Wanna play in Playa?

Ad alert!

I remember getting off of the ferry that delivered us from our cruise ship at Cozumel to Playa del Carmen, on the last excursion day of our honeymoon cruise. I felt ill from the fast and bumpy boat ride, but when I got off of the ferry and took in the fresh Caribbean air and the view of the sandy beach front with the town of Playa del Carmen only steps away from the pier, I forgot all about my rumbly tummy. It was absolutely gorgeous. We walked about 10 blocks through the town as our tour guide led us to the bus that would take us to the Mayan ruins at Tulum, spying all kinds of shops and restaurants we wanted to stop and check out as we went, not to mention catching breathtaking views of the sea. My husband and I were tempted to skip out on the ruins and stay in the town all day. Instead, we promised each other that we'd go back there some day and take our time there enjoying the town and the beaches around it. That's why I'm bookmarking SeePlaya.com, a travel guide specializing in Playa del Carmen hotel reviews. This site will let us compare hotels and resorts, and plan and book our vacation all in one place. I can't wait till we can go back there some day.

Matt & Jean's Big Caribbean Adventure: The Final Chapter

The next day we sailed for home. It was the last full day of the cruise. We slept in, then turned in an official report on our ring. The captain of housekeeping, or whatever he was, and his first mate came to do an official search of our cabin, and they didn't find it either. So they gave us the number to the corporate office in Miami, and if they don't locate the ring by the end of this week (I think), we can call their loss prevention office and request a damage reimbursement. So at least we won't have to replace the ring out of our own pocket.

With that unpleasant business out of the way, we set about enjoying our last cruise day to its fullest, which mainly involved sleeping, eating, laying about and reading--pretty much like in the beginning. We might have been a little more active were it not now apparent that I'd picked up some kind of bug, with symptoms fluctuating somewhere between severely cold-like and mildly flu-like. My best guess is that I got it from the community snorkel I used in Grand Cayman. I realized at the time that the entire concept of a snorkel that had been used by about a million tourists before me was disgusting, but once I got in the water with the stingrays I forgot all about niggly little things like "germs" and "hygiene" and only cared about shoving my face under water for a better look at the cool fishies. I'm still paying for it, though by now I am feeling mostly better. Good thing I got that hepatitis shot. So it was a lazy day of recuperation. We had dinner in the formal dining hall one last time, handed out tips and thank yous to the appropriate crewmembers (including our stateroom attendant, with assurances that there were no hard feelings over the ring), then packed our bags and went to bed.

Going Home

Getting off the ship and getting through customs the next morning turned out to be not at all the nightmare we were expecting--which, once we got done being glad it was so easy, became concerned that it was a little too easy. Good thing we weren't terrorists or drug smugglers. Maybe homeland security should stop hanging around airports robbing grandmothers of their perfume bottles and step things up a little at our nation's ports of call.

Anyway.

In hardly any time at all we were back in our car, heading North out of Galveston. That leg of the drive was pretty uneventful, pleasant except for the still feeling cruddy. I could barely keep my head up for more than 20 minutes at a time, so I slept through most of it, until we got to Dallas and I had to help Matt navigate his way to Irving to visit his friend. Unfortunately, he didn't call for detailed directions until we were aready past the exit we were told to take, and we were north of Plano before we figured out we had to turn around and go back. But eventually we found it, and I finally got to meet the guy whom I've heard so much about so often that I was starting to wonder if I should be jealous.

Said friend turned out to be extremely likable and hospitible, and invited us to crash in his spare room for the night. The next morning, we said our goodbyes, hit Jack In the Box for breakfast (we don't have those in OK), then a couple hours later we were back in our home state. We drove through Atoka, home of Boggy Creek and recent sightings of the Boggy Creek monster, aka Big Foot. Nope, we didn't see him. Or her, as the case may be.

Around lunch time we passed by a little town called Krebbs, famous locally for an Italian settlement in which practically everybody has a restaurant, including Pete's Place, where Choc Beer is made. Pete's Place, it turns out, doesn't serve lunch, so we hit up the nearby Isle of Capris instead for some spaghetti and raviolli. It was good. But, well, as Italian food goes, it was pretty Okie-fied. If you lived here you'd know exactly what that means. But it was the best Okie-talian I've had in a long time.

Before leaving town we checked out Lovera's Italian Grocery, which was also pretty Okie-fied. Imported Italian goods and delicious-smelling smoked meats aside, our attention was mostly on a black male kitten hanging around outside the store. We came thisclose to taking him home with us, despite knowing that Niblet and Sasha would never speak to us again if we brought another invader into their home; but when the shop lady told us that the little girl who lived next door had pretty much claimed him and was trying to convince her mother to keep him, we decided we didn't want to be the jerks who broke the kid's heart. So we pried ourselves away from the kitty and hit the road. A couple hours after that, we were home. A couple days after that, we were back at our jobs. Sigh.

All in all, I don't think I could have asked for a nicer honeymoon. Except for that whole thing with the ring. I'll keep y'all posted on that.

Matt & Jean's Big Caribbean Adventure, Part Three: Me-hee-co, Bay-bee!

By the next morning (I believe we're up to Friday now), Matt managed to convince himself that the teapot is not his grandmother the ring is not his marriage, and having to replace it won't be the end of the world. That settled, we got up, ate a huge breakfast, and went to see ...

Mexico

We didn't even make it off the pier at Cozumel before they loaded us onto a ferry to Playa Del Carmen. By now I was pretty used to the ship's movements, so I'd stopped taking my Bomine. And you know, a ferry speeding over (and getting bounced around by) giant waves at what must have been at least 60 mph is very different from a giant ship poking leisurely along at around 30 mph. I managed to hold onto my breakfast, but by the time we reached the mainland I was queasy and had a raging headache. So that was fun.

Once we got off that boat, we had to walk about 8 blocks with our group through Playa del Carmen to get to our waiting tour bus. It was a fairly pleasant walk--a little hot, a little muggy, but with plenty of sights and sounds to distract us from it. The only real irritation was all of the well-meaning bicycle-wheelchair drivers who kept trying to pick up Matt, until finally our tour guide came back to talk to him and make sure he could handle the walk before finally telling the wheelchair people to lay off.

I should point out that by this point we were both pretty sick and tired of people assuming what Matt was or was not capable of doing. He was still smarting from the rock wall refusal, and the day before as we were disembarking for Grand Cayman the same guy who wouldn't let him climb the wall also wouldn't let him take the stairs down to the tender boats and made us take the elevator with the elderly folks. Then that morning as we somehow slipped past that guy and took the stairs down anyway, another horrified crewmember practically shoved me out of the way to "help" Matt down the gangway and onto the pier. The pretty apparent fact that they were more concerned about their liability than his actual well-being was the most irritating thing about it. We managed to be more patient with those who were genuinely just trying to be helpful, but even so, by now it had gotten as tiresome as the million-and-one "Did you lose your leg in Iraq?" questions he'd been fielding all week.

At some point we noticed another amputee on the ship, walking on a prosthetic leg. I wonder if he got asked that question as much as Matt did. I also wonder if he was allowed to climb the rock wall.

But back to Mexico: as we walked along the brick-and-cobblestone streets of PdC, we saw many shops and things we wanted to check out when we got back from our tour. So imagine our dismay when we got on the bus and were told that we'd be taken straight back to the ferry and wouldn't have time to look around or shop until we got back to Cozumel. Grumble. But at least we got to see and stroll through a real Mexican city, which seemed a lot more gritty and real than the Americanized tourist-centered party town of Cozumel. Not that Playa Del Carmen is exactly a third world hovel, but it felt more like a city with a rich history than a Disney attraction.

So. We got on the bus, a big, cushy, air conditioned tour bus, were handed boxed "lunches" that consisted mainly of sweets and starches, and set out for the ancient Mayan city of Tulum. It was a pretty drive, and looked and felt a lot like driving through the southwestern US, except that all the signs were in Spanish. Actually, I suppose that's not much different from driving through the Southwest, either.

A pit stop at an overpriced gift shop, a Mayan collectibles sales pitch, and a history lecture later, we arrived at Tulum. Or rather, the tourist-town gift shop section of the parking lot outside Tulum. Getting to the actual ruins still involved a tram ride and a short hike. As we waited for the tram to get going, we watched a group of musicians in Mayan dress playing their instruments while perched at the top of a pole. This was not the first time that day that I wished I had taken my camera phone along.

Finally: Tulum. Oh, no, wait. We're just at the ticket counter. By now it had gotten pretty darn hot and humid, and we were in some kind of rain-forresty territory that actually looked exotic, and I was getting an inkling of how well I could handle ever being on Survivor, which is not very. But it's all okay because there were also iguanas. Wild iguanas. All over the place, just hanging out. Like squirrels. Awesome. We wanted to see if we could approach one to see how docile they were, but we were afraid they might be sacred or something, and it might be a major faux pas to pick one up, plus the whole risk of losing a finger if we messed with the wrong iguana. So we settled for taking pictures.

After another history lecture, our tour guide led us down a jungle path and up some stone steps, where the higher we got the cooler it got, then through a stone gate, and there it was: Tulum. For real this time. There was an ancient wall surrounding the ruins that kept us from seeing the shore, but you could hear the waves hitting the beach just beyond, and the breeze coming in from the sea was heaven. The ruins themselves were very pretty to behold, and we wanted to tear loose and look around, but alas, apparently we were in school, and our guide sat us under a big shade tree for yet another lengthy history lecture. It was fascinating, but despite the shade, with all of those bodies pressed together and cutting off the breeze, it was hot, and we weren't really getting to look at anything like we thought we had paid to get to do, so it didn't take us long to become bored and irritated. Finally, when other people started to break off from the group and wander on their own, we followed suit, and went to see what lay beyond the wall.

Oh my. I'd never seen such a pretty beach in all my days, with white, white sand and blue, blue water and the ancient city rising up from the cliffs behind. We wanted to make ourselves at home right there and never leave. Sadly, by this point we realized we only had about 45 minutes before we had to be back on the bus, so we only had time for a quick dip to cool off, each of us taking turns getting in the water while the other kept an eye on our stuff. Then it was back to the tram, the bus, Playa Del Carmen, the ferry, back to queasiness-with-headache.

Back to Cozumel, where we had to negotiate our way around a gaggle of frat boys holding an impromptu kegger right there in the street as we ran from shop to shop, snagging souvenirs and looking for someplace to eat in the hour we had before we had to be back on the ship. It didn't take us too long to conclude that we'd be hard pressed to find authentic Mexican cooking on that island, so we settled for an open-air Tex Mex café called Palmeras. The food was pretty darn good. Whether in spite of or because of it's Americanization is up for debate, but we made up for its lack of ethnic authenticity by drinking authentic Mexican beer. The waiter stopped short of openly laughing at me when I innocently asked for a Corona, and instead brought us a Dos Equis and a Sol. I am now a fan of Dos Equis with lime, and can see why it would make somebody sneer at the very idea of a Corona. It's like ordering a Bud when all they serve is Chimay. Or something. Matt has brought me very far in my beer education, but I'm still somewhat talking out of my hiney here. The point is: quality Mexican beer in an open-air Mexican café, in Mexico, surrounded by the sea, with your favorite person in the whole wide world at your side, is pretty damn satisfying. You should try it some time.

That night, back on the ship, we hit the gym (I think we did that often enough that we managed not to gain weight despite all the gluttony) and then called it a day. All in all, a pretty great day.

Next time: Back in the homeland, feeling less than secure.

Matt & Jean's Big Caribbean Adventure, Part Two: The Islands

The first two full days of the cruise were spent out at sea, and were probably two of the most relaxing days of my whole life. There was a lot of eating, a lot of sleeping, a lot of lazing about and reading, a little swimming, and just the right amount of lovemaking. We also did some shopping, wherein we bought many varieties of duty-free rum. Why is the rum gone? Because it's all at our house now, that's why.

That first evening we skipped out on "prom night," deciding that since my party dresses were at home, the rental money for Matt's tux would be better spent elsewhere, and ended up going to bed early after stuffing ourselves in the cafeteria. The next day was more of the same, except that night we got dressed up to have our portrait taken and have dinner in the main dining room again, where we were joined not only by the other Tulsa couple but also by a pair of fellow honeymooners from Waco. Sweet kids. All in all, we were well-rested and pretty damn happy by the time we arrived in...

Jamaica

Jamaica was... interesting. I'll go ahead and say that it's not the shiny happy irie jammin' paradise that it's cracked up to be. At least not in Ocho Rios. The friendliest individual we encountered there was a dolphin named Mitch, with whom we got to swim and have our picture taken as he gave us dolphin kisses. I kinda think he wanted to make out with Matt. But who doesn't? Anyway, it became pretty apparent pretty quickly that Jamaicans generally hate tourists. A lot of the people we encountered seemed to want to take our money, take advantage of us, and then have us bugger off. Not that we didn't meet our share of genuinely friendly and helpful locals, most of whom seemed to feel duty-bound to protect us from the first group. We learned the hard way that it's a bad idea to wander off the tourist-beaten path and go exploring on your own. Still, we had a good time, and I'd call getting to eat jerked chicken and drink Red Stripe beer in an open-air cafe one of the high points, despite getting harrassed the entire time by locals who either wanted us to buy their wares or get the hell off of their island. Another high point: Appleton's rum and Coke at John Crow's tavern. Low point: the walk from the shopping center through town to John Crow's, where we got ganged up on by "volunteer" would-be tour guides who took it upon themselves to follow us despite being asked not to, eaves-drop on our conversation to learn where we wanted to go and then insist on showing us the way despite being told we didn't want them to, and then demand money from us for their "trouble" once we got to our destination; and people asking to sell us mushrooms and cocaine. Like I said: interesting.

That night, back on the boat and totally exhausted, we stayed in, ordered room service, and recuperated from our day so that we'd be ready for...

Grand Cayman

Grand Cayman is beautiful. Seriously, it's everything you expect a Caribbean island to be. The people were friendly, the weather perfect, the scenery gorgeous. If not for the ginormous hurricane potential we would totally want to pack it all up and move there.

We got it backwards when we booked our excursions--we thought Jamaica would be the place we'd want to explore, so we went light on the tourist activities there. Everywhere else we packed as much into our schedules as we could. Not that we didn't love our helicopter ride over the island and around the reef (where we could see sharks. Hammerheads! For serious!), or snorkling with the sting rays (none of which stung us in the chest or anywhere else, but one of which suctioned itself to my knee hard enough to leave a hickey) and getting our picture taken giving them kisses (they're really big into making tourists smooch the marine animals down there), but we were pretty disappointed that by the time we got back there was no time left to explore the town or hit the beach before we had to be back on the ship. Still, it was a nice, long boat ride to and from the sandbar, and we got to swim in the Caribbean with sting rays. That's pretty damn cool. The sunburn I got was less cool, but worth it.

Not so worth it: losing Matt's wedding ring.

Yeah.

Before we left that morning he took it off and set it on a shelf next to the bed while he put on his sunscreen, and then he forgot to put it back on. Sure enough, when we got back that afternoon it was gone. We tore the room up searching for it, then our stateroom attendant came in and helped us look. He swore that he was the only one with access to our room, and we believe that he didn't steal it. He also swore that he was very careful when he cleaned and couldn't have thrown it away or vaccuumed it up by accident, but, y'know, stuff happens, and so he checked his trash and vaccuum bags anyway. Nada. We held off a couple of days before filing a report in the hopes that it would turn up. It never did.

So that night was tense and depressing, and definitely not a high point of the trip.

Next post: Mexico, Dallas, Big Foot and Okie-talian.

Matt & Jean's Big Caribbean Adventure, Part One: The Arrival

There was a girl who loved a boy. She married the boy. They went on a honeymoon cruise. Intimacy developed, experiences were had, lessons were learned, marine life was kissed. Imported beers were suddenly domestic and were imbibed in their homelands. Mojitos and mai tais were consumed. Water was clear and blue and beautiful. It was mostly awesome.

The Drive Down

We got off to a rocky start, both of us being cranky and sleep-deprived and slightly hung over from the party the night before, rushed and stressed because we ended up being too tired to pack after the party and had to throw it all together in the morning. But the weather was beautiful, traffic flowed smoothly, and as we got underway it began to sink in where we were going and why. Matt put in his driving tunes, took hold of my hand, and we mellowed out and enjoyed the drive.

About six hours later, on the other side of Dallas, we stopped for the night in a little town called Corsicana. This is where we discovered that we forgot our garment bag.

Yeah.

The party dresses and bathing suits I'd spent hours shopping for especially for the cruise, Matt's shirts that he didn't want to get wrinkled, all of my lingerie and underwear... all back in Oklahoma hanging on the back of the closet door. It was too late in the evening for my mom to overnight it to us.

In circumstances such as these, thank God for credit cards.

The next day, a complimentary breakfast and a sense of resignation that all we could do was shop boosted our spirits as we set out for Galveston. We started out a lot closer to that city than we'd originally thought, so we arrived with plenty of time to hit the stores before we had to check in at the pier. And here's something I never thought I'd say: Wal-Mart had a much, much cuter selection of clothes than Target. We hit the latter first, where Matt replaced all of his shirts and I managed to piece a couple of bathing suits together out of bottoms from the clearance rack and workout tops that gave me the coverage and support I needed. Then I lucked out at Wal-Mart and found a cute black wrap dress that could serve as a cocktail dress. Once I'd replaced all my underwear, we were off to the pier.

The Ship

We could see our ship, the Rhapsody of the Seas, as we approached our parking lot. It was big and shiny. From the parking lot they shuttled us and our luggage over to the pier, where we checked our bags, showed our passports, received our oh-so-important Sea Pass cards (these would serve as our tickets, our ID, and our on-board currency for the entire week), got our picture taken for security, got another one taken that they would try to sell to us later, and finally got herded onto the ship.

First things first: find our stateroom. That didn't take long, and as worn out as I already was, with a big, inviting bed and nothing to see outside our window but oil derricks and refineries, I plopped myself down for a rest. I didn't intend to nap, but let me tell you something about those beds. They're not really that comfortable, in and of themselves. The mattresses are thin and hard, and so are the pillows. But when you lie down you feel the vibration of the ship's engines, like a subtle Magic Fingers, no quarters required. And then there's the rocking, and once you lie down you just don't want to get up again. So when Matt insisted on going to explore the ship, I waved him off and told him I was just fine where I was, thanks, but to have fun. But then once the ship started pulling out of port, I felt bad for not sharing that moment with him, so I got up to go find him.

That's when I got a sense of how big the ship truly was. He'd only been gone for about fifteen minutes, but it only took me a few minutes more to figure out that finding him wouldn't be easy. Walking the lower deck, I saw dolphins at the front of the ship, racing along beside us. Neat. After my search turned up a duty-free mall, a Ben & Jerry's/Seattle's Best Coffee shop, a photography studio, a casino and two bars, I finally ran into a very excited Matt, who led me around to show me all of the things he'd discovered. Namely, the party deck, which held another bar, two swimming pools, a cafeteria, and a snack bar that constantly served up pizza, hamburgers and hot dogs. Then together we found yet another bar, a spa, a gym, and a rock wall that Matt wasn't allowed to even attempt to climb because of his leg. So we staked out a spot on the front deck to watch the Gulf go by and marvel at how much bluer the water had already become once we left the harbor. Then we found a spot to snuggle in one of the indoor bars and ordered up our first mojitos--we found we really like mojitos--and then we made our way to the formal dining room for dinner, where we were seated with another couple from Tulsa, which gave us plenty to talk about, and where the food just kept coming. Finally, worn out and stuffed, we made our way back to our stateroom and fell into bed, where we both got the best night's sleep that either of us had had in weeks.

Heaven.