Caribbean Cruise — 2019

Friday, April 5, 2019 — Costa Maya, Mexico

We didn’t plan any excursions today so after breakfast we all got off the ship and walked around the shops, bars and restaurants near the pier.  The HAL ship Rotterdam that we sailed on last spring from Tampa to Rotterdam is docked near us.  The shop area in Costa Maya is very colorful and has a salt water pool and dolphin pool.  Back on the ship, B & J went to lunch at the Solarium Bistro and Jeff walked right up to us.  It’s weird, but instead of losing each other we often just run into each other.  B & J went back to the cabin and worked on the blog.  Anne called to say Henry and Jeff were in line for the FlowRider, so Barbara went up and shot some videos.  They looked pretty good—it was Jeff’s first time.  There was an expert on it before Jeff and he was doing spins and all kinds of fancy stuff.  Chris, Jay and Barbara played the second round of Progressive Trivia in the Schooner Bar (we missed the first round).   It was humbling to score 7 out of 15, although the winners only had 11 correct.  Later the adults went to Central Park and Jeff took some candid shots of us on this formal night.  The ship would have charged about $20 per photo and they wouldn’t have been as funny and memorable.  Lobster was on the menu tonight and most of us ordered it.  Jamie has had NY strip steak every night but it was a little too rare tonight and they replaced it.  Barbara had a nice conversation with one of our waiters who is from Indonesia.  He said their contracts are for 7 months and they work 10 hours a day.  They do get to go home a few times during the contract, but going from Miami to Indonesia is a couple of very long flights.  Our waiter’s wife and children live in Indonesia so the ship employees make a huge sacrifice to take these jobs, although they must make more money than most of them would in their native countries.  Chris, Anne and Jeff went to a crazy show in Studio B at 10:15 called Crazy Quest Game Show hosted by the cruise director.  Barbara poked her head in but didn’t see them so went to the casino instead (loser!).  No one has had any good luck there.  Barbara looked in at the Crazy Quest game a little later and was glad she hadn’t gone because it was very loud.

© JAY 2020