I was once again awake before sunrise. Today was a big one, and if I’m being honest, one I had tried not to get too excited for until the previous day when it was clear that we a) weren’t all that far from the port, and b) the weather was going to be ok. Today is our only port day, and it’s one that has been missed by the Magic multiple times this season. And we’ve got an epic excursion booked.
So, I watched the sunrise. And then I watched us come into port. We had made it to Progreso, in the Yucatan of Mexico. And although it’s a pretty industrial looking port, the colors were on point this morning.
And then I got dressed, sent Nick off to the buffet, had a breakfast bar, and started packing a day bag, in the giant tote bag we’d gotten as a Castaway Club gift because I forgot to pack a day bag, and Nick returned from the buffet with his breakfast, and some hashbrowns for me. Good husband:)
Sidenote: yesterday, remembering previous cruises where water/cooler packages were for sale in blatantly obvious spots around the pool deck, I’d gone looking. Nothing visible, although a couple people were roaming with excessively large (same size as the Castaway Club tote bag) coolers with beer, so they were clearly available somewhere, and I didn’t want that new cooler. So, I went to one of the bars on deck and asked where I could buy bottled water. “Right here. If you want to buy a bucket of bottles, you get 6 for the price of 5”. Perfect. Including the mandatory tip, it was $17 for the 6 (metal) bottles of Dasani. That’s actually a better price than the bottled water in Disney World and a whole lot cheaper than what I paid for those same metal bottles at the Boston Convention Center when I went to the ASHA Convention in the fall. And I had a (plain blue) bucket to transport the bottles back to the room. We disposed of the bucket, had some water for the room, and more importantly, packed several bottles of water this morning.
By now we had docked, so I did some more picture taking. Just look at all of those tour buses lined up to take us to our excursions. And wow, what a beautiful boat that has docked beside us! I think it’s the same boat I saw at sunrise.
I bug sprayed and then it was time to head to Fathoms to check in for our excursion, Chichen Itza Mayan Ruins-Adults Only. Check-in was painless, we were handed a purple Maleficent sticker to wear for the day, and directed to one particular side of Fathoms. We grabbed seats, sat down for long enough for them to tell us 5 times that the onboard time was 5:30, and then we were ushered out the door behind the crew with a purple Maleficent paddle.
It was a quick walk to the aft of the ship and then down two flights of stairs to the deck 1 aft gangway. We scanned off the ship and then lined up on the dock behind our purple Maleficent paddle. While everyone was getting lined up, Nick told me this was my first time really out of the country. But honey, we’ve been to the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands too! He also commented he never thought he’d end up in Mexico, because Mexico, but here we are.
It was a beautiful morning! Once we were all lined up, we were led through the port area to the buses. It was clear we’d managed to be the very first excursion to leave the ship and arrive at the buses. This bodes well for being on time getting back to port this afternoon! We boarded our bus, and we were on our way!
It was about a two hour drive to our first destination. The first half hour or so we were introduced to our guides, Manuel (Manny) and Olysseus (I think) and our bus driver, Juan and provided with a bunch of history of the area, plus some information about present day Yucatan. It was really interesting and our guides, especially Manny, had a great sense of humor. They also spelled out how the day would go. The bus was well air conditioned and comfortable, and eventually the guides stopped talking for a bit. Nick took a nap. I took in the sights, which included armed guards at the toll booths and rickshaws on the highway. Plenty of chain stores/restaurants and car dealerships in the early part of the drive too. And then it turned more rural and tree-lined for the bulk of the drive.
Shortly before we reached Chichen Itza, we stopped at a property owned by (affiliated with?) the tour company. This was about a 20 minute stop for restrooms and souvenir shopping, and for the guides to pick up our lunches. The restrooms were clean, and compared to where we were going, the property was uncrowded. Actually it really was uncrowded; ours was one of just a couple of buses that pulled in at that time.
After about 20 minutes, lunches were handed out and we re-boarded the bus to eat and drive the last 5-10 minutes to Chichen Itza. Lunch was ham and cheese subs, a piece of fruit, various Lays products (Nick and I both ended up with extra flaming hot Cheetos) and a small chocolate. We also received two bottles of water, one to eat with lunch and one to take with us for our time at Chichen Itza. Nick actually combined our two subs into one and ate that, because my digestive system is a little too quirky for me to be willing to trust deli meat given to me in Mexico. I had a protein bar that I’d brought with me as my lunch. And I enjoyed the chocolate bar they’d given us. It was basically a sugar wafer cookie coated in chocolate.
When we arrived at Chichen Itza, the parking lot was PACKED. Juan found a spot in the middle of the lot to let us off the bus, and we followed the guides through the crowds, through the checkpoint for tickets, and into the entrance to the park. Here they quickly divided our roughly 45 person group into 2 groups. Nick and I were in Manny’s group. And then we were off!
Chichen Itza is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The main temple is also one of the 7 Wonders of the World. It’s a MASSIVE complex. Manny provided us with history, and guided us around to the different structures as well as a cenote. He moved QUICKLY around the property, but always took his time explaining everything at the various structures. He was an excellent tour guide. And we were blown away by the various sights!
The walk in from the ticket checkpoint to the actual sights to see is lined with folks trying to sell souvenirs. Same with the walk from the main part of the complex to the cenote. All along both of these paths, the folks trying to sell their items call out to you. The vast majority of them tried to get Nick’s attention by referring to him as Mr. Whiskers. The first time he found the humor in it. By the end of the day, he no longer found it funny. But I did!
We followed Manny around for over an hour. Then he gave us about 20 minutes to explore on our own, use the restrooms, etc before we needed to be back to the bus. We took the time to get some cold beverages and use the restroom. That was an experience. The toilets didn’t have seats. It was VERY hot today (although thankfully there was a near constant breeze) and trying to muscle up the energy to hold a squat while that hot and tired from power walking all over the property was not the easiest. I briefly considered just using the bathroom on the bus🤣.
We made it back to the bus, which thankfully had been parked very close to the exit, and was running with good air conditioning, right on time. Everyone settled in, and we were off. Shortly after leaving the property, we pulled over and the guides brought popsicles on board. I think Nick and I both ended up with lime popsicles. They were incredibly refreshing.
The guides let everyone rest for the first part of the drive back to Progreso. Around Merida, we encountered some traffic from a car crash, but thankfully we had a significant time buffer, and the traffic cleared soon enough. This is also where the tour guides started telling us more about the area, particularly Progreso. Minus that bit of traffic, it was an uneventful ride back to the port. I read and Nick slept.
The port at Progreso is at the end of the world’s longest pier. This pier is over 4 miles long. Needless to say it’s an impressive stretch of road, and the buses bring you pretty close to the port itself. So we were returned to that parking lot. Then we browsed the shops and did some picture taking, before returning to the ship.
Our return to the ship was a little different than usual. I haven’t really gone there yet, but our cruise had…a higher concentration of poor guest behavior than we have typically experiencedl. As we were crossing the gangway back onto the ship, there was a dad trying to get off the ship with his kid, but it sounded like they hadn’t scanned off and there was lots of confusion. As we were turning our purchased Mexican spirits over to the confiscated items folks for safe keeping until debarkation, it became clear that that dad and the mother who had appeared (and evidently had nearly fallen over the edge of the gangway while boarding the ship and perhaps that’s why dad and the kid were, in actuality backtracking back off the ship), actually had two kids. And both parents were SMASHED. Disney security was intervening and appeared to be separating the kids from the parents as the doors to the “plague box” (elevator) that we hopped into because we were too tired to take the stairs all the way to deck 7 were closing. I’m sincerely hoping they were able to say put the kiddos in the kids club and turn off alcohol purchasing ability to the parents for a bit. I don’t know how that all works. But I was glad to see Disney intervening. We later heard while waiting in line for pictures with Pirate Minnie, from another guest, about a couple with two kids that had been on a beach club excursion absolutely pounding back drinks, and we suspect it was that same couple.
We made it back to our room, put our stuff down, and then headed up to deck 9 to get some food. I think Nick got a burger (with fries for me). I got some fruit and a small turkey and cranberry sandwich from Daisy’s D-Lights. We brought our food back to the room. It was all good. And then we got ready, because obviously after a long port day, it was Pirate Night.
The show in the Walt Disney Theater tonight was a showing of the movie, Wish. Initially I had wanted to see this while onboard, because I hadn’t seen it yet, but we got back on the ship a little after 4, the movie for us started at 5:30, and that was just too quick a turnaround time in such a full day. Because they were showing that as THE show tonight, it didn’t show in the Buena Vista Theater until our final sea day, and those times didn’t work for my schedule, so…at some point I’ll watch it on Disney+.
Anyway, back to Pirate Night. Since we weren’t seeing a show tonight, we did some picture taking.
Picture taking done, we headed out onto deck 4 to watch the sunset. We also caught the pilot boat as we exited Progreso’s harbor.
Then we returned my ears to the room so they wouldn’t blow away and headed for deck 9 so that poor Maricar, who we probably drove nuts with all of our back and forth to the room, could actually do her job. We grabbed ice cream and then grabbed seats outside of Cove Cafe. Once the ice cream was finished, Nick went and got drinks for us…a caipirinha for him and a rum and coke for me. They were very good, and this was a nice spot to just chill for a bit.
Shortly before the Pirate Party was set to start we headed up to deck 10. It was already pretty busy, but we found a good enough spot to watch the show. I don’t actually love this one; it’s a bunch of characters dancing to lousy music, with a bit of a storyline, but I do enjoy marveling at Mickey ziplining over the pool deck, and I like the fireworks. So, it was still fun.
Shortly before the Pirate Party was set to start we headed up to deck 10. It was already pretty busy, but we found a good enough spot to watch the show. I don’t actually love this one; it’s a bunch of characters dancing to lousy music, with a bit of a storyline, but I do enjoy marveling at Mickey ziplining over the pool deck, and I like the fireworks. So, it was still fun.
It was during the Pirate Party that we had our first experience with the interactive side of the Magic, I mean, Disney Bands. We’d bought them for this cruise, mostly because we wanted the cruise line specific designs. SUCKERS haha. Just like at the parks, I like having my room key on my wrist (although it’s not quite as big an advantage, since I do wear the lanyard on board). This was my first experience with the + bands. I didn’t love the interactive part. The buzzing on my wrist let me know my wrist was lighting up and that kind of distracted me from the actual show. Exactly what I’d thought when these were first introduced!
Following the Pirate Party, we made our way back to Lumiere’s for dinner. Vladimir sealed his tipping fate as we entered when he greeted us with “you guys remember where the table is from last night”...a statement, not a question, while everyone around us was being walked to their table by a member of their serving team. We are not high maintenance, but really Vladimir?! The rest of dinner was great though. I got the pirate themed drink of the day, the samosa appetizer, the chilled mango soup, the chicken, and the caramel macadamia cheesecake. I have no clue what Nick ate tonight, but I’m sure he got the cheesecake too. The food was good, and the samosa was a major improvement from the egg based appetizer that I think it replaced in the earlier version of this same “improved” pirate night menu. Conversation again flowed easily as we all filled each other in on our day. And Sompong was still awesome.
After dinner we headed back to the room, where we found a very appropriate for a cruise that left out of Louisiana towel animal.
Showers were taken (so long, bug spray!), we spent a little time on the balcony star-gazing, and then we crashed hard. It had been a great day!
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