What a super fun day!
I can see why Cozumel is world renown for offering the best Extreme Dolphin experience in the world. Unlike Cabo, the dolphins are in their natural habitat (the actual OCEAN) but are still in captivity. The facilities are really awesome. They had over 25 dolphins (including a brand new baby dolphin) that were all wanting to play! Our dolphin was Helen. The dolphins have so much ocean space, you really can't see the perimeter of the fences- it's huge! In order for people to get in, you must walk out on a long pier and climb down a ladder. It takes you to a "platform" to stand on for the initial encounter activities (kissing, doing tricks, etc)... then to do the rides, you are told to swim (one person at a time) out to the middle of the ocean (no markers) and turn around. The trainer then tells the dolphin to go get you. It is so deep, you can't see the bottom (even though its turquoise clear Caribbean sea) it's THAT deep! It just turns into shadows below you! Funny, even though you know it's supposed to be fenced so the dolphins can't get out (therefore you believe that sharks can't get in) you can't help but for a second think, while you are out there waiting- "I hope there are no sharks, eek..." then when your dolphin shows up in the shadows (they have that scary dorsal fin) you're thinking.. "you have a bottle-nose right?" haha!
Dolphin Push/Pull... YEP! TWO rides!!
The first ride is really fun! The dolphin swims up, sticks out a fin, rolls onto her back, you grab her fin, climb on her belly (belly-to-belly) and she rolls more and you grab her other fin. She takes off across the top of the water (while she is upside down- belly up) and your holding on and it is crazy awesome FUN! The second ride is even MORE incredible... This time, you hop on a boogie board, swim out to the 'hopefully-no-shark-zone' by yourself again. This time she comes up behind you, you have to keep your legs straight out and still (no kicking of course), she nuzzles her nose into the bottoms of your feet to tell you to 'get ready'.... then she pushes you on the fastest ride ever where you're practically catching air and screaming with laughter!!
You would think that was a lot of adventure and fun for one day, but our day was just getting started! Our tickets included a lot of activities, in fact too many
to do in the allotted time, so we had to choose what we wanted to do.
After our fun time with Helen and the other dolphins, we headed over to the Manatees- that was incredible also. I
was surprised how heavy and wrinkly they were. One weighed in at 900 pounds- and
he kept trying to lay on me, haha! It was fun feeding them (vegetables, plants
and fruit) because they have a bunch of whiskers that tickle you.
We bought our picture
package and a few souvenirs in a gift shop and then headed over to watch a live
sea lion show. That was cute, and then we got to go on stage and kiss the seal lion! I need to add the pictures of that!
Next, we headed over to find the crocodile exhibit, but we stopped
a few times along the way. We saw 2 parrots, and Maletch jumped right in on
that and wanted to hold and pet them. They weren’t very friendly and were even
trying to bite him, but he didn’t care- he thought they were cool! They were
beautiful hybrid McCaws mixed with something else (I forget).
We also stopped at
a fun place along the way to do some tequila tasting.
Then we headed off to the crocodile exhibit and to check out the rest of the Chankanaab Park! Full of jungle and waterfalls, and white sand beaches and turquoise ocean- it was seriously what I’ve seen paradise look like in movies- except I was there and it was real- and so much in one place! As we were walking along we saw a huge Iguana just sitting on the edge of the path, and of course Maletch had to chase him- we saw a few others too.
Cozumel is so beautiful, in one view was a hammock between coconut trees, white sand,
turquoise water and a lagoon with a coral reef that we could snorkel in,
surrounded by jungle- I never wanted to leave! Before we hopped in our taxi
ride to head back to the ship, we were
given silver charms at another gift shop (gifts they said were included in our excursion) nice touch!
Before leaving that gift shop, the owner said he needed a model, for his new
sandals and asked if I would mind posing for a picture he could hang in his
store. Of course that sounded like fun, but of course I used that as a
bargaining tool… I asked “Well, since I work here now, do I get a discount?”-
and I did! I got a HUGE discount- YAY! I bought some super cute and comfy
sandals, and the kids got wiggly wooden crocodile souvenirs.
Oscar our tour guide almost made us miss our boat- no
kidding that was stressful! He was a good guy with good intentions- he really wanted to be sure we got our lunch (included in our excursion). We were planning to skip the lunch since we spent so much time on so many other activities. He said he arranged for a later cab to get us. He was really insistent and was practically upset at the thought of us missing out on lunch. Local cuisine is always a fun treat, but of course we weren't worried about it since we could just eat when we got back to the ship. So we kept saying we needed to go- he
said “you’ve got time- it’s okay.” We thought he was in touch with the ship,
but when we found out he wasn’t and he was wrong about us “having time” we
told our driver to "drive like a maniac" and we literally had to run through the pier and were the last ones to board- wayyyy
toooo close Oscar! But aside from that mistake- he was awesome took good care
of us- and it all worked out (but barely)!
Oscar!!
We still love you, but you've got some 'splainin to do!
Thanks to Oscar's shenanigans, we did enjoy our tasty lunch. Funny story: I asked where they had salsa. This man shows me some green sauce and says, "that's mild." I said, "Oh, do you have spicy?" He said, "Yeah" and pointed it out and added, "but you might want to try this one"- pointing to the mild. I said, "thanks I'll take both please, but we all love spicy- even the kids." I got back to the table, not giving what the man said a single thought. I loaded up a chip with the spicy one -like I was coating it with peanut butter or something... and I proceeded to take a big bite... holy moly that had some serious burn-the-skin-off-your-mouth-HEAT!! I was so glad I hadn't given it to the kids! So before John took a bite, he saw my face and said, "Oh yeah, I forgot- think about where we are... their hot is ACTUALLY HOT- not like back home, and we both laughed so hard! Then he took a tiny bit to try, while I tried to put out the fire in my mouth! As crazy hot as it was, I still liked it better than the mild and somehow don't ask me how, I adapted to it and couldn't stop eating it. My mouth was stinging for a while!! I will say, I've had plenty of spicy peppers and salsas from my Mexican and Salvadorian friends (many friends that I used to work with would bring spicy stuff in)- this was by far the hottest I've ever tried! I keep laughing thinking about how much I put on that first chip! I wonder how I have any skin left on my tongue? haha!
Believe it or not as much as we did and saw this day- there was still more to do at the park, including zip-lining and MORE! We'll definitely be going back to Cozumel again!
We came back to change for dinner and take a few pics from our private balcony of leaving the port!
Look at her! She looks like a professional cruiser!!
During the entire cruise, when the ship would take off, the kids would look down from our balcony (at the splashing wake)- and say "look at the MILK" and they'd both laugh every time. It is very white looking, so they said it looked like they were pouring milk in the ocean! I'm sure every cruise from now on, when I see the whitewater splashing, I'll think of milk!
You can't really tell how high this is, but we are on the 7th floor!
Funny, I got a weird raccoon sunburn that day (sunburn only under my eyes)! I had bought a new eye cream for the trip that claimed to have SPF in it... apparently they lied! My face makeup had SPF which blocked the sun really well, but the eye cream didn't work at all! Luckily, that weird sunburn faded a lot by the next day so I didn't look as weird! That eye cream got returned, and a bad review from this girl! LOL!
Sariah was really into her activity book they gave her!
Towel Animal: We came back from this awesome Best-Day-Ever to find this cute little froggie waiting for us!!
Hard to believe this was all just one day's worth of fun... so much good video to post- stay tuned for that!
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