DAY 5 COSTA MAYA MEXICO WEDNESDAY

When we were here 4 months ago, Sakari insisted on going to the water park at the Lost Mayan Kingdom something or other. She said it was her favorite day of the cruise and favorite port so far because she had such an amazing time there. She was super excited that we were returning and insisted on going back to the water park. I knew this meant it was just going to be a lazy day by the pool for me because I couldn't do any of the water slides or zipling. I also wasn't sure if I would even be able to make it in the pool because of the ladder situation. But, I did it while scuba diving, so I was going to at least attempt it if it got too hot.

We were in port from 8-5pm. I believe I set my alarm for 7am to give us some time to get ready and have breakfast. I wasn't in too much of a hurry, but I wasn't about to let Sakari know this.

Costa Maya welcomed us with a double rainbow that morning and a beautiful sky. I guess it paid having a balcony this morning otherwise, we would have probably missed this.

There is it...the water park of doom for me today. Oops, I mean the best water park and port EVA! I just couldn't wait....sigh

Now I remembered that on the other ships with the restaurant above the buffet that they served breakfast. I hadn't adventured up there until this morning so I wasn't sure since normally it is a paid restaurant.

I told the fam "Let's go this way. There's something I want to check out". Sure enough, they were serving breakfast. There's hardly anyone up here!!! SCORE! Not many people know about this place serving breakfast and you're sure to not have a line and not fight for a seat to eat at. I'm sure not many people read my reviews, so no worries about the word getting out. 😉

So it's a buffet type of thang! You have breakfast sandwiches here though and they DO have an omelette station as well...made to order!! They have a variety of danishes, eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, french toast, cereals and so on.

Would you look at all that seating? The choices were just too overwhelming and it was just too hard to pick a dining spot. I let Sakari pick for me since this was "HER" day!

You can even sit at the bar if your little heart desires.

They also serve all the drinks including orange, milk, chocolate milk and ....where's the coffee??? No coffee? The hubby is quite upset with me at this point. I told him there's NO WAY that they are going to serve breakfast and not provide coffee. He said he had looked "everywhere" and so by everywhere he meant he glanced in each direction as he sat down and it was really "nowhere". I ask him about around the corner and got a "uh-huh". Yea, ok....   "I guess if you've checked everywhere except for anywhere, then you'll have to settle for milk or juice and ALL these people around us (all 5 or 6 of them) magically got their coffee from downstairs and brought it up here."

After getting our belly's full it was time to head down to exchange our towels for dry ones...............................and what do you know.....there's the coffee around the corner where I said and where he had confirmed that he had checked already. 😕  I'm just glad I don't drink coffee and therefore am not obligated to go hunt for it for him. LOL

These birds were welcoming us by flying over the ship and circling around and around. There was maybe 6 of them at any given time. Sakari being the Bindi Irwin that she is gave us a lesson on these birds. I believe they were frigate birds and she told us about the markings on them. I believe she said the female has a white belly and the male doesn't? Something about red and flying for months. Or maybe the other way around. Either way, she's told me about them before and I'm sure she'll tell me about them again in the future and either way, I won't remember. But, we did have a moment of fun pointing out which were girls and which were boys. Ok, Sakari had had enough "Let's go to the waterpark mommy!"   "Oh but wait here comes more birds Sakari"....it didn't last for long. I was obligated to go to this waterpark where I couldn't do anything and it was going to happen no matter how long I tried to put it off.

Just know that if you purchase your tickets from the cruise line and are one of those "special status people"...like we are Platinum, you get a discount. We had purchased our tickets the night before.

So, catching the elevator, to the room to grab our things and back to the elevator to catch a ride down to deck 4. They made an announcement that we needed to be informed that this port in Costa Maya is not owned or operated by NCL, therefore, there would not be any transportation services down the pier. I just had to gasp. Wait, they usually had trolleys or something. There's no way I can walk that entire pier and be ok with it. I would be so worn out by the time I got to the end that I'm not sure I'll even make it outside of the port.

"Clink" went our ship cards and out we went to have our pictures taken.

I stopped at every one of them I could!! lol

Me "Oh look Sakari, there's another one!"  Sakari "Come on mommy!"

They managed to sneak in this one. This must be the face she was giving her mother for stalling. I never ever by the close up shots the photographer does or the black and white pictures. They never turn out good. But, Sakari really liked this picture of her when she seen it in our folder....so I bought it. There's a first time for everything. I like it too but would really like to know what she was thinking at that moment. 

Me "Are you sure you like that picture? Are you thinking how much you want to get to the water park and I'm stalling and taking forever?" Sakari "Probably now buy it please".

I just love how they have completely renovated the port and pier. It's so pretty and colorful and looks so much better than it did years ago.

When we came back, we had company. A Royal Caribbean ship was next to us on the other pier. I think it will be the first time we have ever been in port with another ship that I can remember.

Catching the elevator wasn't too much of a problem but other passengers waiting on elevators on the upper floors had caught on to a trick at this point....get on ANY elevator going up or down and ride it and eventually you'll be able to go up to where you want. Sometimes elevators would open and it would be completely full and no one getting out.

We made it back to our room and what do you know...we used the balcony.

We hung out on the balcony until it was time to leave. My foot and leg was a little swollen but not too bad. But, it did hurt and I had some pain.

After pulling out, we decided we wanted some "real" food. The food we had at the waterpark just wasn't satisfying.

We headed straight to O'Sheehan's.

I was really wanting a juicy burger. I wanted one at the waterpark but that was one of the items they were out of when I went up to get food. After eating they put some hamburgers out but by then it was too late for me and I was already full.

Hubby had a coney dog and fries

Sakari had a chicken sandwich

Did I mention the fries on NCL is da bomb? Yes, yes they are. Sooooo yummy. 

After eating, we headed back to the room. I wanted to take advantage of our Platinum benefits by getting our clothes washed. This is the one thing I miss so much when I sail with Carnival or RC. Coming home to almost all of our clothes washed is amazing! But, I did learn my lesson years ago to keep track of everything you send. Accidents happen and sometimes things get lost. So, now I always lay out everything I send to be laundered and I take pictures of it! I will know exactly what's missing if it comes back wrong.

Just 1 picture of about 10 pictures I took of the various clothes. I take an overall of the shirts, then the pants and shorts and then I take close ups as well.

The one time they lost something, they wanted a picture of it. Thank goodness Sakari had the shirt on at one of the ports and I was able to go back through my camera and show them.

The hubby and I are BOTH Platinum but for some reason they only send us 1 coupon with our other coupons every single time. So, I don't even use the coupon and just write that we are platinum on the ticket with our names. We both get a free bag and have never had a problem doing it this way.

We wanted our room steward to pick up the items tonight so we'd have them back the following evening or the next morning. So, that meant we needed to get out of the room for awhile. Sakari wanted to try the ropes course again and we headed up there only to find out they had it closed. This time...there was a reason. It really WAS windy. Like really bad! You almost couldn't walk on the top deck. Beware girls with eyelashes...mine were blowing everywhere. LOL  The rattle under the deck as you go into the ship on the top floor sounded as if it was the windstorm of the century. I tried to capture the sound and just how bad it was but it didn't turn out as loud or as bad in the video. It would sound like clanging and the ceiling was coming down. I would also do the same in the room at some point that day. It was just getting real bad. Could this bad storm weather I seen was going to happen in every port actually take place on our last day? Maybe we had finally caught up to it.

We went to the casino that night. I was still playing on my first $100 I brought with me and was still going strong with $85. So, still only down $15 and we were already half way into this cruise! Hubby...well, he lost another $100 tonight. 😕

We came back to Sakari working on her ipad with some drawings. She's just so into drawing on this instead of paper now. But, she did bring some paper as well. She does amaze me at what she can do with that art program and she's so quick. Zooming in on all the pixels to make her vision perfect. I just don't know how she does it.

Sakari draws a lot of weird mystical creatures these days. It's all she's into (I'll shed light on that a little later) but I'm always asking her to "draw something normal" "give me a normal animal". She used to draw nothing but animals and she has some really good ones but lately it's just made up stuff she said is in her head.

Tonight she had done a few "normal animals" for me...thank goodness!

Another thing she's really into is gory stuff and animals ripping apart other animals. Help me now!

Two birds on the electric wire.

Of course she was missing her Loki & Piper so had to do one of them. (No that's not a bomb under them but Pipers ball toy that has a bell and feathers on it...she's gory but not to her animals). lol

The bottom of my feet were hurting so bad tonight. I ask if Sakari would give me a foot massage. I remember one vacation we stayed in Puerto Rico for 3 days before our cruise and she would massage my feet every night. It felt SO good. So, I talked her into doing this again tonight and you wouldn't believe how much it helped!

There was a time change and we had to be up early tomorrow for our day in Cozumel. I was really hoping we wouldn't hit bad weather tomorrow because other than Roatan and scuba diving, I was REALLY looking forward to Cozumel.

We went to bed somewhat early and the rocking of the boat (which doesn't bother us and it really wasn't that bad...just windy) put me to sleep quickly.