Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas
Caribbean Repositioning Cruise

Cozumel, Mexico Thursday, November 30, 2006

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Our last port of call, Cozumel.  We started a little late since dad and I were up fairly late last night at the Quest.  I checked my email before heading to mom and dad’s room.   We went up to breakfast at about 10:30 AM then dad wanted to check his email and call Craig.  We got our tender tickets and got to shore at about noon. 

Mom was Cleopatra again this afternoon being brought onto the tender.  They didn’t let me help this time and used two little deck hands to get on board.  They didn’t do a very good job.  They mostly just rolled her up the gangway that had a bunch of pieces of wood crossways making it for a very bumpy ride.  There was a representative of Executive Rental Car aboard the tender so I set up a rental car for us.  We ended up with a Jeep Liberty, most importantly with air conditioning, for $90 for the day.

 Like most islands Cozumel has one road that circles the island.  There is one main road that crosses the middle of the island also.  Matt, Francis and I had rented a jeep last year from the same company. 

 We started south and stopped at a couple of beaches to see if we could get mom up to them somehow.  The first was Playa Mia that the rental car guy thought would be the best option.  When I asked a security guard he said there was no way to get her to the beach area.  As I left I saw a guy rolling out a lady on one of the wheelchairs with giant inflated tires for the sand.  Exactly what I was looking for.  We didn’t see this until we were almost at the exit so we just headed for the next beach.  I walked up to see if they had any possibilities for mom and they didn’t.

 This is when I just decided to go with last year’s itinerary on Cozumel.  We would just circle the island and stop at some of the restaurants.  Our first was my favorite from last year, Rasta’s Freedom in Paradise Bar.  It’s right on the beach at Punta Sur or the South Point of the island.  They play lots of Bob Marley and the view is fantastic.  The bluest water you will ever see.

 They had a ramp down to the restaurant so we rolled mom in and took a table with a view.  It’s a simple open air structure with hammocks and tables on the beach.   Dad even got a Corona and enjoyed the vibe. We got a order of shrimp nachos and guacamole.  The shrimp nachos were great.  They loaded a bunch of chips with mozzarella cheese and a whole lot of shrimp.  After hanging out for about an hour we got back in the jeep and headed out again.

 I wanted to stop at Coconut’s which is a bar on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean that Susie told us about but we wouldn’t have been able to get mom up the stairs.

 We drove all the way to the restaurants at Middle Island Road so I could stop at Senor Iguana’s.  When we stopped here last year Matt deemed their Margarita to be the best in the world.  I had to stop and have one so I could tell Matt I had.  This was a quick stop but I do really like these small local bars.  The bar tenders and waiters just crack me up.  One at Senor Iguana’s kept making bird sounds that mom kept thinking was a real bird.

 We drove back to the main city of Cozumel and took a left at the water and back to the south cruise terminal where our tender was located.  First we stopped and got $20 worth of gas and dropped off the car. 

 The cruise terminal is set up with lots of shopping and has a ½ Senor Frog.  It’s basically a real tiny Senor Frog for this cruise terminal.  We stopped at a store that had silver clowns but the one mom was looking at was over $1000 and even with us talking it down to $725 there was no way to know it was real silver.  More importantly though was dad had already spent a fortune on this trip so we weren’t getting a $725 silver clown. 

 Dad looked tired so I got mom and him to the tender area and I was going to stay for awhile.  After leaving them I realized I had their passports so I hurried back to give them to them.  I called dad a bunch of times, tried Irvin a few times and even Irvin Faunce but I couldn’t get his attention.  A guy finally tapped him on the shoulder and he came back to get the passports.

 I bought a few things for the kids.  It’s going to be a Caribbean Christmas for everyone this year.  My next stop was ½ Senor Frog for a couple of beers.  I only had $2 on me so I asked if they took credit cards.  I was told they did so I sat down and had a couple of Sol Beers.  When I tried to pay my bill I now told that they had a $15 minimum for credit card.  Nowhere did any one of the million signs in the bar did it say there was a minimum of credit card.

 I was really pissed and bought two more beers to get to $15.  What pissed me off more was the tequila girl who came over and tried to sell me tequila after I had bought my two beers I didn’t really want.  I was going to get a t-shirt next but they would only take cash at their souvenir store.  The girl claimed the credit card machine was down.

 I like Mexico, it’s got beautiful beaches and wonderful sights but stuff like this drives me crazy.  Also, the vendors here are definitely more aggressive trying to sell you things than any other place we have been on this cruise.

 I finished my stay at the cruise terminal by purchasing some tequila.  I bought a bottle of Aha Toro which besides Don Julio was supposed to be the best mixing tequila and a bottle of Hijos de Villa Tequila.  I bought this more for the unique bottle which is shaped like a gun.  This got me to a bill of $51.  For $9 more I would get a free Cozumel cloth bag.  So I found a $10 bottle of Tres Mujeres Tequila again mostly for the bottle which is covered by a leather flask.

 It was time to go back to the ship so I went to the tender.  This was a big double decked tender that took forever to board and even longer to disembark.  I tested my theory from yesterday about liquor.  The guy was there this time but he had five or more people trying to give him liquor.  I saw Alison and Linda who had bought the same tequila I did at the same time blow off the guy and head to the elevator.  I just walked by the guy and went up the stairs to my room.

 It was about 5:25 PM so I had enough time to get cleaned up for dinner.  I got mom and dad and the Mardi Gras parade line that we have seen twice before was congregating for the third parade in front of mom and dad’s cabin.  There was a traffic jam because of this in their hallway but we did make it to dinner and picked up some Mardi Gras beads along the way.

 This is the dinner dad had been waiting for.  Lobster Night.  They called it the Fisherman’s Platter because we also got shrimp.  Well our table went crazy.  Yogi was prepared for us though.  I had a salmon appetizer then concocted a surf and turf meal by getting the lobster and the prime rib.  Yogi just kept coming back with more lobster.  I had a second.  Dad, Clyde and John and I think Alex all had three.  Carol had 2 ½ and Alison had 1 ½.  Carol cracked me up, she said they could at least of just put her second plate in the middle of the table so it didn’t look as bad.

  The lobsters were California lobsters which neither I, nor anyone else at our table had heard of before this cruise.  Carol even is from California and had never heard of them.  They were real good.  We looked around and it didn’t look like any other tables were getting the multiple lobsters like we were.  Size matters I guess.

 You’d think with all the food we had at our main course we would have been satisfied, but no we all got dessert also.  Some again multiple desserts.  The head waiter tried to make dad happy with his ice cream order.  Dad’s been wanting butter pecan ice cream the whole trip but they haven’t offered it.  The head waiter brought him vanilla ice cream with crushed pecans and a pat of butter.  Instant butter pecan.  Actually, dad poured the pecans over the vanilla ice cream and said it was pretty good.  He also was brought the vanilla and chocolate ice cream he ordered from Yogi.  At least he was a little good and shared his butter pecan invented ice cream mixture with Eric.  I had a simple sampler of a chocolate mousse, cheesecake and orange tart.

 Dad has really had fun at the dinner table during this trip.  He’s been teasing Alison about her dimples.  He says her dimples disappear when she’s not smiling while his are always there.  Of course this brings an immediate smile to Alison and the dimples reappear.  I told Alison that dad’s dimples don’t go away because of the extra beef he has on his face. 

 I gave Alison my purple strand of beads I got during the Mardi Gras parade.  Somehow she had accumulated about 8 strands of the purple beads.  I guess she didn’t like the green and gold.  The funny thing about the Mardi Gras beads was the only people who didn’t have them at our table were Clyde and Debbie our native Mardi Gras residents.

 We finished our meal finally and headed out.  We talked with John and Carol outside the dining room for awhile discussing what we were doing tonight.  This has become our little tradition now.  I know I’ve written this before but I can’t really express enough what a great family they have.  I took mom and dad back to their room and caught up with today’s journal.

 I just checked my email and got bad news from home.  A couple of emails from Susie back home told me that her grandmother Louise “Weesie” had another stroke and then had passed away today.  I hope Susie and Linda are alright.  I know that Weesie meant the world to them.  She was a really great lady and I’ll miss her.

 At 10:30 PM I went to get dad to watch the Superstar Karaoke finals in the Palladium Theater.  We saw John and Carol and went up to sit with them.  One interesting thing I found out was John’s name is spelled Jon.  I told him I’ve got over 60 pages in my journal with it spelled John.  I’ll have to decide if I want to go back and change every time I spelled his name.  Carol made fun of it being spelled without the H. 

 The Superstar Karaoke finals were with our friend Desiree’ from the chocolate buffet against Buddy the silver haired crowd favorite.  They each sang two songs.  Desiree’ started with The Carpenter’s “We’ve Only Just Begun”.  The boat is really rocking and that didn’t help Desiree’ who was clearly nervous.  The song started out by warbling some and being off key.  That threw Desiree’ off right there and she tried to say something about it and even said I’m screwed before she started.  Buddy’s first song was “My Way” and did a great job. 

 Eric, the cruise director, reprised his role of Dale from Stone Mountain, GA the judge and was hilarious as he was during the second round we had watched a few days earlier.  He starts off every statement with “I appreciate you” in a real slow southern drawl.  He was constantly trying to hit on Desiree’.

 The second round of songs started with Desiree’ singing ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, which was totally wrong for her voice.  It was way too high and with her being nervous still she was clearly coming in second.  During a down point of the song she said she wanted to cry.  You really had to feel bad for her.  I couldn’t get up and sing in front of a couple of people much less a two story theatre that was about 75% full.  Buddy finished with “That’s Life”.  All of his songs are perfect for his voice.  One of the Royal Caribbean Dancers said it seemed like he’s done this before and he said he had.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he had sung professionally.  He works the crowd and the stage.

 We got one more dose of “Dale’s” judging with Buddy.  On the questionnaire that the singers filled out it said that Buddy was on the cruise with his best girlfriend.  Dale said he liked that Buddy had a whole portfolio of girlfriends and just picked the best to go on the cruise with.  Buddy explained his best girlfriend was also his wife of 33 years.  Dale told him he liked that even more and that he had been trying to tell Kristen, another Royal Caribbean dancer and judge, that for a while.  That they could get hitched and still have best girlfriends. 

 It really wasn’t a contest.  The judges and crowd liked Buddy who ended up winning.  Desiree’ took it well, I heard her say earlier she had hoped Buddy would win anyway.  We hung out again with “JON” and Carol talking until they kicked us out of the Palladium Theater.  There is the Grand Buffet in a few minutes but I’m through eating for today.  We’ve got one more day at sea then the cruise ends in New Orleans.  I’ve had a great time and love cruising.

Return To Grand Cayman November 29, 2006

Continue to Day At Sea December 1, 2006