My extensive Pearl review with pics and SURPRISE

I am so glad I came across your review! Awesome as always! Welcome back! The parade you missed was the Pirate Parade :( And they do this on all of the ships. It depends on the number of kids in the club at the time - if they have a certain number then they parade through the theatre. I followed my kids liked a lunatic trying to catch them at every point with the camera. But I only knew what to expect because of our cruises on RCI - they do the same thing ;)

I think you got the first pics of the new "splash academy" with the circus theme waterworks - very cool. :)

And I agree about the babies in diapers in the children's pool. It was one of my biggest complaints from Gem. I witnessed the pool deck crew telling a mom to take her infant TO the kids pool because that's where they "allow diapers" - which as we know is unsanitary to the other children who don't wear diapers.

I am so glad I came across your review! Awesome as always! Welcome back! The parade you missed was the Pirate Parade :( And they do this on all of the ships. It depends on the number of kids in the club at the time - if they have a certain number then they parade through the theatre. I followed my kids liked a lunatic trying to catch them at every point with the camera. But I only knew what to expect because of our cruises on RCI - they do the same thing ;)

 

I think you got the first pics of the new "splash academy" with the circus theme waterworks - very cool. :)

 

And I agree about the babies in diapers in the children's pool. It was one of my biggest complaints from Gem. I witnessed the pool deck crew telling a mom to take her infant TO the kids pool because that's where they "allow diapers" - which as we know is unsanitary to the other children who don't wear diapers.

I'm glad I now know about the parade. I'll be looking for it next cruise. I wish they would have told us about this. I mean they said it was "Pirate night" or "Blues Clues" night...but that's all they ever said. Maybe I didn't read the childrens dailies close enough? Does it say it in there?

Ok, so do tell...what's the Splash Academy? Something new?

I do know that the babies in diapers where in the "baby" pool area, but they were also in the "family" pool as well. I kept looking at the guy (NCL) sitting mid-way on the steps to the water slide and he was watching her but never once said anything to her about getting her kids out of the water (she had twins). Another parent had another small child in there as well and then we witnessed a mom that let her little one on the deck part IN the pool (which is all part of the pool and tiled area with water in it too) and she played in that area for a long time. Then the mom would pick her up by her hands and dunk her down in the water...which was the same water she was sitting in to begin with. :rolleyes: But never once seen any employee say anything to any of these people.

Terrific review. Thanks for posting and thanks for the pix, too. You're keeping us psyched for the Pearl next year.

. I mean they said it was "Pirate night" or "Blues Clues" night...but that's all they ever said. Maybe I didn't read the childrens dailies close enough? Does it say it in there?

 

Ok, so do tell...what's the Splash Academy? Something new?

Ohhh Splash Academy, it's been the talk of the town around CC lately - not in a good way lol You will find every press release and up to the minute detail about splash academy in this huge discussion here....

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1600977

And the Pirate Parade - on our cruise they had the following line "Parade leaves at 7:00 pm, don't miss the hunt" But who knows if yours said the same.

Welcome home! Thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed review with pictures. I know that takes alot of time!

Couple of comments about your review. My last cruise on the Sky we had a very similiar experience boarding. They had 4 lines, one for gold latitudes, silver, bronze, and everyone else. Each line was equally as long. But how ironic that the shortest line was the non-lattitudes line. There was no one enforcing the lines. But welcome to Miami.... the world of chaos and unorganization (I can say this because I live here).

The dress codes in the MDR have been relaxed. I read where you said people were in shorts. We were told our last cruise that NCL changed the dess policy again. Jeans and shorts are allowed in ALL MDRs and all specialty restaurants including Cagneys and Epic club. The only restaurant that still has a dress policy is Le Bistro.

Sorry to hear about your kids getting sick. But it looks like you made the most of it and had a good time. Great job hunting down Mr Sheehan and you guys took a great picture.

Thank you for your review. You seem to be a very patient stand-in-liner. Glad you all had fun and thank you for the pics!

Thank you for taking the time to post such a great detailed review and for posting such nice pictures. I am very glad you had a great cruise with VIP perks. Very nice picture of you and Mr.Sheehan.

thank you for the great review on stirup cay and ocho rios looking forwar to gran cayman and cozumel.

thank you againg.

miryam

Mitsu very nice review, thank you sharing.

In a review by a family just off the Star the poster said they had lemonade available in the buffet. Did you notice lemonade in the buffet on the Pearl? Am hoping this is fleet wide.

Thank you for your review. You seem to be a very patient stand-in-liner. Glad you all had fun and thank you for the pics!

I am. I'm on vacation so I don't let much get me down if I can help it. I was just so excited and talking to the family in line and taking pictures...it passed by quick enough. :D

Mitsu very nice review, thank you sharing.

 

In a review by a family just off the Star the poster said they had lemonade available in the buffet. Did you notice lemonade in the buffet on the Pearl? Am hoping this is fleet wide.

I think they might have the lemonade. I'm pretty sure there is always water and tea. I'm not sure though because we buy the soda package.

GRAND CAYMAN

NATIVEWAY-STINGRAY SAND BAR, SNORKELING REEF, RUM POINT BEACH

I did a lot of research on this beautiful island and was originally going to go to Smiths Cove for a quiet snorkeling/beach day. After reading a fellow cc’s post and the pictures, I knew I just had to take this excursion. My 3 year old has a love for animals and I knew that the stingrays would delight her. So, I booked with Nativeway and received my confirmation for the 5 of us. Every cruise there is that one port that I just know is going to be the highlight of the cruise. I just knew this was going to be that port this time around.

I have to start by saying, anyone who knows me on here and has read any of my reviews know that I’m not a negative person in any way. I try to make the best of everything and not many things upset me nor do I normally let things spoil my fun. I’ve broken my hand in port in 2010, I’ve been zip lining and been slammed into a tree knocking my breath out of me by an employee, my daughter has been bitten by a monkey at Boddens house…I’m not a complainer. However, this tour was just unacceptable in every way to me. With that being said:

On port day, we ate breakfast and headed for the port. We were told to arrive at the meeting site at 9:15am and the tour would leave at 9:30am. We arrived at the stand at exactly 9:15am. We did not see anyone standing around for Nativeway, but seen the sign that stated that is where they meet. After about 10 minutes of still not seeing anyone, I approached another tour guide for another company next to it and they stated that Sharon had just left prior to us showing up with some people and she should return shortly so we should just wait there.

Around 9:45 or so she showed up only to tell us that we were late. She said she had taken the group and already put them on the bus to head out. I told her our instructions said to be there at 9:15 and that is exactly when we showed up and had been waiting. She told us that we were an hour late and we must still be on ship time and needed to be on Cayman time. Well, her email to me stated the following: “The tour departs the pier at 9:30 AM Eastern Daylight Saving Time (this is ship’s time). The tour completes at around 2:45 PM Eastern Time. We ask that you check in no later than 9:15 AM Eastern Daylight Saving Time. When you come ashore, look for the person carrying the sign that says Native Way Watersports. You may also ask for us at the information booth at the cruise ship terminal.” Then she proceeded to tell me that she could take us to the Sand Bar and do the snorkeling but we would miss going to Rum Point, which really upset me. That was the ONLY reason that I booked with THEM to begin with. I could not find another tour that went to Rum Point. Finally we decided to go ahead and do the stingrays (I couldn’t let my little one down on that part since that was all she had been talking about for the last month after finding out that she was going to get to hold a stingray).

Sharon told us to follow her and we met up with another group where they told us they would be taking all the passengers in 2 of their buses. When they split everyone up, they also split our party of 5 up. Um WHAT???? We are all together and I kept telling them this. They said well 2 will have to go in one van and 3 in the other. Now I’m sure that everyone in the 2 vans were not all together and they could have kept from splitting us all up. Once again, not too happy about this. While we were talking to the guide telling him we were together, everyone had already split up and piled in the vans in this huge parking lot where there were tons of buses and vans. We had no idea where everyone had gone to and then the guide just walked off. We were left standing there wondering where they had all went. Finally my husband noticed one of the people sitting in a van that had been standing there and we headed over that way. Then the driver tried to tell my 3 year old to get in the back and we were to sit in the front. NOPE DON’T THINK SO!!! She was petrified. There were 2 kids (older) already in the back and 1 parent with them. When I told the driver I wasn’t putting my 3 year old back there by herself, the parent back there decided to move up a row so that I could squeeze in back there with her.

On the ride there I had to put up with the 2 older children horsing around and the one sitting next to us kept sitting on his foot/leg , which happen to be pinching my daughters leg over and over. I put my hand down there in the attempt to keep him from hitting her. Needless to say, by the time we made it to the boat, my hand and arm had shoe prints on it and wasn’t feeling the best. Argh.

So we make it to the boat we are taking and everyone PILES IN…it was crowded. The two guys on the boat tell us to go up on the front of the boat to sit on the “sundeck”. The sundeck had a coating (kind of like the coating you put on a truck bed to keep it from rusting) but it was pointy. Not very comfortable at all. After we start moving the driver of the boat tells us “oh, just so you know, the people on the sundeck…you WILL get soaked”. Oh just flipping great. We were soaked all the way there from the waves, towels and all. Mouthfuls of water and salt water in the eyes when you least expect it. Both my girls were not happy about this. Just imagine sitting on the front of a boat with nothing to hold on to, nothing to lean against, legs and butt hurting from being poked from the deck while trying to hold on to a small child all while getting soaked on a wavy ride. Whew.

When we arrived, the place was PACKED. We circled around trying to find a place to “park”. We could see the stingrays swimming around and all the people holding them. Ok, so hopefully things were about to get better now.

As soon as we parked, the driver of the boat and the guy with him jumped off and started looking for a stingray to catch. Everyone piled off the boat and we were left trying to figure out how in the heck we were supposed to get off the front of the boat deck with the boat rocking so bad with a little one??? Really??? There was no help what-so-ever. No one in site. No concern for safety. We could have fallen off the boat and they would have never known. I have NEVER been on any excursion where the tour guides did not have a safety concern for a child. It took both me and my husband inching our way holding on as tight as we could to our child’s hand and one hand on the boat to get off. At that point I was highly pissed. After getting down below, I noticed that I had forgotten my daughters lifejacket (a puddle jumper and it’s the only thing that she can swim with that won’t tip her over). Now this was of course totally my fault, but just added to the open wound at this point. The life jacket they had for children was way too big for her and it did absolutely no good. We still had to hold her.

By the time we got off the boat, you really didn’t see very many stingrays. I don’t know if all the other groups had them or they had just went off in a different area where they were feeding him. But, we only had one. I think I seen maybe 2 pass by us (and this was after the “tour” was over and everyone was getting back on the boat. So, I think it was because the other groups had let them go by that time).[/color]

While the guy holding the stingray told everyone he was holding it and would let you hold it and kiss it, he started letting people take turns. Numerous times we were passed up. The water was really going up and down and it was really hard to stand up a lot of times. We kept going over to tell him we haven’t had our turn yet. Finally after everyone was done and headed back, he said “so everyone has had a turn right?” I kept saying “no, you keep passing us up”. So…”put your hands here”, “ok kiss him” ok, “next”. Literally a minute, if that, of interaction with the stingray. Wow, not at all what I expected. We piled back on the boat and said there is no way we are going back up on the deck, we’ll stand and hold on before doing that.

They took us maybe 25-30 away from the sand bar and stopped the engine and said, here’s your snorkeling spot. Hmmm, yea there were a few rocks there and a few fish, but not much. I definitely wouldn’t call it a “snorkeling spot”. The only good thing about it was there were still some Rays in the area and I managed to get a few shots of them swimming around in their natural habitat instead of being held. The snorkeling last for maybe 30 minutes to 45 minutes if that and they told everyone to get back on the boat to head back.

On the way back the guy stood on the back of the boat and de-shelled (if that’s what it was called) all the conch’s that they had caught while we were snorkeling and visiting with the stingrays. He was pulling the conch out and would put them in his mouth to gross everyone out. Then chop off their head and put them in a bucket. He kept pulling out a clear long piece from the conch and slurping it up in his mouth like spaghetti. He told us it was their version of ******. (After getting home, I looked it up and found out it is the sex organ of the conch). He did slice up the conch and let people on the boat try it if they wanted too. He also let a few girls taste the “****** part”.

I had asked him when he first started taking the conch out what he planned on doing with all the shells and if my daughter could have one. He said yes, he would clean them up and hand them out to those that wanted one. Still on the way back, he was cleaning shells and started handing them out. He handed several to the children that were in the van with us on the ride there. Then handed one to the parent?? Then some of the other ladies. I was still standing there waiting on my daughters…since I was the one to ASK FOR IT to begin with. My daughter started crying because she didn’t have one yet and the parent handed her the shell she had. My daughter sat down on the deck and was holding it and looking at it and saying “look mommy, it’s so pretty”. Then we pulled up to the dock and the lady grabbed it from her. Of course, instant crying. I ask the guy once more for a shell and he said he was cleaning the rest up. I waited and waited and everyone was off the boat and in the vans…of course waiting on us. I finally gave up and got off basically dragging her along crying because she did not get one. Not a pretty site. All the way back to the port I had to deal with her crying and begging for a shell. I told her we would get her one before getting back on the ship…and we did. We found a guy selling them for $6 on the street. So finally she was happy. (I still wasn’t, but she was and that was what mattered).

We did a little shopping before getting back on the ship and called it a day. A frustrating day at that.[/color]

I do have to add, we are 100% positive that we were NOT on a Nativeway tour, but with who ever does the excursions for the actual ship (NCL). Everyone on there said they were from an NCL excursion and on the van ride back they came on the van and collected our money for Nativeway prior to letting us go. We are the only ones that paid at that time because all of the others paid the ship for the excursion. So really, I can not say what an actual “Nativeway” excursion would have been like because we were not on their excursion. But I can say if they (Nativeway) is going to put their customers on ANOTHER excursion, they might want to check out what that excursion is like because it still reflects on them as a tour operator. We booked with them, I feel that our service was not that great, the safety was compromised on the boat with our little one, they did not give us the interaction we expected or had read about and IMO I would never book with them again.

I’m still confused why we were told that we were late and on the wrong “time” when he letter specifically stated The tour departs the pier at 9:30 AM Eastern Daylight Saving Time this is ship’s time. I also have to add that the tour bus that my daughter and her boyfriend were on had the SAME TIME as we did on their clock in the van. Also, on the way back, the bus had the SAME EXACT time that I had as well. So if Cayman time was 1 hour ahead of us (in order for us to miss the tour), I find it odd that none of them on the island had a clock that said it was an hour ahead of the ships time (which is what my clock was set to). I’m still not buying it. Especially when the tour operator next to the Nativeway sign had just told me that Sharon had just walked over with a group.

We hope to someday go back to Cayman Islands and when we do, we are definitely hoping for a better experience. We would never book with Nativeway again.

Link to the rest of my pictures: http://kimbakersphotography.smugmug.com/Other/GRAND-CAYMAN/22280279_364RZ8#!i=1780135039&k=JhFBGb4

GRAND CAYMAN

 

I had asked him when he first started taking the conch out what he planned on doing with all the shells and if my daughter could have one. He said yes, he would clean them up and hand them out to those that wanted one. Still on the way back, he was cleaning shells and started handing them out. He handed several to the children that were in the van with us on the ride there. Then handed one to the parent?? Then some of the other ladies. I was still standing there waiting on my daughters…since I was the one to ASK FOR IT to begin with. My daughter started crying because she didn’t have one yet and the parent handed her the shell she had. My daughter sat down on the deck and was holding it and looking at it and saying “look mommy, it’s so pretty”. Then we pulled up to the dock and the lady grabbed it from her.

Un.be.lieveable! None of those grown women could have given up their shells for a little girl?! My *kids* (13 and 20) would have noticed a little kid was going without, before the crying even started, and offered up their shells. The 13yo would have been sad to lose her shell and still given it up. People are incredible!

Anyway, I am loving your review. I almost feel like I was there too.

Laura

Un.be.lieveable! None of those grown women could have given up their shells for a little girl?! My *kids* (13 and 20) would have noticed a little kid was going without, before the crying even started, and offered up their shells. The 13yo would have been sad to lose her shell and still given it up. People are incredible!

 

Anyway, I am loving your review. I almost feel like I was there too.

 

Laura

Nope. I didn't expect any of the kids to give theirs up but all of the older ladies (some where I'm guessing in their 60's, some in their 30's) would grab the shells when he was handing them out completely reaching over my child who had been patiently standing beside him waiting for one. :( It upset me that the guy cleaning them and passing them out was talking to her during this and seen her standing there and still didn't bother to hand her one. :eek:

I knew the lady that gave her the shell to hold was just doing it to pacify her until we arrived at the dock. I was pretty sure she was going to take it back and I mentioned it to my little one several times saying "that is her shell and you'll have to give it back. She's just letting you hold it for her". But still, she's 3 years old, she doesn't understand that and I knew the tears were going to pour when we docked...and they did. :(

What kind of stateroom did u have? Great trip report!!! How did you get VIP status? That is an awesome experience!

We got VIP benefits on our last cruise while staying in an inside cabin. Treats every night, invite to the VIP captains cocktail hr , the chocoholic preview, concierges (ours would not accept our tip) and the tender tickets and priority disembarkation. It was a wonderful treat!! Norwegian cares about its consumers!

A grown adult took a shell from a 3 year old???? Shameful!

And my girls would have known enough to give up the shells to a toddler!

If you ever go to Nassau - take her to Blackbeards Stingray Encounter - it's zero entry and perfect for little ones. And no van ride or bumpy boat ride - its a quick and comfortable tender type boat over to an island.

Wow Mitsu, what a nightmare stingray excursion. So sorry that you and your family had to endure it.

And shame on the woman for taking back that shell from your daughter:mad: So not good!!!!

Omg. What a horrible shore excursion!

Two things:

PLEASE go post this over at the ports of call forum, just copy and paste the whole thing with the pictures.

And.... My kids got a shark once, just a little thing, dried, totally fine souvenir. It smelled SO BAD after two days you have no idea! So the shell might have made your cabin reek pretty badly after a bit.

Sorry you had such a bad time!!

Did you notice lemonade in the buffet on the Pearl? Am hoping this is fleet wide.

We were on the Pearl two weeks ago. Nope, no lemonade - closest was just an option of orange, cranberry & apple juice for breakfast.

Mitsu, I can't believe your Cayman excursion. We went two weeks ago with Nativeway and it was fabulous. I don't recognize that guy at all though. Our guides actually discouraged picking up live conch. So peculiar & such a shame!

What kind of stateroom did u have? Great trip report!!! How did you get VIP status? That is an awesome experience!

We got VIP benefits on our last cruise while staying in an inside cabin. Treats every night, invite to the VIP captains cocktail hr , the chocoholic preview, concierges (ours would not accept our tip) and the tender tickets and priority disembarkation. It was a wonderful treat!! Norwegian cares about its consumers!

We had an interior room and the VIP status was just as you described. We loved every minute of it. :D

If you ever go to Nassau - take her to Blackbeards Stingray Encounter - it's zero entry and perfect for little ones. And no van ride or bumpy boat ride - its a quick and comfortable tender type boat over to an island.

Thanks for the info. I may use that some time if/when we go back to Nassau.

Two things:

 

PLEASE go post this over at the ports of call forum, just copy and paste the whole thing with the pictures.

 

And.... My kids got a shark once, just a little thing, dried, totally fine souvenir. It smelled SO BAD after two days you have no idea! So the shell might have made your cabin reek pretty badly after a bit.

 

Sorry you had such a bad time!!

CC use to let you post reviews over on the port of call area, but they no longer allow you to do that. It's part of the rules now. So, when ever I do a review, I do them in sections according to the review and where we went. So, when someone post over on the port board I can just simply refer and paste the post I did. I'm not sure why they (cc) decided not to allow the reviews any more. I also post all of my reviews on TripAdvisor as well. :)

Since we didn't actually end up with the "fresh conch" from the sea and ending up having to purchase one from someone on the street (he had an entire grocery cart full of them), I believe that they had been out for quite some time. So, this one never did smell. It was really cleaned up and shiny. It still doesn't smell. :D

If anyone recognizes this boat from a tour company, this is who we were with for the sting rays:

I also might add that we were suppose to pay $62.50 for all 3 parts of the tour: stingray, snorkel a reef, and Run Point which INCLUDES our meals. She ended up charging us $40. After looking at their site, for $40 we should get: Stingray Sandbar, Coral Gardens and Star Fish Snorkel, so obviously we were still ripped off with the price because we didn't even get a Star Fish Snorkel....:mad:

COZUMEL, MEXICO (CHANKANAAB)

We were in Cozumel 6 months ago and went to Chankanaab and it was by far our favorite port of the cruise. We knew when we booked the next cruise; we would like to include Cozumel again. As always, it did not disappoint.

We were supposed to dock at International dock, but somehow ended up back at Punta Langosta pier again. Although I wanted to experience a different pier (and also International was closer to where we were going), I was delighted to find the Spirit docked alongside of us when we returned that day. What a pleasant surprise. We were also supposed to be in port from 10-6pm, but somehow they changed it to 11 to all aboard being 6:30. I think we didn’t actually leave the port until 8 or later.

We walked the LONG port/shopping area and finally made it out to the cabs. Quickly caught a cab for the 5 of us (cost $15 total for a party of 5) and we were a Chankanaab in no time. When we pulled up there was a huge iguana sitting right alongside the van and my husband rushed out with our little one to show her. I paid the driver and he quickly pulled away. We got up to pay to get into the park and wait….where was our bag??? My husband had left it in the taxi van in the trunk. YIKES!!!

When we had got out of the van and was walking up to the entrance a man ask which van we had got out of and I looked back and the van was already pulled around the rest of the taxis and gone (he keeps track of every taxi that pulls up, the van number and the amount of people in each van). Well somehow this driver managed to get out of there before he wrote it down. I had taken a picture when we first got out that had the van that was in front of us in the picture. When checking his list, every van after this one in the picture had 7 people get out of it. We spent the next hour to hour and a half trying to locate a driver that they had no record of. I was about in tears at certain points not knowing what was going to happen at this point. Our money was in the bags, our cruise cards, our ID’s…everything of any importance was in that bag. Of course, I had the bag with just the towels. (rolling eyes). My oldest daughter and her boyfriend went ahead and went in to the park because they had a dolphin swim to get to (they had no idea what was going on at the time because they went to check in and of course didn’t have to buy tickets to enter the park like we did).

The man at the port tried forever to locate the driver with our bag and I went to the entrance to try to see if my other daughter was in site to let her know what was going on. When I returned, the bag had showed up. They had located the driver and another driver bringing passengers had brought it with him. WHEW!! We tipped the guy with the walkie talkie good for all the hard work he had done for locating the bag. Whew, we were finally in to the beach.

After getting in we were off to the beach. There were 7 ships in port that day and after waiting so long to enter the park, all of the chairs in the area we wanted to sit at were already taken. So, we just sat our things by the snorkeling wall and off we went into the water. As always, there were some amazing snorkeling, coral, and fish. The water was just like it was the last time we were there (not too calm, but not wavy enough to have any concern). We witnessed tons of people going out on a snorkeling “tour” with people there at Chank and all we could wonder is why??? Why would you pay to see the same thing I’m seeing on my own??? It just didn’t make sense to me. There were in the same water as me, swimming right alongside of me. The parrot fish there are some of the biggest I’ve ever seen. They are huge. I did find that if you took the time to explore and look under the huge rocks in all the nooks and crannies located all over the place you would find plenty of coral and anenomes right under your feet. There are tons of holes everywhere and I would see people coming up out of them. Sometimes I wish I had the guts to go in one of them with a flash light to see what might be in there. I did manage to explore a little more in the water than I did last time along the walls. It is just beautiful there and the water so clear. Also, there was a platform out in the water this time that you could snorkel up to and get on to rest and then snorkel or dive down some more. It wasn’t there last time we were at Chankanaab.

A few hours later people started to leave (I assume their ships left earlier than ours, which wasn’t until 7:30pm I think since all aboard was 6:30pm) and there were plenty of chairs available. We grabbed one and ordered a few drinks. Like always they were good. My husband ordered some type of drink that was inside an actual pineapple and he said it was yummy. We decided to order something to eat. The last time we were there we had not tried their food. It was a hard decision, so the waiter told us about a sample plate that you could order with some of everything that had. We decided to go with that. It was only $12 and it had a lot on it. I have to say it was GREAT and very filling! Makes me sad I missed out on it last time. My daughter and her boyfriend returned from the dolphin swim and they had grabbed a bite at the restaurant over by the dolphins and said they had paid $10 for just a burrito over there.

My oldest daughter decided to have a braided string put in her hair and I decided to have my hair braided on the top. They had cute little flowers that went in your hair and I opted for that. While I was sitting under the hut having my hair braided (which is right beside the cove area for swimming) we watched a pelican diving in and out of the water getting his meal for the day. It was entertaining and of course the site was breath taking. I could stay here and never leave and be perfectly happy.

A little more snorkeling and then we decided to walk around the lagoon to look for iguanas. Like always, there were plenty there to be seen, both black and orange ones.

By the end of the day, the place was nearly empty and it was so peaceful. Not having to be back at the port so early like before really felt like a big difference/experience. Even though we didn’t arrive until later in the day (11am), it felt like we were there forever (and I loved that). We slowly walked back to the entrance, not wanting to leave at all, and ask the man at the front if he could call us a cab. He pointed over to the parking lot on the side and said there are plenty here. If you are ready to leave, I will call one over. It was a quick ride back to the port and we stopped and did a little shopping and taking pictures before boarding again.

Coming up the pier to the ships you could hear loud music playing. We turned the corner to go between both the Spirit and the Pearl and oh my…what a site!! The staff from the ships and officers were lining up and down the pier, both sides welcoming everyone back and dancing and high-fiving everyone as they returned. It was amazing. I had never experienced them doing that before. Usually they have several people standing there to welcome you back and handing out the cold wash rags to cool you down with lemonade to drink, but this time….just wow. It was the best time ever. I don’t know if they did that because it was both NCL ships only at the dock or what. It was even more meaningful to us because both our “girls” (Pearl and Spirit) were there together, side-by-side. Ahhhh heaven. Norwegians know how to party, that’s for sure!!

I’m not sure what the holdup was for pulling out of the port, but I wasn’t complaining at all. We sat on the top deck watching all the Carnival ships pull away from the other piers and then sadly watched the Spirit leave and go off into the sunset. We were there until after the sun had gone down and it was dark out. It was beautiful to see Cozumel all lit up at night. What a great day we had (minus the mishap in the beginning with the bags of course) and Cozumel still remains one of my favorite ports. Yep, we have our next cruise booked in 8 more months and once again Cozumel is on the itinerary.

A link to the rest of my pictures that day: http://kimbakersphotography.smugmug.com/Other/Cozumel-Mexico-Chankanaab/22279582_dQxr8T#!i=1780078946&k=Fsd2TdZ

COZUMEL, MEXICO (CHANKANAAB)

 

 

We were also supposed to be in port from 10-6pm, but somehow they changed it to 11 to all aboard being 6:30. I think we didn’t actually leave the port until 8 or later.

 

 

 

 

 

Did nobody tell you that the clocks had changed?

Did nobody tell you that the clocks had changed?

Yes, we changed our clocks up one hour. We still go by "ship" time. :)