Rex Ungericht

Cozumel has been a tourist destination far longer than Progresso and Belize, and it shows.

There are two ports that I saw – the Elation stopped at the downtown port, which is far more touristy than the other port (which is a few miles away). In the downtown area there are lots of shops and restaurants, nearly everyone speaks English, and U.S. dollars are accepted. However, it appears that many of the snorkeling and other water activities take place closer to the other port.

When you exit the ship and walk to the end of the pier, the Carnival tour guides are there to start you on whatever tour you have signed up for. My wife and daughter had signed up on board for the underwater “helmet trek” where you put on a large pressurized helmet and walk around on the sea floor. She had also signed all of us up for a submarine tour of the reef for later on. So while they went off on their helmet dive, I did some exploring.

When you get to the end of the pier, you are routed upstairs into an alcohol & sundries shop, which exits to a bridge that takes you into a shopping area on the other side of the road. (It is possible to stay at ground level and walk around the shop and cross the street also.)

I walked through the shopping area, then walked from the downtown pier to the other pier, taking a few snapshots as I went. It turned out to be a longer walk than I expected, and by the time I reached the other pier I was hot and tired and decided to take a taxi back downtown. I had no problem finding a taxi and getting a ride – taxis are constantly driving up and down the street that goes from one pier to the other. Also, English seems to be a second language for everyone in the tourist area, so I didn’t have to tax my limited Spanish vocabulary.

After waiting at a downtown restaurant awhile for my family & friends (turned out their tour took longer than planned), I headed back to the ship for a quick freshen up. Then I headed out in search of my party, and lo and behold there they were at the end of the pier. While they were telling me how much they enjoyed their underwater walk, the tour guide for the submarine tour showed up and we were herded into taxis that took us to the appropriate pier. There, we boarded a tender that took us out to the submarine, which is built so that every seat faces out a window. We descended to 100 feet, passing amazingly close to the reef.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed Cozumel. No one felt unsafe out on the streets, but none of us ever got outside the tourist areas. If we return, we will book our tours ourselves and not through Carnival to save money. Many of the attractions have websites where you can book tours.
 

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