What to do in Cozumel

On 12/26/2010 6:49 PM, Wayne Dernoncourt wrote:
On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 17:23:51 -0500, Janet Wilder wrote
(in raweb.com):

On 12/25/2010 12:59 PM, Goomba wrote:
Janet Wilder wrote:

We will be cruising there too in early January. We are on Voyager of
the Seas out of Galveston. We've been there so often that we will
probably just stay on the ship.

We'll be there right after you and had considered just staying on board,
but have decided instead to go to Nachi Cocum for the day.

I will make sure that they keep everything clean and tidy for your
visit. :-)

We live about half an hour from the beach on South Padre Island, so
spending the day on a beach just doesn't turn us on. We live on the
border so shopping in Mexico is no big deal. We can get the same
chatchkas here for a lot less. Same thing with Mexican food.

I wanted to take the Mexican cooking class and even contacted them
directly, but there wasn't anyone else signed up. If they get more
people signed up they are supposed to contact me. That would be
something that would interest me.

I was interested in the cooking class, my wife - not so much. Evidently we
are going to a park or something....g


Have a great time. I'm looking forward to some down time by the quiet pool.

--
Janet Wilder
Way-the-heck-south Texas
Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.

On 12/26/2010 4:49 PM, Wayne Dernoncourt wrote:

I was interested in the cooking class, my wife - not so much. Evidently we
are going to a park or something....g



Why not SCUBA here as well? Cozumel has some world class dive sites.
Try Punta Sur and La Heradura for some spectacular swim-throughs and
spires. You usually find some large pelagics hanging around down there
as well. At Punta Sur we have seen large spotted rays, shark, lots of
turtles and some very large grouper.

Eating in Cozumel is as much of an adventure as the diving! The stars
here are the tiny, hole in the wall restaurants that are out of the way.
We found a locals place about two streets back from the Zocalo that
served cabeza tacos. For six of us with beers and sodas, it ran only
$25 and we ate a BUNCH of the freshest, most flavorful cabeza tacos we
had ever had!! If you are into seafood, the restaurant in the front of
the square is excellent, but a lot more expensive since it is a tourist
spot.

Have fun!!

--

Ray
+++++++++++++++++++++++
www.CompressorStuff.com

On 12/27/2010 6:36 PM, RayC wrote:
On 12/26/2010 4:49 PM, Wayne Dernoncourt wrote:

I was interested in the cooking class, my wife - not so much.
Evidently we
are going to a park or something....g



Why not SCUBA here as well? Cozumel has some world class dive sites. Try
Punta Sur and La Heradura for some spectacular swim-throughs and spires.
You usually find some large pelagics hanging around down there as well.
At Punta Sur we have seen large spotted rays, shark, lots of turtles and
some very large grouper.

Eating in Cozumel is as much of an adventure as the diving! The stars
here are the tiny, hole in the wall restaurants that are out of the way.
We found a locals place about two streets back from the Zocalo that
served cabeza tacos. For six of us with beers and sodas, it ran only $25
and we ate a BUNCH of the freshest, most flavorful cabeza tacos we had
ever had!! If you are into seafood, the restaurant in the front of the
square is excellent, but a lot more expensive since it is a tourist spot.

Have fun!!

On our Cozumel stop we took the shopping tour which wound up to be
nothing but a short island tour. They were bringing sand in from the
mainland to fill in the beaches since the last storm washed it away and
the beaches were nothing but coral. We did take a walk down main street
and visited the Cozumel museum which was interesting. Since we were on
Carnival, we were docked at the old Carnival dock (before it got washed
away). Right off the pier is a Bar/Resturant like Senior Frog's. A lot
of the passengers went there. Our schedule was to depart at 11 p.m.
SHARP and passengers were warned to be back on board no later than
10:30. Our balcony cabin on deck 10 gave us a good view of the dock and
town. At around 10:45 we saw a lady running like hell with shopping
bags towards the ship. Everyone on that side of the ship was cheering
her on. The ramp crew saw her and waited for her to board.
She almost missed the ship.

On that same cruise, in Cozumel, there was a young couple, say 20ish
that wore swim suits into town. They looked ok EXCEPT, the lady wore
what I call an Anal Floss suit. Her butt had a nice shape to it, but
the suit, if I can call it that, was inappropriate, at least for a
passenger coming off an American based cruise ship. Needless to say,
every man I saw was staring at her.

I'm a cruiser and would be happy just sailing around and not docking.
My wife on the other hand would rather visit a port every day. Bermuda
was a nice spot since we only docked twice, Georgetown and Hamilton
where we spent four days. The OJ verdict was to come in that day, so
around noon, the ship was full of people gathered around TV's, and the
town seemed to have went to sleep. I recommend Bermuda for anyone that
wants two sea days and the rest roving around a beautiful island with
friendly people. And Yes, the men do wear Bermuda Shorts.

On 12/27/2010 6:36 PM, RayC wrote:
On 12/26/2010 4:49 PM, Wayne Dernoncourt wrote:

I was interested in the cooking class, my wife - not so much.
Evidently we
are going to a park or something....g



Why not SCUBA here as well? Cozumel has some world class dive sites. Try
Punta Sur and La Heradura for some spectacular swim-throughs and spires.
You usually find some large pelagics hanging around down there as well.
At Punta Sur we have seen large spotted rays, shark, lots of turtles and
some very large grouper.

Eating in Cozumel is as much of an adventure as the diving! The stars
here are the tiny, hole in the wall restaurants that are out of the way.
We found a locals place about two streets back from the Zocalo that
served cabeza tacos. For six of us with beers and sodas, it ran only $25
and we ate a BUNCH of the freshest, most flavorful cabeza tacos we had
ever had!! If you are into seafood, the restaurant in the front of the
square is excellent, but a lot more expensive since it is a tourist spot.

Have fun!!


Do you know that cabeza is meat from the head of an animal? On the
border they use it to make barbacoa, which is probably what was in your
tacos. If they were in a hard shell, they weren't Mexican tacos.

--
Janet Wilder
Way-the-heck-south Texas
Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.

On 12/27/2010 6:56 PM, NOSPAMER wrote:

I'm a cruiser and would be happy just sailing around and not docking. My
wife on the other hand would rather visit a port every day. Bermuda was
a nice spot since we only docked twice, Georgetown and Hamilton where we
spent four days. The OJ verdict was to come in that day, so around noon,
the ship was full of people gathered around TV's, and the town seemed to
have went to sleep. I recommend Bermuda for anyone that wants two sea
days and the rest roving around a beautiful island with friendly people.
And Yes, the men do wear Bermuda Shorts.


We are the opposite. DH loves to see new places and I could just go from
one transatlantic to another without ever leaving my balcony.

I do agree about Bermuda. We were there in April and it is a lovely
island. Expensive as all get-out, but beautiful. Don't think I go back
unless it was a part of an itinerary DH wanted to do, but we've done
most of the Caribbean.

On our upcoming cruise, we'll probably just stay on the ship at Cozumel
and Montego Bay. I am doing the Sea Trek Helmet Dive on Grand Cayman. I
am really excited. I just hope I don't get cold.

--
Janet Wilder
Way-the-heck-south Texas
Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.

On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 19:25:42 -0600, Janet Wilder wrote:

On 12/27/2010 6:36 PM, RayC wrote:
On 12/26/2010 4:49 PM, Wayne Dernoncourt wrote:

I was interested in the cooking class, my wife - not so much.
Evidently we
are going to a park or something....g



Why not SCUBA here as well? Cozumel has some world class dive sites. Try
Punta Sur and La Heradura for some spectacular swim-throughs and spires.
You usually find some large pelagics hanging around down there as well.
At Punta Sur we have seen large spotted rays, shark, lots of turtles and
some very large grouper.

Eating in Cozumel is as much of an adventure as the diving! The stars
here are the tiny, hole in the wall restaurants that are out of the way.
We found a locals place about two streets back from the Zocalo that
served cabeza tacos. For six of us with beers and sodas, it ran only $25
and we ate a BUNCH of the freshest, most flavorful cabeza tacos we had
ever had!! If you are into seafood, the restaurant in the front of the
square is excellent, but a lot more expensive since it is a tourist spot.

Have fun!!


Do you know that cabeza is meat from the head of an animal? On the
border they use it to make barbacoa, which is probably what was in your
tacos. If they were in a hard shell, they weren't Mexican tacos.

My BIL father, a man I respected greatly, Colonel-Korean war vet, etc,
lived in Brownsville and loved it. He used to say the same thing. Hard
shells were for gringos. lol
--
Ari Silverstein, C.T.A; C.T.A.S, FREE Cruise Travel Advisory Services
I never have nor ever will solicit or accept a booking.

My BIL father, a man I respected greatly, Colonel-Korean war vet, etc,
lived in Brownsville and loved it. He used to say the same thing. Hard
shells were for gringos. lol

I have a friend who is from New Mexico (a Latina) and they eat hard
shells there. When she lived here in The Valley (Lower Rio Grande
Valley)she could only get them at Taco Bell.

I live about 20 miles upriver from Brownsville and I have yet to see a
hard shell taco any where but Taco Bell and Golden Corral's buffet.

--
Janet Wilder
Way-the-heck-south Texas
Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.

wrote in message
...
On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 11:38:43 -0500, Wayne Dernoncourt
wrote:

I haven't been monitoring/lurking rtc for years...

My wife and I are going on a cruise to Cozumel at the beginning of
January.
We are going on a scuba diving on a couple of earlier stops. We've been
looking at the expeditions listed on the website and Fodor's book to look
at possibilities but we still don't know what to do. I have no desire to
ride in a kidney jarring bus for 3 hours to go see Mayan ruins.

Is the snorkeling great? How's the walk in the park (~3 miles away)? Is
the
Mexican cooking demo good? I weigh ~240 pounds, given the food I
may end weighing 250 pounds so parasailing is up in the airg.

I went parasailing in the Bahamas, and there isn't a problem with the
weight of the person - my daughter went tandem with her daughter when
her daughter was too young to go alone.

We've been scuba diving at Cozumel and thought it was really good, but
that was 12 years ago. I think it is probably still good. It is
much more colorful than in Belize.




When we were there last time, we took an eco jeep tour which took us
down to the south end of the island and we did some snorkeling (which
was decent), and then went to the lighthouse where I wandered around
the Museo de la Navigation - I did not climb the lighthouse although
we could have done that. Next we went to El Caracol which was a very
very small Mayan temple. Then we walked across to the Zona de
Cocodrilos (Sea Cuidadoso) [Crocodiles Zone/Be Careful]. The guide
whistled and a big croc came swimming over. There was also a big tower
you could climb to see other crocs down in the water. I asked how high
a crocodile could jump. The guide said, that in water that shallow,
probably not very high. I also took photos of various birds.

I thought this was a very good tour.

The other thing we might do is just take a taxi into town and walk
around and shop a little, and then go to the museum. I went to the
museum 12 years ago, but would like to go back.



This recent brochure might be of some help. Scuba diving in Cozumel is very
good, almost as good as Turks & Caicos.
http://thisiscozumel.com:80/content/view/620/43/

--Jean

On 12/27/2010 5:25 PM, Janet Wilder wrote:

Do you know that cabeza is meat from the head of an animal? On the
border they use it to make barbacoa, which is probably what was in your
tacos. If they were in a hard shell, they weren't Mexican tacos.


Well of course!! They had the whole cow head sitting on the table for
you to pick the type of meat you wanted ... brains, cheek, tongue, eyes,
snout, etc. One lady in our group took great pleasure in carrying her
jawbone back with her!

--

Ray
+++++++++++++++++++++++
www.CompressorStuff.com

On Sun, 26 Dec 2010 21:15:36 -0500, Janet Wilder wrote
(in article om):

On 12/26/2010 6:49 PM, Wayne Dernoncourt wrote:
On Sat, 25 Dec 2010 17:23:51 -0500, Janet Wilder wrote
(in raweb.com):

On 12/25/2010 12:59 PM, Goomba wrote:
Janet Wilder wrote:

We will be cruising there too in early January. We are on Voyager of
the Seas out of Galveston. We've been there so often that we will
probably just stay on the ship.

We'll be there right after you and had considered just staying on board,
but have decided instead to go to Nachi Cocum for the day.

I will make sure that they keep everything clean and tidy for your
visit. :-)

We live about half an hour from the beach on South Padre Island, so
spending the day on a beach just doesn't turn us on. We live on the
border so shopping in Mexico is no big deal. We can get the same
chatchkas here for a lot less. Same thing with Mexican food.

I wanted to take the Mexican cooking class and even contacted them
directly, but there wasn't anyone else signed up. If they get more
people signed up they are supposed to contact me. That would be
something that would interest me.

I was interested in the cooking class, my wife - not so much. Evidently we
are going to a park or something....g


Have a great time. I'm looking forward to some down time by the quiet pool.

I figured I'd follow up with a report of our trip:

First of all, we aren't seasoned cruisers, this was my second cruise.
The first was on a Princess cruise, this was on the Carnival Valor.
We are both older, older than 55, we aren't part of the party crowd.
We found the ship to be loud and came to learn to dread the
announcements over the loudspeakers that seem to be spaced
every 10'.

I thought that most of the food at dinner was very good. While we
were active, walking, scuba, snorkeling, etc. I didn't lose any
weight - I had dessert most nights and I didn't go hungry.

I did find out that the pedometer I had wouldn't work when it was
vertical - like when I wear shorts instead of the the jeans I typically
wear.doh

The shows were good, another Carnival ship, the Legend seemed
to be in the same ports we were, then again it may have been
just another Carnival ship and they were switching the entertainers
around a bunch, at least that's my wife's theory, certainly makes
some sense.

Valerie said she would've preferred the anytime dining and
having different table mates each night, I didn't mind getting to know
each other through out the cruise.

We had four stops, Grand Cayman, Roataan (Honduras), Belize
and Cozumel.
- Grand Cayman - Valerie wanted to go see Kathy(?sp?) Church's
studio, we didn't quite make it - my wife chickened out after a mile
or so about the lack of sidewalks, etc. We spent a week on Grand
Cayman a couple of years ago on our honeymoon so we saw most
of the island (we literally drove a rental car around the perimeter of
the island - we did skip the nature preserve on the nature preserve
on the northwest corner of the island). Valerie was looking for
something made on the island and found everything was from China.
We ended up going back to the ship early, Valerie and I went to the
waterslide - I went down it about 15 times and had a blast.

- Roataan, Honduras - we went to an intro to scuba diving even
though we are both certified divers - we haven't been diving in a
year and I'm pretty new at diving I've been 3 or 4 times since
being certified. The instructor was good, the only issue that I had
with the equipment was the lack of a depth gauge with the air
pressure gauge so I couldn't tell how deep we were. The equipment
itself was fine, I brought my own booties, fins, snorkel and face mask.
I didn't actually use the snorkel, the provided equipment for those
that didn't bring these (most people) didn't have a snorkel, it was
obvious the operator didn't intend to use it. I thought the dive itself
was fine, they had a videographer that filmed the groups and sold
DVD's for $40 after dive. I'm not sure how they put the video
together that quickly - obviously not much editing was done.
Before the dive, I had issues with equalizing and maintaining my
depth, with this dive I seem to have mastered the equalizing part,
still some issues with depth control remain. It seems that most of the coral
was brown, I did see some purple tube sponges and
yellow/purple fan corals but a lot of brown corals. I don't remember
the types/varieties of fishes we saw but there didn't seem to be a
huge variety. Valerie wasn't real impressed with the dive - she
seemed to think the dive master was bored...

While I was on the vacation I was trying to have some work done on
my house. I bought the international phone plan along with text
messages. I expected the cabinets to be delivered Tuesday so
they could be installed.... I went to make a call and I got a stream
of spanish - of course, but I don't speak spanish. Text messages
and email did work, maybe not fast. A delivery date was finally
set-up for Monday after we got back - oh well for not having to deal
with it...

- Belize - we signed up again for the intro to scuba - the instructor
was a video on a TV, the guy in shorts at Roataan was much better.
Valerie liked her smaller fins than her normal fins that are bulkier.
Same kind of dive, a lot of brown coral - it'll be interesting to see
how the pictures turn out that we took.

After the dive we did some walking around in Belize and the
immense poverty was overwhelming.

- Cozumel - we went snorkeling here - we were supposed to go
kayaking in a clear kayak as well but it was to windy for that.
Another of our group that kayaked in clear kayaks in Belize(?)
says that the clear kayaks have a lot of crazing which makes
it difficult to see anything through the hull. The snorkeling was
great, the water was the clearest of anything we had seen so far
this trip.

After the snorkeling adventure, I went back to the ship dropped off
the dive bag and met Valerie and we took a cab to the central
part of Cozumel. Again, the street vendors were incredibly pushy.
We did get lunch at what looked like a clean restaurant that seemed
to have a good size crowd. I had taquitos and soup. About 2AM
the next morning, Saturday, I have a sudden urge to go to the
bathroom and ended up with a case of diarrhea that lasts until
Sunday around 11AM (in time for the flight home). I don't know if it
was from what I ate, my wife didn't report any problems. The dish I
had came with guacamole salad and I had some.