Unplanned Double Dip to CC on 8/15-8/22!!

[PoohJen]

Hi Kristen - great pics! I'm so glad you got one of the Hand Wavers - I love the Hand Wavers!

 

[kritter]

What a gorgeous day we had here at CC!!!!!!!!!

Last night we had dinner at PC....I have to say our servers were nothing to "write home" about this time. One of our table mates has a server allergy to nuts. Last night, they served a desert with nuts in it.............UGH!!!!!!!!!!!! Luckily, her husband knew it had nuts in it......

Lovely day at CC!

Ooooh, what a WONDERFUL day.........It was soooooooooo hot and nice..........

Tonight, we are eating in Luminere's!!

Here is a photo of the Anniversary cake all three couples got tonight::

Our friends and us from Orlando are celebrating 15 Years and Heather and Tim 10 years::

Up Next a Relaxing Day @ Sea!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[disfaninca]

Loving you trip report so far Kristin!!!!!
Hope and Hanna look so cute!!!

 

[pperfectmom]

Awesome TR Kristin! I am so bummed we had to cancel our cruise with you for next year. I'm still hoping we can rebook, but it looks like we might have to do a 4 night instead. Thanks again for hooking me up with your TA. I'm hoping I still get a chance to use her services.

 

[gduvall]

Great trip report so far, keep it coming!

 

[kritter]

This morning we finally got to sleep in....Did I mention how much I love the bed, robes, and slippers that we get in our room............It is a little slice of heaven. I love the bed and the rocking of the ship puts me right to sleep every night.


This was the morning that we got to go by Cuba and Havanna. This was the first time in ten years that the crew got to see this view of Cuba...Brent, told us last night that since we were leaving CC and coming to Grand Cayman that this was a different route than what they normaly take to GC. Since the Western usually is leaving from Key West not GC. We were only about 4 miles from the Cuban Coast. We had a great view of Havanna. I missed a bit of it since I had to go to my massage:

We had breakfast delivered to our room from Luminere's this morning. The kids were sooooo exhausted they slept right through room-service bringing the food in. So we took some time to sit out on the verandah and enjoyed some peace and quite...........Did I mention I LOVE THIS ROOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This morning I had my stone massage with Janice and Heather. We were not orginally scheduled for this but with the itinerary change we had concierges change it on the first day and boy this was the best.............90 minute STONE MASSAGE!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh I loved it.......

Then it was onto the pool to catch up with the kids and DH at the pool. They were doing exercises with Goofy~~too cute.....

Seeing Stitch @ the Pool!!::

Tonight, was also Formal Night, and we had to get ready early because our WONDERFUL TA had arranged a private cocktail reception just for all of us who booked with her. The kids all got ready early and went to see the Hannah Montana Movie so we had time to finish getting ready alone. Thanks, to Jessie for taking all of the kids. Jessie and Bri, were two girls from our state that we met here on the Dis before we left and they were AWESOME in helping us out with the kids...Thanks, girls we miss ya!! It was soooo nice and we all got such nice pictures. So nice to see everyone dressed up....Thanks, to Nicole for being able to rearrange it to formal night and to a sea-day!!

Also, tonight the kids met up with our dear friend Erica who is a CM aboard the Magic.................We met her on our last cruise and have stayed in touch with her. We love ya Erica!!

Tonight, was the Golden Mickeys, the kids all got interviewed it was soo cute...................

Another, great day aboard the MAGIC...........

 

[kritter]

After another Wonderful nights sleep we awake to the Beautiful Grand Cayman!!

Last night Brent explained the whole tendering process and how to get a tendering ticket. It was nice that we did not have to go down to the Walt Disney Theatre for a ticket we just called concierges when we were ready to leave our room and they escorted us off of the ship to the tendering boat.....

We went to the Beach called Seven Mile Beach..........Ohhh, it was perfect. Before we headed there we went into a few stores. It was a bit cloudy at first but we went into Del Sole, and Diamonds International. Then we grabbed a taxi and headed over to Seven Mile Beach.....Great, price to get there in the taxi and ten dollars got you two lounge chairs for the Beach...........................

The tendering over was nice too....

The sun came out and it was amazing that we could see the Magic from the beach and the one and only rain cloud rained over the ship it was neat.............No where else did it rain that day.....
Here are a bunch of photos and video from the beach that day::

Coming back on the Tender::

Oooh did I mention it was HOTTTTTTTTTTTTT today.......With the humidty it was over 100!! But we love it hot so it was a GREAT DAY!!

Words can not descibe how great these last few days have been. We have been onboard two other times and this cruise is just as MAGICAL as the last two but it really has been great. Up NEXT THE WORST DAY IN COZUMEL!!!!!!! We are lucky to be ALIVE no joking!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[cakesnjammom]

still here enjoying your TR so much! Where did you find the girls' Disney cover up/sun dresses...too cute! gorgeous pics too! thanks...keep it coming

 

[beansf]

Up NEXT THE WORST DAY IN COZUMEL!!!!!!! We are lucky to be ALIVE no joking!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh no! Talk about a cliff hanger!

 

[elgerber]

Hey Kristin! Did you take some of these pics with Bruces new waterproof camera? Does he like it?

 

[kritter]

still here enjoying your TR so much! Where did you find the girls' Disney cover up/sun dresses...too cute! gorgeous pics too! thanks...keep it coming

Thank you. I got them at disneyshopping.com

 

[kritter]

Hey Kristin! Did you take some of these pics with Bruces new waterproof camera? Does he like it?

Yes, he loves it there is a story coming up about that.....The replacement camera came today.....!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[kritter]

We arrive in Cozumel this morning. I must say today was another BEAUTIFUL day...............Thank you to our WONDERFUL CAPTAIN.........We have had Captain Thourd twice on a cruise that has been affected by a hurricane I have to say he is the BEST.........Totally, can take you around the bad weather and knows just where to go to make you have sunshine.......................

It was another HOT HOT HOT HOT day........We knew we wanted to go to a beach. My husband did some research before we left on different ports of call just in case there was a storm and we got diverted. He had discovered that Play De Mia looked nice. We asked the concierge team and this was the beach they also HIGHLY recommended to go to. DCL~ does offer an excursion to this beach too..

So we get off a the ship a bit later than we had planned. But it felt GREAT to get to sleep in a bit.

It is a bit of a walk from the pier/boat to the main shopping area. The shopping area was sooooooooo nice....We went to Diamond International to collect a charm for the girls charm bracelets. If you have girls this is a cute thing to do they offer a free 14 Karat gold bracelet and then you can get free charms at each of the different ports of call. They provide you with a little card that tells you what islands have a Diamonds International on them and that will give out the free charm. Grand Cayman was not listed on the little card but they still were giving out the free charms........Very Cute bracelet............

After that we go to get a taxi........Oh the fun begins...........Now it is HOT, the kids are ready to swim and eat somewhere too....But we have been told to be VERY careful about eating and drinking in Cozumel. So we have bottled water, etc. with us. We tell the first taxi driver that we So we decide that we have water/drinks for the kids and they can swim a bit then we will head back. We want to go to Play De Mia beach. He says, "What?? Who tell you to go there?" We explain the ship and that is where we want to go......After, a bit of going back and forth and him telling us it was going to cost about sixty american dollars per person to get onto this beach. We are like we do not care what it costs we are going to where we were told to go.... He is like no no I take you to nice free beach no we say we want to go to where we were told to go to. FYI~~Two days prior to this our friend emailed his friend who works in Mexico at a TimeShare he offered for us to go to his beach @ the TimeShare. We asked Brent what he knew about this beach. He told us he would look into it and let us know. He later phoned our friends room and told us he would advise against us visiting that beach that we should go to Play De Mia. Thank you Brent for looking into it. When we drove by it we now know why you told us not to go there.

We get into the taxi cab and think we are headed to Play De Mia, then the driver tells us I taking you to a free beach you will like much better......Uhhh, No we want to go to Play De Mia. No no I insist.....Ok, what are we to do he is the driver? Right? He takes us down a dirt road. About 25 minutes away from the pier. Did I mention no AC in the car windows opened the kids are sweating/ and asking for water. I try to reach in the back of the car to reach our small cooler with water in it. It is tucked way far away from me I can not reach it. I tell the kids wait till we get there it can't be too much farther. We are all at this point getting a bit alarmed about where he is taking us.....

As we finally get to Mr. Sanchos Beach. We pull up and there are horses there, etc.....It was a bit strange looking but we could see the beach and it looked nice. So as we get out a few rather bigger muscle type mexicans approach my husband and our friend Scott. They ask for our bags.....WHAT!!Our bags? They want our cooler with our water in it. No water on the beach they tell them. You purchase water only here.....Not since I looked at the bottle and it says made in Mexico....My husband tries to explain the kids are hot etc....No they take the coolers. They orginally wanted our bags too but he was like no way we are not giving you our bags. The cooler was a done deal they took it and said when we were ready to leave they would return it to us. We all think well lets get back into the taxi and leave. Nope, that is not going to happen the taxi are amazingly all gone. We are told we have to stay and purchase something here before we can go. They escort us to a table with an umbrella.

At this point the kids are all melting down all four of them....Crying, they are hot....We are approached by a waiter...Who tells us he can bring them a cup of juice...Uh, no sorry we are not drinking anything that does not come in a bottle....Oh then we find out all they have that comes in a bottle is beer......Oh that does us a ton of good with four kids under 11 years of age......Great beer. Our friend orders a beer....The kids are crying and I have to say Janice and I are a bit freaked out at this point. There are about maybe 12 other people in chairs on the beach. But young people we are the only family there. Until, another family that we reconize from the ship shows up as well. They approach us and tell us this is not where they wanted to go but ended up here due to their taxi driver as well. They have kids too who are upset and thirsty too....

My WONDERFUL husband is able convince the manager of the beach to allow us to get a drink box out of the cooler. They tell us the kids can share one drink pouch.....Come on.....The kids drink it down in two minutes........I now remember that my sunscreen is in the front of the back-pack cooler too.....After much convincing they let us get our sunscreen.

My one daughter decides she wants to go into the water with my husband. Oh if things can not get any worse. He says sure I will take her snorkeling........He get all of his and her snorkel gear out which they did not confiscate from us... Amazingly, enough!! Then takes our brand new underwater camera....into the water and does not check to make sure the charger compartment is closed.....He dives in and BYE, BYE Camera. It will not work any longer since the compartment is open....OH, great.

My other daughter is siting at the table with Katie crying they are hungry........Ok, what to feed them at this bar/beach. More people from Carnival ships start arriving here saying the same thing as us this is not where we wanted to go but the majority of them are young and seem ok to be drinking/doing shots, etc......Great atmosphere for kids.........??

So the camera is now broken, well on the bright side we still have the video camera which can take pictures too......I dig into my beach bag and found some packaged peanut butter crackers that I had unopenened from the airplane ride down. The kids share them and this seems to keep them content for a bit....We ask can we have one of our bottles of water out of our cooler......Sure, finally they say we can. Janice and I walk to where the man is "guarding" all of the stuff they have taken as people are getting out of taxi's......We go into the cooler as a few people who work there are saying some pretty nasty comments to us.......And making obscene gestures at us too...Come to find out as we get a bottle of water out they all have their seals broken they apparently, have opened up all of our water. Thank you your soo kind......So we now are unsure if we should drink any of the water that we brough and why did they feel the need to open our water up??VERY ODD to say the least. We take a few drink pouches and we know they are not happy with us as the manager sees the children drinking them.

We tell him that we are ready to head back to the ship now. He proceeds to tell us and the other family from the ship that we reconized that if we want to go back we will need to go into the few little open-air shops next to the beach and purchase something..............What, I say......Bruce, says to me do not argue if you want to go back to the ship go in and buy the kids something. So after four Mexican dresses, two Mexican dolls, two ankel bracelets we are now able to get a taxi back to the ship...................The kids at this point are wipped out.....keep in mind our friend also bought six beers while we were there and they charged him $120.00 American dollars.............

We finally are able to head back to the ship........

When we get on the kids all eat and have drinks, swim and are much happier. We tell Nicole what happened to us and she is horrified and like do you have your passports, etc....Yes, we do............

Later, that evening we are coming out of the show and Brent stops my husband and says, "Dude, you did not take your family to that beach did ya?" Bruce replies, "Yes," Brent was like I am glad that your all ok. He had heard and was like that is not a beach we recommend families go to....................

We all have since laughed about what happened to us. But we are VERY lucky that nothing bad happened to us. I have to say I do not care if I ever visit Cozumel again. These taxi drivers should feel shamefull that they do this to tourists on vacation..........I understand that tourism is down in Mexico due to the swine-flu, economy etc......But this was just plain wrong........................

Here are a few pictures from today::

This is the long pier you have to walk down in Cozumel::

The kids in their dresses::

The beautiful robes that the kids got to wear during our stay::

Today, was an intersting day to say the least. Up tomorrow Sea Day...........And only two more days aboard the Magic!!!!!!!!!!!

Oooh, sorry I forgot to post some pictures of pirate night which was the day we went to Grand Cayman!!

 

[kritter]

Sorry, that I forgot to mention this earlier in the TR..............


The night we got back onto the ship from Grand Cayman was pirate night..............We also had a concierge's reception that we were invited too...There was a special guest there as well...


Check out the photos below:

It was such a fun reception/night!!::

 

[jenanderson]

Kristin -

I am still loving your report! You guys had such a horrible experience in Cozumel - I am just thankful that you all came out of it safe and sound.

I am sad that everyone is getting to the end of their trip reports....what will I do when it feels like it is totally over?

Did the girls get to keep those beautiful robes? Did you guys get to keep any of the wonderful little things?

Say hello to the family!!!!
Jen

 

[cakesnjammom]

whew...thanks for the heads up about Cozumel...creepy!

 

[kritter]

Kristin -

I am still loving your report! You guys had such a horrible experience in Cozumel - I am just thankful that you all came out of it safe and sound.

I am sad that everyone is getting to the end of their trip reports....what will I do when it feels like it is totally over?

Did the girls get to keep those beautiful robes? Did you guys get to keep any of the wonderful little things?

Say hello to the family!!!!
Jen

Jen,

I tooo am sooo sad I miss it sooooooooooooo much......

The kids robes no we did not get to keep....The adults robes you could have purchased them....I did not purchase one. But if it had been anything like the kids ones I would have bought it. I did keep the slippers which I would presume you were supposed too...That would be gross to reuse slippers....

On the last evening we did get a BEAUTIFUL Ducky Williams print with Cinderella looking out of a port hole with the three mice.........Sooo,, nice!!!!!!!!!!

So when are you coming to CT for a visit??

 

[kritter]

whew...thanks for the heads up about Cozumel...creepy!

It is sooooo creepy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[jenanderson]

Jen,

I tooo am sooo sad I miss it sooooooooooooo much......

On the last evening we did get a BEAUTIFUL Ducky Williams print with Cinderella looking out of a port hole with the three mice.........Sooo,, nice!!!!!!!!!!

So when are you coming to CT for a visit??

I am still having such a hard time adjusting to real life and daily find myself wishing that I was still there!

I am so glad you got the print - it sounds beautiful.

I would love to come to CT for a visit!!!! I seriously would love to do a trip to the coast next summer....we will have to see how the money goes this year. It would be great to see you and your family again!!!!

 

[pinkygirl]

the girls dresses were so cute!!! love all the pictures