BSQ

Xtabentun. Pronounced ish-tah-ben-TOON

It's a Mayan Honey Liqueur (rum based). I prefer Vallisoletano brand over D'Aristi. It's made in Merida, and can be found in the Yucatan ports. In Cozumel Los Cinco Sole has Vallisoletano bottled under their own label.

I like to buy tequilas I can't get at home ... and what I can't get varies by the state I am currently living in. From TN (just about nothing), to CA (just about everything) to FL (somewhere in the middle). So ...

http://www.tripadvisor.com/GoListDetail-i5026-BSQ_s_Tequila_in_Ten_Minutes.html

My Personal Favorite is XQ Gran Reserva. it's the Blue X bottle in the pic below.

Word of Warning, since Aha Torol was mentioned. If you buy that (cause it's pretty inexpensive), the bottles leak. Make sure you bring some ziplocs to put the bottles in if you are going to be putting it in your luggage. That goes for many of the tequilas with a cork.

Your description sounds like one or two stores I wandered into. Were the tequilas displayed on glass shelves or in wood low bookcase like shelves?

I decorate my door just for the heck of it, and I change it a couple times each day - all because it amuses ME.

I was so upset last year when I realized that I forgot my decorations & then didn't feel so bad when I noticed I didn't see any decorated doors. This year my decorations are already packed:D

 

My question to those who decorate is was there a door decoration contest on your cruise?

In our hallway, I think mine was the only one decorated. but Yes! On the Liberty they had a Red's Rum, Blue Iguana door decorating contest. I just happened to have a picture that was an iguana, so Here's my door from my door I entered on my last Liberty Cruise ...

a couple days later ...

and that ended up on the door too.

A few of the decorated doors were shown on the Morning Show.

Loved my 4j on deck 10 of the liberty. You can see pictures of it in my CC review linked in my signature. Although the Carnival website listed the beds as not converting to a King, they did. Prior to staying in this room, as i was researching I found a lot of mis information about them in this forum.

I've booked another 4j for my next Liberty cruise, it's an additional charge of $20pp per day, but as someone else pointed out, less tha an OV stateroom. My deck 10 location was fantastic!

Many years ago a friend bought a Seiko on a Carnival ship and needed to have it repaired several months later. She took it to her local jeweler who told her that he couldn't fix it because the part on the inside that broke was PLASTIC.

 

He told her that almost every major manufacturer, makes a watch just for the cruise industry and caribbean market. And although they appear to be identical to an item that's sold in the US, they really aren't and therefore don't qualify for any price matching. They are worth 1/2 of even the discounted price that people pay for them.

 

I had a similar experience when I was shopping for a "smart" typewriter about 15 years ago. All of the stores were offering guaranteed lowest price, but when I tried to invoke the guarantee I found out that the manufactures will put a different model number for each of the sales outlets.....so nothing can be price matched because it's a model 6200 at Office Depot and 6202 at Best Buy etc.............

As one who works in the wonderful world of retail buying, the part I highlighted in red and bolded is what everyone needs to be aware of. This is indeed a very common practice on electronics and watches. With some retailers ALL items have unique model numbers that can not be price matched. A big store with a lot of orange comes to mind. :rolleyes:

Ah, I love being on the Liberty with you! Only been home a lil over a month and I'm still having major withdrawls. :D

This looks so much like the Splendor, minus all the pink.

It changed somewhere in the 1990's. Originally there were limits on the number of resorts that could be built as well as how big they could be. Eventually the $$ won out and the resorts got bigger and AI became more popular.

I think it offers a destination vacation and eases the stress many a traveler may have in venturing out to eat in Mexico. Each trip I am usually surprised at the number of people I meet that don't venture outside of their own resort property for meals (or sister resort properties). To many they are just an overall safer and stress-free pick. Fornatur puts a lot of thought and effort into appealing to the tourists, while it's not my thing, it has been a good move for the area.

I've also noticed people who do venture out tend to eat at the more Americanized chain places which are pricier... this helps fuel the thought that staying AI is a better bargain due to high food and drink costs.

Personally, I can't imagine staying AI in Cancun. But I started visiting there before that option existed ... heck my first trip you could only call the states from a couple of the hotels. :D

We were approached by a very friendly uniformed man at the airport who wanted to help with our transfers. He took us to a counter which we thought was an official tourist information counter. It wasn't! The person at the booth was a time share/vacation club (difference?) salesperson, which we discovered the next day. We were offered discount tickets to Xcaret for 90 minutes of our time to see a hotel. We went to see the hotel (Krystal in Cancun) and sat through 3 hours of bullying, aggressive sales pitches and insults when they decided we were not buying. Please know that these salespeople buy licenses to work at the airport. There is nothing official about them. It was an awful experience-please beware!

Yup, we always warn the sharks you need to be concerned about aren't in the ocean, it's the Timeshare Sharks at the airport. Our advice is usually to collect your luggage after you get through customs and walk with purpose and lots of "No Thank yous" straight out the door to the real transportation companies.

So sorry they nabbed you. Hope the rest of your vacation was amazing.

Great question. No, they give you a green sheet of paper that asked the sodas you wanted (Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and Orange I think were the options), and also the sizes (mens and womens) and quantity of snorkel gear you wanted (up to 4). You turn it in later at the excursion desk.

Thank you! Was hoping I could take my time filling it out. wooohooo!

...Narrow Streets (HDR)...

I absolutely LOVE this picture.

When you picked out your cabana at the4 excursion desk, did you have to pick your sodas and all that right then? Or was it something you could step aside, think about and bring back to the excursion desk?

Thanks for sharing your pictures and writing a great review. We are in major countdown mode to embarkation!

Well, first there's this ...

They make me smile. They make me laugh. They make other people shake their heads.

And that's all quite OK with me.

What people don't always know, or bother to take the time to find out, is if there is a story to the stuffed animal. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't.

I had no wait for a taxi at POM, but regarding using Carnival Transfers, I had one sailing where my flight was 15 minutes earlier than their cutoff so I couldn't book it on line. Once I was on the ship I booked it at the excursions desk no questions asked. I waited till mid way through the cruise when I came back early on a port day so I had no line there to deal with.

deleted just noticed how old the OP is is, and the latest bump is about a totally different cabin :-/

just a couple days.

the first time I had tried to contact them almost a week had gone by. I wrote them at edventures68@hotmail.com and heard back the next day. Back then their website had been hacked and they did not realize they weren't getting their e-mails.

If this is a land vacation, and therefore you don't have to worry about making it back to the ship: I'd suggest the area ruins in this order:

Chichen Itza

Coba

Ek Balam

Tulum

For land vacationers, there are day trip packages for all these sites from just about every hotel.

The drive from the Hotel Zone in Cancun to Playa del Carmen is 45 minutes to about an hour, depending on traffic. It's an easy drive straight out on 307.

Going to the Gran Caribe Real in December. Can anyone give me a review of what they thought of this hotel. Are the drinks weak or do they make them strong? Are the rooms really outdated or just average? How was the food? Lastly what kinda entertainment is at the resort and how far to Coco Bongo's or any of those kinda places.

I can't answer your questions about the resort, but the Party Zone is less than a mile down the road ... on the same side of the street.

either.

Our resort requests that we tip housekeeping at the end of the week ... we usually leave a combination of USD and Pesos ... pretty much the left over pesos in my wallet, and the USD makes up the difference to the amount I want to leave at the end of the week.

I've yet to meet a service industry worker in Cancun that grumbled about what currency their tips are in. You will see that every one goes out of their way to make your trip enjoyable.

I only asked what was acceptable or not acceptable. We will be on vacation by ourselves and looking to have an enjoyable 5 days on the beach. We are not looking to "let loose" with anyone but ourselves. I was only inquiring, since we have never been to Cancun before, what is acceptable.

It is acceptable .... BUT you need to ask your hotel's concierge if there's a more "European stretch of beach" in front of the resort. They will know exactly what you are asking. Because Cancun has become a family vacation destination, topless sunbathing is less common on the beaches in front of the resorts (though it depends on the resort).

You may want to check out CC's sister site, Trip Advisor. The Cancun forum is very active, and more than likely there are recent visitors to the Ritz posting on there.

you may want to check out cc's sister site, Trip Advisor for more detailed information on land vacations in each town. The Playa del Carmen and Cancun forums both are fairly active and have a lot of good overview articles.

Two more from Chesney

Tequila Loves Me (even if you don't)

Beer in Mexico

I've been to both and I've preferred Xcaret to Xel-Ha. But seems folks with kids seem to prefer Xel-Ha. There was an underground river that you kind of float through, but not really caverns to speak of. For me Xcaret had a variety of things to do with nature, the mayan culture and the likes, which is more to my liking. Xel-Ha was more water-related to me ... which ummm I kinda don't like salt water. :D

If you are looking to snorkle in Caverns, I'd look into Edventures or some sort of trip to hmmm, I think it's Hidden Worlds. We snorkeled at Dos Ojos and I'd put that as one of the coolest things I've done in about 19 years worth of trips to Cancun.

whew! glad to read your story had a happy ending.

Maybe Baby Bear enjoyed the cruise so much he wanted to go again?! ;)

any brand that says its eco friendly. We use Smartshield. MexiTan is another brand a lot of folks use as well. The Eco Parks are where they will check your bottle.