I Belize in MAGIC! MITSUGIRLY revisits the Western Route. My Novel.
Day 4: Cozumel
DAY 3 on the ship: COZUMEL Monday 9-6pm
I set my alarm for 7:30am. However, Kendra was messaging me at 7:27 before it even went off and well...I was excited and couldn't sleep anyhow.
I got my crew up and we headed up to the buffet area for a quick breakfast. For some reason I wasn't really feeling this breakfast. The eggs were SUPER runny this morning, so I only took a spoonful and just couldn't stomach them. The bacon police was out in full force and I would give them the hand signal to "come on with it".
Can't forget these yummy "breakfast pastries". They hit the spot.
After breakfast we went to check out the sea and it was as calm as can be. The skies were sunny and it didn't look like it was going to thunderstorm today at all (even though the weather was still saying it was).
We headed back to the room to grab our things...but first Sakari left another friendship rock.
We were able to get off the ship at 9:15am and immediately started taking pictures.
It looked as if it had rained here in Cozumel already. Good, maybe it won't later today then.
We had previously been to this port at least once before. So not a new port location for us.
There's just so many photo ops at this port.
We finally made our way out of the winding maze of souvenir shops and out to the taxi area.
We told the putteminthetaxiworkers that we needed a taxi for 7 people to The Money Bar. They looked at us and looked at the kids and looked at us again. "um, senorita dis not place for kids". I know this. We are going to the Money Bar. "um senorita...." I know!!! "um, senorita, you been before?" I know what it looks like, I know what type of water it is, I know about the "beach". Yes! Take us there.
So off we went. I researched ahead of time and knew that a taxi would cost "us" around $11. Once we added 4 more people, the price was $22.
We left the taxi stand at 10:04am and arrived at the Money Bar at 10:07am. Super quick and easy ride.
For those wanting to know the location to the cruise ports...You can see the furthest cruise port is Punta Langosta. This is where NCL usually docks (unless they have too many NCL ships there that day and then they will either dock out a bit and tender, which I've done before, or they will come down to the International Pier, which I've done before).
So, looking at this map, if you are on Carnival, you are docking at the closer pier to the beaches in that direction and The Money Bar is the closest on my map I made.
I have seen many pictures of what the Money Bar looked like. I knew that it was fairly small and no actual "walk-in" beach. I knew that it was very similar to Chankanaab, which we had been to before and loved it, but on a very small scale in comparison.
Let's be honest, the ONLY reason why I came here is that I wanted to snorkel. I had heard that it was a pretty awesome place to snorkel and was comparable to Chank, which I enjoyed the snorkeling there.
Our plan was to spend the morning there snorkeling and having a few drinks and then catch a cab to Paradise Beach for the rest of the day so that the kids could have a little fun too. (Although when I say "kids" I'm pretty much talking about Kam because Sakari and B love snorkeling just as much as me, so they would have been fine staying at The Money Bar). However, I have been wanting to check out Paradise for such a long time. As a matter of fact, every time we come to Cozumel I have wanted to go there but ended up somewhere else instead. I don't know why. So, what better way than to go to two different places, get to experience both, AND write reviews on both. Right?
We arrived and immediately came down to the man-made beach area, which is above the ocean area. It was bright and sunny out and I was excited to see that.
There were a lot of clouds in the sky and CHECK OUT THIS WEIRD CLOUD in the picture below. Looks how close it is and crazy looking.
This is the bar area.
I have to admit, this place was a lot bigger than what I had pictured or seen pictures of. It looks so much bigger in person.
There was a huge deck with plenty of seating.
Off to the side of the huge deck, you walk down some steps and onto their man-made beach area. It also had plenty of tables and chairs and lounge chairs behind that.
The kids found some tree swings and had a blast.
There was a place to rent equipment
The bar/restaurant was huge. There was plenty of seating everywhere.
There was a dock and I assume they would take you out snorkeling or whatever you wanted to do. (They offered massages as well, as you can see on the sign in the picture, but I have no idea the pricing and for how long because I don't do massages).There was a dock and I assume they would take you out snorkeling or whatever you wanted to do. (They offered massages as well, as you can see on the sign in the picture, but I have no idea the pricing and for how long because I don't do massages).
There was a thread on the Costa Maya forum that someone came back from an AI that I had been to (and others also suggested) that they gave negative feedback because of the "nasty" bathrooms with signs that did not allow you to throw toilet paper in the toilets and made you put them in trash cans. They were disgusted. I told them this is the norm every where you go in the Caribbean and their sanitation would not handle things like toilet paper and they are not in the US with these types of luxuries. They were just not having it. They swore that they had never seen these signs before or experienced having to put toilet paper in trash cans instead of the toilet and claimed they were an experienced cruiser. Well, most Caribbean beach clubs are not the Hilton Hotel and I don't know what type of places they go to when in port...but every place I went this time (and other times) had those signs!
I assume this little place with the curtains to the left is the massage place.
The water was a little furious today.
Sakari was on a mission to save the stranded fish from the angry ocean throwing the water up on the rocks and beach area.
In the picture below, you can see even more area's on down of lounge chairs.
And I'm not sure just how far their property went, but there were also areas on down with chairs and trees.
More of the chairs and beachfront area:
I had to get my snorkel girl picture for the day.
Shortly after we arrived, it started to sprinkle. The lounge chairs we were in were sitting under the trees, which blocked the rain. But it didn't last but maybe 10 minutes if that and we didn't get wet. Either way, I was planning on being wet in a few minutes anyhow when I went snorkeling.
More of the area.
There is a sign that shows the snorkeling area:
Dzul-Ha Reef...Dzul-Ha is what The Money Bar used to be called. So, if you are ever trying to look it up either online or on these boards, you can also search that name and it will come up.
Here is a short video of the bar/restaurant area (sorry that it is sorta blurry in the beginning but it will show you just how big this restaurant area is with plenty of seating).
Here is a short video of right outside the restaurant area with the outside dining and lounge chairs.
I told Kendra "come on" and grabbed my snorkeling equipment and waited and waited and waited. I finally gave up and started heading to the entrance to snorkeling. Kendra has to slip away from Kam when she's not looking or she'll throw a fit. I don't have anyone to slip away from therefore I no waity on anyoney!
Getting down into the water was a task. It was treacherous! The ocean was mad today. The waves were crashing...it was terrible. People were coming in as I was going out and they warned me about the slippery rocks. I already figured that because that's how Chankanaab was...but Chank had steps to go down in. This was some type of busted up concrete and it looked a little different than some of the pictures I had seen online. I'm not sure what happened and why it looked different, but I would look it up when I got home. I'll show you that later.
It took quite some time to make it out to the water where I didn't have to worry about slipping and falling. I hung on to the rail for dear life as I eased myself one step closer to the water only to get pushed back 2 steps by the raging water. I really wasn't sure if I should be carrying my flippers or wearing them. I had no idea how deep it was going to get and if I'd be able to put them on easily once I got out of this area. It was really hard to hold on to them and try to hold onto the railing. So, I did an about face and eased myself back up and put them on.
Ok, time to start over with one step forward, pushed back, two steps forward, pushed back. Whew! I was getting a work out.
I finally got to a small drop and decided I would just go for it and I made it out.
So...let's see what it looks like under here.
There's a surgeon fish.
Blue head wrasse down there
I looked up and here come Sakari! I don't know how she made it out so quick because she was no where in site when I started this journey.
It looks like she's nemo today.
The ocean floor here is not quite what I expected.
Ok, there's some coral finally. Not much, but hey it's something.
The bad stuff!!!! (Fire coral on the left)
I ran across 2 bicolor Angelfish. I was super excited. This is the first time I had ever seen these before. I love when I get a new experience snorkeling and see something new. They were pretty big in size too!
As you can see, the coral in the pictures are just pieces of coral in various areas and limited to a rock of different sizes. The ocean floor was not covered in rocks and coral. They were just little islands here and there sitting on a sandy bed floor.
OH LOOK FISH!
It was mostly a sandy ocean floor with just coral here and there.
Then we discovered this conch. It was HUGE! Like the biggest I had ever seen before.
Some beautiful big blue surgeon tangs showed up.
