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Our next and last stop was Belize, due south of Cozumel on the Atlantic side of the
Yucatan Peninsula. Belize is an English-speaking former British colony that once supplied
London with logs and dyes and now relies on agriculture as well as nature tourism. The
Belize Barrier Reef is the longest in the western hemisphere and among the country's pro-
tected wilderness areas of beaches, coastal regions and untouched expanses of tropical
forests.
Landing in Belize, we had to walk through a Diamonds International store to enter
the country. The ship again offered excursions: a helicopter tour of the coast for $259 a
person, a two-hour walk through a rainforest for $89, scuba diving for $115 or a two-hour
boat ride down tropical rivers for $82. Bill and I decided to walk around Belize City. We
crossed the narrow Swing Bridge and stepped into a crowd of local Belize shoppers filling
the sidewalks of this old colonial capital. Vintage Christmas decorations were strung over
streets lined with concrete shops and wooden inns painted soft pastel colors. We stopped at
the Medina & Medina jewelry shop in a half-empty department store. A handsome silver
necklace made by local artisans cost $100. I asked Mr. Medina how many foreign tourists
bought from his store during the year. Very few, he said. The tourists only buy at the duty-
free shops on the pier. “And I can't get a permit to sell inside the Tourist Village,” he said.
With five thousand tourists landing in Belize on that day, we had expected business to
be booming all over the city. But the tourists were off on excursions or were shopping at
the pier, following the warning that anything at local stores not approved by the ship would
be sketchy.
After five hours we were back on the ship, attending the “Grand Finale Champagne
Art Preview” at the Ixtapa Lounge, a warm-up for an auction offering pieces by Pablo Pi-
casso, Salvador Dalí and Henri Matisse. Derek, the auctioneer, taught us how to bid with
a paddle and quizzed us on our general art knowledge. He represented Park West Gallery,
headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, which advertised itself as one of the biggest art
galleries in the world. The next day, at the actual auction, the first art up for bid were seri-
graphs and hand-embellished graphic works by lesser-known artists. Those were followed
by more pieces by artists we had never heard of. Puzzled by the selection, we left before
it was over. Back in our cabin, Bill calculated tips for the waiters and housekeeper. Royal
Caribbean made it clear that passengers were expected to pay tips or gratuities to “thank
those who have made your cruise vacation better than you could have imagined” and had
left envelopes in our room with forms listing the rates we were expected to pay: $5.75 a day
per person to our housekeeper, $3.50 a day per person to our dining room waiter, $2.00 a
day per person to the assistant waiter and $0.75 cents a day per person to the headwaiter,
or maître d'hôtel.
We understood this was the basic wage for all of them. Bill wasn't pleased by this sleight
of hand, having passengers pay salaries disguised as tips; his revenge was to pay nearly twice
as much as suggested.
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