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Carnival Spirit Mexican Riviera Cruise Review - Page 4

The Director, Mr. Emilio Fernandez Lopez helped the waitresses and bus-boys with a smile on his face, answered questions and told us the story of the hotel. Hotel Colonial, corner of Fco. Bocanegra and Avenida Mexico, just a block south of the Western side of the Plaza. He promised to send me an email when his phone gets connected sometime "manana" which means sometime in the future.


We will be inviting our friends from Colima to join us there next October and will most likely call the Los Candiles (the hotel's restaurant) to set up a special buffet for the occasion. I'll be calling 01 314 332 10 80 or 332-06-68.

On the Subject of FUN on the Carnival Spirit!
What may be fun for some, could be hell for others. What hell may be to some, could be fun for others. So our cruise ship offers a seemingly endless menu of activities, shows, and the like. But I have learned that I need to learn how to have fun. And I'm betting that I am not alone. After a lifetime of challenges it is difficult to wake up in the morning knowing there is nothing at all that must be done to bring bread and fish to the table. But the sense of having to do something, to be active in the quest for money and goods is buried within most of us. And retirement, or long vacations, brings this to the surface.

There must be half a dozen eager beaver professional cheer leaders of the crew who spend most of their time cajoling, encouraging, demanding and teaching us how to perform for one activity or other.

The "Marriage Game", dance contests, slot machine contests, are but a few examples. Then there is the full sized chess set, arts and crafts room, the library, casino, bars and lounges. Not to mention privacy in your own room with your personal playmate. There's the Jacuzzis--four of them--the sauna, steam room, massage tables, 50 torture exercise machines and the endless sea. The shore tours either guided or on your own or with friends. The endless opportunity to shop and spend money. Evening shows and being waited on by professionals in the most elegant settings since the Titanic at prices within the reach of those of us who are not among the rich and famous.

On this trip my wife was lucky enough to get selected to participate in the hypnotist act and after the show, and during the next few days, I learned what it is like to be the husband of a celebrity! Years ago she had both our children under hypnosis so she knows something abut it. On stage she showed herself to be the perfect subject and the hypnotist made the most of it. Toward the end, the last act was for the participants to believe they were belly dancers. Well, my wife, having been a professional belly dancer for 17 years, really let go, forgetting arthritis, and danced away making the audience go wild with applause and shouts, whistles and gypsy cries. She brought the house down!

After that, almost everywhere we went she was met with smiles and questions "did you really go under?", "what was it like?", "do you remember anything?" It was great fun!

Carnival Spirit Ship Geography
There was no way in heaven or earth for us to have known how to decide the location of our stateroom. As chance would have it, we made out like bandits with no cops in town. Level 5 and three quarters aft, just four levels from the munchies and fantail which became Melen's querencia. (Querencia is that place a bull finds when entering the bull ring and chasing away the men in capes. Then returns after each attack.)

One point 6 minutes from room to lemonade, tea, munchies, coffee, chocolate, munchies, water, ice. Five minutes round trip to the Pharaoh's Palace, the main theatre and meeting place for some shore excursions up near the bow of the ship. Never more than a thirty second wait for any elevator, ever!

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