Lobster Dinner Cruise in Cancun Lagoon Lovely

     I can reliably report, from the eighty-degree weather of Cancun, Mexico, that the lobster cruise on the good ship “Columbus” was lovely. The shore from the vantage point of the all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink 2-hour cruise (priced about $75 per person) was gorgeous. It was windy, true, but what do you expect on a wooden boat that was damaged during the hurricane but restored and sails again? We’ve done this cruise about 5 times, and it never fails to impress. Tonight’s music was provided by a “live” saxophone player with accompaniment (pre-recorded) and the Mexican maitre de/MC apparently thought he was Don Ho reincarnated. He spent most of his time trying to make the evening “romantic,” which two women from Michigan found amusing, since they didn’t know it would be quite so, well, romantic.  The cruise included pick-up and delivery to and from our hotel, but it is no longer sponsored by the Royal Resorts, so it was difficult to find out who, where and when this cruise went off. But find it we did.

     While here, I read in “USA Today” that Bettendorf’s city fathers are being asked to re-zone the Abbey Hotel so that it can become a drug rehabilitation clinic at $15,000 to $20,000 a month or some such. I remember when the former Trappist monastery was being bought by a rich California investor and rehabbed into the hotel it now is. The last high school reunion (Alleman) that my husband and I attended was held there, and the food was wonderful, with the fanciest touches this side of the former “Charles Michel” restaurant in downtown Moline (now defunct).

     While appreciating that competition from the nearby “Isle of Capri” riverboat hotel and casino might well be crushing, the riverboat in Bettendorf has been there for a long time. Surely the hotel developers thought of that before sinking so much money into the renovation of this old building, complete with lovely lights outlining its frame at night?

    I can’t imagine the nearby residential residents being thrilled at the idea of a drug rehabilitation center entering their neighborhood. (I used to drive through this particular neighborhood every day on my way to my former business office at 1035 Lincoln Road, the Sylvan Learning Center’s old offices and still the offices of Sylvan’s Prometric Testing Service (now sold off to a New York concern). This is a middle-class neighborhood of mostly ranch-style homes.

      Tomorrow, Ixcaret at 8:30 a.m. until 10 p.m. at night: Mexico’s answer to America’s tourist wonderlands. I’m not going, but many in the party are.