Star Wars Day at Sea – Cozumel

I’ve been asked if Disney was showing any Star Wars stuff during the 7 days at sea. Nope – the cruise was “regular” up until that one day. They were keeping their cards close to their chest like a sexier 70s version of Kenny Rogers, not the current, slice-and-dice face version of Kenny Rogers that scares kids and can be used as a Mayan sacrifice mask. All of the Star Wars magic was being held for the second last day of the cruise.

We docked at Cozumel and the weather was beautiful. Sunny and warm, just like a vacation should be – took us 4 days to get to it.

Thom and Dave went on a snorkelling excursion and we lost them immediately after breakfast. According to their stories and pictures they shared at dinner, they had a great time.

Sharkboy, Beta Mike, JohnnyB and I went shopping. Not touristy, just outside the port, sugar skull-shopping*. No. We hit up the MEGA store, steps away from the port! Imagine if Costco and the saddest Walmart had an affair and popped out a bastard love child shop. Mega would be it.

As we’re walking around the store I was hit with an American-like culture shock – I couldn’t read the Spanish signs. Duh, Ted, you’re in Mexico? Then I get the brilliant idea to fire up my phone and pop open Google Translate. If you’ve not used the camera feature on this app it’s a lot of fun pointing your phone to a label or sign and seeing the fumbled translations on product names. Mystery products like “potato” revealed themselves to be “Child of the ground” or “milk” became “leaky boob stuff”. It was worth the Roaming charge.

My great takeaway? An orange C3P0 t-shirt and Tang. Muevo Mexican Tang in all the rainbow flavours no longer legal to sell in Canada! Yum!

Pro Tip: with Disney enforcing the wine and beer only onboard policy, this is a great place to stock up on your cabin drinking supplies – it’s a short haul back to the ship. The shop took US$ and Peso.

We then wandered away from the port. Our first stop was a mass of colour just past the Mega. A carnival! A carnival of dubious copyright infringements! Nearly dilapidated rides air brushed brightly coloured, somewhat familiar cartoon characters to make the bambinos smile! One carousel boasted 20+ infringements including a Woody Woodpecker on all fours that suggested more of a gimp’s position, rather than an inviting pose for kids to ride on his back.

Next was a church. It was pretty against the saturated blue sky. I’m not much of a religious person but the washrooms were nice.

After that we wandered and found a soccer pitch and sat in the shade of the bleachers. Petted a dog and looped around to the far side of the city and found a small hole-in-the-wall place that sold $1.25 tacos. Yes. I had a couple, smothered in a chopped green chilli that when ingested, numbed my lips with it’s heat. I should have pulled out Google Translate and asked what it was…

Back to the ship where SharkBoy and Beta Mike went to the spa while Johnny and I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the adult pool discussing family and life and whatnot. When the boys returned from the spa they brought us chicken tenders and fries.

It was the perfect day.

*We did get a sugar skull.