Our Cruise continued... (part 2)

Each night your bed is turned down and your daily 'reading material' is laid out beside a very cute towel animal. :) The daily reading materials are your Carnival Capers (daily activities schedule) and any other materials they think you'll want such as coupons or brochures for the following day's port of call.

Monday was a fun and not so fun day. This was our first port of call and our first excursion.
The sunrise was pretty, its the only one I really watched. I went up on the lido deck around 7:30 and watched us approach Cozumel. When Chris joined me we went and found breakfast. Then continued to watch us dock. It's an interesting process. There are guide or pilot boats and also their version of the Coast Guard boats as well. Those are a little scary looking. BIG guns on little boat.
We arrived in port around 10am and left the ship to find a taxi to take us to our only pre-booked excursion. Mr. Sanchos Resort. We were supposed to do a cooking class and then enjoy an all inclusive day at their beach with all the food and drinks we wanted. Included table and chairs, umbrellas, lounge chairs and all unmotorized water equipment.
The road there was very straight and no very much to see. Everything was set back off the road behind palm trees and shrubs.

Upon arrival we were taken to the main dinning area. Very nice outdoor seating, with covered roof. Oliver greeted us and promptly told us that tourcozumel.net had not sent them their money. Therefore we were not able to do the excursion. HUH??????????
So he called the company we booked thru. Spoke with Ken the owner, he said the money was sent. Oliver said it wasn't but would check with accounting again. He let Chris speak with Ken. Ken said he would reemburs us our payment. (Belive it or not, I really did research this well before booking an excursion outside of the ship and was confident it was a good place to do business with.) Oliver called his accounting folks, they talked for a bit, the cheif talked to them and then Oliver came back and said "no, the money hasn't been transfered". Now I'm MAD. At first I was ok, thinking this is just a mistake, it'll all be ok. We are being told that we can do the excursions but we have to pay again. Ok, lets think about this... we pre-paid. I have a confirmation letter in hand, along with my paypal receipt, why would we take that kind of cash to a place where everything is already paid for????? Now I get on the phone with Carrie. She's didn't really talk to me other than to say "this is a mistake, they have the money, let me talk to Oliver." At this point Oliver is talking to another party of 6 that are in the same position we are.
I take Oliver the phone.. he talks to her again. She assures him that we will all be refunded our funds and its ok to pay again. Again.. with WHAT MONEY? I did have a little cash with us, but not much. I told Oliver this and he agreed to let us do the stuff for about half the original price. At this point its around 11:30 and the chief starts setting up. We begin cooking around noon. The cheif had an assistant who did the translation for us. Chris and I were the only ones cooking that day. We each got to make a margirta, one was Mango and the other Strawberry.
They taught us to make fresh salsa (pico for us Americans) and guacamole'. Neither one of us are too fond of the green stuff but being troopers we didn't say a word. The entree was beef and chicken sopapias. Not the sopapias that we were used to seeing. These were made like a corn tortollia, however smaller around and thicker. After they are cooked on both sides for a few min, they are removed and the edges are squished to make a little "pizza crust" looking disk. The beef and chicken were cooked on what looked like an upside down wok, using garlic butter. After they were done, the meat was cut into tiny pieces. We also learned to make refried black beans. Now the assembly... on each disk place a small amount of refried beans, then meat of choice. Top that with tomato, fresh sour cream and grated white cheese (looked like parmasian). Everything was very good.. even the green stuff we don't usualy like. LOL Oh and we also made the chips... store bought flour tortollias cut in forths and tossed in hot oil.

By the time we finised cooking and sat down to eat it was close to 1:30. So we ate, walked out in the water a little and then did a quick sun bathing to dry off a little. And back to the ship we went. We didn't really get experience the "all inclusive" part beacuse of it taking so long to get everything straightened out at first. however, over all it was a very fun day and I would do it again. Just not thru the booking company.

Monday nights entertainment in the Amber Palace was Comedian Al Ernst. He was good although we didn't get to see the whole show due to our dinner being at 8:15 and his show didn't start until 7:30. Oh and the Amber Palace is at one end of the ship and our dinning room was all the way at the back of the ship. Did I mention that the ship is the length of 3 football fields? yep, it sure is.

Tuesday was an experiance... this "port of call" was Belize.
We didn't actually dock here.. we set down anchor and little boats came to get us. Yep, you walked out a hole in the side of the ship onto another boat, with only water below you.
The first time I was a bit nervous.. but after watching everyone it was a cake walk. They tender boats are right up next to the ship and tied off. You're not going anywhere.
At this destination we had paid for a snorkling excursion. Everyone that was going to excursions or ashore was to meet in the Amber Palace (in certain areas) and you would be called to your boat one group at a time. Well before they called our group they made an announcement. "For you snorklers the water is a bit choppy today. If you would like to not go, then your money will be returned in full. however, if you go you'll be charged even if you get there and don't do the excursion." Chris and I looked at each other and said "what the heck, lets go" So we did.
The island was called Goff Cay. It was really pretty and really little. It runs along the reef, which is the reason the ship is anchored 2.5 miles off shore. This is the largest reef in the world, 138 miles long. Oh, did I mention it was RAINING? yep, not bad though. And heck, we were going to get wet anyway, right? While on the 12 mile boat ride they gave us our snorkling equipment. We pulled up to the pier and the sun had came out and it was so pretty.
We put down our stuff on the benches in the covered area and headed out to the water. After a very breif intro to snorkling we went into deeper water. Some of the folks opted to go out on the boat and snorkle back to the beach. Being our first time, we opted to start and end on land.
We figured we'd get a few min of instruction and get to go get the underwater camera.. nope. So we don't have any pictures of the beautiful reef. It was pretty amazing, however I don't think it was as amazing as it would have been if the weather hadn't been playing dirty. I think most of the fish had gone into hiding. But I would do it again in a second. :) We swam half way around the island and back. As we stepped on dry land the bottom of the sky opened up and the rains came pouring down. I don't mean a little rain either.. this was a full blown, I can't see 10 feet in front of me storm. But no lightning or thunder, just wet stuff. While we waited it out they gave us bags of water. I'm not kidding, it was a bag not a bottle. Pretty cool. :)
After about 20-30 minutes the rain cleared and we went out into the water again. however, by this time they'd taken up our snorkling equipment so we just walked around for a bit. It was like bath water and just as clear.

Back on the ship we changed into dry clothes and went back down to deck 0 to catch a tender into Belize City. Now this was interesting, we were told, no matter what you do DO NOT go outside the gated area without a guide. Apparently its not very safe. Not a problem, we didn't stray too far from the dock. Matter a fact we didn't leave the dock, all the stores are built right there. No need to go anywhere else at all. (unless you are doing an excursion).
The first store we stopped into was Diamonds Internation for my free charm. We all know they give you the free stuff just to get you into the stores, right? Well, lets just say it worked. BIG TIME. We started looking at the Tanzinite. Just looking mind you. The guy that gave us the charm was showing us af ew things and wow the prices were up there. We looked at several pieces from necklaces to earrings and then rings. Chris found a pair of earrings that he really liked for me. They were beautiful too. Small Tanzinite stones in the middle of a heart, with 2 small diamon chips on the heart. I figured we were dreaming so I asked to see a ring. It was pretty, but i'm not too much into solitaires (the round stones). Since I was dreaming anyway, I asked to see another ring that was just screaming at me. Of course it fit perfectly. oh my this ring was so pretty. There was no hiding it on my face either. The saleman, Roby, was very good at his job LOL. After 20-30 min of looking and asking his manager and talking and asking his manager .. we finaly said if you can meet this price, then we'll take both. Holy Hanna!!! they came within 8 dollars of my price. When the Jeff, the shops shopping specialest said they had good prices, he wasn't kidding. We got around 72% off of the retail price. The neat thing about this store, if you get back home and have it apprazied and it isn't worth what you paid, they'll refund you 100%. Their home office is actually in New York City.
After that we did a little more shopping around and headed back to the ship to deposit my new jewlery into our room safe. :) After we set sail we went up to Jeffs desk and ask him to look at the jewlery. He was impressed with the stones and said the stone in the ring alone, was worth about 400 more than we paid. that's not counting the gold, the diamonds (oh, there are 6 on the ring) or the earrings. WOW WOW WOW!!! Chris said he's taking me with him to his next yearly review to negotiate his next raise. hehehe

Back on ship we went to the Battle of the Sexes game and then off to dinner. The big entertainment that night was "Justin Illusion and the Amazing Glory Dancers." This was a pretty good show. I think we both enjoyed it quite a bit.