Who Took My Cheese?!

Posted by islandmoosie on June 2, 2013
Posted in: Cozumel - June 2013, Who took my cheese!. Leave a comment

Moosie’s travel adventures continue
Hang on for the ride!

Travel with Moosie and you will be in for an adventure of sorts.  That’s what Hook says.

Day 1 on our way to Cozumel and I delivered what would be the event of the day.

We were first off the plane and sailed right through immigration.  As we waited for our checked luggage, the airport sniffer dog and his handler were making their rounds checking the bags.  They came over and sniffed around our carry-on bag, my backpack, and my beach bag.  First pass and I thought they were done so I bent down to pick up my backpack.  The handler stopped me and said, one more pass.  Oooookie dokie then.

Second pass… and the dog really starts sniffing my beach bag and buries his nose in there.  Sniff-sniff-sniff.  Uh-oh…

“I need to look in your bag miss”, says the handler.

“Sure thing” I answer, since I have nothing to hide.

“What do you have in here?” he asks.

I say, “my snacks”.

He proceeds to open up my brown baggie and BINGO!  He finds my ziploc bag with the half-gnawed aged gouda cheese that I had been snacking on.  Busted!!  Yes, my name is Moosie and I never leave home without my cheese.

The officer tells me that is a no-no and says he has to take it.  Oops!  There goes my cheese!  And my fresh-baked cookie from the flight that I had saved got snagged too as it was in the same bag as the cheese.  Boohoo.  Although the Officer did ask me if I wanted the cookie, but I declined as I would have had to dig in the luggage for another ziploc baggie.

My cookie that got caught up in the cheese scandal!

He proceeds to write down my name and passport number for the record.

Meanwhile I can feel E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E just looking at me and I am sure wondering what contraband I had tried to sneak in.  They were probably thinking at any minute the armed Federales would be cuffing me and leading me away.

Hook, I was sure, was slinking away, distancing himself from the cheese smuggler.  HA!  (Just a note:  The officer was actually very professional and really nice throughout all of this.)

It never fails.  Somehow or other my bags tend to end up getting the extra search.  Like the time they called me to the backroom to inspect my checked luggage in Turks & Caicos.  My Sonicare toothbrush and the various cords and chargers for my gadgets were the culprits.

Last year it was the extra inspection for the ““howlas de los gatos por Humane Society” (aka cat traps) that I was mule-ing for someone.

The year before it was a bar of soap that had one side with bumps (a massage bar soap from the Hyatt) that demanded a lot of questions and scrutiny.  They thought it was some kind of fruit?  Huh??

Let’s not even go to the time I forgot to take the laptop out of my backpack leaving Washington Dulles.  We were leaving on a 6 am flight and we were at the airport at 4 am and I had not slept the night before.  Boy oh boy that was quite a fiasco.  First they ran the backpack again through the x-ray.  Then they swabbed it for explosives residue.  The fun part was about to begin.  Apparently the machine they used to process the swab was malfunctioning and it registered a false positive.  It took almost an hour to make it through security that time.  Thank goodness they found another machine that was actually working correctly to test the swab.

But I digress…

Once through the sniffer test, our checked luggage soon made its way to us and we were soon putting all of the bags through the x-ray machine.  Nothing got flagged this time.  Whew!

I asked Hook to press the magic button because he seems to have much better luck than I do.  The previous times when I pushed the button we always got the red light.  Sure enough, he pressed the button and the magical color of green (GREEN! my favorite color!) lit up and we happily skipped on to the exit.

We quickly walked past the timeshare sharks, ignoring all their come-ons and offers of assistance, and got our tickets for the Collectivo van.

Five minutes after sitting in the van waiting for other passengers heading Norte, a couple joined us, and after the “Hello!” pleasantries, the lady exclaimed, “Oh you’re the lady whose sandwich was confiscated.”

“It was cheese!”, I emphatically cried.  Still lamenting the loss of my 5-year aged gouda…

Sniffer Dog – one
Moosie – zero

To be continued…

Casa de Snorkelpalooza

Posted by islandmoosie on March 18, 2012
Posted in: Cozumel - March 2012, Hotel Playa Azul, Snorkelpalooza. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Next stop on our whirlwind trip to Cozumel is Hotel Playa Azul (http://www.playa-azul.com/), our home base for the weekend.  Located just a few minutes ride from the airport and town, in the quiet north section of the island, it is the perfect place for us. 

[Note:  Click on any photo to view a larger version]

We were dropped off last by the shared airport van, so we got a peek at the Melia Cozumel Hotel, and El Cozumeleno Hotel which we had not seen before.  Both hotels seemed busy with a lot of guests, and both are high rises.  Not our style, we prefer smaller properties.  Playa Azul fits exactly what we are looking for.  It is a small property, so any room you get will be a mere steps to the beach.  Can’t beat that!  As I like to say, the less steps to the sand, the better.  Oh, and you don’t have to play the beach lounger game of having to get up before the crack of dawn to reserve your spot.  Even at almost full capacity, there are ample beach loungers for the guests.

Beach loungers awaiting your arrival

 
The rooms all have fantastic views of the ocean.  You can sit on your patio and be mesmerized by the different hues of blue water.  Ahhhh, stress be gone!

Mesmerizing shades of blue

Blue as far as the eyes can see

 

Check-in took about 5 minutes, and soon our luggage was being whisked away to room 408.  The room itself is spacious, equipped with a coffee maker and a supply of local coffee which is actually really good, an in-room safe, a small tv, a hairdryer, and nice bath toiletries.  The decor and furnishings are a bit dated, but the linens were fresh.

Room 408 has 2 double beds

Looking towards the patio & the views beyond

 

Shower and bath toiletries

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Housekeeping does a great job of keeping the rooms clean.  The housekeeper even gave us a cute surprise each day, fashioning the handtowels to a cute animal shape to greet us.  Adorable!  She also put my small stuffed animal kitty in a cute sleeping position on top of the little pillow that I travel with, everytime she made the bed (even though we do make our bed in the mornings… I guess it’s not up to snuff with the way they have to do it).  LOL.  Yeah yeah, I travel with a little stuffed animal kitty. 🙂 

Loved the cute animal towels we came back to each day. Cute suprise from housekeeping. 🙂

 

There is good wifi access from the room and on the beach, very important for us.  Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to be on vacation… but what can I say, I gotta have my internet.  From what I could tell, there is no way to do a wired connection so you can’t create your own wifi network, which I usually prefer to do to keep our devices secure.  Oh well, as long as I have connectivity, all is good in Moosie’s world!  Wifi is free, unlike other hotels where they charge a daily fee.  Yeah!  Another plus for Playa Azul.  As a side note, there is little or no wifi signal at the restaurant…

If there is one thing I would like to see the hotel add, I would love it if they provided convenient access to more electrical outlets in the room.  Or at least provide a power strip that is easily accessible.  With everyone traveling with all sorts of gadgets these days and needing to juice up, it would be great to be able to easily plug in without having to reach behind or move furniture to get to an outlet.

Ok, enough of the inside stuff.  Time to get out of the room, hit the sand, and let Moosie’s snorkelpalooza begin! 

That’s right, another reason we love this hotel is because there is some great snorkeling to be had along the front just off the beach.  Lots of fish to see, both the usual suspects like sergeant majors, grunts, and parrotfish, as well as some that I get really excited about seeing, like stingrays, flounders, and angelfish.  

Banded Butterflyfish, Sergeant Majors, Parrotfish, Blue Tangs

 

Other side profile of the Banded Butterflyfish 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

French Angelfish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

French Angelfish - juvenile

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Peacock Flounder

Yellow Stingray – click on the photo to watch a video clip

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Intricate pattern on this Yellow Stingray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Oh how I could stay out in the water for hours until my fingers are all wrinkled and pruney!  Last year I had two “first sightings” of marine critters I have not seen in all of the snorkeling we’ve done in many islands.  I saw my first ever sighting of a batfish.  Wow!  How lucky I was to have seen this strange creature.  The other was an electric ray.  So awesome!!  Although I did not see any of these during this trip, overall it was still quite a successful snorkeling experience, having multiple sightings of yellow stingrays.  They seem to be in abundance in this area.

 

What the heck is that?

 

Hook said it was a mutant crocodile! Ha!

 

A new species to be named The Mooser?? Nah, it's a Batfish!

  

Lesser Electric Ray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Lesser Electric Ray — I saw several last year

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bonus photos… Since I was a slacker and did not do a report on last year’s trip to Cozumel, I am including a link to photos taken while snorkeling in front of Hotel Playa Azul in May 2011.]

Yes siree, there is some great snorkeling to be had right in front of Hotel Playa Azul!  Just keep your eyes open and always scan the sandy bottom as there could be interesting things perfectly camouflaged and hard to detect.  I’m usually good at spotting the stingrays and flounders as I really pay attention to anything that might be moving or an eye blinking.

Tip:  The best way to enter is via the small sandy area in between the hotel and the Playa Azul Beach Club.  There used to be sandbags heading out to the water last year, but noticed they were no longer there this past March.  Still, I’ve found it to be the best spot to launch yourself as it is sandy enough that you don’t need water shoes.

Happy Snorkeling!

 

A few more photos from this year (March 2012)

Foureye Butterflyfish

 

Orangespotted Filefish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smooth Trunkfish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Highhat – juvenile

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sanddiver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hermit Crab in a Conch Shell

 

Peacock Flounder traveling with Crab (Hey, how about some crab stuffed flounder? Yum! Just kidding!)

 Click on the photo above to see a video clip of this traveling duo! 

 

 

A Weekend in Cozumel

Posted by islandmoosie on March 12, 2012
Posted in: Cozumel - March 2012. Tagged: . Leave a comment

Every year we play the “we should lay low and not travel during the winter months” game.  Yet every year, about 3 weeks prior to our anniversary in March, “deh foot get hot”, as my island friends like to call it.  I get the itch to travel someplace warm…soak up some sunshine… dig my toes in the sand… satisfy my need for a snorkeling fix.  Who am I to resist the call of the islands?

Oh, but where to go?  So many choices, not enough time.  This time of the year we can only manage to get away for a few days due to work commitments, so we need someplace we can easily get to.

Grand Cayman? Easy to get to, love the snorkeling, and oh, to get a taste of Norma Jean’s barbecue again!!  Alas, we remind ourselves that the weather and water were too cool the last time we went in early March.  Bahamas?  Again, way too cold in March.  Turks and Caicos?  Not only cold, but also over-hyped and we are over it.  Where to…where to…

I searched and searched, but everywhere seemed to take a full day to get to from the Wash DC area.  I almost pulled the trigger on St. Lucia, someplace new that we have not been to, but the lack of previous research on my part led to indecision on which area and hotel to stay in.  Then I stumbled upon a terrific AA Vacations package deal to Cozumel.  Visions of more AA miles racking up on my account just like a slot machine was whirling in my head.  Yes, my name is Moosie and I am an AA miles junkie.  And Cozumel!  Cozumel!!  We had fallen in love with this little island on our first trip last year and vowed to go back.  Of course we vowed to go back for a longer stay, as last time we were only there for 4 nights, and now we are looking at only 3 nights.  Eeeks!  Well, what the heck, let’s go for it we say!

Our travel day started by getting up at the unMoosie hour of 3 am!! in order to be at the airport by 4 am for that crack of dawn 6 am flight from Washington Dulles to Dallas Fort Worth.  Check-in was a breeze, no lines at all.  Even better, they had first class upgrades available for a minimal additional cost for the first leg of our trip.  Whoohoo!  Happy Anniversary, Hook!  Your Moosie came through again! 

Our layover in Dallas passed by real quick, just enough time to grab some Starbucks and freshen up at the Admirals Club lounge.  Soon, we were boarding and Cozumel was a mere 2 1/2 hours away!  Even with having to sit in cattle class the second leg of our trip (err, I mean “main cabin”), the flight was quite comfortable and we were in Cozumel before 1pm local time.

Baileys and Starbucks... hey it's noon somewhere!

Immigration was a breeze, and even Customs wasn’t so bad, even though we were transporting cat traps (oh wait, cat “cages”) for someone who was sending them to the Cozumel Humane Society.  We were well prepared on how to get through efficiently and with minimal hassle, thanks to all the tips from the C.H.S. volunteers who coached us on what to do and what to say.  For several days I had been practicing saying ‘howlas de los gatos por Humane Society’.  Of course as luck would have it, I got the red light for the additional baggage search.  It was a good thing that I had spared no packing tape when I packed the boxes in the duffle laundry bags.  The lady at the red light station did not have scissors to cut the tape and after attempting for a minute to rip the tape apart and my repeating “howlas de los gatos por Humane Society” for the upteenth time, she gave up and waved us through.  (Side note:  It really was no hassle at all bringing stuff in for the Humane Society.  If you are an animal lover, please consider bringing in supplies for this worthwhile organization who is doing great work for the animals in Cozumel. http://humanecozumel.org/ )

For those who have not been to Cozumel, you would think that after Immigration and Customs your relaxing vacation can start.  Oh no.  Before you can do that my friends, you have to survive getting past the timeshare sharks lurking just outside the doors.  Yep, unless you’ve read the Trip Advisor forums and have paid attention to the super helpful tips that the regular forum posters provide, you can easily fall victim to the various offers to help you find transportation to your hotel.  And man oh man, are they ever persistent.  And they all wear official-looking polo shirts that say “Tourist Advisory”.  Uh huh, tourist advisory misery!  Our first time last year, Hook almost got nipped by one of these sharks.  After I had repeatedly told him not to talk to anyone and that we had to go find the “Collectivo” service desk.  I had to forcefully pull Hook back and drag him away.  This year, we were well-seasoned travelers and looked on with pity as we saw a couple of newbie couples get hooked by the swarms of sharks.

Travel Tip:
Once you go through the exit doors from Customs, head to the right and find the Collectivo service desk at the far end of the terminal.  This is where you will purchase your ticket for the shared van service for transport to your hotel.  Taxis are not allowed to pickup passengers at the airport.

Do not, I repeat, do not let your guard down and start talking to the “nice” people trying to help you find a ride.  These are timeshare salespeople.  Your “free” transport, or car rental, or whatever it is they are offering will cost you many hours of precious vacation time.  Keep repeating, No, Gracias, and keep walking.

We made our way to the shared van service desk and bought our tickets, US$10 per person to the north hotels zone, and stepped outside to find our van.  Next stop, Hotel Playa Azul…

Grenada Hotels Part 2 – I almost cried within the first hour!

Posted by islandmoosie on October 28, 2011
Posted in: Grenada - October 2011, Hotels, Spice Island Beach Resort. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

The next stop on our hotel-hopping tour is Spice Island Beach Resort, or as I affectionately call it, SIBR.  This was our chill and relax place for Oct. 11 – 15, 2011.

This was my third stay at Spice Island and the reception we received at check-in was top notch, as always.  From the warm “Welcome Back!” greeting from the ever-friendly Wendy at the front desk… to the cold towels to cool ourselves with… to their signature drink of Spice Island Classic, a fabulous cocktail made with sorrel and sparkling wine.  Aaaaah.  C’est magnifique!

This is the life!

Our room was not quite ready since we arrived fairly early in the afternoon, but it was only a short wait of about 20 minutes before we were whisked away to Seagrape Suite #41, our to-die-for pad for the next four days.

Waiting in our room was a welcome packet, along with a plate of tropical fruits.  I suspect this was the reason why our room wasn’t quite ready… they had to prepare and deliver the fruit plate, as well as turn on the a/c in the room to get it cooled before we arrived.  It is these little touches that set SIBR above the rest.

Tropical fruits welcome

As I sat on the bed while unpacking, my eyes started to get misty and a lump formed in my throat.  I wanted to cry.  No, not because I was missing our cats back home…

 I turned to Hook and commented, “I am going to cry as I think about having to leave this place in 4 days!”
To which he replied, “Are you nuts? You just got here and you’re already thinking four days from now?!”  LOL.

Alas, we were already booked for another hotel which we have been wanting to check out for a long time, so extending our stay was not an option.

Our Seagrape Suite was located beachside, just a few steps to the sands of Grand Anse beach.  Perfect location in our book!  The less steps to the sand, the better…

Seagrape Suite 41 Views

The suite is spacious, has all the modern amenities one could ask for, and an understated yet elegant decor.

Seagrape Suite sitting area

Seagrape Suite

I was glad to see that the room now had its own wireless router, so wifi connectivity was strong inside as well as in the patio area.  Of course being the geek that I am, I travel with my own Apple airport express and ethernet cable and created my own secure wifi network for our multitude of gadgets. 😉

The bathroom is breathtaking, with double sinks, a separate shower, and a whirlpool tub with a skylight above it to admire the stars at night, or the blue skies during the day.  The hotel provides lovely Molton Brown bath products.

Can it possibly get any better?  YES it can!

The bed… ohhhhh the bed… How I LOVE the bed at SIBR.  It is, by far, the MOST COMFORTABLE BED EVER!!  …with a plush pillowtop mattress that immediately lulls me to sleep.  That’s no small feat, considering I often toss and turn all night as I have a hard time sleeping in unfamiliar places.  Nope, not here.  As soon as my head hits the pillows, I am zonked out!  And I feel fully rested and refreshed the next day.

LOVE LOVE LOVE the bed!!

When we are at SIBR, “beach lounger gravity” tends to hit us and we spend most of our days enjoying the sun, the sand, and being mesmerized by the fantastic views of the ocean while sipping cocktails.  Most days we ordered room service for breakfast which we enjoyed from our patio.  A perfect way to start the day.

Enjoying breakfast - no need to get all dressed up

Hard to beat this view for breakfast!

On our previous stays at Spice Island, we were impressed at how pro-actively friendly the staff were, with everyone greeting us by name when we saw them.  On this trip, there was something a bit off and not quite up to par as our previous experiences.  Not to say the service was bad, as certainly the service was still the high standard that it should be.  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it just felt “off”… like there was too much of an air of formality to be kept up…

That in no way detracted from us thoroughly enjoying our stay at SIBR.  And I would be remiss if I did not name a handful of staff members who were exceptional and whose friendliness made us feel like special guests.

Exceptional staff like Fabian, the Food & Bev Manager, who has the sunniest disposition and is always “Most excellent!” when we ask how he is doing.

Cristell, the young lady at the restaurant and bar, who is genuinely warm and friendly.  I first met her when I traveled by myself a few years ago and she made me feel at ease when I dined by myself.

Wendy and Cheramie, who always had a warm greeting when we passed by the front desk.

Would we stay at Spice Island again?  You bet!  We love the luxe amenities that the resort offers, and the staff who make it special.  Oh, and the super-heavenly bed, but of course!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Misc.  photos

Grand Anse Beach

Elegant lobby at night

Casual dining area & bar at night

Elegant entrance at night

Stay tuned for Hotels Part 3 … another well-regarded hotel on the island