Déjà Dream: Just Another (Pictorial) Dream Review — Part Eightfeatured

by Nicole on May 12, 2013

Posted in Central America, Cruise Reviews, Ports of Call

We were up early. Really early. 6:30 am earlier-than-I-wake-up-for-work early. The sun wasn’t out yet and we were already docked in Costa Maya. We had a quick breakfast up on Lido deck and headed ashore to meet our tour a little earlier than we needed to because we remembered the pier in Costa Maya was unusually long.

Our first, and last, time in Costa Maya was on the Miracle back in 2005. The last time we were here was pre-Katrina and I’d heard Costa Maya was hit pretty hard, so it didn’t look exactly as I’d remembered it, but it’s still extraordinarily nice at the pier area. Plenty of shops, bars and even pools you can swim in. But we weren’t here for that. We were up at this ungodly hour on vacation to see some Mayan ruins at Chacchoben. We met up with our tour and we were led to a bus at 7:50 am, even though our tour didn’t leave until 8, and we were handed sack snacks and a release form to sign.

Our tour guide’s name was Esbel, who did these tours in his off days (he’s a high school teacher) and was extraordinarily knowledgeable on the Mayan culture. The drive to Chacchoben was about an hour of mostly straightaways and country landscapes.

We hit a military checkpoint on both ways. Esbel told us that the police in Costa Maya are corrupt and the armed forces are the only people the citizens trust.

Once we got to Chacchoben, we were led on an incredibly structured tour. Unlike Xunantunich (which we visited in Belize in October), the land was mostly level and everything was a bit more spread out. There was a market with restrooms and an open cafe at the front of the grounds and we stopped there before heading out on our tour.

Our tour wasn’t so much of a drop-off-explore-and-meet-us-back-here tour as much as it was a the-group-goes-together-at-all-times kind of tour. Esbel talked…a lot. He spent 20 minutes telling us about a rubber tree. I would have preferred a less structured tour where we could have explored more, but Esbel’s enthusiasm for the culture was infectious.

We were at Chacchoben for about two hours and had about 30 minutes at the end of our tour to climb, if we wanted to. Stephanie and I climbed and Mom stayed down at the bottom. These ruins were much easier to climb up than Xunantunich, but they had more narrow walkways that were incredibly slippery. I had to stop looking down at certain points. The one we climbed had a ruin on top of a ruin, which made for quite the experience.

After we had finished our climb, we made our way back to the busses, where we were given a choice of water, Coke, Sprite or Sol. It took about an hour to get back to the port and it rained for a bit, but the sun was out by the time we got back to the pier.

We spent some time at the pier looking in the shops for a bit and stopping in Carlos and Charlies for a drink, and then we just walked around a bit before we headed back to the ship.

We went to Lido to grab lunch, but nothing really sounded appealing, so we had ice cream.

We changed into our swimsuits and headed towards the Lanai to hot tub and watch people stagger back to the ship, but the hot tubs were oppressively hot and we couldn’t take more than ten minutes in them. We sat out for a bit longer and even when the ships horn rang with the all aboard, no one rushed themselves down the pier and back onto the ship.

I headed back to the room a bit early with an awful migraine and fell asleep right after my shower for a bit. I woke up to Mom handing me some Tylenol and Stephanie telling me to get ready for formal night and the past guest party.

Supposedly, there were two past guest parties: one at 3:00 pm and one at 5:00 pm. There was plenty of hors d’oeuvres going around and the booze flowed freely, but I stuck to the fruit punch because I felt like crap and it was sickeningly sweet. Oh, and some guy bumped into our table and knocked Stephanie’s drink into her lap, looked at her and walked away. Classy.

The cruise director mentioned that there were 2600 past guests onboard, which I suppose accounts for the two parties. But the parties, like much else on the boat, were growing old and uninteresting. And with that, we made a quick and quiet exit and headed to the atrium for a bit before heading to dinner.

Corn Chowder Maryland

Penne Siciliana

Baked Eggplant with Mozzarella Cheese

Chilled Creamy Bing Cherry Soup

Caesar Salad

Green Bean and Roma Tomatoes

Chateaubriand with Sauce Bearnaise

Grilled Jumbo Tiger Shrimps

Spanakopita and Stuffed Bell Peppers

Baked Alaska

We headed back to the room after dinner to relax a bit and take in the sunset. Our balcony might have been my favorite part of this cruise.

We changed out of our formalwear, went shopping and then went to the show. The show was unremarkable. The chocolate covered strawberries Mom got us from the cafe were spectacular.

Afterwards, we headed to the promenade and listened to some of the live music before heading back to the room to watch Grey’s Anatomy and relax. At some point, I ended up on the balcony logging notes about my day and listening to the waves lap up against the side of the ship.