Winter Break. Part II - Days 10 and 11: All The Stores Have Mezzuzahs.
Friday morning we woke up in sunny Costa Maya, Mexico.
We hadn’t planned anything for this port once again—first because it was a short stop, and second because there really wasn’t anything we were interested in doing. So we slept in, had breakfast, and then got off the ship leisurely. We ate breakfast at the back of the buffet near the Kosher food. I think after English, Hebrew is the language I hear most on this ship.
When we got off the ship, it was very hot. We walked around the port, which was exactly as gross as we remembered. It was hot, crowded, and full of shops selling absolute junk—lots of the usual Israeli-owned skincare places (all of which had mezzuzahs) trying to lure people in. As we made our way toward the end of the port, Hallie finally spotted a hair-braiding place and decided she wanted to get her hair done. Madeleine did not want to do this at all and was miserable in the heat, so Tzvi ended up taking Madeleine back to the ship while I stayed behind with Hallie. Originally, Hallie wanted braids, but the girl before her got a wrap, and that immediately changed her mind—so she got a wrap instead.
Meanwhile, Shir walked around the port and ran into actual friends. Like people she went to high school with and now are working in the port shops. She said her friends told her they know all of the skincare places are scams, and that if they realize people are Israeli or Jewish, they don’t even bother trying to sell to them.
Back on the ship, Tzvi took Madeleine to the Surfside neighborhood, the kids area at the back of the ship. There’s a great splash zone with smaller waterslides and a couple of smaller pools. Madeleine loved it and just kept riding the same slides over and over. She had a great time.
All aboard was at 1:30, and we were back on the ship by around 1:15. The rest of the afternoon was pretty relaxed. We got veggie burgers at the buffet and then hung out by the pool for a while—although Hallie couldn’t go in because she wasn’t supposed to get her burn in pool water.
Around 3pm we handed the kids off to Shir. First we stopped at the Lime and Coconut, which is a bar that just has a bunch of slushy cocktail machines, including a mango rum slushy that Tzvi has been drinking a lot of. Then we went to the adults only infinity pool at the back of the ship, which is a pretty cool space.
Then we went back to get ready for Shabbos. At this point, we felt like it was pretty certain that we weren’t flying home on Sunday. I wanted to book a hotel before all the flights got cancelled so that we wouldn’t be sold out of anything (and everything would’ve been non-refundable at this point, so if we decided to book something it meant we were staying). [Tzvi: That is only partly true. She wanted to book the hotel so she could start booking her Disney tickets and lightning lanes before they sold out.] Tzvi was apprehensive about the whole thing, but by the afternoon he finally agreed that we weren’t flying Sunday and that it made sense to book a hotel. Just before Shabbos I called Disney World and made a reservation for two nights at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which was the cheapest Deluxe resort available. We also looked at the moderate hotels, but Tzvi wanted something a little nicer since he’d be spending all day Monday in the room working.
Dinner was in the main dining room, where we once again had steak. At some point during dinner Shabbos started.
After dinner, we walked around a bit and then went to see the aqua show, Torque, in the Aqua Theater. On previous ships we’ve been on, the Aqua Theater was outdoors at the back of the ship, which always felt risky because the show is so dependent on weather. On this ship, they finally moved it indoors, which was a very smart decision. It still gets canceled sometimes due to ship movement (they actually canceled one earlier in the cruise), but at least weather isn’t an issue anymore. The show itself was excellent—probably the best aqua show we’ve seen. At one point they actually had to stop the show because a guy who was doing donuts on a motorcycle inside a spherical cage fell, but overall it was incredibly well done.
We put the kids to bed and then walked around a bit. I went to guest services told them about the noise that I hear every morning, the banging and dragging sounds on the balcony above me. They said they would report it to the housekeeping supervisor.
And that was pretty much our Friday.
Day 11 – Saturday: Sea Day
We slept in pretty late Saturday morning—woke up around 8:40, lingered in bed for a bit—and then, around 9:15, we got a knock on the door. It was one of the housekeeping supervisors, come to apologize for the noise issues we’d had. He explained that the family in the connecting rooms above us had six kids and that they’d received multiple complaints throughout the week. Apparently, the family had been spoken to several times, but there wasn’t much more the ship could realistically do. He was genuinely apologetic, and as compensation, they offered us a future cruise credit worth 20% of what we paid for this sailing. It has to be used within a year—which is always tricky—but it was still a nice gesture, especially given that the situation wasn’t really fixable.
After that, we got dressed and headed to the buffet for breakfast. Then we spent some time out in the sun. Shir went off to do her own thing, and I took the girls to Surfside because there was supposed to be a meet and greet with Sailor (the ship dog). Unfortunately, no luck—Sailor wasn’t feeling well. Hallie had already met Sailor earlier in the trip, but Madeleine hadn’t, and she was very disappointed. We hope she’s feeling better soon.
From there, we walked over to the AquaDome for the 11:15 Salute to Veterans program. I really like taking the kids to these kinds of events—it feels important—and this one was especially well done. It included a memorial for fallen soldiers, acknowledgments of every branch of the armed forces (including the Space Force, of which there was actually someone who stood up), readings and poems, Taps, the Star-Spangled Banner, and a medley of songs representing each division. They also recognized service members from other countries. The fountains were choreographed to red, white, and blue lighting, there was a massive flag, and they were even handing out themed cocktails. It was moving, thoughtful, and surprisingly engaging for the kids, who sat through the entire thing.
Afterward, we went back to the pool area and met up with Tzvi who had been sitting in the sun increasing his likelihood of getting skin cancer. We spent some time in the hot tubs and the small pool, and then around 2:00pm, we headed back to Surfside so Madeleine could play in the kids’ splash area, which she loves. She had a great time—until she got sprayed in the eye with a jet of water (mostly Tzvi’s fault) and decided she was done. She recovered quickly, though, and ultimately survived yet another cruise mishap.
We grabbed something to eat, then left the kids with Shir for a bit while we went to the adults-only hot tub. That’s where we ended up next to the group of Argentinian boys and an Israeli couple. The Israeli guy had a prosthetic leg and had served in Golani; we later found out he lost the leg in Gaza shortly after October 7th. They were talking to each other in Hebrew and we were just listening (though they didn’t seem to notice we understood what they were saying). When the Israeli got out of the hot tub he casually removed his leg and used it pour water over his head. You don’t see that every day.
Eventually, we headed back to the room to pack and get ready for dinner. As usual, the 5:00 PM dining time felt absurdly early, and no one was particularly hungry, but dinner was pleasant enough. We had one quick course and then got out of there. Afterward, we finished packing and waited for Shabbat to end.
Well, what do you know. When Tzvi turned on his phone he had a text message from JetBlue. “JetBlue Flight #0284 has been cancelled.” It was nice to be right about this whole thing, and also to not be scrambling around to find flights and hotels. Also, had we waited to figure things out, we would’ve been behind the rest of the non-Shabbos keeping world, since that text message had come in at 3 in the afternoon.
We did our final walk around the ship—bought our photos, had a second dinner at the buffet (to be fair, Tzvi didn’t really eat the first dining room dinner), and played a few final arcade games. We put the kids to bed and then got cocktails at the Jazz bar in Central Park and sat listening to the music and looking at what cruises we could use our cruise credit on.
We ended the night sitting outside on our balcony, watching the Florida coastline go by. There were cruise ships everywhere—way more than I usually notice on the last night—which felt like a nice way to wrap things up. A good final day.
