Just off the Spirit

[CruiseDirections]

Hi JayB, I never got a chance to meet you. We just flew back from San Diego today and were on the Nov 4-12th cruise. We went to the Piano Bar a few times, Jafar was a good singer and piano player and he drew a regular crowd, the venue is large so it never seemed very crowded. He didn't envoke audience participation like some do, and I missed that. High Rise was playing in Club Cool, they were excellent and drew a large crowd every night...lots of dancing as well.

[Liffey]

We are going on the Colonial Tour in 2 weeks. How much time did you spend in Colima and Comala? How much time was spent at the ruins? Where did you have lunch?

 

Any pictures from this tour?

 

Rosefloater, I know you were asking Jay B, but I have an account of the tour here, with many photos: http://www.shari.com/2010/06/carnival-spirit-manzanillo.html Alas, I can't remember how much time we spent in each place, but I didn't feel rushed. (And I think of myself as a pokey kind of person.)

 

We ate at Dos Comalon's at the plaza in Comala. They have vegetarian and non-veg options, and excellent guacamole. (I always hated guac until I ate there!)

[Rosefloater]

Rosefloater, I know you were asking Jay B, but I have an account of the tour here, with many photos: http://www.shari.com/2010/06/carnival-spirit-manzanillo.html Alas, I can't remember how much time we spent in each place, but I didn't feel rushed. (And I think of myself as a pokey kind of person.)

 

We ate at Dos Comalon's at the plaza in Comala. They have vegetarian and non-veg options, and excellent guacamole. (I always hated guac until I ate there!)

 

Loved the blog and pictures. Thanks.

So I take it that the dogs are all over the place in Colima?

[happenin2you]

The past guest party was fun with free drinks for an hour - it was held at 2 different times because there were so many past guests. Your invitation will tell you which party to attend.

 

 

This January I will be on my first cruise as a past guest. It will also be our first time on the Spirit. When do you recieve the invitation to the past guest party? On board? THanks! Sounds like your trip was great!

[Crusin Karen]

This January I will be on my first cruise as a past guest. It will also be our first time on the Spirit. When do you recieve the invitation to the past guest party? On board? THanks! Sounds like your trip was great!

They'll put the invitation in your mail box or sometimes they have left it on the bed.

[ibcruiseing]

Jay B

Did you have a copy of the fun times that you could post please?

we leave on the Dec 19th on this ship out of Denver so let us hope that one of Christmas Blizzards passes us by this year.:eek:

[Jay B]

Lifely and rosefloater - The blog about the Colonial tour was great and the pictures are better than the ones we took. We'll add some of them to our album. I think the museum we went to was a different one - we went to one in Comala that primarily contained clay figures that were found in the excavation of the pyramids. Lots of dog figures - skinny dogs for running down wild bore and deer - and the fat dogs that were raised for eating. I also wondered a little about the pyramids - we were told that they have primarily been reconstructed and we saw workers digging the loose rocks out of a hill. It just made me wonder how anyone knew how to reconstruct the pyramids or if they were originally pyramids at all. When we were on the tour, the volcano was enclosed in haze - the pictures on the blog are a lot better. Finally, we went to the same restaurant but all of us had very poor service and were continually hastled by vendors walking through. But overall, it was a fantastic tour and we are glad we went. Manzanillo and all it has to offer is a wonderful cruise ship stop - too bad Carnival is pulling out.

 

j

[Jay B]

Jay B

Did you have a copy of the fun times that you could post please?

we leave on the Dec 19th on this ship out of Denver so let us hope that one of Christmas Blizzards passes us by this year.:eek:

 

We were just looking for them today and I think we left all of them behind on the ship. Sorry - maybe someone else can provide a link to them.

 

j

[Jay B]

Hi JayB, I never got a chance to meet you. We just flew back from San Diego today and were on the Nov 4-12th cruise. We went to the Piano Bar a few times, Jafar was a good singer and piano player and he drew a regular crowd, the venue is large so it never seemed very crowded. He didn't envoke audience participation like some do, and I missed that. High Rise was playing in Club Cool, they were excellent and drew a large crowd every night...lots of dancing as well.

 

Sorry we never had a chance to meet you. I was too busy to read Cruisecritic during the last few days leading up to our trip and never read about the meeting at the Fantail Bar on the 1st day. However, we ran into Barbara and Sheri and husband on the Acapulco trip with Rosie. We had a great trip - how about you?

[Jay B]

The ship

Our first Carnival cruise was over 20 years ago on the Mardi Gras. Ships have certainly come a long way. One of the things we considered when booking the cruise was that the Spirit was nearly identical to the Legend on which we sailed last year, and we loved the Legend. We have also been on several Princess ships and the Brilliance of the Seas (Royal Caribbean).

 

One of the things we liked about the Spirit is that it was so easy to find our way around. We were at the back of the ship and could easily find anything we wanted. The main dining room was at the back of decks 2 and 3 and very accessable from our room. The theater was at the front of the ship on decks 2, 3, and 4 - we would just walk the length of the ship down deck 4 and there we were. The buffet was on most of deck 9 - just down our hallway and up the stairs or elevator. You could walk all around deck 10 if you wanted a little excercise.

 

The atrium was fantastic with an open view all the way up from deck 2 to the top of the ship. The theater was the most spectacular I have seen on any ship. And the decor was very beautiful, unlike the gaudy urn decor on the Legend. We enjoyed walking up and down the various stairways just to see the glass work, vases, and art work on each landing.

 

Even though the ship was full, it did not seem crowded, except for the buffet right after boarding the ship. There were always good seats available in the theater as well as in the other public areas. Seats around the pools on the 9th level were taken by about 10:00AM but seats were always available on the 10th floor with great ocean views.

 

We are both ex-smokers and don't like to be around smoke. But the only place on the ship where the smoke bothered us was in the casino. That's a good thing because we couldn't stand to stay there long enough to spend lots of money.

 

I think that's about it. If I think of anything else to add, I'll be back.

 

j

[CruiseDirections]

JayB, we had a great cruise as well. I booked Rudy's Tour by Van in Acapulco for my family group and it was great, it was probably very similar to Rosie's but we didn't want to stop to eat or shop so we really got our money's worth, tired and hungry after the Cliff diver's though. We did Chimaltours with Sheri & Jim and she said she saw you in Colima, wasn't that town square beautiful? I wish we could have gotten out of the van in Comala but we stopped for lunch at an out of the way but unique restaurant with a fantastic view of the volcano. Our tour driver Paco even helped cook our meal including chips & salsa, cheese covered cactus, refried beans, tortillas, grilled beef, goat, german sausage, and as my cousin called it slim jims. Paco provided all of the beer, coke and water we wanted. We stopped to see the iguanas before returning to the ship. We all did our own thing in Zuhia/Xtapa but that was a great port to just do the beach and the village, you couldn't beat $1 beers. I am so glad we were able to do these ports before they are dropped.

The weather was just beautiful except for the cool last day, it was like that so no one would get too sun burned!

[Coasty]

JayB, we had a great cruise as well. I booked Rudy's Tour by Van in Acapulco for my family group and it was great, it was probably very similar to Rosie's but we didn't want to stop to eat or shop so we really got our money's worth, tired and hungry after the Cliff diver's though. We did Chimaltours with Sheri & Jim and she said she saw you in Colima, wasn't that town square beautiful? I wish we could have gotten out of the van in Comala but we stopped for lunch at an out of the way but unique restaurant with a fantastic view of the volcano. Our tour driver Paco even helped cook our meal including chips & salsa, cheese covered cactus, refried beans, tortillas, grilled beef, goat, german sausage, and as my cousin called it slim jims. Paco provided all of the beer, coke and water we wanted. We stopped to see the iguanas before returning to the ship. We all did our own thing in Zuhia/Xtapa but that was a great port to just do the beach and the village, you couldn't beat $1 beers. I am so glad we were able to do these ports before they are dropped.

The weather was just beautiful except for the cool last day, it was like that so no one would get too sun burned!

Could you provide a little more info on Chimaltours with Sheri & Jim?

 

Thanks

[CruiseDirections]

Could you provide a little more info on Chimaltours with Sheri & Jim?

 

Thanks

 

Coasty, the driver was Paco, Jim and Sheri were friends from our Roll Call. Chimaltours has a dot com web site, you can contact them via the email link on the site. We had a total of 12 in our group so our rate was reduced accordingly. Paco was waiting for us on the pier when we got off the ship, he had a cooler with beverages of our choice. The drive to Colima was through all kinds of Plantations as we went up into the mountains. Our first stop was the beautiful town square around a park with a white gazebo with lots of white wroght iron benches. The colonial buildings were very well kept including a historic hotel where we were able to use the facilities, the Government Palace with small museum and a beautiful church. We also had time for a little shopping before heading to Comala a unique town of white buildings dating back hundreds of years. We were given a choice of eating in town or out in the countryside, we chose a place out in the country with a fantastic view of the volcano. Lunch was included in the tour and Paco helped prepare a huge meal for us.

 

At the Zona Magica he put the van in N and it went backwards in one direction and forward in the other, neat trick. Paco gave us a chance to go shopping when we went back through Comala. Back in Manzanillo we went to an area that had lots of iguanas in the trees. We all had a lot of fun on the tour and lots of laughs.