I feel like we are living in a perpetual party on the Caribbean Princess.
This is our fifth winter cruising for an extended period of time. In the past, we've cruised 100, 120, 150 days in a row. Cruised in moderation; early to bed, early to rise, living a clean and simple life. But these 28 days on the Caribbean Princess are going to be the end of us. I predict that we will crawl down the gangway on disembarkation day, fly home and sleep for a week. But...WOW! We are having fun!!!!
It was a busy ship day in Cozumel (aren't they all?), and we were surprised to see that the Puerta Maya pier (is that what it's called?) where we were docked with the Carnival Elation out of New Orleans is being extended, with another pier being constructed in a Y configuration. There were also two ships at the International Pier and two additional ones docked at the downtown pier. Good grief.
Our original plan for the day, formulated two months ago, would have taken us far away from the cruise ships to the southern end of Cozumel. I had arranged a dive with Cozumel divemaster Allison, whom we've known for 17 years. We (I) was hoping to return to a dive site called Santa Rosa Wall, which was where I did my first wall dive 17 years ago. G was not entirely committed, but was on board in an "I'll stay on the dive boat and drink beer" sort of way. He knew I'd be totally safe with Allison. However, my fall in St. Thomas changed all that. Though I am much improved, this is no time for me to be doing a wall dive at 100 feet. I fear that I brought my dive gear with me for nothing; the dive was cancelled over a week ago. :-(
However, we were quite pleased with how the secured area around the Puerta Maya pier has been built up and maintained (no trash, no pesky beach vendors, very safe), and, with tiny Cozumel being taken over by 15000+ cruise ship passengers, decided to use the artificial beach right near the end of the pier. There's no swimming, of course, but we hadn't intended to get in the water, anyway. So for us it became a day quite like Grand Turk, with sand and sun and watching the excursion boats coming and going and, yes, an alcoholic beverage or two.
We ended up talking with Peter and Martha, a young couple from Vancouver, and invited them to be our guests at the second Captain's Circle party tonight. The Caribbean Princess is their first-ever cruise, but they are disembarking on Thursday and boarding the Royal Princess on Friday for a 10-night Eastern Caribbean cruise (Jenny and Bill, they'll be joining you!). We were happy to share lots of ideas about things to do on the islands of Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, St. Kitts and St. Thomas, having visited them a time or two in the past. ;-)
We stayed on the beach until after 4pm, when it was finally time for us to get back to get cleaned up for dinner. I had two new (to me) items tonight: a beef chimichurra with aioli sauce as a starter and then shrimp stir fry as an entree. These are two of the regional menu items added this year, and they were both delish.
We went to the second Captains Circle party with Peter and Martha, and gifted them with our Caribbean etched glass commemorative as a momento of their first cruise.
Afterwards, we changed into casual clothes and went up to the deck above the Calypso (MUTS) Pool where we listened to the DJ play disco music while Princess trivia was shown on the big screen (hey...we needed that a few nights ago!) leading up to the Love Boat Disco Deck party, and then stayed for the hour+ long party. The weather tonight was finally perfect in every way: warm, calm, not too breezy and dry. Yay!!
G wants to go to the Wheelhouse Bar to listen to the Massina Duo, but he also wants to get off the ship early tomorrow in Costa Maya. He can't have both...it's simply not in me. I've convinced him to be satisfied with a TV show on his iPhone so I can blog and bed.