This guest trip report was written by Rachel, whose family sailed concierge on back-to-back sailings on the Disney Magic – first a 5 night Marvel Day at Sea, followed by a 4 night Bahamian itinerary. You can start the trip report from the beginning here.
Day 4: Cozumel
Despite having a fantastic Marvel Day at Sea and a beautiful day at Castaway Cay, our day in Cozumel ranks pretty high because we did one of the best port adventures. I’ve been to Cozumel (via cruise) several times before and we always do a beach day at Nachi Cocom, but this time I booked a private tour. (Side note: Nachi Cocom is an amazing way to spend the day, by the way. If you are looking for a chill day on a beautiful beach with plenty of shade, yummy food, drinks, and great service – look no further than Nachi Cocom. They are all inclusive with food and drinks AND they limit the number of people on their beach every day so it’s never over-crowded.)
Back to our day in Cozumel on this cruise…we docked at the downtown dock and walking into the port area gave us some pretty cool views of the Magic with no other ships in the way.
Speaking of the port area at that dock – it’s a very short walk and there is a ton of shopping. It’s a bit of a maze to make it out to where the taxis are waiting, but just keep walking and following the signs!
I booked a private tour (on my own – not a Disney port adventure) with Deluxe Private Boat Tours. We took a taxi (that fit all 8 of us) for the 10-15 minute drive to the marina.
Upon arrival, we were immediately shown our 28-ft boat for the day and introduced to our 2-man crew. One of them would be our guide and the other one was the driver. Both were amazing.
We all comfortably fit on the boat and it was immaculate (and the crew kept it that way throughout the day). We set out for our first of two snorkel stops. The first stop was a reef just off the coast.
When we stopped, we all put on our snorkel gear. We had all brought our full-face snorkel masks with us, but the tour company does provide full snorkel gear. We did use their fins, though.
We saw tons of fish both down below by the coral and also swimming all around us! Our guide spotted an Eagle Ray and used my GoPro to get some great footage of it.
After about 15 minutes, we hauled ourselves back into the boat and sped off to the second snorkel site. They didn’t actually go as fast as that boat could go, I’m sure. They purposefully went at a speed that was relaxing and comfortable for us. It was nice to enjoy the ride and scenery.
The next stop was stunning! It was very shallow and sandy – and starfish resting on the bottom as far as you could see. It was so cool! Some of us dove down to get a closer look at the starfish and they were bigger than they seemed from the surface. This area of Cozumel is called El Cielo (heaven) and it definitely lives up to the name.
After several minutes of snorkeling with the starfish, we boarded the boat again and just went a little closer to the shore, but remained in the El Cielo area. I cannot overstate how gorgeous the water was here. We anchored in about 4 feet of water with a completely sandy floor that felt awesome.
The crew got out a ball for our boys to play with and made custom drinks for the adults (and non-alcoholic ones for the kids too). Everyone had the best time wading and playing around.
While we were all in the water, the crew was preparing our lunch spread. Ceviche, fresh made guacamole, other dips, chips, tuna, etc. It was all so good!
We had about an hour more to swim and play after that. In fact, our boys snorkeled/swam over to the beach area and looked around there. But we eventually had to make our way back to the marina. We were out for about 5 hours total from the time we left the marina to the time we returned. It was such a great day! (You can read a full review with more details and photos here) We caught a cab back to the port and boarded the ship again.
Back in our rooms to clean up for dinner, we found our concierge staff had left us some treats! Our boys love these rice Krispie Mickeys (especially the ones with chocolate), so they didn’t last long!
Our dinner that night was at Rapunzel’s Table. I was looking forward to this dining room and it was so cute.
This night was a scaled-back Pirate Night. We had seen several Pirate backdrops in the atrium on our way to dinner and we had the Pirate menu that night.
For dinner, our favorites were the Vegetable Samosa, the crab cake, and the Cilantro Marinated Grouper Filet with Curried Rice.
And for dessert, I have trouble finding something I like on Pirate night, but the Signature Dessert that night, the Caramel Macadamia Nut Cheesecake Tart, was very good!
During dinner, there was a short “Pirate Show” with a pirate on the stage and the servers in their Pirate uniforms parading around the dining room.
After dinner that evening, we spotted Mickey in his pirate costume in the atrium (other characters were out in theirs throughout the evening as well). We all went to the Walt Disney Theater to see Disney Dreams. I have seen this show many times, but it had been updated since I’d seen it last and that was fun! But after the show, we were all so exhausted from our long day that we went back to our staterooms and watched movies. (There was no pirate deck party or fireworks on our cruise. We got our fireworks on our Marvel Day at Sea.)
Our towel animal that night was a monkey hanging from our curtain rod.
The next day was a truly relaxing Day at Sea – and we were looking forward to it after several action-packed days!
Up Next: Day 5
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.