Day 4
October 30th 2012
Costa Maya, Mexico
- Halloween Party - Ashore: 7:45am Aboard: 5:30pm - Halloween Party
For extensive pictures visit the photo galleries at the bottom of this page; you will need to click on the little orange and green tabs above the photos to view pictures from different parts of this day. There were too many pictures to display all on a single page.
We awoke this morning to the beautiful port of Costa Maya. The view from our verandah was stunning. We loved the bright blue water and natural looking shorelines. So many ports seem so built up, like walking into downtown of a large city. I just love the ports where you can actually see the beach, shoreline and rugged wilderness beyond.
 We ate a quick breakfast in Cabanas and then headed ashore to Costa Maya. Our all ashore time was originally 12:45pm, but because of the change in schedule from hurricane Sandy we had an earlier all ashore time of 7:45am. We had a reservation at the Maya Chan Beach Resort so we walked through the shopping area to the taxi stand. The people in the little shops can be very intimidating and tried to lure our kids into the shops to pick out some little trinket. It appeared to the kids like they were going to give them something for free, but we all know that we have to pay for anything that we take. So I suggest walking quickly past all of the shops straight to the taxi stand.
When we arrived at the taxi stand, we simply told them that we were guests of Maya Chan and our names were on the list for a taxi. Although Maya Chan tells you not to wait longer than 15 minutes for a taxi or you can just get on the next one available taxi and they will pay for the fare, we waited probably 30 minutes for a taxi. We didn't mind sitting and visiting. We missed the earlier taxi with the rest of our group because we are not really morning people and we didn't get up early enough.
Once the taxi picked us up we enjoyed taxi ride along the coast line to Maya Chan. The ride was about 20 minutes; although I make no promises on the time because it was so interesting to look around at all of the houses and scenery in Costa Maya. The people there live so differently from the way that we live in the United States. Take a peek at the photo gallery at the bottom of this page for some interesting pictures that we took through the window of the taxi on our way to Maya Chan.
After a ride through some dense jungle and rough roads, that leaves you wondering if you really are on your way to a beach resort, we stopped on the road by a bus that had "Maya Chan" written in the window. Then a gentleman came to the road to pay the taxi driver and we walked down a lovely little path to Maya Chan. It was breathtaking. It was so clean and well kept. It was a smaller place than Nachi Cocom in Cozumel but oh-so beautiful. Worlds do not describe what we saw, so please look at the bottom of this page to see the photos for yourself.
 We walked through the common area where the food & drinks were served and taken onto a beautiful beach with our own little private area consisting of numerous beach chairs & two very clean and confortable beds for relaxing. The kids were given sand toys and told that there would be a sand castle building contest later on. They brought our welcome mango drinks to us with fresh guacamole, salsa and chips. It was all wonderful!
 After setting our belongings down in our private area we had a little bit of time to play on the beach while enjoying our food and drinks. Our kids dug in the sand with their sand toys & we greatly enjoyed finding various wildlife to study. We even found a live starfish and a crab in the shallow water. This beach has a great deal of seagrass in the water. I'm not complaining; I actually like the seagrass because it offers a much better environment to the wildlife. I would hate to see the turtle’s habitat and food source ruined by removing the seagrass because we wanted a better tourist beach.
After some relaxation the first group of people that went out on the ocean kayaks for some snorkeling had returned and they asked if we wanted to go out in the kayaks. Heck ya! That sounded like fun! We paddled out a little way and then tied our kayaks to the guide's kayak that was tied to the bottom. The kids had life jackets (which I strongly recommend) but we did not. I guess there were not enough left from the first group of people. I am an o.k. swimmer so I didn't mind staying afloat on my own. It was easy to float on the waves in the super salty water. It was a little difficult to snorkel because of the motion of the water & trying to swim in it. I will say that this was my very first time snorkeling and I was not very good at it, but I really enjoyed the kayak ride and just swimming around in the ocean for a short time. The guide brought a conch shell to the surface for us all to see. I think that it had a hermit crab in it instead of a conch but it was hard to tell.
Soon it was time to go back to shore. I will say that it is more difficult to get back in the kayak than to get out of it, especially with my little guy sitting in the kayak. I tipped the kayak getting it & dumped him out. Good thing for his life vest. He floated up and I put him back in the kayak. Then the guide held the opposite side of the kayak down while I climbed back onboard and we paddled back to shore for lunch.
 After our kayak trip we returned to the beach and had lunch. We were served some delicious drinks and the kids were given their choice of smoothies. They chose a chocolate smoothie and we couldn't get them to sit still to eat. We could hardly blame then as we were just as excited to be playing on the beach instead of being overfed as we have been on the cruise. So we ate a quick bit of wonderful food (we liked the food here much better than at Nachi-Cocom) and then returned to play on the beach.
The kids had all teamed up boys vs. girls to build sand castles for the sand castle contest. They had a great time building them and someone soon came around to "judge" their sand castles. They later returned with trophies for everyone. What a nice surprise and a great souvenir from our trip. The boy's sand castle won "Best Sand Castle" and the girl's sand castle won "Best named sand castle". All of the kids were super happy that they all had won. What a wonderful Disney touch to a non-Disney excursion!
 We all enjoyed drinks while visiting with the people in our cruise group and playing on the beach. We had a wonderful, relaxing time here at Maya Chan and we hope that we are able to return again someday.
A Video of the Maya Chan Beach Resort area
The time quickly passed and they soon announced that our taxies were on the way for our return trip to port. We wanted to do just a little bit of shopping before we got back on the ship, so we said goodbye to our wonderful hosts climbed into our Taxi.
We took more pictures through the Taxi window of the way that the people there lived. (You can see them in our Maya Chan photo gallery at the bottom of this page) When we got back to the main area I wanted to do a little bit of shopping. Most of the stores near the Taxi stand were quiet, but would not really bargain on their prices at all. All the people working in the ships said "Fix Price" when you asked for a better deal on things. We bought a few things and moved on. As we got closer to the pier where the ship was, the people in the stores were almost aggressive at selling us things. They would hand things to the kids getting our kids attached to an item and then expect us to pay for it knowing that our kids would be sad if they didn't get to take home their treasured item. Unless you are prepared and really want to shop here, I would suggest walking quickly by all of the shops with your head looking straight forward and your arms crossed. They seemed to be able to read your body language when you had your mind set not to buy anything and did not harass you as much and try to get you to come into their stores.
We felt like we were some of the last people back on the ship as we walked the nearly empty pier toward the Fantasy. A couple stopped us and asked if we would take their picture. We told them that we would if they took ours too. It is one of my very favorite pictures from our trip.
 We got back onboard the ship and got ready for Halloween. We were very disappointed in the minimal celebrations for the Fantasy's First Halloween. We had previously received emails talking about different costumes contest etc... There was no trick-or-treating. A bag of treats was left on our bed for each of our children. They were not overly disappointed because there were able to attend the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in Disney World the week prior to our cruise. I was more disappointed because I expected something special because this was the first Halloween for the Fantasy. I guess that we are partly to blame because when we got to the Atrium for the costume contest there, it appeared as if it was an adult party. There were so many adults and adult things going on in the atrium that we left.
We also were in search of an official cruise photographer to take our Halloween picture and we asked at Shutters with no luck. Apparently there were some photographers wondering around earlier when we were in port, at the pirate league and at dinner, but nobody knew where we could find one later. I do wish that they had photographer in the restaurants and in front of back drops for the Halloween party. After a search for a photographer we gave up and did a little bit of shopping in the gift shops. We did attend the Family Halloween Bash in the D Lounge but were not overly impressed. It was a lot of dancing and some of the characters came out, but we don't really enjoy dancing on the dance floor so it really wasn't our cup of tea. I do wish that they had a little costume contest for the kids in the D Lounge where we were not overrun with the general population.
We do LOVE the Disney cruises more than any other cruise line out there. Please don't take my complaining to heart.
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Documents
| October 30th Personal Navigator |
| Costa Maya Shopping Guide |
| 2nd Itinerary update |
Photo Gallery
| (Click tabs below to view other galleries) | |||||
 Costa Maya Port from our Verandah |  Looking forward into the sunrise from our verandah |  The beautiful water below us |
 Costa Maya |  |  |
 |  Costa Maya from the Fantasy |  |
 |  Looking up at the Fantasy from the pier |  |
 |  Fish in the water over the pier |  |
 |  Houses in Costa Maya photographed through the window of our taxi |  Many people in Cost Maya rode scooters, bikes or walked. There was not a great deal of automobile traffic. |
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 |  |  Departing from Maya Chan we noticed that there was actually someone living in this bus burried in the sand |
 The road out from Maya Chan |  Shoreline from the taxi |  |
 |  grass hut home |  |
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 |  |  lighthouse |
 The family on the scooter, on the right of this photo, included a mother, father and a small baby. The parents both had helmets but the baby did not. Amazing how they packed onto that scooter. People do what they have to, to survive and there are all sorts of different lifestyles. |  Going through port security to get back to the ship; we had to show our ship room keys from the taxi to be allowed through |  Looking back through the shopping area to the pier and the ship |
 |  We felt like some of the last people back onboard because the dock was so empty |  |
 Looking back at Costa Maya as the sun set |  |
