DAY THIRTEEN (Cozumel): We thought Cozumel would be a more leisurely day than Grand Cayman, but it was actually harder on us than we thought.
First off, if I thought Grand Cayman was busy with three big ships, I was sadly mistaken. Voyager was in Cozumel, as was Conquest and Grand Princess. At the International pier downtown, there was two more ships, but I never did find out which ones…although one was a Norwegian Cruise Lines and the other was Holland-America.
We got up around 7:00, when our breakfast arrived. We’d ordered room service breakfast and they showed up promptly at 7:00 AM. When we went out on the balcony, we saw that we were closer to Cozumel than the itinerary had said. We pulled up to the pier about 8:30(the itinerary said we’d be there at 10:00), and they were letting people off the ship by 9:00.
We took the Playa Sol Beach Break shore excursion. It was cheap, but you had to provide your own transportation to and from the beach. So, the $29 per person for the beach break, and the $14 each way via taxi added up. Later, we realized we should have taken the Party Boat excursion – it leaves from the pier, and goes to the same beach we did.
The taxi ride was a bit troublesome. The Mexican taxi drivers drive like bats out of hell, and ride the ass of the car in front of them very, very closely. Terry had taken out $16 for the taxi ride ($14 plus $2 tip), and the longer we went, the more came off the tip. I think the guy got the $14.
We got into Playa Sol, and I have to tell you that it’s a very nice facility. There’s little shops right inside the entrance, but the shop owners detracted from the image with the “hey, lady” mantra that we heard so often in Nueva Laredo. We passed on the shops, eager to get to the beach.
The beach is beautiful, with palm trees, sand, lounge chairs, umbrellas, a couple of bars, and the buffet pavilion. For the water, they had rafts, paddle boats, and a vinyl “iceberg” that floated out in the water and was about 15’ above the water. Since we got there fairly early, we selected a couple of chairs away from the bulk of the people and got an umbrella (no cost, but I had to leave my driver’s license as a deposit).
We had a few drinks and sunbathed, and then took out the snorkel gear to go snorkeling. Playa Sol had some fake “Mayan ruins” underwater for snorkelers to look at, and we were going to go out and find them. Unfortunately, the water was so murky, that even in chest deep water I couldn’t see the bottom. We snorkeled for about 20-30 minutes before giving up and going back to shore.
We sunbathed some more, and had some more drinks (drinks were free with the shore excursion). Then we decided to swim out to the “iceberg”. Terry got a raft, and we did a combination “float/swim” out to it (Terry did most of the floating).
By the time we got out to it, I was already kinda tired. But, I’d seen kids and some younger guys climbing it, and I had made some wise-assed comments to Terry about taking pictures of the beach from the top, so I had to give it my best shot.
Climbing that damn thing was a bitch. There were handholds, but I wasn’t strong enough to pull myself out of the water with just my arms. The back side of it had some floats, so I cheated and climbed on one of those to give myself a boost. Using the handholds, I managed to FINALLY get to the top of it. Hooray for me.
I did mention earlier that it was made out of vinyl, and vinyl is slick as hell when it’s wet. I made it to the top, but it was a very precarious perch. I had the water camera with me (which didn’t make the climb any easier, getting in the way and banging around at the least opportune moments, like when I was trying to move from one set of handholds to the next), and I was damn well going to take the picture of the beach.
To take the picture, however, I needed to raise up a bit. I was more on the left hand side of the peak, and there was a flattened spot just to my right that looked like it’d be easier to stabilize myself on, so I tried scooting a bit right.
You don’t “scoot” on wet vinyl.
I made a small movement to my right, and the next thing I know, I’m sliding off the edge. I look down, just to make sure that I wasn’t going to hit anything before I made it to the water, and saw the two kids in a paddleboat, right in my path. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do except yell “LOOK OUT!”.
Fortunately, I missed the kids. Unfortunately, I nailed the paddle boat. Yes, it hurt like hell.
I surfaced fairly quickly (funny how panic gives you a little extra energy), just in time to hear the kids ask “You ok?” I assured them that I was (lying thru my teeth), and made sure they were ok. They were, and offered me a ride. I hung on while they paddled like hell (I felt kind of bad, because I could tell they were doing the “escape from the scene of the crime” paddle, even though it was in no way their fault), until I got close to Terry on her raft. I transferred over to that, and we made a slow and painful float/swim back to shore, with ME doing most of the floating this time.
By the time we got back to shore, I was fairly sure that everything still worked, but my lower back and hip hurt like hell. We walked back to our lounge chairs, and I plopped down while Terry went to get me some pain reliever (rum and coke). Getting off my feet seemed like a good idea until I tried to get back up. I never realized how many muscles in your lower back and hip that you use to get up before.
That kind of ruined the rest of the day. Terry wanted to try para-sailing, but felt bad that I was all banged up. There was also a snorkeling tour of the fake Mayan ruins that we wanted to do, but there was no way in hell that I was going to get back in the water.
We ate lunch, Terry having the buffet and me having a cheeseburger and fries, then cleaned up, swam for a little bit in the freshwater pool to get the sand and salt off of us, did some shopping (t-shirts for the kids, etc), then grabbed a taxi back to the pier.
Once back at the pier, we did a little shopping for more souvenirs, then stopped off at Senor Frog’s for some more pain-killers. The shot girls were out in force, and we got shots, nipple tweaks, boob bobbles, and head twists. One girl was a bit more brazen than the rest, and she got a handful of my crotch a couple of times. Too bad I was in pain, otherwise I’d have enjoyed the hell out of that.
We made it back to the Rhapsody, and went back to the cabin. We talked with the neighbors below us for a while, until we pulled away from the pier and started sailing off.
The Voyager was right next to use, and while I’ll never know her name, I’ll always appreciate the woman on one of the lower balconies that pulled her shirt off to wish us farewell.
That evening, the Captain and staff had a sing-along in the atrium. They sang "Deep in the Heart of Texas", "America, The Beautiful". Very nice.
We were trashed (both from fatigue and alcohol), and Terry stayed in the room while I went and wasted my $20 for the day in the casino. It was a pretty good run….I tried the mercenary quarter slot machine that very quickly ate my $20, but it pissed me off, so I ponied up the next day’s $20 at the $5 blackjack table. I did much better there, walking away from the table with $50 total. Went to the nickel slots, and played for about an hour on $10 before it ate my money. Then I went back to the blackjack table, thinking I could bump up my gambling money for tomorrow. Six hands, and I was broke.
Went back to the room, where Terry was sound asleep, and went to bed myself.