Cozumel

For dinner tonight after leaving Belize we booked a table a the Crown Grill-a steak house.
As we were led to our booth by a window looking out onto Promenade Deck we passed by Cindy, Alice and Daniel who were nearing the end of their meal.

Mixed green salad for the woman who loves her vegetables

Black Tiger Shrimp

Filet Mignon with small warm-water Lobster Tails (Brazilian). You can ask for more lobster tails of course.

The Crown Grill dinner for two costs $50 and you can order as much as you like. It's a leisurely meal as everything is cooked to order and we don't usually like to rush dinner. I bought a bottle of red wine
(Mondavi Oberon) for $40 and this of course would be kept until the next time I needed it in the MDR.

After dinner our entertainment would be karaoke in Club Fusion at the rear of the ship on deck 7, just 3 floors below our room on Caribe deck.

Club Fusion

Just outside the doors to Club Fusion are the elevators (3 elevator banks on the ship) so after an evening's entertainment you don't have far to go to get "home". No driving! No taxis!

Home for us is Caribe Deck, deck 10

When you get to your cabin at the end of the day the room steward has already been to prepare your bed and clean the room. Chocolates are on the pillow.

The motion of the ship gently rocks us to sleep.

Next morning I am up early as we will soon be arriving in Cozumel, a flat island off the coast of Mexico. Before the sun is up I am on deck, by the Tradewinds Bar with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. No one else is around.

It's another overcast morning

I had been to Cozumel 44 times before today. That was back in 1985-86 when I was working as a drummer on a Royal Caribbean ship, so even from the sea I could see that it had grown. It's one of the most visited cruise ports in the Caribbean and is renowned for it's SCUBA diving and snorkeling. Drinking Tequila is also popular I am told.

The sun began to show himself

Hotels that weren't here on my last visit in November 1986
.

We backed into our berth at the pier.



Cruise ships are bigger now (3,000 people on our ship alone versus the 1200 on the ship I worked on) and there are more of them so Cozumel has built more piers over the past 30 years. We were at one of the furthest piers from downtown-about 3 miles distant but there are many taxis and the prices are fair at $8 to downtown for the cab holding up to 4 people.

First order of business before going ashore was to have breakfast in Sabatini's

We were going ashore to join a submarine excursion. As we got off the ship onto the dock we met Cindy and Co. returning to the ship. They had a snorkeling session booked but it ws canceled due to choppy water as it was quite windy. They were returning to the ship to relax in the Sanctuary instead.

When we got to the meeting point for our excursion we were told that it may also be canceled. We decided to wait, as did most of the ticket holders and after 30 minutes it was decided we could do the excursion. That was a relief as we had no other plan for the morning.

We all marched over to the pier where we would meet a boat that would take us out to the submarine anchored at sea.

Here's a video of our arrival in Cozumel