Cozumel or Our Own Private Yacht

Since we've been to Cozumel before--we took our daughters to see the ruins of Tulum back when they were 18 & 20. Fascinating!--we decided to stay aboard the Dream and enjoy the ship with many fewer people on it.

Don't get me wrong. I like people. People are my favorites.

But there are a lot of them on this ship. At up to 4500 passengers, it's bigger by far than any we've ever cruised on before. It's easy to feel overwhelmed, especially when you can't get from one end of the ship to the other on some decks without going up and down stairs or waiting in the Disneyland-like lines at the elevators.

So we decided to play like the Dream was our private yacht.

We had a leisurely breakfast in the Scarlet dining room and met some more people from Missouri! Everywhere we go we seem to run into them. I think half the state has run away from winter this week!

Then we went to the Thermal Suite for our daily nap on the lovely stone loungers. This our big splurge on board. We don't drink. We don't gamble. Bingo and Trivia hold no allure for us and I won't shop unless someone forces me to.

But we do like to lounge around in the spa. For months beforehand, we look forward to feeling that heat seep into our bones.

And today, we had it all to ourselves instead of having to wait until there were two vacancies.

Then after our lounging, I decided it was time to make good on my little Bucket list item. If you visit with me on Twitter , Facebook, or the CruiseCritic message boards (you might know me there as Aquadesiac) you know I've been talking about doing the big slide on board the Dream. When our kids were young we used to take them to water slide all the time. It was a fun family outing. Good times. Guess I was just hoping to recapture some of that.

Surprisingly enough, other people are interested in whether or not I did the slide. Yesterday a fellow wearing a Mizzou t-shirt stopped and offered to carry Herkimer, my Portable Oxygen Concentrator, up the stairs for me if I was still determined to do the slide. He'd read my goal on FB or the CC rollcall board and recognized me by my POC. He was invested in my little dream and wanted to see me accomplish it.

Well, I couldn't back out after that.

Even so, the Twister is a real monster. I have to admit I felt a little apprehensive climbing up the many stairs to get to the top. (My DH served as my Sherpa and carried up Herkimer for me! Then since it couldn't go with me on the slide, he packed it back down. God bless the man!) I was a little winded when I reached the top, but that may also have been excitement.

Anyway, I settled into the tube marked "The Twister," crossed by ankles, folded my arms across my chest and off I went!

The water was so co-o-old!!!!! (You must pronounce that word with 3 syllables to get the full effect of how frigid it was.) I could scarcely draw breath. I zipped along, through the tight turns, thinking surely I'm almost down, surely I'm...

But then there was yet another series of corkscrews. Just as I decided I'd probably pass out before I reached the end---I reached the end.

And a big wall of water smacked me in the face!

All in all, with my pulmonary issues, this probably wasn't the smartest thing for me to do. It was sort on a par with the time I took my PhD in Roller-Coaster-ology with my sister Linda at Six Flags by riding every coaster in the park. A great deal of excitement punctuated by moments of real terror.

Either way, it was a fun thing to have done.  Just not so much fun while you're doing it, if that makes any sense. If the water had been warmer...if I'd taken five minutes or so to catch my breath at the top of the slide, I might not have felt so oxygen depleted while I was running the gauntlet.

If I'd just had more witnesses! Unfortunately, most of my fellow passengers were off in Cozumel so you have only my word that I did it. And my DH's and the ever-smiling Indonesian crewman who helped me get started down the slide.

Ok, everybody playing in Cozumel can come back now. We're done pretending the Dream is just ours. Just be sure to make it back on board before 5:30.

I'd hate to be standing on my veranda waving to you as you run frantically down the pier. That's zero fun for either of us.