnets and spoons. DD13 didnt get a thimble here though. We did venture into the "flea market" area..and things got very agressive. This was my one and only bargaining experience. DD13 found a thimble..and I have to admit as far as thimbles go it was very nice. Cheap thimbles go for about $5 bucks..while some of the nice ones you can get at disney can be around $9 bucks. Well this one was metal with shell encrusted into the surface that spelled out "Cozumel". So I asked how much...."Well sir ordinarily this sells for $15 but for you $12 dollars." In my best hurt/shocked voice "$12 dollars!!! its a thimble!"..."Yes sir but its hand made." he says..."It's nice" I say "But still I can get thimbles for $5 dollars down the street". "Not like this one sir..look at the fine craftsmanship...." "Wellll " I say I was really only looking to spend $6 dollars." "Sir I couldn't sell it for less than $8"..."I understand" I say...."Well have a nice day.."..." OK sir $7 dollars"..."Deal"...I said...after all the man has to eat 
Im sure I didnt get any great deal..but it was fun and worth the extra couple of bucks for the entertainment value....but I wouldn't like to buy everything like that. DD7 wanted to buy something special so we found another store selling everything under the sun. She found a cute Mexican doll. ( Don't remember what I paid for this..but they wouldnt bargain..everything here was marked and nothing seemed over priced...who knows though ). DW saw a man weaving reeds together into hats and baskets. She loves baskets and thought it would make a great souvienier...he was only charging $5 dollars and I did't have the heart to try and bargain with him...DW wish she had bought more. I liked the fact that there were plenty of places to buy drinks ( beer for me!! ) along the way. We had never seen diet Cokes and diet Pepsi's with cans that read "Coke-lite" and "Pepsi-lite". Finally after what seemed like an eternity we found the "Del-Sol" store and retrieved our "Cozumel" flavor of our favorite "fun in the sun" shirts. Now where to eat. I was a bit nervous about what would agree with our delicate american digestive systems 
so we decided to head back to the tourist traps at the port and hit "Senor Frogs". It was ok..not the best place for kids...I think it was the woman walking around selling shots to each table that gave me my first hint( I by no means mind this...just dont want my girls watching me take shots of tequila while some strange woman thats not thier mother spanks my bottom..) we made the best of it. The food was only so so...stupid me thought that if i ordered enchiladas that I would get something remotely mexican...it got these bizzare taco bell style flour tortilla thing...*sigh* theres always next time. We decided that we should try and find the post office and see if we could mail some post cards.( just missed it...just for future reference..it closes by 4pm ). I did manage to find a local convience store that sold stamps. The woman could not help us out as to how much we needed to mail a postcard to the US( so we ended up paying double what we needed ...) and then it was back to the post office to find a mail box. There was a hole in the main wall of the post office...I sure hope it was the mail slot because thats where we put em. It's tropical night on the ship, so back we go to get ready. The atrium features a Marachi band( ok ..no idea if this is spelled right...so lets sound it out MARY- AHH- CHI ..i think ). We had Parot Cay for tropical night which was a nice treat. I don't think theres anything different other than this restaraunt feels like the place to be for this. We had our first experience with sickness. The family next to us had a young son who was complaining about a stomach ache( as all kids do ), but he meant it...yep he lost all his cookies. As worried as I was about getting sick I was curious to see how the staff would respond. It took about 10 minutes until one of the sani-staff arrived with their sprays and red bio hazard bags. They sprayed and cleaned a bit...It didnt appear to be that thorough..but what do i know..they deal with this stuff every day. It turned out that the doctor said it was something he ate while in port. Who knows...hes fine the next day we saw him. After dinner no one really wanted to see Home on the Range( we saw it before we left ) so walked around doing the picture thing and a little stop into Studio Sea for some after hours family time. DD7 was wiped so back to the room and into bed...but oh no!! we forgot its the Mexicalifragilistic... sail away party....well she can sleep later..up to deck 9 and watch Mickey and Minney dance us out of port and then back down to tuck her in. Butttt....I didn't realize they were serving a buffett as well...so back up with DD13 to get little late nite snack...( 2 trips later ) i've got a mini-buffett setup on mine and DW's bed. It's amazing how many pleasures in life are associated with food. Stuffed and Sleepy..Cozumel fading in the distance its sweet dreams again.
next up Day 6 2nd Day at Sea.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=573569
Don't forget to read Day 4 Grand Cayman first.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=568471
4/28 Day 5 Cozumel.
Another beautiful day in paradise! We woke up and wandered out to our verandah to see our ship being escorted by a PT boat. Visions of McHales Navy instantly popped in and out of my head. I borrowed one of the girls binocolaurs to get a better look and saw some of mexicos finest lounging casually threw out their boat. Though I'm not sure anyone can be classified as "lounging casually" while holding a semi-automatic weapon. Our saftey ensured we consumed our morning repast while watching the "Magic" approach Cozumel. I'm not sure what I expected..well that's not entirely true...from the posts I've read I kind of expected a under developed tropical port something of the size of the Georgetown, Grand Cayman port. Wow! it was alot bigger and more developed than I thought. And I was amazed at the number of Cruise ships scattered around the port( I think I counted 5 or 6 ships already in port ). I'll confess to something else. Because so many people commented on how much more beautiful Grand Cayman was than Cozumel and how the snorkeling was better etc. I had low expectations. This turned out to be great as I was so pleasantly surprised at how beautiful it really was there. The first thing I noticed was the water. It looked like pool water!! As far as the eye could see was the wonderful blue/clear water. Defintely the antithesis of the Boston Harbor where I'm used to seeing boats and piers. I couldn't wait to get off the ship and take a closer look. We had purchased only one excursion..The Ocean Explorer Excursion. Given our disappointment with the previous days excursion I went and checked at the excurison desk to see how much transportation was involved and when we could expect to be back. 10 minute taxi drive and about an hour long excurision..we'd be back in less than 2 hours....sounded great! Sunblocked and dressed it was down to the promenade lounge to pickup our "Donald Duck" stickers this time and follow the "Donald Duck" Paddle. No waiting for tendering this time, so its right off the boat and were handed off to the local tour guide "Christopher" who's going to take us the rest of the way. So now its follow the "Fish" paddle down the pier to our taxi. Once again we were all struck by how beautiful the water was. Following the "Fish" paddle past the guard station where more of mexico's finiest are fully armed and at the ready..its over to the esculator that takes us up and over the street to the taxi stand. Apparently the local taxi company must have a deal with these excursions because they just put us in a cab and tell the driver where to go and ZOOOMMMM! DW didnt realize we were in a country that uses the metric system...so she was a bit concerned that the speedometer read 80!..but that was 80km/ph...of course it was still pretty fast for side roads. So here we are in this small taxi zooming down the street...mexican music blaring in the radio and a driver who is just staring ahead not saying a word. It was great...we were excited...we loved the view as we were driving by it defintely felt like an adventure. Somehow our tour guide managed to get there before us even though he left after us? It's follow the "Fish" paddle again and were at another pier with our boat thats going to take us on our exploration. ( I'll make one side comment...while we were driving I noticed all of these excursion groups diving and snorkeling only 50 ft or so off the main strip. I thought to myself what a jip..you pay for an excursion and your sitting a stones throw from the road...I was sadly mistaken ). Down into the bowels of the boat we go. It's a semi-sub..it doesnt go under water but our seats are probably 6ft or so under the surface. We get another introduction from Christopher and some explanation of what the dark red bio-hazard bags are for.
and its off we go. Wow and Wow...it was like snorkeling without getting wet. I'm sure there are better excursions you can do to see even better sea life...but this was defintely worth it. Here's where I found out how mistaken I was about those excursions I saw on the side of the road. As soon as you go from the road to the water its a whole different world. I would never have imagined that there was this beautiful coral reef with all of these exotic fish. We saw so many interesting coral formations...I couldnt get over the size of them. My favorite fish had to be the parrot fish. A bit scary looking up close but what wonderful colors. Before you knew it we were back on the pier, back into another taxi( pretty funny..i dont think the taxi guys really wanted to take tour people...the cab we were supposed to take grabbed another "paying" customer and stuck them in our cab.. ) and it was back to the port and its still early afternoon...woo hoo..its time to shop!!! Since we had done it in the other ports we had to find "Del Sol" in cozumel. Unfortunately its way down at another pier...hey more atmosphere to soak up. Shopping was certainly interesting. DW does not like confrontation and likes to shop in peace...if your like this Cozumel is not for you. After about 1/2 hour I could totally tune out all of the vendors trying to get me to come into thier stores. We stumbled across a store owned by an American so we didnt have to bargain for postcards, magnets and spoons. DD13 didnt get a thimble here though. We did venture into the "flea market" area..and things got very agressive. This was my one and only bargaining experience. DD13 found a thimble..and I have to admit as far as thimbles go it was very nice. Cheap thimbles go for about $5 bucks..while some of the nice ones you can get at disney can be around $9 bucks. Well this one was metal with shell encrusted into the surface that spelled out "Cozumel". So I asked how much...."Well sir ordinarily this sells for $15 but for you $12 dollars." In my best hurt/shocked voice "$12 dollars!!! its a thimble!"..."Yes sir but its hand made." he says..."It's nice" I say "But still I can get thimbles for $5 dollars down the street". "Not like this one sir..look at the fine craftsmanship...." "Wellll " I say I was really only looking to spend $6 dollars." "Sir I couldn't sell it for less than $8"..."I understand" I say...."Well have a nice day.."..." OK sir $7 dollars"..."Deal"...I said...after all the man has to eat Im sure I didnt get any great deal..but it was fun and worth the extra couple of bucks for the entertainment value....but I wouldn't like to buy everything like that. DD7 wanted to buy something special so we found another store selling everything under the sun. She found a cute Mexican doll. ( Don't remember what I paid for this..but they wouldnt bargain..everything here was marked and nothing seemed over priced...who knows though ). DW saw a man weaving reeds together into hats and baskets. She loves baskets and thought it would make a great souvienier...he was only charging $5 dollars and I did't have the heart to try and bargain with him...DW wish she had bought more. I liked the fact that there were plenty of places to buy drinks ( beer for me!! ) along the way. We had never seen diet Cokes and diet Pepsi's with cans that read "Coke-lite" and "Pepsi-lite". Finally after what seemed like an eternity we found the "Del-Sol" store and retrieved our "Cozumel" flavor of our favorite "fun in the sun" shirts. Now where to eat. I was a bit nervous about what would agree with our delicate american digestive systems so we decided to head back to the tourist traps at the port and hit "Senor Frogs". It was ok..not the best place for kids...I think it was the woman walking around selling shots to each table that gave me my first hint( I by no means mind this...just dont want my girls watching me take shots of tequila while some strange woman thats not thier mother spanks my bottom..) we made the best of it. The food was only so so...stupid me thought that if i ordered enchiladas that I would get something remotely mexican...it got these bizzare taco bell style flour tortilla thing...*sigh* theres always next time. We decided that we should try and find the post office and see if we could mail some post cards.( just missed it...just for future reference..it closes by 4pm ). I did manage to find a local convience store that sold stamps. The woman could not help us out as to how much we needed to mail a postcard to the US( so we ended up paying double what we needed ...) and then it was back to the post office to find a mail box. There was a hole in the main wall of the post office...I sure hope it was the mail slot because thats where we put em. It's tropical night on the ship, so back we go to get ready. The atrium features a Marachi band( ok ..no idea if this is spelled right...so lets sound it out MARY- AHH- CHI ..i think ). We had Parot Cay for tropical night which was a nice treat. I don't think theres anything different other than this restaraunt feels like the place to be for this. We had our first experience with sickness. The family next to us had a young son who was complaining about a stomach ache( as all kids do ), but he meant it...yep he lost all his cookies. As worried as I was about getting sick I was curious to see how the staff would respond. It took about 10 minutes until one of the sani-staff arrived with their sprays and red bio hazard bags. They sprayed and cleaned a bit...It didnt appear to be that thorough..but what do i know..they deal with this stuff every day. It turned out that the doctor said it was something he ate while in port. Who knows...hes fine the next day we saw him. After dinner no one really wanted to see Home on the Range( we saw it before we left ) so walked around doing the picture thing and a little stop into Studio Sea for some after hours family time. DD7 was wiped so back to the room and into bed...but oh no!! we forgot its the Mexicalifragilistic... sail away party....well she can sleep later..up to deck 9 and watch Mickey and Minney dance us out of port and then back down to tuck her in. Butttt....I didn't realize they were serving a buffett as well...so back up with DD13 to get little late nite snack...( 2 trips later ) i've got a mini-buffett setup on mine and DW's bed. It's amazing how many pleasures in life are associated with food. Stuffed and Sleepy..Cozumel fading in the distance its sweet dreams again.next up Day 6 2nd Day at Sea.
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=573569
I have enjoyed reading your trip reports !
