DAY 6: COZUMEL, MEXICO 8am-5pm

Our last port day and it has always been one of our favorites. We were up and ready to get the day started. As always, we ate breakfast and headed upstairs to see where we got to “park”. There were 7 ships in port that day and I knew there was going to be 3 NCL ships trying to come in at Punta Laguna. When we had our meet & greet, the officers ask if there were any questions…my question was “Are we going to have to tender in Cozumel?” and they replied “No”. So, they didn’t fail me. We got our parking spot, the Pearl was right beside us and the Dawn had to tender. Whew. But, we were the first to arrive…yippee. Let’s get out of here and get this day started before the other ships pull in!

We were going to be here from 8am-5:30pm and all aboard was 4:30pm. Since I knew there were going to be 7 ships in port, I decided to book Nachi Cocum for the day since it is an AI and they limit the amount of people there. That way I knew we wouldn’t have to sit on anyone’s lap or share toilet paper. I have read a lot of mixed reviews about this place. It seems like either you love it or hate it. Most people seem to complain about the “hot tub” which isn’t a factor for us. We don’t go to the ports or the beach to go swimming or get in the hot tub. That can be done at home. We go for the beauty of the beach and the ocean and snorkeling. I also read others reviews, which I know can vary GREATLY and take it with a grain of salt and form my own opinion as to whether or not it would be a good fit for our family.

I’ll start by saying we discovered Chankanaab 2 cruises ago. We LOVED it so much that we booked our next cruise making sure that one of the ports would in Cozumel so that we could go back to Chankanaab…and we did. Chankanaab is the most beautiful place ever and so much to do there. I was afraid that anything we found in Cozumel after that would just not live up to Chankanaab, but I knew it was time to move on and see new things…and we did by booking Nachi Cocom. Good or bad, we were still in the Caribbean, we would still be sitting on the beach with a drink in our hands as the world comes to an end!!! Or would we?

We are walking down the port pier and I have never taken pictures along the way and thought maybe I should do that for others. This port is HUGE and LONG…well not the pier, the actual port. There is a lot of walking involved here just to get out to where the taxis are located at. It’s a little ridiculous and I know they have it set up this way so that you have to pass every vender located there hoping that they can lure you in to purchase something.

Looking back at the ship:

You walk through the first huge building (on the 2nd floor) and you actually cross across the street that you could be on to catch a taxi…but you can’t get down there. You are forced to walk all the way across the next building (it’s like a shopping mall, 2 stories tall, that is outside and lined with buildings). Then you can finally make your way down and back out to the street to catch a cab.

This would be the "simple" way to go straight down to the cab station...but Noooooo, you have to go everywhere else first just to get down there:

I was wondering if I would be out of place wearing my Santa hat in Mexico and the Caribbean. I had no clue if they celebrate Christmas or what. I actually went around asking people that I know and work with if they did and if it was going to cause any problems with their beliefs or culture. Well, I got my answer. Everywhere we went, there were Christmas trees. LOL

We finally made it out of the port and to the taxi stand. We told the driver where we wanted to go and we were in the cab and on our way. We passed Chankanaab along the way sniff sniff and Nachi Cocom was another 5 minutes down the road. For a total of a 15 minute ride. Not bad at all.

To read my review of Nachi Cocom please visit the tab below:

Coming back to the port we arrived at the Punta Laguna pier after a short 20 minute ride:

We were let out on the street below where it’s an easy return back to the ship compared to getting out of the terminal. You usually take the escalators up to the second floor and walk across the street bridge and back down to where you check in with security to go down the pier. However, this time, the escalators were not working and we had to walk up them instead. No biggie for us, but we got behind an older gentleman that had a cane and was struggling to get up and was going very slow. I felt so bad for him. Working in the healthcare field, I know a big percentage of the elderly have had knee or hip replacements and for some reason that was all I could think of at the moment while I watched him struggle to get up the steps.

The view once we made it to the top:

Anyone that has been to this pier would know about these statues….LOL Raise your hand if you know what they do…

A view of the Pearl and the Star and the Dawn at the pier as we come down the next escalator...that happen to be working.

I swear every time we come back from Cozumel and I want to take pictures of the NCL ships at the pier, there is ALWAYS some type of small boat on the other side of the pier blocking my view. I just can’t win at this.

This is by far my favorite port to return back to because NCL knows how to throw a party in Cozumel. They always have the pier lined with the employees from both ships, dancing and singing, playing the music and really getting the crowd pumped up on their walk back. I love this part. Someone always dances with Sakari and she loves it. We are getting closer… 

There’s my girls. Sitting side by side. The Star that we were sailing on and the Pearl the one we sailed on last. The Dawn we are going on next. 

Last time we were in port, we were on the Pearl and sitting beside the Spirit, which was the one we were on the cruise before that. You see the pattern? Every time we are here the ship we were on the last time is there with us. How neat? 

Then we finally make it around the corner…and…….are you ready to party?????

Wait…what? Where’s the party? Are you serious? My favorite part of returning and there is NO ONE HERE! What is going on? I was so sad. It had gotten really chilly outside and VERY windy. I guess maybe they decided not to do it after all. Darn! We were pretty much racing to get on the ship because at this point we were freezing. The wind and our cold wet sandy bodies just was not mixing well…even with towels wrapped around us.

So, up the walkway we went to check in. People in front of us, people behind us. Then all of a sudden everyone comes racing out…the employees, forming a line, the music starts blaring and the dancing starts. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I was starring at my husband like “Please can we just go back and walk down the line again now?” But I don’t think he got the hint and kept pressing forward. So now I know…the party starts at 3:30 and ends at 4:30pm at the “all aboard” time. I WILL know this next time and I WILL be there at 3:35pm!! (or later).

We checked in with our keycards and I immediately started to head to deck 7 so that we could look over and watch the party. We ran in to Pedro who was dressed up in his clown outfit and had a shirt on that said…yep, you guessed it “Vote for Pedro”. I ask to take a picture of him and you could tell he was in a hurry to get outside for the welcome back party, but he’s so nice and he stopped and posed, said hello and didn’t rush us.

By the time we made it up to deck 7, Pedro was already outside with the crowd. How’d he do that? He was taken the steps all the way down and he had these huge flipo shoes on. 

I took a few pictures of the party happening down at the pier without me:

The party was still going on and things had picked up quite a bit.

This was the actual video that I took while we were going up the walkway to the ship. You ALWAYS knew when something was about to start because they played the NCL theme song at that time. Whether you are walking up the walkway to get on the ship, at the beginning of a show, around the ship, at the pool. They were always playing their theme song.

At that moment, someone must have known I was pretty upset that I was missing the action below and I was given a sign that everything was going to be just fine:

After watching the crowd dancing and having the best coming back party without me, we decided to go up on the top deck in the front and watch from there the “sail away”.

The clouds were looking gloomy and I was taking pictures because I like gloomy looking cloudy pictures. I just think it makes things interesting.

We watched as some of the other ships from the International port pull out together. I know Allure was one of them, another RCL ship and a Carnival ship. It was pretty.

Sailing off in to the sunset:

The next video I have to share with you because it is HILARIOUS. My daughter was sitting on the chair in front of me and she was singing her own made up song about the day. Telling the ships to "get out the way" (because we were leaving) and singing about all of the animals she had seen that day...saying the Jaguars and cats...blah blah blah...then something happens and it completely cracked me up and I GOT IT ON VIDEO. :D

After that, this is the "look" she gave me (it was kind of that, is that going to happen again look...and yes, yes it did...several times):

I had to take a few pictures of the Pearl as we pulled out of port, since she was parked right next to us.

And the Dawn in front of us:

And both of them together as we moved away and said goodbye to them:

I’m going to backtrack for a moment to the port in Cozumel when we were shopping. I totally forgot to add this in since we took off last night and went to the Monster Truck Jam and I was side tracked.

Every time we are in Cozumel, on the way back to the ship, we stop at this souvenir shop in port. It’s there on the 2nd floor along the way back after you come up the escalators. It’s on the left hand side walking toward the ship. They have some pretty good prices on tee’s, trinkets, wooden items and so on. Sakari always stops and gets one of those little wooden carved “animals” that has the head that bobbles. So we stopped to get her one (she picked the Dragon this time).

I noticed my husband was checking out the tees and I went over and thought about getting a new “Cozumel” shirt. There are so many to choose from. I was looking at them all and I would pull a shirt off the stack and hold it up (to see what was on it and for sizing). There is a lady that works there and as soon as you put the shirt down, she was right there picking it up and refolding it and putting it back. It got to the point she was standing beside me the entire time that I was shopping and within a half a second of putting it down, she snatched it up and moved along with me. Um, ok. You talk about making it a “weird” shopping experience. Now some times I like to take a few shirts out and lay them side by side to compare which I like better. Do you think she allowed me to do this? NOPE. She was snatching it up. At one point I told her, “I’m looking at that” and to put it back. Along come my husband. At this point it was becoming REALLY annoying because she was kind of doing it in a snotty way. I walked to different parts of the store and she was following me everywhere. She was so close, she was in my personal space…which makes me a little annoyed and uncomfortable. Finally my husband had had enough and spoke up and said “Do you treat all of your customers like this?”. She just looked at him…”What?”. He said “Do you follow all of your customers around and snatch things up while they are looking at it and not allowing them to shop?”. She had nothing to say. I’m not even sure if she understood the point he was trying to get across. I finally just grabbed a shirt and said I’m done.

Then noticed some of the cute shirts along the window hanging up (for Sakari). The previous cruise we got her a tie dyed dolphin, his mouth opens up and you see the inside of the mouth when opened. It’s cute. She wanted a new one. She picked which design she wanted and the color and we looked everywhere for it in the stack. (You talk about a ticked off lady after that). I said “look, if you are not going to let me shop and find what I’m looking for…then you shop for me. I want THAT shirt, in THAT color…find it for me”. She couldn’t find it in the right size. I went over and looked at the one hanging up. “Ok, I’ll take THIS one then” and pointed at the one hanging up in the window. Yep, she removed it for me and we were finally done with our purchase and got the heck out of there. Worse shopping experience EVER.

I know sometimes the vendors can be “pushy” trying to get you to come in and “look” but this was a different “kind” of experience. It wasn’t being pushy, it was just plain annoying and if anything would steer someone away from buying anything. I’m persistent though…very persistent when I want something. 

I really had to work for these shirts...you guys should appreciate the dedication I put in to this (trying to get the shirts) which is why I shared. hehe

Time for a little more back tracking. 

Here’s my problem…my NEW camera records using .mov and my old camera records using .avi.

Well, I’ve been trying, researching, and downloading things to help me edit my videos in between this review and finally had some success. When you have something that records in .mov, you can’t edit the video in a Windows editor, which is what I use.

With this new camera and the function buttons being different, we got a lot of footage that was “nonsense” and they needed to be edited. On my old camera, you had to go in to the settings and switch to “video” to record. On the new camera, there’s simply a button on the right side that you push and it starts to record. Since we are both right handed, that button got pushed by mistake A LOT.

We have a video that is around 18 minutes long of nothing but fins, body parts, water, backs of heads and so on from the video being on and we didn’t know it. Who wants to watch that to get to the “good stuff”???

So, I finally found a program that would change the format from .mov to .avi and have converted my videos and then had to edit them in windows. WHEW!! I was able to include them in the port section from this review...for your viewing pleasure right?

 Once again we are out to sea and sad that this was our last port day. We knew this meant that our cruise was almost coming to and end. But hey, the world didn’t end did it? So we felt lucky to still be alive.

Time to prepare for the evening activities after eating and the normal routine or dropping the munchkin off at the kids club for a while and playing some slots.

Tonight they were having a Christmas show called “The Holiday Wish”. When we dropped Sakari off at the kids club they mentioned they would be there with the kids. We “thought” they meant they were playing in the show at some point. We watched all of the kids pile in to their section in the Stardust. Man I have to hand it to the kid’s staff…to handle that many kids and keep everything organized, they do a WONDERFUL job! I know I could never have the patience to do what they do and they do it so well. I did notice that when the show started, Sakari was sitting on one of the counselors lap and remained there the entire show. Hmmm, I wasn’t sure what that was about.

The show started. They had some wonderful dancers and singing about Christmas. I’m not really sure it was a “kid” oriented Christmas show or that they would completely understand. Off the top of my head I can’t remember the specifics, but there was several times that I thought to myself that the kids wouldn’t understand the meaning behind what just happened.

After the show we headed back to the room for some reason. I’m not sure why, we never do this. But something geared us that way. Within 5 minutes of being in the room, the phone rang and it was the kids club telling us that Sakari wasn’t feeling well and she said she wanted to go to sleep because she was tired. The hubby went down to pick her up. Maybe that was the reason she was sitting on the counselors lap that night.

When they returned to the room, she was wide-awake and said she wasn’t tired. I ask why she was sitting on the counselors lap and she said that she couldn’t see the show. So, I’m not sure. I can tell you that the ship was ROCKING tonight…really rocking. We would later find out (the following day) that we had 15-foot waves that night. Maybe it was making her a little sick, but she wouldn’t admit it.

I also have to mention that a few days earlier I had received a call from the head person at Versailles saying he would like to speak with me about the “Taste of India” comment that I had at the meet & greet. When I would call him back, I would get a busy signal. He was persistent though and we finally connected tonight. He had told me that they wanted to make up for not having the Taste of India by treating us to an Indian meal at Versailles or where ever we wanted whenever we wanted. How nice! I told him about the shows that we wanted to see tomorrow and we agreed that we would come straight from the Elements show Saturday night to Versailles for this special meal. I thought it was so nice that they would do this for me. He was so flexible. He told me they would serve us the meal at any of the restaurants we wanted and would even do it in our room if we wanted. We could pick any time that we wanted…even if the dining area was closed at that time. Now you talk about customer service. WAY TO GO NCL!!! Now this is what we are use to. A staff that not only is friendly, but they go out of their way to make your cruise enjoyable and one to remember. This is the NCL staff that I have come to love and one of the main reasons why we cruise with them…the staff!

Santa had left Sakari the usual 2 mints on our pillows and a towel frog tonight:

It was time for my nightly shower and I noticed that I no longer had a floor towel mat tonight. Man I must have really pissed off the room steward. He has managed to reduce the amount of towels and wash rags throughout the cruise, now I no longer have a floor towel mat. But this wasn’t going to bring me down. We were happy as can be that night and went to bed looking forward to the next day. 

(Sakari wasn't tired or sick...so she says, but by the time I got out of the shower...she was sound asleep).