Weddingbee Blog

You may remember my post about booking our honeymoon cruise with Cozumel on the itinerary and then almost as fast as you could say “Swine Flu” the planned stop was canceled. Well, to our delight, about a week before our departure, Royal Caribbean (and some other cruise lines) decided to reinstate all ports of call for Eastern Mexico. And wouldn’t you know that our cruise ship, The Enchantment of the Seas, was the first one to arrive in Mexico following the Swine Flu outbreak.

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Mr. Deviled Egg and I were feeling rather ambitious on day three and hit the fitness center in the AM for a quick, pre-excursion workout. I’m usually a fan of using a treadmill, but for the record, I’m not sure if I will ever use a treadmill again on a moving cruise ship. It was really cool to watch the ship approach Cozumel and enter port, but doing so from a moving piece of workout equipment kind of made me dizzy and I lost my balance a few times. This girl counts herself lucky that she didn’t face plant on the gym floor!

Anyway… as the ship approached, the captain announced that Mexico was welcoming our ship with open arms and we should expect government officials and TV cameras upon our arrival. Mexico’s tourism industry was severely suffering due to the Swine Flu aftermath, so having the first cruise ship return was kind of a big deal.

We finished our workout and hit up the breakfast buffet before exploring Cozumel. Neither of us had been there before, and because we weren’t even sure the cruise would take us there, we had no real plan for what to do once we walked off the ship.

Mr. DE and our ship at port in Cozumel

As soon as we got off the boat, we wandered into the market/tourist trap right next to the port. (Think lots of souvenir stores and restaurants with aggressive vendors and salespeople.) We decided to walk through the market and see what we could find outside of the shopping area. We made it outside and had no clue what to do next. The island wasn’t like Key West because you couldn’t travel by foot to the next area of interest and, of course, we couldn’t speak the language.

Our solution? Take a taxi cab tour of the entire island! For $75 US, we spent almost three hours with a dedicated driver in an air conditioned taxi and got to see so much of what Cozumel has to offer. Being someone who isn’t a huge fan of the beach and hot, skin-burning sun, the taxi was perfect!

We set off with our taxi driver/tour guide, who spoke English very well by the way, and headed for a beach he recommended.

I don’t remember the name of it, but he told us he would stop for as long as we wanted and he’d wait for us. We hit a beach bar and ordered up some chilly drinks.

Then, we sat down on the beach chairs and hung out long enough to sip and enjoy our frozen fruity refreshments.

Before we left, I got this close-up shot of a parrot.

And back to the taxi we went! Next stop: The ruins!

We walked around the area where the ruins of an old temple remained.

Then, we checked out a newer church built right beside it.

Every time I look at this picture, I think about those “Where’s Waldo” books. Where’s Mrs. Deviled Egg?

And, because this was a heavy tourist area, there were shops. Here is a picture of us outside of them:

And one of the locals tried to get Mr. DE to buy something. With over a month of no tourists, these guys were persistent!

We returned to our taxi and then hit up a series of beaches on the ocean side of the island. Each one had either a restaurant or little store and we took some pictures.

At our last beach stop, we drank from a cold, fresh coconut.

I LOVE coconut! They even cut it up for me after we drank the milk. It was so refreshing and so yummy!

Our driver took us back to the port and we were pleased with our decision to take the taxi. It was the best way for us to see the island and stay cool.

Back at the ship, we got cleaned up for dinner and enjoyed our meal with our table mates. It was really neat to get to know everyone better and to hear about what they did during their time on shore. After hearing about how some of them went snorkeling in Cozumel and loved it, we decided to go ahead with our plan to book a snorkeling excursion in our next port, Belize.

After dinner, we checked out the late night festivities on the pool deck. The ship hosted a BBQ and dance party. The food was great and the atmosphere was fun. We didn’t stay too long because the wind was really strong and the ship was rocking pretty steadily. I’m pretty sure this was the same night we checked out the casino and Mr. DE and I lost some money in the game where you insert coins and it pushes them off a ledge. I always play this at Dave & Buster’s and Chuck E. Cheese, so I was having fun playing it on the ship. The rocking boat may have even given us a few “freebies” by knocking the coins around.

So, With Day Three behind us, these tired Deviled Eggs set off to bed.

Up next? Some REALLY strong late night boat rocking (and not what you’d think from a ship filled with over 90 honeymooning couples!) and our un-Belize-able day four!

Want to catch up?

Day One – Setting Sail
Day Two – Key West