Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Before dawn, we spotted several other cruise ships nearby, all heading for Cozumel. Eventually, there were six in port for the day.

After seeing the dawn break over the ocean, breakfast was served in our room by Jemeesh at 6:30am. We were due to arrive in Cozumel at 8:00am, anchor for the day, departing at 5:00pm.

We were right on time, and those departing the ship met in the Riviera Lounge to get our tickets for the tenders. It all went very smoothly, and we grabbed a cab once we were onshore to take us to Nachi Cocom, a private beach resort some 20 km south of Cozumel.

Supposedly Nachi Cocom only takes 100 guests, but just after 9am, I did a quick head count of just those on the beach under the palapas (thatched shade structures) and in the water and there were already more than 60 people (they open at 9am and it’s not a hotel, so no-one can stay there overnight). More came over the next hour or so, so I think they lied about the ‘maximum 100 guests’. The US$55 rate is an all-inclusive rate, except it’s not. It includes all drinks (including alcoholic drinks) and food, use of the pool, beach palapas, and lounges, but not the water activities or the mats you can put on a sun lounge to protect your butt (US$7 per mat per day). We had no intention of drinking much or any alcohol, so that part was a bit wasted on us – not so on other guests, many of whom were well and truly getting into the booze in the hot sun at 9am…

When our lunch came (we ordered off a menu), it was a MASSIVE amount of food. And it all came at once, so we got everything we ordered served on one tray. The food was good, and the salsa was exceptional. However, the cheese enchiladas Sue ordered were actually chicken, so she couldn’t eat them.

Our waiter, Carlos, was serving too many people so we got missed for drinks (fruit juice and bottled water) several times, and our food remnants weren’t picked up as they were for others. If you were into drinking alcohol and eating LOTS of food, this place would be good value. While the location was perfect, I felt the lack of service and the possible exceedance of the 100-person limit detracted from the day.

The palapa we were under offered plenty of shade for this pale body.

As far as the beach goes, it was very clean, as was the crystal clear water—a picture-postcard perfect Caribbean beach.

On our return to the ship, we were served our afternoon canapes as we were leaving port (5pm), and then had dinner with two other ladies in Toscana, the specialty Italian restaurant. The food was excellent and the service was amazing. Similarly to the Polo Grill, Toscana offered a quintet selection of their desserts, which was a great way to have a taste of various delicious dessert offerings.

The ship was less smooth this evening – a small amount of rocking and rolling, but you get used to it. It’s very gentle for rocking you to sleep at night 😉