Playa del Carmen, Permanent Residency, and Future Travel Plans

Travel to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico

After our cruise, on September 6, we made our way from the Orlando airport to Cancun on JetBlue. It’s always a good flight on JetBlue. We have flown them a few times and have had good experiences. The seats are comfortable, they have been efficient, and they still serve snacks and drinks that you don’t have to pay for. Not to mention the free WiFi! You still have to pay extra to check a bag but unlike airlines in Southeast Asia, there is not a weight restriction for the carry-on luggage - just a size restriction that they don’t check even before you get on the plane like many low-cost carriers do.

I was always curious about the merger (that didn’t happen) of JetBlue and Spirit.  I know they are both low-cost carriers but they are very different vibes; very different products.  I did wonder if Spirit would rise up to JetBlue or if JetBlue would lower their quality to Spirit if the merger was approved.  I guess we will never know now.

We arrived in Cancun and took the ADO bus to Playa del Carmen.  When I first heard about taking a bus in Mexico, I thought it was going to be some dirty old bus having seats with bad springs and the occasional goat and locals carrying chickens.  That is not the case.  It is a comfortable bus with comfy seats and TV screens playing a movie.  The movies are usually American movies dubbed in Spanish so i

t’s not so easy for me to follow unless I have seen the movie before. But it is some entertainment.

We made it to our VRBO apartment with no issues, walking the last part of the way from the bus station.  It got a little hot toward the end of the walk.  But this is where traveling light has a benefit.  While we ARE lugging (I always say I am a pack mule when we do this), it is not overwhelmingly difficult since there is not much to lug.

Our Accommodations

This was our first time using VRBO.  The fact that we do not like this place is probably my fault.  Blaise wanted to stay at an AirBnB where we have stayed before.  That place was clean and in a fairly new building with a lovely rooftop pool area.  I did not want to book that place because there is only one window in the place and very little natural light.  In hindsight, I should have agreed to it, but I didn’t.  The devil you know, right? A lesson I have learned again.

This is the first time in our travels where I have felt misled by the pictures.  As well as the description.  The name of the place has the word “stunning” in it and if it was ever stunning, that was a very long time ago.  But based on the quality of the workmanship inside the apartment, I’m thinking it was never stunning.

That is really all I am going to say about it.  I feel like I have spent a chunk of time lately on this blog bitching about stuff and no one wants to hear that. I am trying to keep it real without whining which is a hard line to walk.

Our Time In Playa Del Carmen

We are essentially living here until I can complete the permanent residency process.  My appointment was scheduled for Monday, September 28.  I was told by the facilitator before the appointment that after that first appointment, it could take 1 ½ to 2 ½ more weeks to complete the “bio-metrics” portion of the effort.

We are hoping we finish early so we can be on our way to the next destination.

In the meantime, we have a general routine.  We get up and go for coffee and breakfast in the morning and take a walk.  We stay in during the day since we seem to be, yet again, on the surface of the sun.  Then in the evening, we take a walk coupling that with dinner and/or a trip to the grocery store.

We do not have a vehicle here so we walk everywhere.  There is not much that is interesting to write about.  We have already seen all the things - cenotes, Mayan ruins, Cozumel… It is not my favorite place outside of seeing those things.  It is very touristy and the sargassum (free-floating brown seaweed) on the beach is an ongoing problem even with the preventative measures they have taken.  They clean up the beach in the mornings, piling up the sargassum, but it doesn’t get picked up and trucked out until later in the morning and early afternoon so you have unsightly stinky mounds of it for the chunk of the day during which we are interested in going to beach. So we don’t go.  We have only been to the beach twice.

We have found some great local spots for breakfast and eating as well as our grocery store.

It will be four weeks this coming Monday that we have been here.  When we first got here, we were lucky if we walked two miles a day.  The humid heat took us some time to acclimate to.  I would not say we are completely acclimated, but at least we are up to walking between four to five miles a day.  More than five maybe once a week and less than four about once a week.

Changes In Playa Del Carmen

There have been a couple of changes in Playa del Carmen since we were here last. First is the cost of everything.  It used to be, the cost of things here was much less than back home.  That is not the case anymore.  While it is not as expensive as home these days, the price gap is much smaller and in some cases, things cost the same as home.  If you are thinking you are going to come here, live, and save money, you really won’t anymore.

This is odd to me because it feels like the place is dying, tourist-wise.  Used to be, you would walk down 5th Avenue (the busy pedestrian walking area) on a Friday night and it would be packed with people.  That is not the case.  Many businesses are shuttered and the flow of people is sparse.  I wonder if the price of everything is so high in hopes of making up for the loss of tourist volume.  It is my lay opinion that if they don’t do better solving the sargassum issue and lowering the prices, people will just stop coming here. It looks like that has already started.

Another really odd thing we noticed is a greeting change.  While you still hear “hola” and “buenos dias,”  you now have “bom dia.”  What is that about?  “Bom dia” is Portuguese.  We did not expect to hear that here at all.  The last time we were here (three years ago) you didn’t hear that.  Of course, I had to Google why this would be.  Google says, and I have no idea if it is true, that there has been an influx of immigrants from Brazil, particularly Rio de Janeiro, to Playa del Carmen.

Major Benefit In Playa Del Carmen

One benefit here in Playa del Carmen (and it is significant for me, is that I found a pharmacy which sells my hot flash medication (Veozah) without a prescription and at a decent price. In Texas, I used to be able to use a coupon that reduced the price of the medication from roughly $600 a month to $30 a month.  However, I recently changed my health insurance and have no prescription insurance, thus I am ineligible for the coupon.  In my head, I cannot justify $600 a month even though it is a huge quality of life changer for me.  Why I am nine years past menopause and still getting horrible hot flashes and night sweats, I do not know.  (And what is up with getting pimples at my age?!)  But $600 a month?  It is just too much.  I guess I was poor for too long in my younger years to be able to justify that kind of money.

BUT - here, I only pay $80 for a month’s supply.  For that, I will hoard it while I am here.  I feel like one of those prescription drug addicts shopping at multiple pharmacies and doctors to get their fix. In my defense, it is prescribed to me in the U.S. and I take it as prescribed.  And I get my blood-work done as recommended to make sure it’s not affecting my liver function.

***Rant Warning***

(Feel free to skip the rant, but I am getting it out)

I would not have to hoard it in Mexico if the U.S. medical, health insurance, and prescription drug system wasn’t so messed up.  I have done my research regarding the cost and availability of this drug in other parts of the world.  In most countries outside of the U.S. where it is available/approved, the monthly cost ranges between $65 and $85.  The highest I found outside the United States is $120.  All way more manageable than the $600 in the U.S.  Yes, I understand why - it is still under patent. I remember that class in law school.  I call bullshit!  If you can sell it for so much less outside of the U.S., then why not in the U.S? Let’s screw the Americans because we can?  Yes, I know we are the richest country in the world and some of us might be able to afford more than others in other countries.  I get it.  But $600 a month is cost prohibitive for 95% (or more!) of those in the U.S.

This drug is the only thing that has worked for me.  I have tried all the over-the-counter options and many herbal remedies.  None of them helped. My gynecologist says due to my family history of breast cancer, I should not do hormone replacement or options that have estrogen or progesterone.  Veozah is it.  It truly is a quality-of-life-changer for me.  Not only does it almost completely eliminate hot flashes and night sweats, but I run less hot when I take it, thus my heat tolerance is much better.

***Rant Over***

Immigration Appointment on September 28

My first appointment to finalize permanent residency happened on Monday, September 28 (two days ago).  This happens at the Instituto Nacional de Migracion (National Institute of Migration - INM for short).  The office is about a 25 minute walk from our apartment.

We (I say we but I really mean we - Blaise just came along for the ride) had to meet the facilitator in her office at 10:45.  I had an appointment at 11:30 to change my address at the INM office which is right around the corner from the facilitator’s office and another one at 12:30 for the permanent residency.

I did not have to go to the INM office at 11:30 for the address change; the facilitator handled that for me.  So we just stayed in her office until it was time to walk over for the 12:30 appointment.

When I was in the facilitator’s office before the meetings, I signed all the documents, and was given an overview of what to expect at the INM office at 12:30. I was told that at the end of the appointment I would be told one of two things.  If I was told to wait outside, I was going to get my bio-metrics done that day, get my permanent residency card, and I would be finished with the process.  Or I would be told I was done for the day and would have to wait for an e-mail that would tell me when to come back for the “bio-metric” portion to complete the process. Usually you get the e-mail the day before you are to come in for the bio-metrics. When I asked what determines if I complete everything that day or if I would have to wait, she told me it depended on what agent I got.  While waiting to go to the INM office, I was encouraged because a couple came back from the INM office to the facilitator’s office to wait because they were told to come back at 1:30 for their bio-metrics.

At 12:20 the facilitator walked me over to the INM office.  I waited outside (yes, outside in the oppressive heat - at least it is a covered area) in a seating area for my name to be called to go inside.  I was called inside at about 12:25 (five minutes early).  I had to sign in.  It looks like one of those guest books you find at various landmarks and tourist places around the world, where you put your name and country.  Here I had to add the date and time of the visit.  So I did that and sat down and waited again for my name to be called.  The inside was comfortably air conditioned. I was sitting there for maybe two minutes before my name was called.  I should mention that once you are inside, you are on your own.  The facilitator must wait outside so that is why she gave me an overview of the process when we were in her office.

Keep in mind, everything in the INM office is done in Spanish.  My Spanish is limited. Blaise is the one learning Spanish.  I am learning Italian since we love Italy and hope to spend more time there.  (Side bar:  Did you know that learning a new language can delay cognitive decline and potentially delay the onset of dementia and Alzheimer's when you are older?)

So I struggled through the Spanish catching enough bits here and there to do as I was told. I paid my fees and was then told I would receive an e-mail telling me when to come back for the bio-metrics and to get my card.  The facilitator told me this would be anywhere from 2 days to 1 ½ weeks but likely the latter.  I guess that is better than the original potential 2 ½ weeks.

So, I wait.

Cost Breakdown

How much did all of this cost, this time around (not including the last two visits for the temporary residency)?  Here’s the breakdown (USD conversions are as of today):

Facilitator Fee:                               9,000 pesos ($498.01 USD)

Bank Statement Translation:          600 pesos ($33.20 USD)

INM Reception Fee:                       1,847 pesos ($102.20 USD)

INM Permanent Residency Fee:    13,578 pesos ($751.33 USD)

For an all-in total of $1,384.74.  This is way higher than what we paid when Blaise got his permanent residency.  I don’t remember exactly how much it was but I certainly do not remember it being this much.

And no, I have no idea what that reception fee is for.

Is this all worth it?  I don’t know.  I just know we have put so much time and effort into this process up to this point, it doesn’t sit right to just let it go, especially since Blaise has his permanent residency already.  Also, even though living in Mexico for even part of the year is less appealing to us than it used to be, it never is a bad thing to have options.

Final Playa Del Carmen Analysis

Not every place we go can be a home run or an exciting place.  Sometimes it just is what it is and you make the best of it.  I am ready to move on to the next destination.

Roadmap of Future Travels

We have some pretty exciting stuff coming up - on this trip and another trip we will begin next June.  Some of this is booked but much of it is not.

South America

The only thing we have booked past Playa del Carmen thus far is a cruise to return to the United States, leaving on March 10 of next year.  It will be an Azamara cruise from San Antonio Chile through the Panama Canal ending in Miami.  We booked that in the last month as an alternative to a long flight back home.

Once we are done in Playa del Carmen, we add a new country to our growing list of countries visited and head to Peru to check a place off the bucket list - Machu Picchu.

Recently, it has come to our attention that some do not know what Machu Picchu is.  Fair enough.  Briefly, it is a 15th-century Inca citadel in the Andes mountains.  I think many know the place by the picture but might not know what it is called.

Machu Picchu

We will stay in Cusco, Peru for a month and then on to Lima, Peru for a month.  Cusco will be our home base for visiting Machu Picchu.

During the time in Lima, we hope to see another location on Blaise’s list - the Nazca Lines.  I did not know what this was until Blaise told me.  It is a collection of giant ancient drawings on the earth located in a desert in Peru. Blaise must really want to see them because you have to view them from the sky in a plane and he is not a fan of heights.

One of the Nazca Lines

Another one of the Nazca Lines

After Lima, we will head to La Paz Bolivia for a month(ish).  We are not sure what we are going to do there yet, but neither of us has been to Bolivia.

After Bolivia, we may go to Buenos Aires, Argentina, it really depends on when we leave Playa del Carmen, which is still up in the air since I don’t have my permanent residency card yet.

Our last stop before hopping on the cruise on March 10, will be the Mendoza region of Argentina where we hope to meet up with friends there.  Mendoza is Argentina’s wine region so it is kinda their version of the Napa Valley.  Part of the time there should be during harvest season so I am hoping my friend and I can channel our inner Lucy and Ethel and stomp some grapes.  That is how I picture it in my mind.

So we are seeing the Nazca lines for Blaise and are going to Mendoza for me.

Our Cruise out of San Antonio, Chile leaves on March 10, ending in Miami on March 29.  Our stops are as follows:

• Coquimbo, Chile
• Iquique, Chile
• Arica, Chile
• Pisco, Peru
• Callao (Lima), Peru
• Panama City (remember we got quarantined here for 10 days back in 2022)
• Panama Canal (this will be our second trip through the canal)
• Puerto Limon, Costa Rica
• Isla San Andres, Colombia
• Cozumel, Mexico

While we have been to Chile, all the stops in Chile will be new to us as well as Pisco, Peru and Isla San Andres, Columbia.

We have wanted to spend some time in South America and while this does not hit all the spots we want to visit, it is a good start.  With any luck, we will return to South America.

We will spend about 2 ½ months home before we head back out again.  During this time, we will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary and both our nieces as they graduate from an Occupational Therapy doctoral program and nursing school (Boomer Sooner).  We are so very proud of them!

Europe

On June 10, we will leave again for a long trip.  This time we are heading to Europe via an Azamara cruise from Miami ending in Tilbury (London), England on June 28.

This will be another great itinerary with a stop in the U.S. at a huge city I have never been to.  Of all the places we have visited, it is surprising I have never been there.  Can you guess?

Here is the exciting itinerary for that cruise:

• New York City (yep, I have never been! If anyone has an idea of how to spend only one day in NYC, your suggestions are very welcomed. How do you spend just one day there?)
• Newport, Rhode Island (neither of us has been here either)
• Cruise the Cape Cod Canal (I had no idea there was a canal there)
• Boston, MA (Our biggest memory of Boston is Brandon throwing up in the Cheers bar when he was a kid)
• Halifax, Nova Scotia
• St. John’s, Newfoundland (My sister was born in Newfoundland when my dad was stationed at Goose Bay, Labrador but we won’t be anywhere near Goose Bay.  This will be my first return to Newfoundland since that time.  I am looking forward to this stop for that reason.)
• Cork, Ireland
• Plymouth, England
• Le Havre, France (The hope is to see Normandy Beach!)

Once we disembark in London, we plan on spending time in England, Scotland, and Ireland before beginning a 12-day Gate 1 tour on August 28 leaving out of Helsinki, Finland and visiting Tallinn, Estonia; Riga, Latvia; Vilnius, Lithuania; and Warsaw, Poland.

Why Gate 1?  Gate 1 is a very structured itinerary with a bit of free time.  I am not sure we are going to like this since we are used to doing our own thing once we are on land but we wanted to give it a try because we are considering something similar in Egypt for safety reasons.

After the Gate 1 tour, everything is fairly open.  We hope to spend some time in the Balkan countries and maybe go back to our most favorite country to visit - Italy.  We have also talked about going back to Paris since Blaise has not yet been to The Louvre.  He was in meetings when I went since I was with him for a portion of a work trip many years back.  I had the free time; he did not. And don’t you have to see The Louvre if you can?

In Conclusion

We hope to get the next couple of months scheduled and booked in the next couple of weeks.

I’m thinking I might write next a bit about some of the logistics of traveling like we do - things we bring, things we don’t, and how do we handle certain things.  I’m still thinking on it.

The Fall-Back Caribbean Cruise

On Saturday, August 22, we flew from DFW to Orlando, the closest airport to Port Canaveral.

Where Do We Put the Car?

Since we were hoping to be gone for several months again, we had a logistical issue to address:  What do we do with our car now that we have no home in the DFW area?  It didn’t make sense to leave the car at Brandon’s since his home is an hour and a half away from the airport.  Can you imagine the cost of the Uber for that trip? Brandon couldn’t take us because he was out of town for work.  Really it didn’t make sense to leave the car at Brandon’s, not only because of the proximity to the airport but because we would have had to park it outside uncovered and it seemed like a big ask for Brandon to do that. 

We found a parking garage through neighbors.com for long-term storage of the car.  It is a parking garage in Los Colinas for some condos.  It is covered, being a garage and all, and the entrance is controlled by a gate so not just anyone can gain entrance.  It is $92 a month all in and it will be a reasonable Uber/Lyft ride to pick it up when we get back.

These are the things you don’t think about having to work through when you travel the majority of the time.

We dropped the car off Friday afternoon, after we delivered Brandon’s dog to Blaise’s ex-wife’s house in Grapevine.

Last thing we did before heading to the hotel was disconnect the battery on the car in hopes we could reconnect it upon our return and have the car start right up without having to buy a new battery.  Again.

Logistics handled.

Travel Day

After a while of doing this, travel days can be the absolute worst but this one was smooth.  No early morning flight this time.  I have grown to hate those flights that leave before the sun comes up.  If I can avoid them I do but sometimes the cost differential is to too much.  I am not going to spend hundreds of dollars more for a later flight.  I’ll spend some extra but not much.

The flight left at 2:30 PM so it was a leisurely morning with some time in the CapitalOne Lounge before the flight.

Travel Tip - CapitalOne Venture X Credit Card

If you travel a great deal, I highly recommend the CapitalOne VentureX credit card which not only includes access to their lounges but access to all Priority Pass lounges around the world.

One caveat - earlier this year, CapitalOne got rid of lounge access for authorized card users in addition to the card holder.  They had way to many people in the lounges making it hard to get in so that was their solution. Since the VentureX card is in Blaise’s name and I just have a card under his account, my lounge access went away, however, for $125 a year, I can maintain my access.  Because we travel so much and it makes travel days so much better, we pay the $125 a year.

Why is this a big deal?  First, I think overall, it saves us money since we go to the lounges we avail ourselves of the free food and drink.  Also, in most lounges, the alcohol is free, which helps when you have a long flight.  The seating is more comfortable in the lounges than at the gates.  There is always free wifi.  Quite often they have showers so if you have a long layover, you can freshen up.  Less common are sleep/quiet areas.

While the annual fee for the VentureX card is $395, that is more than covered for us by the benefits provided including cashing in miles for flights multiple times a year.  On our anniversary of having the card, we get $300 in travel credit to use if we book flights, hotels, or anything else through their app/website.  We frequently book flights through them even though we still use Google Flights quite a bit.

VentureX also gives us 10,000 bonus miles on our card-holder anniversary every year.

Other useful benefits include:

• 10X miles if we book hotels and rental cars through them.
• 5X miles if we book flights and vacation rentals through them.
• 2X miles on all other purchases.
• You can set a "watch" on a flight route you are interested in and they will notify you when the price is the lowest and when you should buy.  If you buy at the time they recommend and the price drops lower in the 10 days after the purchase, they give you a travel credit for the difference.  You don’t have to keep an eye on it and request it, they just do it and notify you.  We have benefited from this multiple times.
• They will also cover the fees for TSA PreCheck/Global Entry, including renewal.  You just charge it and they will automatically credit your account.
• Hertz President’s Circle elite car rental status.
• No foreign transaction fees which is a big deal when traveling internationally.
• Cell Phone Protection of up to $800 against theft or damage.
• Rental car insurance.
• Trip cancellation/delay coverage.

Hello Orlando!

We arrived in Orlando and stayed at the Hyatt Regency onsite at the airport before taking a shuttle to the cruise terminal the next morning.  One of the oddest rooms we have stayed in.  The room had a balcony that you were forbidden to go out of because it overlooked one of the security lines in the airport.

The view from our Orlando hotel room at the airport

This was the first time we have been in Orlando since we took the kids to Disney World when they were little.

The Cruise

We had never sailed on Princess so this was a good one to test the waters (excuse the pun) with an unknown product since the cruise is in the Caribbean with most of the stops at places we had already been.  We had heard great things about Princess and that it is comparable to Celebrity Cruises, the cruise line we have primarily cruised on for years.  We disagree.  But more about that later.

The cruise left at 3:30 PM on Sunday, August 22 out of Port Canaveral, the busiest cruise port in the world.  The shuttle ride from the hotel to the cruise port was approximately 45 minutes from the Orlando airport.  On the days we were there, the cruise port didn’t seem any busier than Fort Lauderdale, a port we have left from numerous times.

What was interesting was it appeared the locals lined up to watch the cruise ships sail out.  They would park their cars or back up their pickups to water.  Some even had tent covers set up to shade them from the sun, nearly like they were tailgating.

The Ports

Our first week, before returning to Port Canaveral at the halfway point of the cruise, included stops at Grand Turk, Amber Cover (Dominican Republic), and San Juan (Puerto Rico).

This was our first time at Grand Turk. We rented a golf cart which was a great option.  For a little over $100 we had the golf cart for the day and were able to explore the whole island which is not difficult since it is 1 ½ miles wide and 7 ½ miles long.  We found a great beach to hang out at for a few hours away from the crowds.  I’m not sure why most did not make their way to that beach.  It was absolutely beautiful with soft white sand and clear water.  Most people went to the beach near the cruise ship.

The very quiet beach on Grand Turk

We did not get off the ship in Amber Cove.  We have been to the Dominican Republic several times and it is not our favorite place so we skipped it this time.

We did get off the ship in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The cruise ship docked right in Old Town so it was lovely to walk around.  We did not do a tour or excursion since we had been there several times before.  We walked to the old fort and looked around and then wandered the streets of Old Town.

The Sunday following the Sunday we got on the ship (August 22), we arrived back at Port Canaveral so most passengers could end their cruise and so others could get on.  If I remember correctly, there were only about 120 of us out of the over 3,000 who stayed on the ship.

The great thing about this is I found out there was a Space X launch that morning when most were getting ready to disembark.  We made our way to the top deck on the ship with about a hundred others to watch the launch and the return of the boosters.  Never did I ever think I would get to see a space launch in my life, but there I was.  And frankly, it was the coolest part of the cruise.

The second week of the cruise saw us returning to Amber Cover and Grand Turk with new stops  to Princess’ private island and Nassau (Bahamas).  We did not get off the ship at the private island.  We did get off the ship in Amber Cove and were reminded why the Dominican Republic (DR) is not our favorite place.  When you travel frequently, you get used to people wanting to sell you things and give you tours.  They have to make a living and when your island derives the majority of its income from tourism and cruise ships, you have to expect people are going to try to sell you things.  What I don’t like is not taking “No, thank you” as the answer.  In our experience they are extremely pushy in the DR, asking you 10 different ways and then following you as you walk away.  And not for a few steps - following you for a long long way.

Contrast that with Grand Turk where we rented a golf cart again and returned to our quiet beach for a few hours.  Of course they try to sell you something in Grand Turk, but they would only ask once and move on.  Oftentimes after you say “no thank you,” you would get back a “have a nice day” or “enjoy your time here.”

We do everything we can to be polite and kind when the sales pitch comes.  I am sure they have mouths to feed and lights to keep on. I wonder how effective the hard sale is when they do that?  For us, in the DR, after about 45 minutes, we had enough and just turned around and went back to the ship.  We just wanted to walk around, maybe stop for a bite to eat and have a drink to support the local economy.  We don’t really buy souvenirs anymore since we are homeless, as Blaise puts it.  So instead of getting something from us, they got nothing because we were so frustrated.

Overall, I think we might be done with the Caribbean cruises.  There are only two or three places in the Caribbean we have not yet visited.

Princess Cruises Analysis

If you don’t care about our analysis of Princess, just skip this.

Also, I don’t want this to be a big bitch fest but I want to be honest about our experience.

The bottom line, it is very unlikely we will do another Princess Cruise.  There were a couple things we liked better than Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, and Azamara but the downsides far outweigh these.

I’ll start with what we liked better then move on to what was good and ending with what we did not like.

What Was Better Than The Rest

• They had the most comfortable cruise ship bed we have slept in.
• The musicians around the ship were overall better than the other cruise lines.
• The chairs on their balcony were better than most cruise ships for their regular balcony cabins.
• Embarkation was the easiest we’ve experienced since we had the medallion mailed to us prior to the cruise.
• The oatmeal raisin cookies are the best at sea, Blaise says.  He loves oatmeal raisin cookies and I just don’t get them.  Why raisins in a cookie?

What Was Good But Not The Best (Comparable to other cruise lines)

• The main dining room staff was attentive.
• Our cabin attendant was outstanding.  I’m not sure we have ever had a bad attendant on any ship.
• I like that they have two daily cabin services.  This is on par with Celebrity and Azamara but Royal Caribbean only offers one cleaning daily.

What Was Bad

• We were very disappointed in the food.  Our first night on the ship, the meal in the main dining room was the worst meal we have had at sea, ever.  My appetizer was just OK but the entree was horrible!  It was braised short ribs and it was so very fatty.  I had a couple of bites of the meat that I could find and that was it.  While all other nights the service in the main dining room was great, the first night it was a shocker that the waitstaff did not ask if something was wrong with the entree since I barely touched it.  On any other cruise ship we have been on, that question would have been asked and has been asked when one of us was too full to finish a plate.  The dessert I ordered was supposedly a chocolate souffle.  Absolutely zero flavor.  This may be the first time I quit eating a dessert because it just wasn’t worth the calories.  Why would I continue to eat something that had no flavor?  It didn’t taste bad; it just had no taste.  The meal was so bad, we did not return to the main dining room the second night.  Having to wait 20 minutes to be seated when we had a reservation did not help. We went back the third night after a lengthy discussion about never returning and just eating in the buffet.  But since we weren’t enthused with the buffet at breakfast or lunch, we decided to give the main dining room another go. I am glad we did because the food did get better.  Not fantastic, but better. And we never had another long wait to be seated.
• The buffet was not that great for breakfast nor for lunch.  It was repetitive and really just average at best.
• The burgers on the ship were the worst we have had at sea.
• At one point, Blaise heard an employee cussing out another employee in Spanish.  I guess he thought someone wouldn’t understand him because he wasn’t speaking English.

Comparison of Celebrity and Princess

We have been told by several people that Princess is on par with Celebrity.  We did not find this to be the case.

First there were many more kids on this ship than we have ever seen Celebrity.  I have nothing against children, it is just when you are older and your kids are grown, it is a nicer vacation when you are not dodging children.  Every night, there were kids running up and down the halls and they weren’t running on their tippy toes either.  I think their feet were made of lead.

As mentioned before, the food was nowhere near great.  Don’t get me wrong, we did have some decent meals on the cruise but overall, the food was average.

While the service was good, Celebrity always seems to take service to the next level always trying to anticipate your needs. For example, on Celebrity, the first night or two in the main dining room, they take note of what you drink and have it ready for you all other nights.

I know it is a little thing but all the public restrooms on Celebrity have actual hand towels for drying your hands but Princess only had paper towels.  Celebrity is more environmentally conscience in this regard.

Bottom line, we prefer Celebrity over Princess and will likely never cruise Princess again.  We even prefer Royal Caribbean over Princess.  Maybe it was a one-off bad cruise ship but because we have great status on Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, and Azamara, we will stick with them.  Royal Caribbean has a better product than Princess for sure.

I know I sound a little gripey or bitchy.  I appreciate and am so very thankful I get to do the things I do.  The cruise was not bad; it just wasn’t great.  And shouldn’t a cruise be great?

On Last Thing About Princess

They really LOVE The Love Boat theme song.  Every time we left a port or the Captain came on loud speaker for his daily update, they played the first few bars of The Love Boat theme.  This was not something produced or polished in any way.  It sounded like someone’s middle schooler practicing the french horn.  Can someone who cruises Princess tell me if this is the case on every Princess ship?

What's Next

We disembarked the Caribbean Princess on Sunday September 26 and headed to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for at most two months.  The next blog will cover our time thus far in Mexico and a little about what is next on our agenda.

Our Time At Home and Plans Gone Awry

 We arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia on the Azamara Pursuit at the end of our “epic slow travel trip” (as we called it in our TripIt app that keeps all of our trip information organized) on June 1.  This ended our first slow-travel trip and it WAS epic.

I am not sure how interesting any of the non-traveling time really is but I can’t not be thorough and not write about it.  But this is how we live.  This covers our time at home and planning for the beginning of our next adventure.

Texas or Oklahoma?

By the time we reached this point, I was ready to get back to Texas, even though we no longer had a home there.  Blaise likes to tell people we are homeless.  We still have the home in Oklahoma which is still inhabitable as far as I’m concerned. It took a bit to convince Blaise of the in-habitability level of the home.  No electricity, water, septic, plumbing or air conditioning.  He kept saying we were going to squat there as we worked on it.  I kept saying “Ami is not squatting until the aforementioned issues are addressed.”

Our original intent was to work on the Oklahoma home deficiencies while back in the states (since it is still not finished and livable), but yeah, that never happened. It was nice to just hang out for a while doing a bit of nothing.

Getting Back to Our Neck of the Woods (wherever that is now)

We did not spend any time  in Vancouver since we have been there several times before so we immediately flew to Fargo, North Dakota, by way of Denver, to visit friends for a week.  It was a lovely week with great weather and even better company. We then headed back to Texas on June 8.  We stayed for several days in a hotel in the HEB area before heading to a cabin in Oklahoma near our home there with the intent of hiring some folks to do some work on it.

Having No House

Our first order of business once in Texas was to get our car from our old house in Southlake.  We sold our house to family members. The agreement before we left on the trip in September of last year was that they would buy our house once they sold their house.  We gave our son, Brandon, the Power of Attorney to sell the house to them once they sold their house if we were not around.  They were finally able to sell their house the first part of May so as of May, we are no longer Southlake or Tarrant County residents.

This last part is sad for me.  I have been a Tarrant County resident since 1989, making my home in Fort Worth, then Euless, then landing in Southlake in 1997 when Blaise and I built our house while engaged. I love Tarrant County, its people, and working in Fort Worth was absolutely the best!

I think what is special about selling to family is that it stays in the family.  It was our home for nearly 29 years.  It is where we built our family and lived our lives together.  It was our happy place. It is where our love for each other grew to titanium level.  Life isn’t filled with all rainbows and sunshine.  This is where we lived through some dark times as well as the happy times and those happy times far outweigh the bad things life threw at us.  But what makes it special is we did all of it together, supporting each other in this house that I love.

By agreement and their graciousness, our car stayed at the house until we could retrieve it when we got back. So we rented a car and the day after our return, we headed to not-our-house-anymore to pick up our car which wasn’t as easy as just driving off with it.  After 8 months, it needed a new battery.  Unfortunately, we also had our ‘68 Camaro still there because the garage that was to do some work on it kept giving our son the runaround. So we had to take care of that too.

We spent 4-5 days taking care of those things and a few other logistics as well as visiting with friends.

I was a bit concerned that I would get very emotional going to the house for the first time and seeing other people’s things at “my” home.  Surprisingly, I was not.  But I also did not go inside.  We still have not been in the house - we could just not make things work to visit before we left again.

Off to Oklahoma

After that, we headed to a cabin in Oklahoma near our house there so we could work on it.  We did a lot of talking about it and getting names of people to do the work, but the effort did not come to fruition.  We just flat didn’t do it.

Off to Josephine, Texas

After being there for a few weeks, we were invited to our son’s new home in Josephine, Texas.  Some people have asked me why we didn’t just stay there from the get go.  It’s that fine line you walk when you have adult children. We did not want to presume we were just going to come home to Texas and stay at his house without an invitation from him.  And even then, we didn’t want him to think we were taking advantage of his hospitality and free digs.  I am sure we could have asked him to stay there and he would have willingly and happily said “yes.”  But neither of us wanted him to feel obligated to say yes.

It actually worked out well for all three of us.  Brandon is an insurance adjuster who is deployed at all kinds of locations across the country for 10 days at a time.  His schedule is 10 days out and 4 days home.  We stayed at his home from late June until we left on our cruise on August 21.  The great part of this was when he was gone, we got to dogsit his dog.  We are huge dog lovers and always welcome the opportunity to care for dogs and give them some love since our lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to having a dog of our own.

Brandon’s dog’s name is Zena.  She is a Staffordshire bull terrier (pit bull family) approximately 20 months old.  She is the sweetest and funniest dog!  We have not had much interaction with these types of dogs but if Zena is any indication, they are amazingly loving and gentle dogs.  We fell in love.

Zena, Warrior Canine!

We were also able to help Brandon get some things done at his house since he only has 4 days every 2 weeks to work on things.  He moved into the house in May and there were some things that needed to be done that he just couldn’t do with the little bit of time he is there every month.  

Blaise even had a little house project.  About a week after Brandon moved into his newly built house, Zena decided separation anxiety was too much for her during a trial free range and no kennel time while Brandon ran an errand.  She chewed off about a third of the trim around the door leading into the garage.  Oops! Blaise only thought he was done with house projects when we sold our house!

Puebla, Mexico is a No Go

By the first part of our time back in the U.S., we had already booked a trip to Mexico.  The original plan was to spend a month in Puebla, Mexico and then head to Playa del Carmen for a month. We had a lovely AirBnB booked in Puebla and had just booked our flight there for the end of July when we got notice from the AirBnB host that they were renovating the place we were renting and the renovations would not be complete by the time we were to arrive.  They then requested we cancel our stay in their AirBnB.

The big problem with this is that they did this within a month of the start of our stay.  Now we can’t cancel the reservation without losing 100% of the cost of the stay.  That is the AirBnB policy.  You can cancel and get a 100% refund so long as it is canceled a month or more before your stay.  We told them this and went back and forth with them and told them they had to cancel us or we would not get our money back.  They tried to get us to stay at a different apartment they had in a different location but it was not an area we wanted to be in. After several days of their not canceling and ignoring our message, we had to get AirBnB involved who eventually canceled our reservation and refunded our money.

This still left us in a bit of a pickle.  Now what?  We had just purchased our flight to Puebla and now we didn’t have a place to stay.  And I was so excited about Puebla!  Home of mole’ sauce.  Such a disappointment. We looked at AirBnBs and in booking.com (and elsewhere) but simply could not find anything that worked.  It was either way more than what we wanted to spend or not located in the area we wanted.

We knew we had to be in Playa del Carmen at the end of September and possibly for the month of October.

Why Go to Mexico?

Before I move on to what our solution ended up being, I should mention why we need to be in Playa del Carmen during that period.  It is not something we have told many people about.  Several years ago, when things in Mexico were much more appealing to us, we decided we would pursue residency in Mexico.  Were we going to live in Mexico?  Maybe?  The thought process was, it is always good to have options.  Things in the U.S. have been wonky for a while and we wanted to have options.  Right now, we are not as interested in spending time in Mexico as we once were but we are in the middle of a process in which we have invested a great deal of time and money so we need to see it through.

Several years ago, when we decided to do this, we gathered many documents, got our marriage license and birth certificates apostilled (translated to Spanish and certified by our government).  We headed to a Mexico consulate in Detroit (it is the place we were able to get an appointment) to gain approval for permanent residency in Mexico.  I have distilled this process into a couple of sentences, but it was months-worth of work. Once we got to the consulate in Detroit, they looked at our financial documents and agreed to give us the opportunity to travel to Mexico to finalize residency.

The glitch was because Blaise was already retired, they gave him the opportunity for permanent residency but because I was still working, I could only get temporary residency with the option to change it to permanent residency after 4 years.

That is why we have to be in Playa del Carmen - so I can gain my permanent residency card.  My temporary residency expires October 25 and I have 30 days prior to that expiration to change it to permanent.  We are doing it in Playa del Carmen because that is where we gained Blaise’s permanent and my temporary years ago using a facilitator.  We are using the same facilitator since she has all of the historical information on our process.

Now What?

Back to how we solved our no-place-to-stay-in-Puebla problem.  Blaise’s original solution was to not go to Puebla at all, change our flight to go to Cancun and stay in Playa del Carmen for three months. Not really the solution that appealed to me.  First because Playa del Carmen is not my favorite place in the world these days.  They have that whole sargassum (an algae that washes up on the shore - in huge amounts right now) problem rendering the beaches not as appealing.  They have taken measures to make it better but it is still not the greatest.  Add to that, you are walking on the surface of the sun so ugh.

So we started looking at other options.  What could we do that doesn’t mean we are in Playa del Carmen for three months.  First we could have stayed at Brandon’s for a couple more months but we talked about it and didn’t want Brandon to feel as though we were taking advantage of him.  We could have gone back to Oklahoma and worked on the house up there but it was hard to find a decent place to stay and we were unsure how much we could get done in 2 months.

Then we started to look at our go-to fallback - Is there a cruise we could go on?  I found a 2-week Princess cruise out of Port Canaveral.  It was really two back-to-back 7-night cruises but they were sold as one 14-night cruise with a trip back to Port Canaveral in the middle.  After finding that, it all just fell into place.  We would stay at Brandon’s for one more month, hop on the cruise, and then head to Playa del Carmen for two months.

In Conclusion

We really enjoyed our stay at Brandon’s house.  He has done a wonderful job of decorating and making his house a home.  It is the most at-home I have felt since we left last September, with our friends’ home in North Dakota being a close second.

I will talk about the cruise in the next blog.  See you then!