Celebrity Equinox Cruise: December 14-21 PART FIVE

For me the best part of the trip was visiting the Mayan ruins at Tulum, a recognized World Heritage site facing the Caribbean Sea. The trouble was that getting to Tulum was a bit of an adventure since the Celebrity Equinox docked on the the island of Cozumel.

The seas were already rough as we pulled up to the docks on Cozumel with the ship you see already tied up. There was a second cruise ship in the immediate area that for some reason that had anchored nearby instead of docking. Scuttlebutt among the experienced travelers was that both of these ships were based in Europe and that do regular transatlantic runs. That's what you get when you live in countries were bosses and management don't think of worker vacations as infringements on their rights to squeeze every damn cent of profit out of their employees.  

To get to the ruins we had to board a ferry to the mainland, which involved us doing the kindergarten-like walk from the Equinox to the smaller vessel. The Mein Schiff 1 you see in the picture was a beautiful ship and I would have loved to see the insides if it was possible. Ignore the drop dead gorgeous blonde in the picture. Yeah, the guy in the orange shirt knew I was checking out the blonde crew member of the Mein Schiff 1. On a side note, there are a whole series of cruise ships carrying the Mein Schiff name, you would think a premiere cruise line could cough up some euros for better, more original names.  

This is the ferry that took us to the Mexican mainland and brought us back. I give the locals that crewed it the highest marks in professionalism and seamanship. The only problem I had was with the weather conditions that made the trip to the mainland difficult and damn near intolerable returning. I didn't get seasick going out but the rough seas coming back to Cozumel had me dry heaving into a plastic bag. In fact, coming back to Cozumel the crew had to stop the boat twice to check its condition after something outside came loose. By that time, I was French kissing the barf bag and going through my first flop sweat in years. It got so bad my wife was worried my heart might go bonkers. It didn't and fifteen minutes after we finally got back to the docks I was back to my usual abnormal.     

Not exactly sure why I took this picture or included it in this post.

This was the stairway leading up to the entrance to the ruins. Had a fine collection of people from North America and Europe. All during the time I heard French, German, Spanish, and what I think was Dutch I wanted to scream out that I was an American that hated trump. I resisted, mainly because my wife would have probably slapped me across the back of the head.

The entrance to the ruined city. Tulum was one of the last cities built and inhabited by the Mayans. It reached it peak between the 13th and 15th centuries and managed to survive for around 70 years after the Spanish began their occupation of what would become Mexico. 

As you might be able to guess, the diseases brought by Spanish colonization resulted in significant moralities among the native population. This disrupted Tulum's society eventually causing the city to be abandoned.  

I first found out about Tulum years ago from watching a documentary on the Mayans. Further research on my part turned up beautiful, sunny, and clear pictures highlighting the green of the vegetation, the light blue of the sky, and the dark blue of the ocean, along with white fluffy clouds. On the day of our visit it was cloudy and rainy throwing off my ability to take a decent picture.  

THis was our tour guide who said his name was Jesus. He was extremely knowledge on the Mayan civilization and took excellent care of his spoiled norteamericano guests. That being said, I got a heavy vibe that he didn't like me. Part of that may have come from the army surplus booney hat I was wearing as well as my camouflage backpack. It wouldn't be the first time that the stink of the "Ugly American" caused me an issue with citizens from other nations. I'm tall, Caucasian, and pretty much a poster child for white American privilege even though I try not to be a dick.     

Too many similar pictures, yeah I know. Was trying to get one to be decent given the conditions and my lack of talent.

I believe I snapped about ten of these while playing with the preset filters on my camera.

One of the current locals at Tulum. He seemed wholly unimpressed with everyone. 

Not sure, since I never could get the tour guide's attention to ask a question, but I guess this was a well.

Probably the best picture out of the bunch. You can actually see some blue sky.

Really wasn't up to spending hours researching the use of the different buildings. Time at the ruins was incredibly limited since the ship had to leave later that afternoon.

By this point the tour guide had broken us into two groups, one that went straight back to the shops and the other which stayed to take more pictures. I stayed to take more pictures and didn't get a chance to prowl all the neat souvenirs.

I did get to the cliff face to snap a bunch of pictures there. No, I didn't get the sunny skies or crystal clear waters like I have seen in magazines. But at least I can say I have seen one of the most remarkable sites on Earth. 

And in the space of a few minutes the clouds came back in and made taking pictures difficult.

Clouds rolled out again but by this time I was down to about 10 minutes before I had to race back to the bus.

The path leading out of the city.

Our next stop was a beach resort that was supposed to be a place to relax and swim. Except the weather had turned bad again with it raining steadily. We got our meal, great local seafood, but no one wanted to go swimming in the rain.

Not sure if this is a real fishing boat or a decoration.

I didn't go swimming but I did take a long walk on the beach. My wife stayed under the shelter drinking coffee.

After the nightmare return trip to Cozumel, the Equinox soon departed for Grand Cayman. As we were heading out I caught sight of one of the Disney ships heading into Cozumel. By this time of the cruise I was perfectly happy with Celebrity Cruise Lines and didn't miss Mickey at all.

Celebrity Equinox Cruise: December 14-21 PART ONE

Truth be told my wife and I underestimated the time it would take us to get to  port of Fort Lauderdale so we could get on the cruise ship. Having traveled to Disney World more time than I can remember we both assumed the traffic would be about the same as I-4 going into Orlando, It wasn't.

A little south of Vero Beach traffic got heavy and only got worse as we got closer to Fort Lauderdale. In fact it took us close to two hours to drive between Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale itself. By the time we reached the motel would stay Friday night, we were both quite stir crazy from the drive. Long story short, I'd advice everyone to consider flying to Fort Lauderdale if the alternative is a long drive.

The motel we stayed at that night before we got on the cruise ship was an interesting adventure in its own right. My guess was that it was built in the 1980s and had gone through several cycles of decline and haphazard renovation. I would describe it as having a clean but but well-worn look which catered specifically to travelers like us who were about to board one of the many cruise ships based out of the Fort Lauderdale port. The one slightly funny aspect of that motel is best typified by the picture in the upper left.

Like many other motels these day, it offers a free breakfast for its guests. So when my wife and I stepped into the room just off the lobby to join in for the morning meal, I found it overrun with cranky blue-hairs all scrambling for those free waffles, bagels, and small cups of orange juice. While none of these irate Boomers said a word to me, I'm over six-feet tall and with a normal facial expression Clint Eastwood would find intimidating, it was fun to watch two gentlemen squabble over just who was going to get the last boiled egg inside the motel refrigerator.

  

After "breakfast" there was still time to kill before we could head over to the Celebrity Cruise line port terminal. So I walked the motel grounds just to explore. The alternative being sitting in the buffet lounge as my wife drank coffee and looked at her phone.

Got to admit, that motel did work hard at making their pool area something close to a playground/garden. It had nicely landscaped grass sections with plenty of foliage giving it a tropical feel. Being early morning I did about shit my cargo shorts when I saw this in one of the landscape islands. Being Florida, you can't ever really play it too safe when it comes to encounters with alligators.

No, don't anyone go all nature expert on me, I know alligators are not naturally aggressive. Its just that you don't walk up to one like you do a friendly dog wagging its tail. That replica looked crazily real and it took me about a minute to be sure of that. Yes, I saw the cow behind it and instantly knew it was not a living bovine but remember, that was Florida.

Yes, we eventually made it to the port to begin the process of boarding the amazing Celebrity Equinox. Not before checking out of the motel where my wife for some reason began telling a long drawn out story to the desk clerk about how bad the traffic was in fort Lauderdale.

While she related every microscopic detail to the befuddled clerk who obviously didn't care one nanogram, I was doing my best get her to the car. The one thing about the desk clerk, the guy looked exactly like a young version of Desi Arnaz and I found myself fighting the urge to scream out, "Lucy, you have some 'splainin to do." Yeah, I know that reference puts be ever closer to joining the blue-hair crowd.

 After getting to our cabin and dumping the luggage, we did a tour of the boat with me taking pictures of everything that moved. Fort Lauderdale port is not some huge expanse, I found it quite tight with all sorts of ships entering and leaving with only a few meters to spare between them. 

One of the items I found curious when we boarded were these folks already enjoying the outside pool. My wife and I really literally in the first group of twenty people to board the Equinox but they were clearly in heavy relaxation mode with the pools bars open. I was later told those people were doing double cruises having already spent a week living the high life.

The view looking towards the bow from our cabin veranda.  

Not sure what was the deal with this yacht, it was obviously part of some local television station promotion. Half expected to see some hulking football player and his supermodel, bikini-wearing girlfriend hanging out on deck while sipping drinks, but no luck.  

Obviously a party boat, would be interesting to hear some of antics that occurred on it. 

A Dole freighter coming into port. That ship passed by the Equinox so closely I could smell the fumes coming from what looked to be an open hatch leading to the engine room. Not a big fan of Dole products given what the family did to Hawaii back in the late 19th century.   

Parting shot of Fort Lauderdale with the Equinox heading out into the Atlantic. 

As the day progressed everyone onboard began settling in and relaxing. Caught this shot of the sunset just outside the coffee bar. Given my condition I rarely even drink de-caff coffee but that didn't stop my wife.