Cozumel Shorex Frustration

[canderson]

Canderson,

 

I don't take it as a personal attack and if you thought it was a personal attack it wasn't. Too often people, and I'm not saying you, take some of the inconvienences of cruising and turn it into a ruined cruise. This year has been a good lesson to me to go with the flow when taking a cruise. When I originally booked the cruise you were on, it went to Belize and not Costa Maya. Belize was what I wanted the most. As it turned out we had a great crusie. Really loved Costa Rica.

There's no chance that the lack of a proactive response by the shorex team in the face of unusual circumstances will ruin my cruise. They'd have to cancel the cruise to bum me out sufficiently to call it "ruined"! I just wanted to point out that again, as is (sadly) too often the case, the shore-side staff doesn't begin to live up to the high expectations we have of the onboard people. It's such a dichotomy, and is something I really DO wish both RCCL and X would address.

 

With regard to Xcaret, if it is due to be open, could you catch the ferry and head over yourself. Skip the cruiselines tour and save youself the aggrivation and a little $$$$.

There seems a bit of confusion there. If what you say were the case, I'd have booked this as a "private" excursion directly with Xcaret online. It's all quite the other way around. Celebrity continues to allow online bookings for Xcaret and it will NOT be open during our port stay in Cozumel (they will reopen on 12/12, and we'll be there 12/7). Neither will Chankanaab (not opening until 12/15, and Celebrity has one excursion that will use that facility as well, and shows 'available').

 

What I suggested to Celebrity was to post only those shore excursions that, after a bit of research on their part, had a nearly 100% chance of being actually available (I did manage to find one of interest, and will probably book that one). LAST weekend, they advised over the phone that they actually intended to do this, but never did.

 

My gripe with them at present is that if I can find hard dates through press releases, etc., there's no excuse for the shorex desk not being able to do at least as well since they have "direct links" to their contracted operators! Their email seemed to imply that they didn't intend to spend any extra time to clean the list as best they could.

 

When you see Stewart (ACD)and Melanie(soHo) on your cruise, tell them Rick and Kathy from the Millie in April said Hi. Stewart will know, we've sailed with him 3x in the last year and a half

You know, of all the cruising we've done, we've not once recognized a single person from a prior cruise. Will say to the whole CC gang for you in Michael's the first sea day when we meet!

[chessbriar]

One more thing to my above post. Our recent Century cruise had enging problems and missed Barbados. X however arranged for us to stop at St Thomas instead. They wanted to ensure we got 4 ports and had a great time. I came home to these boards and one of the guests posting as to how they wanted money back from X for slow boarding due to Coast Guard inspection and the missed island. Barbados was why they booked the cruise. My saying is if one port means so much, don't cruise there for 8 hours, stay for the whole week.

 

I've just seen too many complaints recently about things out of X's control and am growing tired of people putting too much emphasis on one port. It is just that, one port of many.

 

So this taints how I look at some of these posts. I misunderstood what was going on here and let my frustration step in. Sorry.

 

One thing that really bothers me about Cozumel, is the fact they reopened with the facilities being prepared to handle the thousands of people from the ships.

 

Grand Cayman refused to open until they had the vehicles to move people and the attractions up and running.

 

It's sad that Cozumel felt the need to open there hurrincane ridden shores to guest before they can really handle them.

 

I'd love to see pictures of the area after your cruise so I can compare the damage to Cayman and Ivan. From what's been reported, I would think Cozumel had far greater destruction.

 

As to Celebrity, it does seem as if they are taking a lackluster approach to the whole issue.

[ocngypz]

Ships just returned to Cozumel this week. All pax are being tendered ashore. Each port call is being handled on a case by case basis as conditions onshore are changing (positively) on a daily basis.

 

What held true for ships visiting this past week in all liklihood will not hold true for port calls next week... let alone next month.

 

The International Pier area where Celebrity normally berths was left in rubble,, including the duty free shopping area and the shops leading out to the street.

 

There are two major differences between Grand Cayman and Cozumel. The Grand Cayman economy is run on banking.... Cozumel.... the tourist trade.

[canderson]

There are two major differences between Grand Cayman and Cozumel. The Grand Cayman economy is run on banking.... Cozumel.... the tourist trade.

I'm with you on this one. The reports of the effort expended to right the situation in Cozumel and the Yucatan are pretty amazing. Your point about tourism is the key with a big part of their season coming up. I'll reserve judgment on the level of success they've had in really getting ready until I see it, but it's hard to ignore the reports. Here's hoping they're right and that these people are getting on with their lives again more quickly than some islands we saw last December after Ivan.

 

As to capacity, they are limiting ships in port substantially. Where there were originally to be 8 ships in port at the same time (yikes!) on 12/7, we now see that the number will most likely be 4.

 

As to Grand Cayman -- our trip last December was due to stop there, but they weren't even close to ready to accepting pax by the time we got there. Wound up doing a day in Curacao after Aruba instead. Nice diversion!

[ronhow]

E,

 

Do you know what the other ships are that will be in Cozumel with us?

 

Have friends on Princess out of Florida who are supposed to be in Cozumel on 12/7 with us....wondering if we can meet up with them.

[canderson]

E,

 

Do you know what the other ships are that will be in Cozumel with us?

 

Have friends on Princess out of Florida who are supposed to be in Cozumel on 12/7 with us....wondering if we can meet up with them.

The list has been thinned out substantially compared to the eight ships that were originally scheduled for our date!

 

At present, it looks like the Star Princess is still due there on 12/7 (7am ~ 5pm)

 

RCCL is still showing two, but I don't think that's being allowed (one per line), so the final count looks like 4 ships.

[Sheffie]

To the OP, if you just want to go to a nice beach where you can get good food, drinks, umbrellas, water toys, floats, etc., try Paradise Beach. We went there and it was great. I have seen pictures posted on the Cozumel board, and Tom has done a great job of getting things up and going. People have gone there already and posted that it was great.

[canderson]

To the OP, if you just want to go to a nice beach where you can get good food, drinks, umbrellas, water toys, floats, etc., try Paradise Beach. We went there and it was great. I have seen pictures posted on the Cozumel board, and Tom has done a great job of getting things up and going. People have gone there already and posted that it was great.

Alas, Sheffie, that may be how things work out. Xcaret is so much more than that, and all of that besides. They have one truly outstanding "outdoor" restaurant as well.

 

Am still trying to figure out what my 3rd favorite option is and whether it's going to be available. During the original planning, I'd thought it best to get FAR off the island of Cozumel since they had originally scheduled EIGHT ships there for 12/7 (even pre-Wilma, that was getting a little ridiculous), but with the lesser number of ships (I think it's down to 4 now), the island itself might not be quite such a zoo this time.

[Karynanne]

Alas, Sheffie, that may be how things work out. Xcaret is so much more than that, and all of that besides. They have one truly outstanding "outdoor" restaurant as well.

 

Am still trying to figure out what my 3rd favorite option is and whether it's going to be available. During the original planning, I'd thought it best to get FAR off the island of Cozumel since they had originally scheduled EIGHT ships there for 12/7 (even pre-Wilma, that was getting a little ridiculous), but with the lesser number of ships (I think it's down to 4 now), the island itself might not be quite such a zoo this time.

 

Hopefully, you'll be able to visit Xcaret on this cruise or a future one...it is truly one of the most beautiful environmental parks I have visited. A wonderful place...

 

Karyn

[canderson]

Hopefully, you'll be able to visit Xcaret on this cruise or a future one...it is truly one of the most beautiful environmental parks I have visited. A wonderful place...

 

Karyn

Agreed, but there's no question that it will have to be on a future cruise. We've been there once before (Summit, 12/04), and were just barely able to scratch the surface in a whole day excursion. That's why we were really looking forward to going back.

 

If I had to guess, I'd say it would take 5 full days to see pretty much everything there is to see and join in all of the various activities.

[Charles4515]

Hopefully, you'll be able to visit Xcaret on this cruise or a future one...it is truly one of the most beautiful environmental parks I have visited. A wonderful place...

 

Karyn

 

They claim to be an eco park. In reality it is a tourist park built to get tourist dollars with a high admission price. It is a business. I remember when that area was pristine. The man made park destroyed that. Now there are restaurants, dolphen pens, development. I don't think it is that wonderful, been in the area before and in the park after, and the claim they make that it is an eco park is a joke.