December 30 – Cozumel, Mexico

Weather

semi submersible

– 27º, chance of showers but
non materialized

Steps – 9,644

Considering the many times Chris and I have been to Mexico, we’ve never been to Cozumel. We’ve seen Cozumel across the water when we’ve been in mainland Mexico, but today is the first time we’re actually on the island of Cozumel.

I expected Cozumel to be more flashy and contrived, but it is pretty authentic – certainly touristy, but rougher and grittier than I expected.

divers' bubbles

Our tour started today with a lot of hurry up and wait. The walk from the ship to the meeting point

reef

on the pier was far – this is fine, we like to walk, but then all of the 32 9an unusually large number for a tour in our experience) of us had to fill out waivers. It is RARE that we do this on tours, I’m fine with it, but it takes FOREVER. Eventually, Chris snapped and bought a beer ($3USD) from a corner store type place in the port while we waited.

There are 7 ships docked in Cozumel today – we figured that was at least 30,000 people 9 including staff in port. Chula, our guide explains that this is high

fish!

season, and that during this time, 7 is typical.

An hour after our original meeting time we are finally on with the tour.

Our first activity is in a semi-submersible vessel. We go to the lower deck of a boat where we each have a viewing window

port beer

just a few feet below the water’s surface. Although we really didn’t see anything extraordinary, just looking at a reef and listening to Cesar’s (our guide) commentary is interesting. We saw lots of fish, jelly fish, different kinds of corals and scuba divers. It was pretty interesting to see the divers.

Mayan math lesson

Next, we visited the Mayan Cacao Company about a 15-minute drive away. Here we saw how chocolate is made from cacao. We also learned about the ancient Mayans. We sampled fresh chocolate, this was excellent. The taste was

tequila tasting

delicious, but the texture was also great. We topped this off with a chocolate margarita.

Our last stop was a tequila tasting seminar where we tasted and did a bit of shopping. I bought a hibiscus flavoured tequila – yum!

We found a place near the pier for a couple of beers and a quesadilla. This

chocolate margaritas

came with a small dish of sauce described by the waiter as ‘habanero piquante’. I like spice and think I can take a bit of heat, however…I’m in Mexico and this stuff was muy caliente! It wasn’t just heat though, it was heat and flavour…bueno!

chocolate lesson

We wandered around the area just outside the pier and found another other place for one last cervesa.

We were back onboard around 4:00, found a light snack from the ‘coffee connection’. This place is open from early morning until 6 with a coffee bar and light bites.

Mayan fertility sculpture

We ate and relaxed on our balcony admiring the Cozumel activity.

banos art

A short nap later and we had dinner at the ship’s Italian restaurant. We hoped there would be space to eat outside and we were in luck.

A quick after dinner drink and a pass on the guest performer’s John Denver show. We watched sail away from our balcony.

had to happen eventually

margarita swinging

December 29 – AT SEA

caviar Sunday!

Weather – 26º, windy, some passing showers

Steps – 5,775

First day, sea day…perfect. No up early and out on tour for the first day of a cruise is a nice way to settle in. It’s especially nice when the first day is also caviar Sunday!

sailed right past Cuba

We took a pass by the pool on the way to breakfast. It was pretty busy already at 9:30. By the time we returned around 10:15 we were able to find a not-so-ideal spot only partly covered and too
close to the smoking area for our liking. Ideally, we sit in the shade away from the smoking. It was still early, so the shade wasn’t super important, but the cover was more for the passing showers than the sun.

Eventually, 2 loungers opened up in an ideal spot. Chris pounced.

There are 3 smoking spots on this ship, and one happens to be in a corner of the pool deck – not ideal for non smokers. Smoke tends not to stay put. The newer ships have this area enclosed. The other 2 areas on the ship aren’t anywhere we frequent, so is a non-issue for us.

The rest of the morning/early afternoon was spent reading, blogging, quaffing a couple Aperol Spritzes and listening to kids shriek.

There are at least 30 kids on this cruise. This is waaaaay more than on other Regent cruises we’ve been on, usually there about 30 less than that. There is even a baby…maybe 8 months old. Kids onboard are neither here nor there for us. As long as they aren’t screaming in the middle of the night, keep their running to daytime hours and we’re fine. There is a bit of a program onboard for them, but not nearly what other more family-friendly lines would have. At one point about 15 of them piled into the pool and were living their best lives…shrieking and hollering.

tonight's show

Some people were not impressed…we didn’t care. We had no interest in going in the pool (we rarely do), and what else would you expect from a herd of kids?  I tend to think kids on Regent ship would be bored to death, at least this time they have others to shriek with.

We had lunch at the pool grill, spend some time on the balcony, napped and then it was time for the evening routine.

The lounge duo is a group new to us from the Philippines, called the G-Clef. They are good, but as usual, play to their audience. We haven’t heard Lady in Red…yet. We heard them after the show, and they were playing much more current music.

December 28 – Fort Lauderdale to Miami

finally here!

Weather – 23º, windy

Steps – 5,832

Travel day! We thought our travel day would be uneventful…we were just slightly mistaken! We had another lovely lie in not having to be at the ship until our assigned check in time of 12:30.

We foolishly assumed that getting an Uber/Lyft would be easy-peasy. This was a fool us twice moment. We had our ride cancelled on us 2 days ago when it is was raining and guess what…that happened AGAIN!!! So ANNOYING! PLUS, the original ride I booked was $38 and the new one was $58! A rider will get penalized for cancelling a ride, but drivers can do it.

Anyway, by the time we found Daniel (or as we came to call him – DJ Mario) we were 30 minutes behind schedule. Our plan was to arrive at the port around 12:30, but we didn’t get there until 1. In addition to leaving late, traffic was BRUTAL!

home for the next 10 days

The ship wasn’t leaving until 7, so we weren’t at all worried, but just wanted to get on, have a glass of champagne and get this cruise on the road.

Daniel was an amazing driver. He drove faster than the vast majority of the other vehicles on the road and played music he selected specifically for us…loud. His Spanish accent was a bit tough to understand, so when he first asked us if we like Maroon 5, we had NO idea what he was talking about, i can usually figure things based on context, but this time I was clueless. When we finally

Miami sail away

realized he was asking us about music we said we liked everything – we explained that we were going to a cruise where we’d spend the next 10 days listening to ‘oldies’ and as long as the music wasn’t from the 40s or 50s, we’d be fine – and please for the love of God, don’t play Lady in Red! I kept hoping he’d play some Latin stuff, but we had to be satisfied with AC/DC, Queen and as Daniel put it “classic stuff. I had a feeling he sussed us out and played what he thought we’d like. He wasn't entirely wrong, but a bit more Latin flair would have been the cherry on top of the ride.

Over an hour later (should have only been 45 min) we were at the port and 30 minutes after that we FINALLY had our welcome glass of champagne.

A bit of lunch, a visit to the library, and a visit to the tours desk to change a tour that had been cancelled on us (theme for today??) and we our room was ready.

Since Covid, there have been NO face-to-face safety orientations. Now, all you have to do is watch a 3-minute safety video a couple of times prior to boarding

more Miami skyline

and find where your muster station is as soon as you board. The video also plays on the TV - the channel can’t be changed until the video plays a few times. I’m not sure how safe this new procedure is, but the old way probably wasn’t super safe either. Once everyone is onboard, there is also an announcement about safety and then that is that.

I started napping prior to the safety announcement and knew I’d be disturbed, but figured a short nap is better than no nap. I woke up, but I think I may have slept though some of the info.We put out the laundry we accumulated over the past few days in Fort Lauderdale. Laundry used to be a perk for sailing a certain number of days. Once we got it for our loyalty level back in 2019, we were thrilled. This is another change since Covid. Now it is included for everyone on Regent – stuff all your dirties in a bag, itemize them on a slip and it’ll be back tomorrow in superb condition. They give us $100 to make up for it. Included laundry is worth so much more to us than $100, but as long I continue to get it, I don’t care. Next cruise we’ll be up another loyalty level and will get dry cleaning…I may just bring my parka to be cleaned even if it is a hot weather cruise!!

It didn't take long for us to fall back into our old cruising routine. A predinner drink, followed by another while we waited for a ‘table by the window’, dinner and then the show.

After the show we wandered through the casino which was surprisingly busy. We didn’t stay, but picked up a coffee and sweet snack to finish the day back at our room.

December 27 – Fort Lauderdale

water, water everywhere

Weather – 25º rain in the morning, cloudy for the rest of the day

Steps – 17,277

We procrastinated a bit making plans for today. For the past 2 weeks, the weather forecast said that today would be the rainiest of the 3 days we were spending in Fort Lauderdale. There’s nothing we had our hearts set on so much that we would do it in the rain. We decided to wait and see how the weather was. 

In the end, the weather was fine. We decided to walk to the Las Olas area. Las Olas blvd is about 10 min from our hotel, but the Las Olas area we were after is about an hour’s walk from the hotel, this is far-ish, but it was an easy, direct walk where we were able to admire the canals, yachts, and homes. Las Olas blvd is busy, so not where the biggest of Fort Lauderdale homes are, but nothing around here is exactly shanty-ish.

"Thrive"

Although getting to Las Olas took us over a few bridges, there was only one drawbridge. It was a bit weird to walk over a drawbridge. We knew it would open at 15 and 45 past the hour, and also knew bells ring to signal the opening, but it was still a bit weird to think the bridge we had just walked over would be splitting and opening. We made it both times!!

gelato!!

Las Olas Blvd. is a 5km road that runs straight from the ocean near our hotel and ends at a shopping, bars, restaurants area. Once we arrived at the bustling area, we wandered along the river walk, admired the massive “Thrive” statue, did a bit of window shopping, and then settled on a spot for lunch. There’s no where really on Las Olas for eating or drinking on the water, but there are many, many spots along the main drag. This is good for people watching. 

We grabbed a not-inexpensive post-lunch gelato for the way back before we were on our way.

Once at the hotel, we used our daily $30 on another 2 proseccos. We found no friends like yesterday, so took our drinks back to the room. We would have liked to have enjoyed these on our balcony, but unfortunately, our balcony has been a bit of a bust. The view is good, but it’s been super windy and there is an AC unit close by…the noise and the wind hasn’t made for a good outdoor atmosphere.

Some down time in the room for a nap before dinner back to the place we ate at the first night we were here. Again, there was live music, but not as good as the first night.

We were back at the hotel by 10 to rest up for boarding day tomorrow!!!

December 26 – Fort Lauderdale

morning view from our room

Weather – 24º, glorious. The clouds we woke up to burned off by 10, but we had to dodge a few torrential downpours

Our ride - the yellow one unfortunately

Steps – 11,220

HAPPY BOXING DAY!!!

We seem to have no trouble sleeping late on vacation. Despite having gone to bed before 10:30, I woke up around 8:30 – 6:30 Calgary time, but I’m not IN Calgary.

drawbridge up

I woke up earlier to the sound of a Boxing Day disco outside our room…what on earth!?! Turns out, that the pool that is right outside our door can disturb my early morning snooze. I’m not sure why there was loud music at 6:30, but it
didn’t last. By about 8:00 there were normal pool sounds…kids shrieking, bottles rattling, but there was a DOOR to the pool, as long as it was closed, it was fine. I was a tad worried that being this close to the pool would be a problem, but it really wasn’t. In fact, our happy hour pool prosecco was quite convenient.

our evening ride

Today was our WATER TAXI DAY. Fort Lauderdale has water taxis through its canal system for sight seeing and transportation. We found the closest pick-up spot to our hotel was about 15 minutes walk away - turns out that there was a whistle stop closer to our hotel, but that wasn’t on any map, we only found out on
board. The taxi stops could be better signed. We struggled a bit to find where the stop actually was, I was glad everything was in English – non English speakers would have had a hard time.

We travelled upriver seeing massive homes, enormous yachts, a city park, and a few lizards all while listening to the commentary from one of the 3 workers on board. This boat we were on held about 40 people.

another sight seeing boat

We got off the taxi at an area with bars and restaurants where we had lunch at Bokampers – a huge sports bar kind of place with a terrific covered outdoor area along the canal. We ate, drank, and watched canal traffic.

Bokampers is next to a bridge over the canal. Some of the canal bridges
separate (drawbridges?) and go up to let canal traffic pass under, this happens at 15 and 45 minutes past the hour. I’m sure there’s more to it, but that’s all I learned.

wildlife!!

After lunch we wandered a bit and planned to take the water taxi back to our hotel. We waited about 30 minutes and just before the taxi came so did the downpour! We tried to shelter under a tree, but we found out that isn’t the best way to stay dry. The taxi came, but only to tell us it was FULL!

Fort Lauderdale by night

If it wasn’t pouring, we’d have walked, it was about an hour back. However…we tried for an Uber, the driver who was supposed to pick us up never found us and eventually cancelled…ugh! We were out of the rain on the porch of a restaurant, so we weren’t getting soaked, but uhg! We finally got David, the teacher turned
wedding photographer/Uber driver to pick us up in his Tesla. Although the distance wasn’t far (about 5km) the drive took about 20 minutes. This was ok,
we didn’t have anywhere to be, and David was lovely to chat with.

Fort Lauderdale by night

We then found another friend at our hotel pool bar where we came to spend our $30 daily credit on a couple of drinks. We didn’t catch the name of the young guy we chatted with at the bar, but he could give lessons in social skills – charming, asked about us, and gave bits of information about him (minus his name, maybe he was a spy.)

dinner

Our evening entertainment was back on the water taxi. By now it was dark (sun set is about 5:30) so we were able to see the buildings lit up for Christmas. Like
earlier, this ride was accompanied by
running commentary. Unlike last our earlier ride, this boat was a double decker, accommodated about 200 people and had a bar. We saw the sights for about an hour.

We finished the evening with dinner outside (similar to last night) listening to a Latin duo – no Christmas tunes this time.

Did you know…Fort Lauderdale’s canal system is over 300 miles long? Over half of these are residential canals.

December 25 – Calgary to Fort Lauderdale

Weather

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

– -2º when we left Calgary, 22º in Fort Lauderdale

Steps – 7,688 – not bad for a travel day

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

As expected, travelling on Christmas Day was same ol’. We were in row 1 on the plane, so that meant food and drinks were included – breakfast and a mimosa was Christmas breakfast. Later we were offered packaged snacks and another drink. I read a bit of the Ina Garten autobiography, Watched the Wham last Christmas doc and we were in Fort Lauderdale. For a flight that was close to 6 hours, it was AOK.

WOAH!?!

Although the cruise is leaving from Miami, we decided to stay in Fort Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale is about 45 minutes away from Miami by car, so we either do that at the beginning on the way to a hotel, or on the way to the boat. We stayed in Miami the last 2 cruises we’ve taken from Miami, so decided to spend some time in Lort Lauderdale.

would recommend

Joaquin, our Columbian Uber driver, got us to the AC Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel (our home for the next 3 days) in about 20 minutes.

We chose The AC Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel because it is close to the beach and a restaurant/bar/commercial area. It is on the basic side, but definitely well situated. Once we checked in, unpacked a very minimal amount, showered off the airport grime we hit the town.

As it seems like all hotels do these days whether or not they are actual resorts, this hotel charged us a ‘destination fee’. What do you get for that fee you might ask, basically things you’d expect at a hotel. This fee is $30 (relatively small compared to ones we’ve paid in Vegas!) and that actually gives us a $30 credit to use in the hotel. We used this to get a drink in the hotel bar before heading out while playing our traditional 'sitting at the bar Wordle".

would recommend

We wandered a bit and found a spot out sit outside where a duo was playing – some Christmas and some Latin…nice!

We were fast asleep before 10:30!

Christmas luck!

Did you know… Fort Lauderdale (pop 182,760) is the tenth-most populous city in Florida – that surprised me. I thought Fort Lauderdale was bigger.

December 2024 – vacation prep

cruise #1

Christmas PLUS vacation preparations are a lot. Both are things to look forward to but are A LOT. Last year and the year before, we left Calgary in mid December. This year…Christmas Day. I’ve never travelled ON Christmas Day – will the fight/airport experience be any different? Maybe? I kind of hope so but suspect it will be same ol’ same ol’. I also wonder if it’ll be super busy. I know the days surrounding Christmas are nuts for travel, but what about ACTUAL Christmas Day?

On Christmas morning we are headed to Fort Lauderdale for 3 days and then on to 2 cruises, yes 2! When we planned the first cruise, we figured that since the we were ending the cruise in Miami that their MUST be another one to get on the day we got off the first. We were right. We will be following a 10-day cruise with a 7 day one! This is a first for us.

cruise #2

The first cruise is on Regent which we’ve been on many times before, but the second cruise is on Explora Cruises. We think Explora will be very similar to Regent…size, inclusions, vibe etc… we will see.