Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Cozumel, Mexico! We shall come back soon. Allure of the seas

Big pier for mega tonnage cruise ships

Allure of the Seas in Cozumel 



Another cruise liner anchored in the bay 

As we have not booked any shore excursion today,
we just decided to walk around the pier.
Hoping that we could find a beach around promenade.


This promenade is quite long.

It is very nice to walk along the promenade with full
of souvenir shops, restaurants and street arts.

Forum is the big plaza.
The centre of the commercial area.



We found free wi fi while we were browsing this shop.
Quick time for Facebook upload. ^^



This shop is quite big selling not only souvenirs but local booze.



Beautiful turquoise colour of water but we could not go in
as there are sharp rocks under the water.

I am sure there are nice beaches somewhere else for swimming 
and I suspect
the most of them are all in private resort hotels.










Tequila & Rum tasting 

Sombreros 









It is very nice and fun place as well...

We just had the most delicious Mexican food for lunch.
Chicken burritos, Guacamole and Beef Taco...
We are in Mexico, aren't we?
^^

We came back to the ship after leisurely half a day with lots of walk.




We are leaving our last port of call for this short cruise
but I regret that we didn't take any tour to adventure
this beautiful place even though we had a nice day.

It was my first visit here.
😢

Oh well, it will have to be a next time.
Soon.
😁






Falmouth, Jamaica where everybody sings Bob Marley songs

Our second port of call, Falmouth Jamaica.

Unlike American cruisers, we, 
Aussies are not that familiar with
Caribbean islands and this is my first visit to Jamaica.

I did not have much expectations of this place. 

Port is impressive!

There was another cruise liner docked 
side by side to our cruise, Allure of the Seas.
That was Disney cruise.
Two cruise ships provided more than 10,000 tourists to this port today.

 We could see a huge shopping facility when we got off the ship.
It is off limit for locals.



 There is a local store when we walked off the port area
where real locals are buzzing around.

There are so many taxi drivers and vendors wants business
out of passengers' wallets who approached us desperately.
Most of passengers have taken shore excursions
and went away with tour coaches already.
So people like us wandering around the port area are not so many.



We were almost highjacked by one of the taxi drivers who was friendly enough.
So we were happy with him and his Bob Marley selection of songs he played for us.  ^^

 River rafting on Martha Brae 

 And they are made of bamboo sticks.
It looks a lot of fun.
Maybe, next time...





 Rose Hall.
Famous mansion!
White witch, Annie Palmer who murdered three husbands here!
Now it became a night tour attraction as a haunted house by ghosts.
No thank you! ^^



 We stopped by one of the most popular beach for locals
on our way to famous Montego Bay.



 Montego Bay city centre.

Our taxi driver wanted to take full credit for this short
detour of the city by saying that there would not be many tourists
who can experience of this real local feel.
Yeah, that will be right!

 Unripen Ackee fruit can be poisonous but well ripen ones are local delicacy, we were told.
A street vendor try to sell Ackee to us while we were sitting on the taxi.
Nice try. ^^

 A beautiful view of Montego Bay from Richmond Hill Inn 
where we had a bottle of beer
and soft drink for our taxi driver.

Haven't connected to the internet for more than 5 days,
so free wi fi from the Inn was more than appreciative, too. ^^








 I could see one more big cruise ship anchoring in the bay!



Coming back to the pier...
Our 4 hours taxi tour became 5 hours but we quite enjoyed it.




 Shopping time before heading back to the ship.
Local rum cakes and vodka!









I didn't realise there were so many hit songs from Bob Marley before 
and I was very proud of myself to recognise the most of his songs once I hear.

Like our taxi driver said earlier, Jamaicans do nothing but
singing songs all day.
So I can imagine how heroic Bob Marley is for Jamaicans!