Holland America has been amazing coming up with alternatives for Mexico on extremely short notice. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of choices. Our first new port is Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala. It’s not just the availability of port to dock at but also arrangements of activities and land transportation for passengers to partake in while they are there.
By yesterday evening there were excursions set up and information printed for people to pick from. We opted to just get off the ship and visit the immediate port area where there was a welcome centre with shopping, bars and the Jade Museum. To get from the dock to the welcome centre, Holland America had arranged minivans as it would have been a very long walk. Also, since this is a working port they tend not to want civilians wandering around willy-nilly.
On our way to the centre we stopped to pick up passengers at another ship called The Explorer. The Explorer is a School Ship set up by the University of Virginia where the students work and go to school for six months as part of their degree program. This is very similar to Class Afloat where high school students work on a tall ship for 6 months as part of their education. Nice gig if you can get it.
When we got to the Welcome Centre there was another ship called The World. The World is actually a floating condominium complex where you buy an apartment on the ship and then travel the world. Our new friend, The Count, had spent time on the ship so he was able to tell us a little about it. Apparently, there are no restaurants or food services. You have to prepare your own meals which to me rather defeats the purpose of living on a cruise ship. We were trying to figure out how they would decide where to travel to and dock when there are so many owners that have a vote. They must have some very interesting condo association meetings.
The Welcome Centre had many kiosks with very colourful attire, jade, hash pipes, and linens for your table. It was interesting to say the least. The Vendors would tell you how much and if you said no or just didn’t say anything, the price would go down. I don’t like to barter so I liked the fact that I really didn’t need to say anything – just waited until the price came down. I got t-shirts for the kids and a really cool drum for my resident musician at home.
The centre also had a couple of really nice bars, one where we had amazing hand-stirred marqueritas and another for Gallo beers. At the latter we met up with more people from the ship for living conversation.
See more at CAA Niagara Travel
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