Cruisin '05-Cozumel, Mexico

Friday, August 26th

Today, we are in sunny Cozumel. This would be a total sight-seeing, shop yourself to death adventure. There was no tender to take so once we left the ship the adventure began. Mind you, Mexico is patrolled heavily so if you didn't have the proper ID with you, forget about gong anywhere. I'm saying, the drug-sniffing dogs were on patrol, shun. After my obligatory picture-snapping (I'm saying), we headed to the terminal where we walked through this long atrium filled with shops. Of course, my favorite was the wall-to-wall bottles of tequila lined up just waiting for someone to adopt them. I made a mental note of what I would pick up later. We exited the terminal and I sister, Donna (who had been to Cozumel before) mentioned that there were a strip of shops in town but she didn't remember how to get there. We asked some of the locals who pointed up to The Forum Shops located downtown. It was hotter than Florida so we jumped into a cab and took the short ride into town. The setup was such that every step you took there were vendors standing outside their shops trying to lure the tourists in to spend money.

let me tell you how good their setup is. The jewelry shop salesman/women invite us inside and ask us if we're thirsty. We say yes (it's only about 150 degrees outside) and they offer us shots of top-shelf TEQUILA. I saying, we could have however much we wanted as we perused their wares. Yo, I'm not talking about the thirty dollar bottles either. I'm talking stuff that's been aged at least twelve years. One joint made us a drink that was a pina colada with a tequila shot floating on top. Bananas, man. And, they weren't even upset that we didn't purchase anything. When I'm ready to buy my tennis bracelet, I'm definitely taking a trip back to Cozumel. Their prices are quite reasonable. Oh, I also forgot to mention that you are allowed to walk the streets with your alcohol in hand so don't think that I went back without partaking of an ice-cold Corona :) !!!

Anyway, we must've walked forever picking up trinkets along the way. Once funny incident that took place was we went to a market for some of our souvenirs and I planned to purchase the hottest hotsauce they had to take home. Donna and my son, Jay let the vendor talk them into trying one of the hottest ones they had and oh boy, did they cry!!! I had tears in my eyes because they were running around fanning their mouths!!! Needless to say, I purchased a bottle but I'm no fool; I have not touched it since I brought it home!

Being the alcoholics that we are, we picked up about ten bottles between the four of us and headed back to the ship. We decided to eat lunch and chill for a bit before checkin out the happenings for the evening. The next day however, would change the course of our trip both literally and figuratively.

Saturday, August 27th

The day before I noticed (and took a picture) of what was Hurricane Katrina. No one knew how close this storm was to us and we still had a day or so before we were due to port in New Orleans. However, once we went to our mandatory disembarkation meeting, we found out that the storm was closer than anyone thought and we wouldn't be able to return to N.O. because they were closing both the ports and airports. A panic took over the room and people started tossing out questions all at once to our cruise director (Stuart). He did a wonderful job of giving us whatever information he had at the time and tried as best he could to answer questions.

Unfortunately, the information wasn't what people wanted to hear and I found out just how ignorant and dumb my fellow passengers were. Then man clearly stated that because the storm was expected to be pretty bad, no one was allowed back in New Orleans. Thank meant by plane, train, automobile or ship. However, the same question was asked at least a hundred gabillion times, "how am I going to get back to New Orleans?" I just shook my head and said, "dumbass, didn't he just tell you that you weren't?" I know a lot of these people live there and were concerned about their families and property but damn. Listen, please.

The game plan was for us to be rerouted to Galveston, Texas. So, the options were whomever could change their flights would be able to leave on Sunday on a complimentary bus into Houston's airport and those who couldn't get a flight on Sunday could stay and extra day (for free) and leave on Monday. However, every passenger had to leave the ship by eleven on Monday as the it was slated to head to Panama to refuel for the next cruise.

Needless to say, my group chilled until Monday. Our flight(s) were not scheduled to leave until 6 pm so we got a chance to spend the day at the airport. Woohoo!!! Not. It was the most boring time I've ever had. But, thank GOD everyone made it home safe and sound and we landed at LaGuardia Airport at 11 pm that night.

I've been praying ever since for the victims of Hurricane Katrina (and Rita) and will keep them in my heart.

Well, this ends my dream vacation. Hopefully it was just a trial run of many more to come!!!

Peace......