Cozumel, Mexico.......... We had traveled to Cozumel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozumel) on four different occasions . This time it was a port of call of a five day Carnival cruise out of New Orleans. This was a inexpensive cruise and with no air travel it was down right cheap. However, you do get what you pay for. The ship out of New Orleans is a bit older and certainly does not compare to newer ships. I thought the food was good but the rest of my family did not think much of the quality. Service was okay but not the spectacular service I have come to expect on cruises, but maybe I am just getting old and cranky. 
Shopping....... As I have stated in other post it is life threatening to have to follow your wife on a shopping trip. Studies have shown that men are more at risk of having a heart attach when shopping with their wives than at any time. Having said that, Susie noticed that there were several oriental carpet dealers in Cozumel and we had been trying for months to find the perfect carpet for our redecorated dinning room. So we passed the beaches and the Mayan ruins to go on a quest to find the magical carpet that we both could live with. We visited several dealers and
of course they all had the deal of a lifetime. Make them an offer, no amount was to little to consider. After several hours of a constant bombardment of rolling and unrolling rugs we settle in a store called the Grand Bazaar. One thing we learned before the Cozumel quest was that oriental rugs have a list price then a sales price. This is the case in most stores and the Internet. The sales price is almost always 50% less then the listed price. So we were prepared to negotiate with the salesman at this store, which was one of the stores listed on Carnival Cruise Line's shopping recommendations. After viewing several rugs, the only one we both liked was hanging on the wall. It was a
mire $36, 000.00 Yes dollars, not pesos. It was made in
China and was hand woven of silk. Well, we were not even close to a negotiating point with this one, so out of shear frustration the salesman dug deep into the piles of rugs, had his two helpers pull a rug from the pile and rolled it out to display its colors. It was the large 9 feet by 11 feet hand woven wool Turkish rug. I liked the color and the design and Susie was excited . This was the one she had been picturing in her mind. Only $13,00.00! Holy pesos! Did I see one like this in the Penney's catalog for $150.00? Oh, he showed us the weave and how even the bottom side looked to be the finished side and how the colors changed depending on the angle you looked from. It was even signed by the weaver. "Make an offer senor", he said. We had only expected to spend about $2500.00 max on a rug, this was out of our range, I explained. Before I could say another word he was off to his boss and came back with a price of $3,200.00. If the original list price was legit then $7500.00 would be a normal sales price, so as my mind ran the numbers I let emotion get the best of me and said yes even before Susie gave the nod. What a deal! Of course on the way back to the ship I was starting to have buyer's remorse. Did I just get ripped off? After I was back on the ship I began an Internet search of Turkish rugs and found Ali Baba's in Turkey. They made the rug we had just purchased. In full color that was the one we had just purchased. I felt better and have to admit it looked fantastic as soon as we rolled it out on the floor at home. It took only three weeks for shipping, a week faster than promised.
I was now at least able to relax and watch the sun set as we sat sipping adult beverages and musing over our purchasing prowess.
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RICK-DA SCALE
Here I will give my humble uneducated opinion of the places I have been. On a scale from 1-10 where 10 is nirvana and 1 is equal to having your right eye stuck with a hot poker while the left eye is forced to watch book reviews on C-Span.
Location_____________Rating____________________Comment
Cozumel_______________6______________________Too touristy
Shopping_______________7______________________Only if you like to haggle
Carnival Cruise Line_______6______________________Spoiled by other lines
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