*Cassie*

Looking forward to following along!

I'm really enjoying your review. Sure reminds me of our past cruises when our kids were toddlers. Very similar with the nap, or lack of nap, issues. We're finally planning our return to cruising when our kids will now be 12, 10, and 7 and looking forward to seeing how different the experience goes this time. But glad you still made the most of it and had a great trip! Thanks for sharing!

Looking forward to following along!

Thanks for sharing!

I'm curious as well! We're finally in planning for our covid cancelled big family cruise and leaning towards Glory. Wondering what might be added during dry dock. Anyone know how soon in advance they release those details? Or do you not find out until after it's done?

I found the same thing when I checked for our August cruise out of New Orleans yesterday. Sure hoping it's not a bad sign!

We rebooked our cancelled March cruise for an August 9th cruise on the Glory out of New Orleans (knowing there was a chance it would also be cancelled). I just checked and it's no longer listed at all. Hoping that isn't a bad sign!

Debarkation

In the morning (or should I say a few hours later), once we managed to wake ourselves up and get ready, we (sadly) went up to get our last cruise breakfast of the trip.

I can’t remember too much of the debarkation process, so I’m pretty sure everything went smoothly there. Once we all got our luggage back, we got an Uber to come bring us back over to the Fort Lauderdale airport. Molly got us all checked in and we once again were able to get standby seats on the first flight back home. It was sad to have the cruise over, I had such an amazing time with my mom and sister and am so glad I was able to make those special memories with them, but I was sure happy to get back home and see my kiddos!

We were looking forward to the Playlist show that night and Molly wanted to get there extra early to get a front row seat. On our way there, we found some kind of party going on in the atrium. They were tossing out beads and we yelled for Chad and he threw some way up to us on the top.

After hanging out there a bit, we went over for the show and Molly got her seat and then of course was picked for VIP to be in the show. It was quite entertaining watching her up there! Here’s a photo I took from the big stage screen of the VIP interviews before the show started.

And her part in the show:

We spent the rest of the evening (and early hours of the morning) up at the Casino bar listening and dancing to the live music. This was another of our fave groups. Sure wish I would have brought home the Fun Times so I could remember their name and look them up. They were so fun!

Our final towel of the trip:

Once we were ready to head back out for the evening, we first went back to our casino bar spot. Molly and I tried getting a photo in the window together, but the lighting just didn’t work out too well, unfortunately.

But we once again had amazing music to listen to while we enjoyed a drink.

Once we were ready for dinner, I grabbed a sandwich from the Deli and of course a couple desserts.

We then went up to the Lido to check on the weather. It must have still been raining, because according to my photos we grabbed an ice cream cone and eventually made our way to our second favorite hangout spot, the atrium bar.

There were so many amazing singers and musicians on board. We absolutely loved listening to each one!

I’m thinking after this we went back to our cabin to rest, start the sad process of packing up, and then freshen up for the evening. On our way back, we stopped by the dining room to see what was for dinner. I think all the sugary drinks had caught up to us as we all agreed we weren’t really feeling a big dinner. So we decided we’d just grab something from Lido tonight.

One activity we did participate in was some Bingo. Gotta love Bingo! Kabir was running that. We didn’t win, but still had a fun time!

After the Bingo game was over, they got everyone to go into one of the shops by offering some kind of raffle drawing. Of course you first had to listen to all their specials after they filled every possible open space in the shop. I can’t remember what they all gave away, but none of us were winners.

After that, we heard a lot of commotion coming from the atrium. We walked over to find some kind of lip sync/dance competition going on. I’m pretty sure it was some NSYNC. It was very entertaining!

Seeing as we’re now planning our next cruise (a big family one – yes, we talked Mom into another one!), I see my pictures have all returned and I realize I never got to finish this. So I thought I’d finally add the rest in to finish it off. Better late than never!

Day at Sea

So as I last said, our final cruise day, our day at sea, was very rainy. We hadn’t spent any time out on the Lido and were hoping to do that today, as well as the Serenity hot tubs. So that was a little disappointing, but we still made the best of it!

Molly and I had been planning on starting our morning off in the gym. That’s another thing I had never done at sea, so I had been hoping to get a run in. But, we were up too late the night before I guess and just didn’t have the energy for it and decided to skip. We’ll have to try another time! So instead we went up to grab some breakfast.

I’m thinking at this point it wasn’t raining yet because I’m pretty sure we sat out on the Serenity deck for a bit and had later regretted not getting in the hot tub when we could have. My next photo is the first drink of the day in one of our favorite hangout spots, the bar next to the casino and live music, so I think it was late-morning and the rain had started. I can’t remember what this was, but it’s sure pretty!

I’m thinking there was some kind of trivia going on in that area that we listened in on and then some kind of game. I don’t have any photos of those, though. But we hung out there for awhile and then watched karaoke.

Looks like lunch was Guy’s burgers and fries, watermelon, the frozen lemonade “hack” (try it if you haven’t, sooo good!) and some kind of chocolate dessert, I’m thinking cheesecake.

And once we finished our lunch, it was back to our spot for another pretty drink!

Oh it looks like some of them are coming back. Hmm, strange. Guess I'll wait it out and see if the rest eventually return as well.

Smugmug

Thanks! I'll have to look into that if the rest don't return eventually.

We're doing the Amazing Cozumel Race next month. I skipped past that part of your review because I don't want spoilers. Am I safe to read it? Are you giving anything away in your review?

 

 

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I think it's safe. I gave a few hints as to the general idea of what we did, but no direct spoilers. I don't think so, at least. I hope you have a great time and enjoy it as much as we did! Good luck!

I guess Photobucket changed their terms and conditions. Saw this happen to a guy writing another review I was reading a week or so ago. He was going to look for another photo sharing site to use.

Ugh, they seriously think I'm going to pay $399.99 to upgrade?? :o I wonder if he found a good site? I'll have to do some searching.

Aww my pictures all disappeared... :(

It's definitely our favorite family shore excursion. Our boys were 14 and 9 and loved it, although we only came in fourth.

Agreed, it's such a fun excursion! I'd love to do it again with my kids once they get older.

Wow that Amazing Race looks fun (and something completely different I don't usually try at ports). Not sure I'd want to do it in the middle of summer, but it looks like it'd be a great replacement for a beach day during those winter months

 

P.S. Very surprised at your Cardinals remark...figured you for a Cubs fan!

Yeah, it was definitely hot out, but we had a great time! And, no way. I grew up more in the Southern part of IL, so much closer to St. Louis.

Enjoying your review and pictures! Looks like a great time!

Thanks for reading! We definitely had a fun trip!

Really enjiying the excellent photos.:)

Thank you! :)

Cozumel Amazing Race looks like so much fun. Thanks for posting it, I have always wondered about doing it. Might have to give it a try next time, if we can get our son to take a week off work and join us.

Yes, it's so much fun! I definitely recommend giving it a try!

For dinner tonight I started with the home style meatballs (I can’t remember the exact name of it, but I think that’s it?). They were so good and I would have loved to have more as a main dish!

Then my mom and I both had the lamb shank. This was a first for both of us. I thought it was ok, not my fave but I’m glad I tried it. The cauliflower under it was amazing, though.

And the fruit plate for dessert.

I guess I must not have taken any more photos of the rest of the evening and since I don’t have my Fun Times I can’t remember exactly what we did. I’m pretty sure after dinner is when we were going to check out karaoke.We walked in and it was pretty dead and the bar in there wasn’t open yet, so we went back over to the casino bar to grab a drink. We eventually went back in and there ended up being a few good singers, but mostly just entertaining ones.

After that we walked out and found the production singers at the casino area stage performing, so we stayed there for a while watching them. The magician was here hanging out with them, so that’s when we talked with him a bit.

We had wanted to see Jaylyn’s comedy act again this evening, which we realized would be starting soon. Molly had met a group of guys in karaoke though, so she was of course wanting to hang out with them. So we split up for awhile. The show was once again great!

Once it was over we went up to the Red Frog Pub, which is where Molly had been headed when we left. Do you remember me mentioning that she has an amazing ability at losing everything? Well, it was bound to happen that she would lose her s&s card at some point during this cruise, and sure enough there she was panicking because it was nowhere to be found. We first went back to the casino bar, which was the last place she remembered using it, and we were hopeful that maybe she left it inside the bill holder thing. But no luck. So we went straight to Guest Services and had her card cancelled and got her a new one. Lucky for her, apparently the first one is replaced at no charge!

She wanted to go to the club for a bit yet, but mom and I called it a night since it was already after midnight. Too late for this mama! ;p

I took this quick pic and went straight to bed.

Coming up… a very rainy day at sea… :(

I’m thinking it was around 5 now and since we hadn’t taken advantage of our Cheers package all day (other than the milkshake), our first stop was of course to the bar to get a drink. I saw someone else had this pretty blue drink, so I asked the bartender what it was. He said it’s basically a blue pina colada. I went with that and it did not disappoint. So good that I ordered another later that night and after asking for the blue pina colada, I believe they said it was the Twilight Zone.

We enjoyed some live music while we sat. I’m bummed I forgot to bring home the Fun Times, because I can’t remember what her name was. She was so good! Bad photo angle with the drink machine thing in the way…

Then back to our room for showers and getting ready for dinner. This was a late one for us. I’m usually an early eater with my kiddos, but I don’t think we got there until 7 something. Had to stop for our nightly dressed up photo first, though!

The night before we had the table magician, Pankaj Gonbare, stop and do some tricks with us. It was so much fun and we were so bummed afterwards that we didn’t think to record it. So we were excited to see him coming around the next night. We ended up talking with him later that evening and the next. He’s a really nice guy!

Once we were ready to go, they provided us taxi rides back to the port. We were feeling very hot and ready to go back for showers, but we had to get a group photo in this spot.

We also stopped to listen to the mariachi band for a bit.

I still needed to get a souvenir for my little guy, so we walked through several shops. They pretty much all had the same options. There really just wasn’t much selection for a 2 year old that wasn’t something super noisy... My mom and sister were getting tired of shopping, so I sent them on back to Three Amigos, since we were given free drink coupons there from the race. So they got their margarita while I finished my search.

I finally, much to the dismay of my inner voice, just settled on a maraca and then found a little wooden truck. I hadn’t planned on buying anything else for my daughter, but saw that in several places they were hand weaving bracelets with names in them. I stopped at one of the little stands and they told me $10. I really wasn’t wanting to spend more than $5, since I had already found something for her in Key West. I told him that and after waiting long enough, he finally agreed to $5 since there were already two Sophia bracelets made. I also noticed a rum cake shop and knowing my hubby was a fan the last time we were in Cozumel, I stopped to get one for him and took advantage of the free samples they had. Yummy!

Then I moved on to find my ladies back. They had finished their drinks and were ready to get back, but first we had to stop to get this photo:

Back through the Duty Free Shop, through security and on to the ship.

The next puzzle then sent us into a museum. We had to do a fill in the blanks for different items found in the museum and then finish a puzzle. We made up some time here and were able to run ahead. But we made a map error at the next one and ended up running the wrong way around the block, whereas the second place team took the shortcut and made it to the henna stand first. Mom did this one for us.

We followed through to the next spots and then the next number was several streets down. Mom isn’t a runner like us, but she was really trying her best to keep up. So proud of her! We finally made it to the last street and we noticed that the other team that was neck and neck with us had turned first and then finished straight, whereas we went straight and then turned, so as we turned we saw that we were ahead of them. Just barely. So we made mom finish strong and we sprinted down the street. We found the spot, which was a restaurant, and we saw the Amazing Cozumel Race logo, but nobody was standing right there (which they were later standing out front for the rest of the teams). Apparently they didn’t know we were so close. But that’s when we realized this was the finish. Yay, we did it and had been the first team to finish the race!

Now as they said at the beginning, just because we finished first didn’t mean we were the winners. We knew we were in third the first section, but didn’t know how far ahead of us the other team had been. So we had to just wait until all the other teams finished for the award ceremony.

While we waited, they gave each of us two drink tickets. You could get a soda for one ticket or alcoholic beverages for two tickets. So we went with daiquiri and margaritas.

Not a bad view to enjoy either while we waited!

They also gave us the restaurant menu and we could order food if we wanted. We decided to split the plate of beef and chicken nachos.They were alright. Hit the spot after running.

Finally the last teams finished. I can’t remember the exact time differences between first and last place, but I think it was around 30 minutes or so. They asked us if we had any idea the total distance we had explored that day and it was around 4 miles. And then they gave the final results. Big moment here, did we get first or second?! Well, it all came down to 3 minutes. We finished in second and took the silver medal. But that’s ok,we still finished the race first! :cool:

Honestly though, this race was so much fun! It was just like the show, which I’ve always been a fan of. The locals really get into it, knowing that we're doing this race, and although they've apparently been told not to help, which some we could tell were purposely staying quiet, others really got into it and telling us to come back to their shop afterwards. I’m really glad we did it and hey it helped burn off some of those cruise calories! haha

After taking our group photos and giving us some rules, the race was ready to begin! They handed each of us our first puzzle and we were off! I won’t give away too much in case anyone else is going to do it, but here are some basics of what we did.

The first puzzle was a find the differences between these two pictures and then add some things up to find the spot on the map you need to go to next. Well, those two pictures were tricky! They looked so similar, so we were having some trouble. All the teams seemed to be at first, but then one by one they were all leaving us behind and we started panicking a bit. But we finally got it and took off running to try to make up some time. Now at this point, it seemed everyone must have been walking, because we quickly caught up with everyone else.

We then had to find some clues in a market and then our guide gave us the number for the next location on our map. So we took off running again. Here’s a photo I captured of Molly running through the streets of Cozumel.

Now we got a little too excited and weren’t paying enough attention to the street names (although, they aren’t marked like they are here in the US, so it was tricky figuring out where you were exactly) and we got a little ahead of ourselves. The main group leader had to blow her whistle and say you girls are lost, check your map. This is when we looked up and saw another team running toward us from another street over, so we quickly headed over there and found the clue we had missed.

Here’s Molly trying to figure out the next clue.

We made it through another couple spots and then found ourselves at the half way point. At this point the time stops for a bit. We were the third team here, so currently in 3rd place. Now they had our three teams all get into a small boat that would take us out to a sunken ship. One person from each team would then swim down and have to read the name of the boat that would then help us solve the next puzzle. All the teams worked together to share the name.

Molly volunteered to do the diving while I did the puzzle work.

The boat we were on was a glass bottom boat, so we could see the sunken boat they were swimming down to.

As you leave the pier, you have to walk through the very long duty free shop. We made our way through and right away we could see the sign for our Amazing Cozumel Race excursion right in front of Three Amigos. The lady checked us in and said we could find a table and sit until all the teams arrived. We took that opportunity to take some photos.

Here is what we were given: race lanyards, a map of the area we would be exploring, a phone in case we needed to call for help, and in the back there was a booklet on Cozumel and a numbering system translator.

Once all the teams arrived, we followed them through the port and they put us in taxis over to the downtown area.

Then we walked a couple blocks over to the square. I had wanted to get a photo over here, but it never worked out since we were in it to win it and didn’t want to stop. So this will have to do.