Home : Cozumel : Reef Club Cozumel - Part One
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DAY 1: Today we left the fast pace of Cancun and the Blue Bay Village. We are off for a relaxing week to get over our hangovers from Cancun!!
Our airport 'transfer' shows up (a small cab) and barely fits all our luggage in. He then informs us he has two more people to pick up! Luckily they had already left for the airport as he was late.
Aerocaribe is a nightmare! First, they make us pay an airport tax that our tour company already pays ahead of time, no arguing would help. Then they wouldn't take Canadian money. So we had to change in a $100 traveller's cheque, where we paid a service charge to change to american, and then a service charge to change to pesos!!! We ended up getting $40 for our $100!! Man, was I pissed. Then they tried to take two slips from my ticket package, which would have left me stranded in Cancun in a week with no ticket home! Lucky thing I was watching.
So we finally get on a plane, and land safely in Cozumel. We jump in a suburban for the long ride to the Reef Club. When we first arrive we are impressed, the grounds are beautiful. We are immediately acosted by "Reef Club Vacation Club" time share people, whom we decline. After check-in we are taken to our room (gosh I hate being on the third floor, so many stairs!) The room is quite small, two double beds, older looking, but beautiful high ceilings. I walk into the bathroom to find a large-ish sign that reads: "The Tap Water is Not Purified". I was shocked at this. All hotels we have stayed at in Mexico have had purified water in the hotel, though I haven't been to THAT many, maybe this is normal? Although for a four sometimes-labled-five star hotel should the water not be purified?? Perhaps I've just been spoiled.
So we head down to the pool to grab towels and a drink. At the towel centre they look up our room numbers and immediately note that we have not yet been welcomed by the "Reef Vacation Club" time share people. ARGH! Leave us alone, please! At our own hotel even! I was not pleased.
We quickly note at the bar that they are using brand-name alcohol (definate plus!) We are quite happy with that. We then decide to go have a bite to eat at the buffet restaurant. EEWWW! The food was horrible, and would not get any better over the course of our stay.
The beach was beautiful, lots of trees for shade, wonderful for kids (we didn't bring ours). They have an adults-only pool as well, with a swim up bar where we spent most of our time, although it was quite a downer not having any music there!
We retired early this night, we were both asleep by 6pm!! Catching up on sleep missed in Cancun!
DAY 2 Woke up early today, sun shining, bright day. Went down for breakfast, which wasn't TOO bad. Not as good as BBV, though.
Today we decide to spend the day by the pool, relaxing. We go to get our towels and AGAIN are approached by the time share people, who apparently hang out there, searching for fresh prey. This time they offer us a $10 convertible VW car rental (24 hrs) for an hour of our time, so we half-heartedly agree.
We do the time-share tour, ends up being two hours, but they DO take no for an answer fairly graciously. So we walk away happy with our $10 car rental.
The rest of the day we relaxed. Found out that the bartenders weren't too friendly. Just kind of there. They don't serve you, you have to get in the always long line up to get drinks.
Snorkeled out front of the hotel in the afternoon, which wasn't very good. Saw two or three fish, water was kind of murky. Gave up quickly.
Went to bed early again.
DAYS 3 & 4 again, we stayed close to the pool all day. We found it was just too hot out on the beach, we like it by the pool where we could easily hop in and out. We decided to sit by the bigger pool today, as they had some music playing, and it seemed a little livelier. BUT, just as we sit down, they start playing elevator music VERY loudly, and I don't mean classical, I mean like Pat Boone style, like New York, New York, and others. The worst part was that there were only four songs in the ensemble, and they just kept playing them over and over and over. Well, after an hour, I was fed up and told John that I was going to complain, I couldn't listen to it any longer. Just as I get up, however, the music shuts off. Musta known I was coming, chuckle chuckle.
A woman walking by notices my braids and stops to comment (got my whole head braided in Cancun, and it looks great, my hair is VERY long, almost to the bottom of my rear-end, so it looks pretty cool.) She invites us over to where her and her friends are at the Adult Pool. So we go over with her. We ended up having a really good time that day with them and all their friends at the swim-up bar. We all decide to go to Carlos and Charlies that night.
So as dinner time approaches, we retire to our room to get changed for dinner. I was dying for a cold glass of cold water at this point, so had to pay $4 for a bottled water at the gift shop!!!
We head off to get a taxi to Carlos and Charlies, and the driver recommends a place for great steak called Sonora Grill (sp?) It was a wonderful place, second floor, open air overlooking the street. The service was excellent, (loved being serenaded!) and the steak was world-class!
We then walk the few blocks to Carlos and Charlies, which was OK, though not as good as Sr. Frogs in Playa del Carmen. One obnoxious tourist had to be removed by the Policia. He was bothering all of the women, and when their husbands would ask him to leave them alone, he would get very obnoxious with them.
We got back to the hotel late, and went straight to bed (but not before slipping into the pool for a short midnight swim!)
The next morning we wake up early to go to Chankanaab before all the cruise ship people got there. (what are all these bites on my legs? Mosquitos? Ouch!) We arrive early, snorkel for awhile, although the snorkeling doesn't seem as good as last year. Run into a big ole barracuda and quickly swim the other way. No rays, eels, or crabs this time. wonder why?
We swim for awhile and all of a sudden we find ourselves at a cage. We look in and it is the Dolphin cage. I am sorry, but this is just plain cruelty to animals. The poor dolphin, who has been sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, looked out at us so sadly. They are kept in small pens purely for human amusement. These animals have proven to be highly intelligent, almost comparable to ourselves, and as well they grow up and live in family groups much like ourselves, with parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins. To take them away from that to be put in a cage, I'm sorry, that is wrong. And any person who pays to swim with them is contributing to this.
Well, that said I'll get down off my soap-box now. We sat on the beach for awhile, had a couple of margs, then the beach began to get too packed for us. So we pack up our stuff and decide to see the ruins here that we did not see last year. Wow, some of these are quite impressive. Not as large as Coba or Tulum, of course, but impressive just the same. There was a man there hand-weaving a hammock, and a Mayan woman baking tortillas by hand over a fire, demonstrating the mayan way of living. Quite neat.
So we return to our hotel just in time to catch a late snack at the snack bar(avoid the buffet, avoid the buffet)It was here when I encountered my first bit of rudeness from the staff. I left the tongs in the ribs for my husband who was after me, and the cook behind the counter said something hostile in spanish, picked up the tongs and almost through them right at me! Then he slammed them down so hard on the plate that everyone around turned to look. I was stunned. I just said nothing and sat down, steaming. And he was rude other times as well, not acknowledging you standing there for 20 minutes waiting to place an order for a hamburger. Not a very happy fellow.
Stayed up and had a few drinks tonight, then worried about mosquitos as I had a few bites already. (or so I thought, I was to find out later that these weren't mosquito bites at all!) Went to our room to watch HBO!!
SEE PART TWO
Submitted by: Leasa In Canada -- laugh2much@home.com
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Pages Updated On: Thu Nov 20 2008 - 00:00:06
