gambee

Hi Gambee! Enjoying your reviews so much! We usually cruise Disney (loved your Dream review) but I'm loving your reviews so much, I'm starting to consider other cruise lines :)

You have such a beautiful relationship with your Mom and your feelings about your grandmother were just so touching!

 

I was wondering what your thoughts were on Magen's Bay vs Coki beach for a family with young kids?

 

Also, are those tostones? This Miami girl living in GA is missing Latin food! LOL

Well the thing I did not care about Magens is that it is controlled by the government. You have to pay to get in, then you need to leave deposits for the rentals and you have to move everything on your own.

The food is basic fast food, and there is only one venue. So as you can imagine the lines are horrible, and no one cares about you.

As far as the beach itself, they both have similar colors, and they are shallow enough up to the same point. Coki is a lot smaller though, so I am not sure how it will be with several ships in port. Then again, that also applies to Magens since it is more popular.

If they like snorkeling or even seeing small fish from the surface, I would say Coki. They can even hand feed the fish.

I guess it is more of a personal choice. We preferred Coki for several reasons :)

Nothing beats a Gambee photo review. By the time the review is finished I almost feel like I myself have taken a whole vacation.

 

Bravo, Sir.

Thank you, continue to enjoy :)

Those underwater pics from Coki are amazing! Great idea!

Love Coki Beach..its so beautiful:)

We really want to go on the Escape at some point and your wonderful review just makes me want to try it more. Thank you!

Thank you I was really happy with the end result.

You really should, they have a nice product there.

As much as I enjoyed my Escape cruise, it really is a goofy looking ship. :D

The first time I saw the pictures online I thought it was photoshopped, but then it quickly grew on me. Just looks a bit tall for me, I think the height of the Getaway is perfect.

Yes they are!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Christian

That's what I thought. They have some on Water Island that I really want to check out.

oooh the proposal????!!!! suspense!

I really wish I was there when it happened, but I still made it a bit later :)

Great pics Gambee. Looked like a really nice day. I don't go on a cruise till October and am totally jealous.:D

No need to be jealous, you have a cruise booked, I got nothing :D

Here's one for you sir in the lower corner

 

Was that at Coki?

Hi Gambee,

 

Love your review and pictures. We went to Coki beach too. We loved it there. So beautiful. So great to see your experience too.

We had a real great time there, much better than Magens :)

I really think next time we will hit sapphire.

They can be moved apart... this is how it was for one of the ping pong tournaments (that my hubby won :D), plenty of room in between.

 

 

Good to know, thank you :)

He slowed down for us to get some pics of the ship.

Just gorgeous! Pictures like this really remind how much I love cruising!

She is a really tall vessel.

The driver then dropped us at Paradise Point after dropping everyone else at the port.

Next up, the proposal ;)

At one point it started raining, we got really lucky :)

KFC anyone?

This time around we were on an open deck bus.

How beautiful is that?

Really?

The bus was fairly empty, so we basically sat where ever we wanted. There is no need to worry about transportation here.

There is some really good snorkeling there.

Gorgeous colors!

Then we saw some weather building up so we decided to head out.

Mom can't decide on the spumante or the coke, LoL

I told my mom, look the guy is for rent! Anyone? :D

So funny, she was saying it is not the guy. And I was insisting it was :D

After eating I went for another snorkel.

This guy was going around with free samples

I really wanted a conch salad, so mom went looking for one. Unfortunately, she was not able to find the salad, but she found conch fritters and a conch dish.

The fritters were just ok.

And the conch on sauce was good, but it was temperature hot. That is exactly why I wanted the salad, I don’t like eating warm food at the beach.

Way too much food for us. And I actually saw someone I knew from the ship there, I wanted to offer her some food. But I just wasn't sure how she would take it. It was a long story.

Anyway, we ate the most we could.

Anyone for chicken nuggets? They were up for grabs.

And actually a few kids grabbed one and got him all wet with ocean water. Please, parents don't allow this. You could see the mother and chick going crazy, it was quite frustrating from a viewer point of view.

After a little over an hour the rest of the group left to head to either a restaurant or paradise point. Mom and I are beach bums, so we wanted to stay there for a little longer.

I hope you don’t plan on drowning at this beach, because the lifeguard spent more time talking than looking out at the beach. I don't think he ever stopped talking the entire time we were there. :D

I was exhausted, I think I dove down a total of 5 times, just playing around. By the end, I was kind of dizzy and in dire need of a drink.

On the way out I saw a bunch of people feeding the fish by the shore.

They sell fish food there, but you can always bring cereal from the buffet. I had none.

Back outside I decided to open the bottle of spumante that NCL gave my mom for her bday the night before. Yes, it was lukewarm. But it was also free. By the way the night before, all we did was talk about getting drunk on champagne was the worst idea ever! Ty and Su looked at me with that, "are you an idiot" look. Maybe so :D

This is the ticket for paradise point. Thank you Will :)

We had such great traveling partners on this cruise!

And here I am going back down to rescue her. HOW COOL IS THIS SHOT!?

Look at all the fish swimming away and forming an arch around me!

And this one? Really? Just look at that photo!?!?!

Equalize Gambee, Equalize!

This one is pretty cool as well.

And back up we go!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, THE OCEAN!!!! IS THERE ANYTHING BETTER? WELL, MAYBE THE SNOW... It is a hard one for me, I am a multi season kind of fellow!

This one is my favorite one! The fish was posing =)

I relaxed for a few seconds, and allowed her to get a few shots.

Two people came near and saw the camera down there. They asked me if it was mine. Yup! I guess they thought they scored. Either way, I am not sure if they could make it down there. I actually thought that I would not be able to at first. That was why I did the test run.

I love this set, I hope everyone enjoys it as much I did that day!

Then I had an idea. It was about 15-20 feet deep there. I wanted to have the GoPro take pictures of me from the bottom. So first I tried to go all the way down to make sure I could rescue the camera later on. After I found that out, I dropped the camera, but the problem was that it landed on the wrong position. What made me think that she would land just the way I wanted it??? Hopeful wishing?

Nope, that won't work. Cool picture though!

So I went down, fixed her up and these are the pics I got. It was deep enough that I had to equalize my ears multiple times.

And back up I go.

Some recovery was in order. This drains the hell out of you! Not sure why...

Yup, she is still there. You never know when a mermaid will come and take your stuff away!

I was really enjoying myself :)

Tons of fish!

A school of fish and completely surrounded me!

At one point I went snorkeling. This underwater Gambee edition, I hope you enjoy. I had a great time snorkeling there.

Highly recommended, I offered to share my equipment with the group, but no one wanted it to.

I still have my cross from the Vatican City :)

Is that a barracuda? I thought it was, but now that I look at it, I think the mouth should be shorter. Either way when I saw it, I froze. I respect them as much as I sharks.

There was a bunch of fish, but I have no clue which is what. Although I am sure Mitsugirly knows them all, LoL.

At one point I surfaced to get some pics of the birds and the beach.

Mom and I got two chairs under the tree, behind our group.

It was not the best location, mom usually likes being by the water. But by the time we made it there all the water ones were taken. And did not want to go to the other end of the beach far from the group, it just seemed like an antisocial thing to do. But she was happy, she had her shade and internet on her iPad. So all was good =)

OMG the lifeguard :D, good luck to you if you're drowning, LoL

If you come to this side of the beach it is much quieter than we we were at. But the snorkeling is much better by the other side.

Plenty of restaurants here as well.