Traveler

Day 6.

Woke up to another sunrise , and prepared for our beach day , we booked Maya Chan beach per the recommendations we found on this site. after quick breakfast we left the ship to the port while collecting some beach towels.  

It was a rough sea today at port:

The port itself is a maze of shops, pool, restaurants and more, if your excursion  meeting point is outside the port (as in hour case) , make sure you leave yourself enough time to find the way out ...

After we found  the exist we started to look for the meeting point per the map we got by email from Maya Chan. We stopped for few minutes by the coral snake which decide to cross the sidewalk near the port exist and found the meeting point. At the meeting point the Maya Chan employee showed us few  picture of the beach that were taken the same morning,   as due to the weather condition the beach was full with sea grass and the water were muddy. She told us that if we want to cancel they will give us full refund, we did not want  as it did not seem to us as a deal breaker , so we were waiting few more minutes for more people to share the ride . none of the people that arrived to the meeting point wanted to cancel  . The ride was around 20 minutes on and off road , I thought it was ok not too bumpy (although you can feel the road for sure). As we arrived to the beach we were welcome by David and one of the dogs. we were soon assign a seating area, they allow us to choose between two chairs near the restaurant or two chairs and a a beach bad on the far side of the resort were they did not clear the sea grass yet , as we did not mind the sea  grass (after all its a natural thing and part of the sea) we took the one with the bad.

We got our welcome drink and the Guac + Salsa (plus  refills) which were very good. It was quite a sunny day but not too hot and some sporadic clouds  without any rain. Maya Chan employees were still fighting with the sea grass but it did not rally bother us.

They offer massage services which cost 25 $ for 30 minutes and 45 $ for one hour (you pay directly to the provider). I took the half hour massage for the research and it was not bad at all.  It was soon time for lunch which was a very good Taco buffet. after lunch we were asked for  time we wanted to go back to the port , we asked to go back around 2:30 PM as we wanted to tour the port and the all on board time  was 16:30 . All in all the stay was very good and the service was excellence.

Our way back to the port was shorter (I guess we had a driver that care less about his car) and we were soon back to the port, we went to the chocolate factory to taste some good dark chocolate and bought some to bring home (ya sure , it was all eaten on the ship , oh well) . Back on the ship we took a quick shower and went to the "meet the starts" event , there were some actors from Mama Mia , skaters and divers . Apparently the Mama Mia ensemble are all coming on the same contract (23 people) for 9 month, they come together and leave together. 

It was the second official, which mean lobsters at the MDR , so we went to eat some , we shared the table with two more couples and it was quite interesting to hear new stories.

Today it was also the quest night, it was funny and the crowd was very active even comparing to previous quest games I watched . Jemmy the CD did a good job running the game.

Just now, WAAAYTOOO said:

Are there really 18 decks ?  Without a Deck 13, shouldn't there only be 17 ?  Or are they counting non-pax decks, too ?

When they were asked about were the employee are sleeping , they talked about deck 1, 2, 12 (never thought employee are sleeping on deck 12) and deck 0 , so maybe they are counting deck 0.

On 12/16/2018 at 1:56 AM, Traveler said:

A fact paper on the ship was handled before we enter to participate in  the captain corner. Who can find the error ?

5492 double occupancy while 2706 state rooms   (even if you single rooms) just do not compute (thanks someone from the audience who raised this point  , 

Anyway some information from the Captain meeting : 

1. How the Oasis will cross the bridge ? - The captain thinks it is OK to cross it even without modifications, one of the things that might help is the fact that as faster the ship goes she is deeper in the water (not sure if you can go fast there). 

2. Allure dry docks going to be for around 63 days - enough time to change many things , for sure play maker will be added (bye bye Sabor).

3. Have you have saw any UFO - Captain and officers answered that they saw some strange things but nothing they can not explained later.

4. Are there any female  captains - there is one in RC and she is married to another captain but she is on vacation now.

The main issue here is not even if people thought its RCL operating it or not .

When I book a tour via RCL you are willing to pay the extra money not just for the ship will wait for you but also I believe RCL is making sure they are contracting such activities to a trusted 3rd parties which RC verifying there standards.  

Board Allure of the seas a week ago from Miami , carried with me 4 bottles of water and two bottles of wine , no issues at all.

A fact paper on the ship was handled before we enter to participate in  the captain corner. Who can find the error ?

In Costa Maya we docked next a small shipe from  Regent of the seas (Seven seas Voyager)

As I understands that suppose to be a luxury cruise ship. I could not to notice the dents on the side of the ship

Looks like they had an issue and someone went to the CEO and told him " let's not activate the insurance so our fee won't get up. I will take some of my guys and with hammers plus several packages of Bondo we will fix it"

1 hour ago, mworkman said:

Just remember the old saying Red & Yellow, kill a fellow, Red & Black, friend of Jack!

 , He was not jack friend for sure.

21 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

We did an ATV excursion somewhere a couple of years ago (can't remember where...).  The trails were very wet and when the ATV went through a puddle, the water, hitting the muffler, evolved a huge plume of steam which was VERY hot !  I remember my ankles getting zapped by the hot steam a couple of times.  Fun though....

Yes , it can be problematic, that's why although it was hot we  both took long pants, my per of jeanse I used will need to be washed before it can enter the washing machine but we both enjoyed it very much

21 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

They are very venomous, too, no ?

The onece that has yellow stripes suppose to be very venomous but they are really bite people comparing to vipers for example

2 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Yikes !!!

Yap just on our way from the port to the meeting point of Maya Chan . Now usually , the coral snakes supposed to be shy and avoid people , I guess this one did not read his Wikipedia page.

       Day 5 Roatan .

Again we woke up much too early for a vacation , I am sure on the last day before we need to leave ,  our jet lag will be gone the good thing comming up earlier is the ability to watch the sunrise.

.. 

Post breakfast (the regular WJ nothing really to tell about) we started to do our way to the peer to catch our RC tour - jungle ATVs and a beach break , I booked it during one of the pre cruise sell. We arrived 10 minutes earlier so we had to wait few minutes. The ride to the ATV location took around 20 minutes on decent roads . We arrived , sign a waiver , saw some safety movie (at least most of us ), and got bandanas plus helmets. We still had to wait around 15 minutes for the previous group to come back but it was not too bad. Near  the ATV they had an  Ambulance  parked and reafy, I guess just in case. It was long time ago since I last used an ATV , so long that I do not  even want to admit it  (let's just say  it was no long after high school). The tour starts with going again over the safety roles and riding in circles just to see no one have any issues 

Post the training session we started our real trail and although it takes few minutes to understand exactly how the ATV behaves its becoming fun after, the only issue is the smoke the ATV creates , feels like being few hours in the smoking section of an RC Casino . The trail is nice and contain going up and down hills and passing over muddy water . Remember to bring clothes and shoes you are not really attached to ...   We also  had one photo stop with nice jungle view

. During the ride , we one of the passagers  roll over 180 degrees during going up the hill , nothing seriously happened to him (although the ATV ended on his leg)  but it was a good reminder for the possible hazards. All in all it was enjoyable experience , messi but nice , My shoes post the activity , they are originally black 

After the ATV activity (1 hour net ride) we were transferred to the Sol Mar beach. The beach is a very clean one, with cristal clear water

We had two hours to enjoy it , we grabbed two chairs and order beers an a cocktail (3$ beer , 10$ cocktail) , we also ordered the island sampler plate which came with rice , fried platano and kebabs - stake , chicken and shrimp, all were very tasty.

After the two hours beach break we returned to the port , did some windows shopping and drank a coconut water . We returned to the ship atound 4 and went to Sabor , I figured out we need at least once to go and eat there before it is being replaced. I will write later about Sabor

Welcome party in Costa Maya 

3 hours ago, arebee said:

Ok, I got a question... We've never ate outside the port (other than Nassau) so do they take US currency or do you have to use a credit card or local currency?

.

Almost every restaurant accespts dollars , just make sure you ask for the rate before and have a calculator to check how much you need to pay as some of the places has really maths problem ...

Day 4 Cozumel :

Regular breakfast in WJ , it was quite empty and off we go to the port. Near our ship we had Celbrety Edge , we were so close we could see what people order for in room breakfast

As we did not any special plans we be just took a taxi to down town and started to walk around  drank a margarita and tryed to avoid the over pushy  store people (one even called us and ask  if " want to see his junk ?" , at least he was pointing his store and not something else.

Soon it was  time for lunch. We got some recommendation from this site for few options and we choosen  Casa Denise  which was very close , it's was quite good and I liked that they did not try fishing for customer. 

Post lunch we walked over to Mega supermarket which I was reading about in @Matt posts. It's really a good place to buy some local food, spices and even Alcohol (cheaper than the ship prices for rum and tequila) they accepted dollars with good  exchange rate , We bought some hot sauces and candies. It was very easy to catch a taxi going back to the port. It was almost time for all aboard so I went to the balcony to watch the process and some peer runner , well all on board was 5:30 PM , last people boarding was around 6:05.

At the evening we went to WJ for a quick bite before we went to watch the aqua show. As always it was a nice show , the fact the ship moved allot adedd to the difficulty level.

I

For some strange reasons some one keep stealing our cabin do not disturb sign, I guess some is really liking RC magnets .... After the the third time I gave up and created  improvised sign from the endless port shopping Advertising materials , I hope no one will fancy that 

3 hours ago, Matt said:

I've been to Casa Denis twice. It's not bad, and certainly more authentic than your typical fare.  However, I think there are more authentic spots that will cost less in town.  But you can do far worse than Casa Denis

Thanks, 

At the end we went to Casa Denis ,it was not bad at all and was easy to find. Not to many were eating there when we went, what I liked is the fact they might be the only restaurant around that did not tried to convince us to try them.  

Day 3 - Sea Day 

We woke up much too early for sea day , again I had to join some meetings at the morning. Post the meetings we went to eat something small as we schedule Sushi class. This time the cruise team did not done really good job in coordinating the activities , between 10 am to 11 am we had : The C&A welcome back party, the meet and mingle meeting and cruise port talk ,

Anyway , I  took the numbers C&A numbers  from the TV  recording , total 2780  C&As , 1521 Gold , 526 Platinum , 212 Emerald , 322 Diamond , 164 D+ , 37 pinnacles  2 cruisers were with 1700 points  and the top one with 2035 points

IT was time to go  to Izumi for the class, we arrived at time , signed some waver, washed our hands again and started the demonstration , I do not have many pictures from the class as we were wearing gloves to prevent any food issues. The class was nice, I learned some new things and yes its allot of food to eat at 10:30 AM  (or any other time). Most of the people did not complete the food they created. All in all I am happy we booked it and will recommend to try it at least once, I just wish they have done it in a better time (lunch time maybe). Here is my creation :

Post the class , we went to explore the ship once again to see whats going on , it was quite cold and windy outside so we went to the casino for a while, later we went to eat some very late lunch at the park cafe

, we were still full from the morning sushi, after we thought its a good time to take a nap. we were planning to watch the water show but it was canceled due to  the ship movement and it was  moving quite allot  , when I walked I thought I might had too many drinks , but considering the fact  I was only drinking water I guessed we encounter some rough waves. later  went to the WJ for recon only and we found some interesting dishes so we had to taste them for the research only ... sure .

Velvet cake strikes back

They established  a pasta station, some veg/fruits drinks, jerk chicken and tasty Indian food. around 10 PM we went down to the Casino as they were going to have a raffle of an upgrade to  a crown loft suite for the rest of the cruise , three names were announced but none of the people  were not around so they lost it , at the end some lady won it (She was in regular balcony room) , surprisingly I did not won , its not that I needed the upgrade , I just wanted to have more pictures to share in the blog . Love and marriage was our next station, there were many volunteers so the eliminate process  took some time but was very funny , the activity director (Fabio)  was very funny, the cruise director Jemmy  was less fun , but we will give him another chance during  the quest. The interesting thing was that none of the couples were watching the show before (after all its the same questions every time and you can prepare for it  if you really want to win). 

it was time to go to sleep as we were tired from the early morning , quick email round and I called it for that day.

Thanks for the tips , we grabbed a taxi to the city , will find some restaurant and then  we will all to the Mega , catch a taxi later . Will love some local restaurants recommendations 

1 hour ago, rjac said:

1 hour ago, rjac said:

So, have you found that special place on deck 14 yet? Great location for some  cruise fun you can enjoy even with your clothes on. 

 

Actually, we visit this place yesterday ,this were most of the paradise island were taken from. Very nice deck I just wish they have added some chairs there. 

Some Christmas decorations around the ship:

I must say, heaving to tow device package make out live easier, no more stealing the internet from each other

by the way internet package were offered for 10 $ per day on board

Hi all

Can someone tell me how to get to the big supermarket in Cozumel ? Is it walking distance ? Would I find taxi nearby ?

Internet speed is not bad on the Allure , I had no issues connecting to the  work VPN , share a presentation and lead a call using Skype for business phone from my laptop

Something must be done , escalations to be submitted , maybe I can send email to RC CEO or book the president cruise so I can complain directly. The lighting in the MDR and the rest of the restaurants is just horrible for food photography