Day 8 – Zihuatenejo

Today, our ship, the Celebrity Mercury, docked in Zihuatenejo, Mexico.  This town is a small, quaint little fishing town on the coast of Mexico.  It looks almost the same as it did 3 years ago when we last visited.  Most of the other ports we had visited, had changed somewhat in the past three years.

I suspect the reason it hasnt changed, is because the Mexicans dont want it to change.  To keep it the same, they started another town on the other side of the peninsula called Ixtapa.  The Mexicans see Ixtapa as the Western coast version of Cancun or Cozumel and have master planned it that way.  They have the standard big resort hotels and chains (Senior Frogs, etc). A lot of growth continues over there, but Zihuatenejo remains the same.  It is a short walk or drive from Zihuatenejo over to Ixtapa.

We had planned a relaxing day at the beach in Zihuatenejo with no plans to go to Ixtapa.  The kids, however, were a bit tired and wanted to take it easy and not swim.  So, Suzanne and Savannah went ashore in search of their doll.  They spent about 3 hours and were sucessful in finding the Guerrero doll as well as some other souveniers for everyone.  Sean had been looking for a chess set that depicted some Atztec and Spanish history and they finally found one for him.  I think Savannah has now expended her souvenier money but Sean still has some left.

Sean and I stayed on board and did some cool father/son things.  We played ping pong, board games and particpated in a spelling bee where we came in second place.  We enjoyed a lunch together of Cheeseburger and french fries.  It was an ejoyable morning and early afternoon with the just the two of us while the girls were off shopping.

After another enjoyable dinner, the family enjoyed a couple of hours of board games, playing some Carcassone, one of our favorite games.  The girls retired for the night after the game while Sean and I went to catch the cruise ship version of the Newlywed – Not so Newlywed game.  This hilarious game is patterned after the old TV show except they chose four couples with various marriage times from 9 days to 57 years.  It was a lot of fun and I havent laughed that hard in a long time.  The cruise director was very funny as the host and kept it very lively.  I think a lot of the jokes went over Sean’s head (or at least I hope they did) but he still laughed hard and had fun.  One of the funniest moments was when they asked this one old guy what his favorite condiment was and he replied “Trojan”. 

Tommorow, our final port of call on this wonderfull cruises is Manzanillo.  Based on the fun we had on board playing games and relaxing and such, it is doubtful we will even get off the boat.  The girls may make a quick souvenier run but we will have to see.